The beginner at baitcasting is likely to be amazed and confused by the apparent complexity of the sport. Shop windows are loaded with lures. Their racks are lined with rods in varying lengths and strengths. The showcases sparkle with a wide variety of reels, lines and kindred things. But baitcasting need be no more complex than any individual wishes it to be. Here are some suggestions which should help the novice start out on a sound, fish-producing basis. Later, when he has mastered the elements of this style of fishing he may well branch out into a second and a third rod — spare lines and reels — and a multitude of casting lures, but in his first season he needs only a simple outfit and a desire to learn to use it well.
The choice of a baitcasting rod should depend upon the waters to be fished and on the fish for which it will be used. Hard fished waters call for a little more finesse and that means smaller and lighter lures, and the obvious choice is for the longer, lighter rod. A five and a half footer will do well for the civilized fishing. Little-fished waters yield excellent catches to large and heavy lures, and an angler going into the wilds will gain from the extra splash and commotion the big lures make. A 4.5 or 5 ft. rod will cast heavy lures easily and is somewhat easier to pack and carry. The species of fish to be caught is a qualifying factor. Big pike fishing – for northern pike or muskies – is done with larger lures than you would use when fishing for smallmouths, pickerel and walleyes. The lighter the lures, the longer the rod and vice-versa. A five foot rod is a good choice for general fishing or for those who are not certain where they’ll fish.
The strength of the line is dictated by the weight of the lure. A fifteen pound test line should be adequate for any bait casting…and for the playing of any freshwater game fish. The knowledge that there’s a fifteen pound upper limit on his tackle pressure should make the novice a bit more careful and thereby cause him to play his fish out completely instead of horsing them in, with the end result that he will land a very large percentage of the fish he hooks. For the lighter lures, a line of ten pound test or less will give better distance in the casts and light lines; although requiring more careful handling. It does not mean that fewer fish will be landed. Actually the reverse is true. It figures out this way.
The number of times a fish is lost through line breakage is not great. At least ten fish break the hook hold for every line that is broken. By using a light line and playing the fish carefully, many of the lightly hooked fish are saved instead of lost; and even if the lines were broken twice as often while playing fish, (which is not probable) the net catch will be greater. More than that, since the lighter line permits longer and more accurate casts, more fish should be hooked, another factor favoring a larger catch.
The baitcasting reel should be as good as one can afford. It should be level winding and, especially for the beginner, it should have a backlash-reducing feature. Any good reel of any reputable manufacturer will turn in a creditable performance, a factor that holds true right down the tackle line. It’s wise to remember that the difference in efficiency between an average rod and the very best one is not likely to be more than a few percent although the difference in satisfaction and pleasure derived from its use may be very great. The beginner needs only tackle of good design and quality which will send his lures out to the fish and let him play them when they’re hooked. The rest can come later. His chief concern should not be the acquiring of special or extra tackle but having a good, dependable outfit and learning how to use it.
His lures need be only a minimum and I believe he will learn more by having only a few lures of the right type and finding out when to use them and why each is effective under certain conditions. To walk into a tackle store with hundreds of shining lures on display and pick out a dozen doesn’t sound easy but it is. Here’s the system.
Lures break down into basic categories. There are floaters, divers and sinking lures…and there are lures that work best slowly and others that need a swift retrieve for best action. Two floaters should be enough. Pick a small one with a lot of action when retrieved slowly and a normal sized one with good action but so designed that it will have good action under a burst of speed as well as slowly. We have ten left to choose.
For the novice the diving plug is a good one. If he does suffer a backlash (and even the experts backlash more often than they admit) these lures will float patiently where they land until it has been untangled. When they are retrieved they dive under the surface with varying actions but rise again to the surface whenever the retrieve is stopped. Half a dozen diving lures should do the trick. Two small ones, two of medium size and two full sized plugs make a balanced group. Two of them should be backward traveling plugs that will run deep. One of the larger ones should be of the long, narrow or pikie shape. Two should travel just under the surface or at slight depth and have a lot of action at slow speed. There should be one with a wide and flashy action which is excellent for open water but poor near any weeds.
Of the four sinking lures which round out the selection, two should be plugs and two of metal. The sinking plugs should be designed to go deep and stay there, both should have good action at slow speeds and be on the small side, varying more in shape and color rather than action. Of the metal lures, make one a wobbling spoon and the other a weedless, flashy lure with a rubber skirt or pork rind or bucktail trailing behind it. If the waters to be fished are very weedy, add one or two weedless metal lures to the list and cut down on the diving plugs.
When it comes to colors, red and white, black and white, a variety of natural scale fishes, and the shine of metal will be enough to take fish. Any tackle salesman can help fit a choice of lures to this description; and with this assortment, if one does not catch fish, it is either a temporary thing which will pass with the varying moods of the fish or the right choice is not being made from this limited assortment, provided, of course, that the lures are coming within range of the fish.
Surface lures are best when the waters are calm and especially when fish are seen feeding near the surface. The usual pattern of surface fishing is to let the lure lie motionless for a second or two after it strikes the water, then move it toward the boat in a series of short twitches. Shallow-traveling lures should be retrieved at the speed which gives them the greatest amount of action. Deep-traveling divers must be reeled swiftly to get maximum depth, but sinking lures should be given a pause after they land to let them get down to the desired level and then should be retrieved slowly enough to maintain it.
The preferred casting method is the overhead cast but if you like to use a side swing and your partner (if you have one) doesn’t object, you may be sure it will make no difference to the fish. Distance is not essential in casting unless the fisherman is noisy. Short casts from a boat that moves quietly without splash of water or thump of oarlock are effective. Except under low and very clear water conditions, long casts are essential only for the noisy angler.
Accuracy in casting is important where there are submerged logs, lily pads, rocky ledges, overhanging trees and similar good fish-resting places. In the open waters, accuracy is unimportant and in many lakes where fishing is done over a bottom of more or less uniform depth and character, success is simply a matter of covering as much water as possible with a lure the fish will take. For this reason a lake with wide areas of water under twelve feet deep where plugs will be effective is a good one for a beginner to choose.
The choice of the lure is a major decision. It may be made by picking the one you like best to start with, then whenever fifteen minutes elapses without a strike, change to one of the remaining eleven until they’ve all been tried. If the strike comes on deep traveling lures, stick to that type; and if they come to lures near or on the surface, keep working that level. It’s a good idea to set up a particular speed or manner of retrieve for each lure so that as they are changed the speed and action of the retrieve is changed as well. This is a much better system than that of changing lures but maintaining the same speed and style of retrieve for all of them. Later on, when new lures are added to the list they can be retrieved according to the category in which they fall, whether slow and deep, fast and deep, slow on top, etc.
Fishing from a boat is better than fishing from the shore, except on the smaller rivers. Fishing from a boat is easier when there is one to row and one to fish. Three in a boat is dangerous and not as productive of fish for each individual angler. A companion who will row quietly, slowly and endlessly without complaining or asking for a chance to fish is a bait caster’s dream. Fishing half the time and rowing the other half, the usual procedure, will still give each of two casters more fish and more fun than if they fished alone from either a boat or shore.
If using a rowboat, canoe or kayak, plan carefully when and where you will fish to avoid getting caught in open water during bad weather and to stay out of lake areas heavily trafficked by powerboats.
Under certain conditions, a lone fisherman in a boat can catch more fish than if he shared the oars and fishing time with a partner. When fishing the open water and there is a light wind blowing, a solitary angler can row or let an outboard take him upwind and then cast continually as he drifts across the likely water. In this way he can fish about ninety percent of the time instead of fifty. If he has a wide and stable boat and an outboard or trolling motor which will move it very slowly, he can cruise along at the right speed and maintain the proper casting distance from shore with only an occasional touch of the controls. A flick of the finger stops the motor or throws it into neutral when a fish is hooked.
Other options for the solitary angler are kayak fishing or use of inflatable boats.
Inflatable boats can be an inexpensive and practical fishing boat solution for the solo angler. Check out the information at the Inflatable Dinghy Center to stir some ideas for using this type of water craft.
When a game fish strikes an artificial bait, the angler should lift the rod sharply in a strike while at the same time the line is held solidly. The spring of the rod and the stretch of the line must be overcome with sufficient force to sink the hooks in beyond the barbs. The strike must be hard enough to set the hooks but not hard enough to break the line. The strike is purely for the purpose of setting the hook and is a sudden, sharp movement of very short duration. It is rare that a line is broken at the strike unless its hard pressure is maintained too long. When sufficient pressure to set the hooks has been delivered, the fisherman must be prepared to relax quickly and let the fish run more or less freely on his first surge. To hold back hard at the strike is to court disaster. Strike swiftly, and immediately relax the pressure to a normal playing strain.
In playing a fish, a light pressure should be maintained. The angler’s reel permits him to give line freely whenever the fish pulls hard. If a fish breaks an angler’s line it is almost always because the angler held on instead of giving line. It is better to give line too quickly than too late, better to play a fish ten minutes and land him than to lose him by trying to bring him in in five. Normally time is on the angler’s side and a few extra minutes of playing will land more fish than they will lose. However, there is such a thing as playing a fish too long. Only time and practice will bring top judgment in this department.
A fish hooked on a baitcasting lure will frequently try to shake it free. Because these lures are weighty the effort is often successful. The angler’s best bet is to tighten up to the limit of his tackle’s strength when a fish leaps or starts head-shaking. This is the one time when the caster should hold as hard as he dares.
A fish going into the weeds may become fouled up in them. The best thing to do is move the boat to the fish and then, gradually and on a short line, put maximum pressure on. If the fish still can’t be moved, slack line should be tried for several minutes at a time. Maybe then he’ll wiggle free of the mass of vegetation on his own initiative and can be played again in the normal manner in open water. Whenever a fish becomes fouled up or hard to move, it is better to move the boat to him than to try to move him to the boat.
More fish are lost at the net than at any other time of the struggle. That’s when the angler should be most careful and never rush things. The fish should be brought to the net, not the net to the fish; and until he’s tired enough to bring to the net, no attempt should be made to land him. The safest course is to lead the tired fish over the net. If the pressure on the rod is then relaxed, nine times out of ten he’ll sink right down into it. lf he doesn’t sink down but darts away, he should simply be worked in for another try. Sweeping a net toward a fish frightens him. He’s naturally uneasy about any large object moving near him in the water but less likely to be frightened by something that’s motionless.
The baitcaster must remember that where multiple hooked lures are used there may be some points protruding around the fish’s mouth which can catch in the meshes of the net. If it isn’t certain the fish will be secured in the net, no attempt should be made, because if a hook does catch in the mesh and the fish remains outside the net, he’s almost certain to tear free.
Nets are not always essential in landing fish. Pike, muskies or large pickerel may be picked up by a grip of thumb and forefinger into the eye sockets. Bass can be lifted into the boat by putting the thumb inside the open mouth and gripping with the bent forefinger under the lower jaw. In using either of these methods great care should be taken if the lure has more than one hook point. One hook in hand and another hook on the same plug fast to a still-active bass spells real trouble. Walleyes are hard to handle. They have longer teeth than bass and are not easily handled by either mouth or eye grip.
A final word of advice to the new baitcaster who has bought his outfit, picked a good lake and is out to catch fish. Keep fishing. The only way to take fish is to keep a lure in the water. Look for advice and fishing tips from the successful anglers in the area but familiarize yourself with the waters by studying the depth at various locations and determining where sunken weed beds or an irregular, rocky bottom offers good feeding grounds for the game fish. Don’t worry too much about lures. If you have a dozen tried and tested lures at least one of them should take fish for you under almost any circumstances.