Fishing 101 for Dummies! Complete Guide to Enjoy the Waters and Fish like a Pro!

Almost every person has been around freshwaters and fished before. Every person has there ideal moments of thoughts of catching a huge fish. But after fishing for ten minutes every person has their boring moments, the moments of "Oh my gosh, I'm so bored, this is stupid and I want to go home now!"

Which leads to my first lesson for fishing is "Patience". This is essential in knowing if your going to be a good fisherman or not. Some people, including myself, has love for the blue waters with full of life. Though this process takes time to adapt to that love. A way to adapt to the love is to be out on the waters, and have a method of making yourself have fun; even if it's just skipping rocks or watching the nice horizon with someone. This will signal to your brain that it was fun being out by the water and when the subject of being out by the water again, the brain will stimulate jubilant feelings on going again.



Once you have that feeling of love on the water; it's time to get to some real fishing. Fishing is not something where you throw a rod out, and you get fish. One needs to know how hard a species of fish will work for their food. The beautiful Lake Sturgeon (Older than the dinosaurs) likes to get as much food in their body with the least amount of effort. Some fish like the muskellunge, also nicknamed as musky, want an appetizing meal while using a lot of effort in chasing the prey.

Image of the Lake Sturgeon (Outlived the dinosaurs)


Image of the muskellunge, also named musky

The next procedure is the most important in catching a fish. Know the clarity of the water, and what kind of the species of fish. This will tell you what color bait one should use.

These are the colored bait one should use during these kind of clarity of waters:
Crystal clear waters : Use only bright colors and preferably white and blue
Water that is visible of 1-2 feet down: Use yellow and olive green colors
Muddy waters with low visibility in the water: Use dark colors and preferably black and red

During this step, also know what kind of bait the fish likes to eat. Bass love to eat crawdads/round head gobys/tubes. Now combine this kind of bait with the color based on clarity of the water.


Some tube baits for catching freshwater bass

KNOW THE SPAWNING SEASONS! If one is trying to catch bass in winter time, one's luck of catching one is slim to nothing. Many freshwater fish spawn and lay eggs during early spring to early summer, and will spawn near shore usually around 4-20 feet of water. During this time, most of the fish caught are going to be the biggest of their kind because they are the mature enough fish to spawn. During summer time, there will be many toddler sized fish that come where fish have spawned to eat the eggs as a food source.

The final step to learn about fishing is the topography of the area. In areas with many weeds and nothing else, there is a strong possibility there won't be anything there. Most fish like to be in an area ideal to them. Fish like to spawn in areas with rocks and weeds. One can tell if there are rocks and weeds by simply throwing a hook and sinker out into the water and feel for rock vibrations. They should feel like small little fish bites that are continual, and when the line is reeled back in, check if there's seaweed/algae. If both these experiments are found good then it should be an ideal place where there is fish. Keep in mind many smaller fish will live under rocks, such as Sunfish (Bluegill), Rockbass, Roundhead Goby.



Experiment with fishing, once a fisher starts to settle with fishing, a fisher will experiment many different possibilities of baits, observe the topography and landscape of the water as well as moving and testing different areas. Most important lesson to keep in mind while fishing is that all fish are different, and experiment with what the fish one is trying to catch. Once one has fished for a long amount of time, one will start loving the sport, and maybe go into future competitive fishing for prize fish like Bass or Red fish (Red Snappers).

This concludes Fishing 101 for Dummies by Vanmaster5, I hope to see you out in the waters fishing while loving the sport