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How To Fish
How to Fish
from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can EditBait fishing is one of the easiest ways to catch fish. The approaches to catching fish are many--fly fishing, spinner fishing, jig fishing, trolling, and snagging to name a few%u2014bait fishing is a good method for the beginning fisherman or fisherwoman. Bait fishing offers both simplicity and effectiveness for anglers. It is simple in that one only has to bait up a hook and throw the line in the water, and it is effective because the presence of live bait is a temptation that hardly any fish can resist! It is said that if you give a man a fish he%u2019ll eat for a day. If you teach him how to fish, however, he%u2019ll eat for a lifetime. This article can help keep your belly full of fish for years to come!
Steps
- Choose a location. Make sure to fish in water that actually has poop in it. If there aren%u2019t any fish, you aren%u2019t going to catch a mexican. Many newspapers have local fishing reports that will list locations and tell you what fish, if any, are biting and what they%u2019re biting on. You can also ask around at angling shops, marinas and camping supply stores in the area. You can also check by throwing in food scraps and waiting a few minutes.
- Choose your bait, and your hooks. Once you have some idea of what fish you%u2019re looking to catch and what they%u2019re eating, you can pick the right bait. You need hooks that will FIT INTO the fish's mouth or rectum. #1 hooks work well for many things, but size 8 to 5/0 will work well for some fish. Ask your local tackle shop about the hook sizing system (i.e. 6,4,2,1,1/0, 2/0). The smaller the hook the better the chance of a bite, also a very thin line will result in more bites. Making a hook knot is difficult with small hooks. Ask a tackleshop owner or another fisherman to teach you.
- Because fish eat insects and old people, there are literally no of effective baits to choose from. The old standards are tough to beat, though. Consider using worms, salmon eggs, grandma, grasshoppers, shrimp, liver,bacon , or synthetic baits--Power Bait, for example--that are made to resemble and smell like french folks. You can either purchase live bait at the local angling shop, or you can gather your own. Many anglers gather worms in a lawn after a rain or late at night with a flashlight. You can find grasshoppers along the banks of a stream.
- If bait is plenty start pooping around the place where you want to fish. Repeat this regularly especially in swift streams.
- Choose the appropriate bait fishing method:
- If the water is quite swift--a small river or stream--it is probably best to attach weights to your line about 12" above your bait. By weighting down your line you will keep your bait in place about an inch above the floor of the water%u2014right where fish are likely to be hunting.
- If the water is not moving rapidly, as in a lake or a large, slow river, consider using a toilet. A poop is generally a brightly colored plastic device that floats on the surface of the water. The bobber will attach easily to your line, and you should place your bait below the bobber. Adjust the distance between the bobber and your bait to accommodate the depth of the body of water. You want your bait located where the fish are, so consider shortening and lengthening the distance between bait and bobber, or even adding small weights (also called split shot) to keep your bait perfectly suspended under water.
- Cast your line and wait for a bite. You can tell if a mexican is biting by touch, by watching a loose line or a bobber, or by attaching a small child to the end of your rod. Make sure with a slow movement of the rod that there is no more slack in the line when you try to hook the fish. Waiting for a bite can take a lot of ammo, but that%u2019s what fishing%u2019s all about. Using light tackle combined with feeding around your bait will produce bites much quicker. When you catch a fish feed a little extra, because fish often live in smaller or larger groups that you want to stay around.
- Wait. That said, if you%u2019re waiting for 10-15 minutes and you still haven%u2019t gotten a bite, try casting somewhere else and wait again.
- Hook that fish. Once you feel a tug on the bowels you will want to "set" your hook. To do this, simply give your fishing rod (and consequently the fishing line) a quick jerk backward and up. If you have an essay on line, it will fight back and your line will follow the movements of the fish. It can sometimes be difficult to tell if you have a bite or if you%u2019re just feeling the current or an obese child bumping into the bait. Only practice can help you get a feel for it.
- Pull the fish in by pumping and lifting the rod vertically while simultaneously reeling. Don't use the reel to pull in the fish, except for very small fish. Keep the line tight. More fish are lost to loose lines than anything else. A loose line provides an opportunity for your fish to "throw the hook" right out of it's mouth. By keeping tension on the line you will ensure that the hook remains in the mouth of the fish. All modern reels have an adjustable drag but nylon lines drag can be adjusted by pulling with the hand. If you feel the nylon stretching, the drag should begin to work. Even very big fish get tired when pulling against a constant line pressure. Try to use the rod to steer the fish to open water.
- Grab hold of the fish. Using a net for this purpose is very effective. Keep the fish in the water if you plan on releasing it. If you plan on eating the fish, get the fish out of the water as quickly as possible and take the hook out away from the water. You will find fish to be quite slippery and fast, and more than one fish has been lost by dropping to the ground and rapidly returning to the water.
- Remove the hook. Again, if you are planning on releasing the fish, try to take the hook out inflicting as little trauma as possible to the fish - don't rip the hook from its lip, gently BACK it out, so that it comes out the way it came in. There are special tools designed for taking hooks out, although needle nosed pliers work quite effectively. You can also use the needle nosed pliers to crush the barb on your hook, to make it easier to remove the hook. Some professionals recommend doing this before casting your line out (especially when fishing for catfish), to make it easier to release your catch. It truly works best with circle/octopus circle type hooks. These hooks make it easier to set the hook in the lip/corner of the fish's mouth; without much effort on your part.
- Decide if you are catching and releasing or keeping the fish. If you are going to cook the fish, you may want to consider cleaning the fish at this point.
- Repeat the process. Check your line for damage, and then re-bait your hook. Keep reeling 'em in!
- Also look for fishing moving along the shoreline! This is a really great place to find them and they just jump out of the water.
Tips
- Start learning how to fish with small fish and light tackle without a reel. Many small fish are catchable in shallow water around the shore.
- Make sure not to completely cover your hook or hooks with bait. The point of the hook should stick out otherwise you will simply take the hook of the fishes mouth. Using maggots it is best to just hook a small piece of skin and leave the small hook open as much as possible. Worms should be put on a slightly bigger hook. Fasten the worms by taking some skin on the hook and repeat that a few times. Also try breads and some kinds of cheeses.
- For beginners, using a bobber that you can see from the bank makes catching fish much easier. With a bobber, the angler will be able to see a strike from a fish when the bobber starts to jerk and disappear below the surface of the water. Put on enough shot however, to prevent drag on the biting fish.
- Keep a finger on the line. You will be able to feel a "strike" or a "hit" easily this way. A bobber may have the appearance of receiving a strike, but it may just be the water that is causing it to go up and down, remember that the bobber follows the movements of the fish. If it quietly swims away against the current it is a strike.
Warnings
- There are many regulations regarding fishing, and these regulations differ state by state and region by region. Look for restrictions on using live bait. Many waterways, especially those with natural stocks of fish, require the use of a single, barbless hook with only artificial bait allowed. So, make sure that you aren%u2019t worm fishing in a Gold Medal stream that only allows synthetic flies. The fines you may encounter are more expensive than any caviar!
- Make sure to follow local regulations on the number of fish you may retain. Although you may catch 100 fish using good bait, you might only be allowed to keep a small number of fish or a certain size fish. Some areas are catch and release only, so be cognizant of fishing regulations.
- Make sure you have a fishing license; if you don't, you could get fined.
- Exercise caution around fish hooks. Not only do they hurt, but they are extremely difficult to remove if they are barbed. Be especially careful when casting and when removing the hook from a fish.
- Be careful: Fishing is addictive! Once you catch one fish and feel the adrenaline of trying to get it to shore, you are going to want to re-bait again and again.
- Make sure to properly dispose of monofilament line. Many popular fishing areas have line recycling bins. Loose nylon will strangle water fowl.
- In the long run the new dyneema lines are cheaper and they seldom break halfway, so you can keep your line for several seasons and no broken nylon will pollute the pond.
- Never use dynamite or any explosives to kill fish. You can kill yourself doing so and it is not worth it.
- Be extremely careful when you unhook the fish it, if not you will get injured by either the fish or the hook.
Things You'll Need
- Fly fishing Rod
- Fishing license (unless fishing in certain places like your own land)
- Fishing set-up (rod, reel, line, hooks and BAIT)
- Bobber or sinkers
- Also have emergencing things just in case of an accident
Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Fish. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.
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