Learning to Fish

Okay, so you decided you want to learn to fish. And you need to know who, what, where, when, and why on just about every aspect of fishing. There are a number of ways to learn, not the easiest of which is trial and error, although that method has a more lasting effect on your knowledge base.

If you are looking at saltwater fishing, there are some ways to ease your way into the sport, and painlessly learn the ropes. If I were advising someone who was just beginning, here is where I would point him or her:

We are assuming that you have opted out of paying for one-on-one lessons and that you have not hooked up with a friend willing to give of his time to teach you one-on-one. Given these criteria, we will proceed.

Go out and buy a package of seasick medicine. Nothing can ruin your day more than seasickness. You would be amazed at how easy a novice on the water can become ill. My recommendation is Bonine. It has worked in every case for the people I take fishing. If it’s going to be a particularly rough day with heavy seas offshore, I have been know to take some myself. Buy a reference book for beginners. Fishing for Dummies is a good start and is available on all the online bookstores. It gives you simple instructions, terms, definitions, and generally points you in the right direction. Read the book! There may be things you don’t understand, but read the book anyway! Learn to tie several of the knots they will show you. Contrary to popular belief, a double granny knot will not work with fishing line. Spend the money to go on a party/head boat. These are boats that carry from twenty to as many as seventy anglers. They provide everything – bait, rod and reel, hooks, sinkers. They even help you fish and take the fish off your line for you. They will spot you if you are new and one of the mates will stay close to you to help. They will do this partly out of customer service, but also wanting to keep an eye on their rod and reel that they fear may accidentally go overboard. Remember the seasick medicine. This is where you will use it. Take a pill before you go to bed the night before and one when you wake up. Then take one as you board the boat. Trust me, you will thank me for this reminder. Head boats run from $30 to $60 a day, and you get to keep your fish! Compared to the cost of a boat, fishing equipment, gas, and bait, it is a bargain for the beginner. You walk on empty handed and walk off with fish. What a concept! Assuming you have acquired the ability to operate a rod and reel from step three, you need to find a fishing pier. Most coastal cities have at least one public or pay-to-fish pier that goes out into the ocean. Some even have a pier that goes into a bay or river. These piers will often rent tackle. They do sell bait and terminal tackle (that’s the hooks and sinkers and the like) and will help you rig the rod and reel if you did not learn either from step two or three above. From that point you may feel like you are on your own. But fear not; help abounds. If you ask nicely and appear to be struggling on the pier, there are any number of pier anglers that will jump in to help you and give you advice. They are a special breed of angler and some of the friendliest folks around. That’s a major reason for sending you to a pier in this step.

 

What Kind of Fishing Leader

Leaders. Some people swear by them; others swear at them. Freshwater anglers rarely use them. Kingfish, bluefish and mackerel demand their use because of the sharp teeth. But, are they really necessary on other types of fish? We were just off of Elliot Key in South Florida trolling, actually wire lining for black and red grouper. Each year in late winter and early spring they come up on the patch reefs to spawn, and some rather large ones can be caught with trolling feathers close to the bottom.

The bottom around the patches runs from twenty to forty feet down, and rises to within three feet of the surface on top of many of these reefs. Trolling is sometimes a tricky proposition, maneuvering around and between the patches.

Grouper will run out from a hole in the reef, grab the trolled feather, and dig back to their hole if they can. The trick to catching the hooked fish is to keep them out of that hole. Once they “hole up”, the only way to get them out is to dive down with a gaff and pull them out. Following the line down, we grab the leader, gaff the fish and attempt to drag it out of the reef – no easy task on a forty-pound black grouper.We are successful most of the time on these dives, and almost always successful if we can get hold of the leader.

We fish for sheepshead – my favorite cold weather fish – in the cold weather months. On my last sheepshead trip I noticed something about our terminal tackle. I had a ten-inch, twenty-pound test fluorocarbon leader on my eight-pound test line. Bob had no leader on his twelve-pound test line. Brett had a twelve-inch, plastic coated, braided steel leader with a large snap on the end. His #1 hook was almost as large as the snap. We will argue the merits and catch rates of these terminal tackle rigs at a later time; for this discussion, I want to talk about leaders in general. Let’s look at the several possible scenarios given the types of leaders each of us used. On my rod, the leader is there to prevent a fish from chewing or cutting the line with their mouth. I use a surgeon’s knot to join the leader to the line. If I hang up, I loose my hook, or in this case jig head. It takes literally about two minutes to tie on another leader and jig head. What I lost was only a jig head.
On Bob’s rod, he used no leader at all. The loss to him if his line breaks is the same as mine – one jig head - and the re-rigging time is faster. But the probability of his line being cut by a fish or a rock is much higher. Hence, I caught more fish than he did.
Brett is the one that stands to loose the most in this scenario. If he hangs up, his store bought pre-made leader is lost along with a hook or jig head. Fishing in and around rocks with this type of leader gets expensive for Brett.So what’s the right leader in the above examples? I would say mine, and a check with Bob says I’m right. He was simply in too much of a hurry to re-tie his initial leader and consequently lost numerous fish to a broken line. Lots of anglers use a very heavy leader for larger fish. Our grouper in the reef would have been lost if we had used a lighter leader. The heavy leader helps prevent cutoffs from fish and structure. It also helps in landing or bringing a hooked fish aboard. Some anglers use very heavy fishing line and a leader that is heavy enough for the fish, yet substantially lighter than their line. If they hang on the bottom, the leader should break before the line, thus saving their sinker. Re-tying again becomes relatively easy. Wire leaders present another challenge. They are difficult and time consuming to build, even with some of the magic wire wrapping tools. They kink easily and must be replaced when those kinks appear. Multiple fish can be caught on one leader, but not very often. That one kink puts a weak spot in the leader that will surely break on the next fish.

With king mackerel, bluefish, and other sharp-toothed fish, a wire leader is almost a necessity. Not many toothy fish are caught on a monofilament leader.

Given the difficulty tying them, it makes sense to tie up a supply of them prior to heading out. I use those days when the weather is bad to my advantage and tie up a number of wire leaders. I keep them in small plastic zipper lock bags, and they last indefinitely if they are kept dry. A good leader, one appropriate for the fish being sought, can mean the difference between a full ice chest and an empty one. Common sense defines the word appropriate here. Don’t use an 80-pound test leader on eight-pound test line! The rule of thumb I go by is to use a leader roughly two and a half times your line strength. If you are using light tackle with eight-pound test line, a leader in the 20 to 25 pound test range will work well. A larger leader becomes bulky and tends to spook the fish. I go with this – small fish, small leader; large fish – large or small leader, depending on your preference. Light tackle anglers with light leaders have successfully caught some very large fish. In all cases, I leave the store-bought pre-made leaders where I think they belong – in the store! What you catch has a direct correlation with what’s in your leader. Believe it!

Saltwater Fishing