Selecting Your Freshwater Fishing Gear
With nearly 45 million Americans listing fishing as their preferred leisure activity, recreational anglers outnumber participants in most other outdoor sports. Successful anglers mix patience, skill, finesse, and sometimes brawn to land their catch. Having the right equipment makes it easier to achieve success and enjoy the sport.
Fishing offers a seemingly endless range of experiences, from the simplicity of a cane pole with canned corn and doughballs on a farm pond, to high-energy, technology-laden bass fishing tournaments that send professional anglers, rich with sponsors, powering after lunker largemouths. The types of fishing that you try, along with the venues you choose, determine the gear that you need. What works in one spot, for one species, may not work down the bay, up the creek, or for another kind of fish. Fly fishing for salmon in Quebec requires different gear than trolling for stripers on Tennessee lakes or casting for smallmouth bass on the Potomac River. Volumes have been, and are still being written about selecting freshwater fishing gear. Regardless the types of fishing you try and the waters you frequent, certain basic criteria hold true.
Fishing Rods, the Essential Tool
In its essence, a fishing rod or a fishing pole is a stick used to dangle a string that terminates in a hook used to catch fish. A modern fishing rod is generally a more sophisticated casting tool fitted with line guides and a reel for storing line. Fishing rods vary in thickness, flexibility, and length, and can be 2 to 20 feet long. The longer the rod, the greater the mechanical advantage in casting.
A fishing rod also extends the angler’s reach and leverage. Essential to casting and presenting the bait or lure to attract fish, the rod absorbs the shock of a fish striking and helps set the hook and play and land the fish. Rods also hold the reel and guide the line on and off the spool.
Rods are generally fitted with guides, wire loops that direct the line to the tip-top, the guide at the top of the rod. Grips are the part of the rod that you hold in your hand, usually made of synthetic EVA foam, or cork on good casting rods. The seat holds the reel, usually using some form of screw ring or lock device.
Use spin casting rods for active styles of fishing where you frequently cast and retrieve the bait or lure. Fly fishing rods are long, thin, flexible, and lightweight, designed to cast a fly usually made from a few wisps of fur, feathers, and foam tied to a hook. Conventional spinning rods are heavier and suited to fishing for larger fish such as striped bass, steelhead, and salmon.
Regardless the type of fishing you enjoy, match your rod, reel and tackle to improve your chances of making a catch. For novices and casual anglers, a prepackaged combination of rod, reel, and tackle enables you to spend more time actually fishing.
Fishing Reels Store, Deploy, and Retrieve
Fishing reels store, deploy, and retrieve fishing line. They increase your mechanical advantage to handle strong fish and have a “drag” system used to pressure a fish during a fight. The first American fishing reel was invented around 1820, a bait caster that quickly became popular. Bait casting reels store line on a revolving spool and are mounted above the rod. Their spools sit perpendicular to the rod and range in size from compact to massive multi-speed offshore saltwater reels. They require a bit more technique when casting to avoid backlash and tangled lines.
- Spinning reels are the easiest for most anglers to use and are suitably robust for most freshwater fishing. They have a fixed spool set below and parallel with the rod and were originally designed to throw artificial flies and lures to trout and salmon. The fixed spool solved the backlash problem and later models proved sturdy enough to handle larger baits and larger catches. Spinning reels are an excellent choice for light tackle and easy to use by casual and beginning anglers.
- The spin cast reel addresses the baitcasting reel’s backlash and reduces the line twist and snaring sometimes encountered with spinning reels. Traditionally mounted above the rod, the spin cast reel—sometimes called a closed face spinner--is fitted with a metal cup and an external nose cone enclosing the fixed, parallel spool.
- Fly casting reels are relatively simple and serve more to store the line than to mechanically assist playing the fish.
A rod and reel work together to form a system. Choose a reel is to match the rod you’ll be using. Buying a rod and reel combination can be a wise shortcut to getting yourself out on the water catching fish
Natural Baits, The Most Effective Choice
One of the most efficient and productive methods of sport angling is to use natural baits. Natural baits are effective because of their familiar texture, odor, and color, and require a relatively simple presentation. They are generally most effective when acquired locally, outweighing any hassles involved in obtaining them.
The common earthworm is a universal bait; almost every fresh water species will hungrily gobble an earthworm. Grubs and maggots are excellent bait along with grasshoppers, crickets, bees, aquatic snails, small frogs, tadpoles, crayfish, and even ants. Many anglers believe that roe—fish eggs--is superior to any other bait. Some of the more popular natural baits include:
- Worms: good bait for nearly all freshwater fish and you can find all you need in a few shovels of dirt from a shaded, damp area.
- Minnows: store in a bucket with plenty of cool water to keep them alive. Never crowd them.
- Crickets, grasshoppers, beetles: many varieties all make good baits, particularly later in the summer and autumn.
- Leeches: excellent bait for many fish when hooked through the sucker in the tail.
The Challenge of Using Artificial Baits
Some anglers prefer to use artificial baits or lures, made to imitate prey or prey characteristics such as color, flash, or shape, that fish find attractive. A quick look down the aisle at your local tackle shop will tell you that artificial baits come in a bewildering array of styles, shapes, strategies, and colors, ranging from massive, shiny silver spoon-like devices trolled for big lake fish to wispy dry flies, tiny bundles of feathers and fur delicately cast to flighty trout.
Seasoned anglers usually carry more than one kind of lure and try to cover all three zones of the water column: surface, subsurface and bottom. Specific lures for each zone and species enables you to get attractive baits to the fish regardless where it is holding. There are hundreds of different types of artificial lures, but most fall into one of seven basic categories: crankbaits, plugs, poppers, spoons, jigs, spinners, and flies.
- Crankbaits look like small fish and are classified as surface, medium diver, and deep diver. They are cast and retrieved by reeling—cranking--the line back in.
- Plugs mimic small fish. Some float, some dive, and some shimmy, shake, gurgle, and splash to imitate prey.
- Poppers imitate bugs floating on the surface of the water and, when jerked, make a sound that attracts certain kinds of fish.
- Spoons look something like teaspoon and imitate a speedy minnow flashing and darting.
- Spinners have small blades or propellers that spin and flash when reeled, attracting fish by the motion and vibrations sent through the water.
- A jig is simply a small hook with a lead ball near the eye of the hook, often decorated with feathers, artificial eyes, rubber legs, and tinsel.
- Flies are artificial imitations of the aquatic and terrestrial insects and other prey creatures found in and near trout streams. Fly fishing is different than spin casting, using different equipment and techniques. Flies weigh only a few grams and are constructed—tied--from a range feathers, fur, thread, tinsel, and even foam and other space-age materials. Because they weigh next to nothing, casting a fly is more complex than other artificial lures or bait.
