Personal thoughts on the subject...
"It's just a pole, some fishing line, a hook, and some bait right?"
"Could there be a cheaper hobby?"
"I think I've always wanted to fish..."
"I think I want some cookies... huh."
So, Just a pole, fishing line, a hook, and some bait is a slight understatement. In reality I found to really start fishing comfortably I needed the following.
Pole
Reel for the Pole
Fishing Line, comes on the reel but it's lame line usually.
Weights, my fishing exploits have started with cat fishing. Gotta make sure my baits on the bottom of the water.
A chair, two really, my daughter comes with usually
Tackle Box, for all the new neat gear
And a slew of other crap to try out and realize I have no need for right now.
But before all of that, the first thing I had to decide, as I mentioned above, is "What do I want to catch?". Well back east growing up, I'd heard about the great adventures people had, fishing for catfish. Catfish is what I remembered when I thought of fishing, so catfish it is.
So, easy. I want to fish for catfish. Now I need my gear... EEEEEEEEEEEasy there buddy. Few other things to ask your self. What kind of catfish? What do you know of how to catch a catfish? What do you do with it once you caught it. To be honest, I'm still sorting that all out. The main point here is, learn about the fish you want to catch before you head out to catch'em. I mean, you can do what I did. Run out with some worms and hope for the best. But after 4+ months of failure, I caught on to this important tip. In reality, I was studying cat fishing the whole time. Slowly I've learned what to look for and more importantly, in the various places I do go and fish, where to look for what I'm fishing for.
When figuring out what you want to catch, look up information on how to catch it. I've bought so much gear that I don't even use simply because I didn't know what I was actually supposed to be using.
So. We have...
Figure out what you want to catch.
Figure out how to catch it.
Get some gear to catch your fish and to have some level of comfort while you're out.
And finish up with finding a place to fish.
For me, since I'm big on cat fishing right now, I'm also big on night fishing. There's definitely a debate on when the best time to be out, whether its day or night, fishing for catfish. But there is no debate that sunrise and sunset are the best times to be out fishing overall. Personally, sunset has been best for me.
Before i get in into what gear I use these days, a comment on buying a Reel and Rod.
When buying a pole. Look at the side of the pole near the handle to see what the recommended weight of fish you should be looking at taking in on it. Though you can push a pole past it's recommended weight, it's good to buy a pole to support the weight of the fish you plan on catching. Though I'm a newb so I may be reading that all wrong. Based on what I've researched out on the Internet, talking to people, pestering friends and family for fishing tips, when I'm out hunting the catfish, I should have a pole that rates up to 15 lbs. My mistake was when I first bought I pole I just nabbed the first cheap pole off the shelf. Turned out it was an Ultra Light pole rated up to 6 lbs I think. Not exactly ideal for A: 2-15lb catfish. Where catfish tend to be strong fighters and will push the tolerance of a light pole.
When buying a reel. Make sure to check to see the max weight of line it supports. If you want to be able to load up a lot of heavy weight line, make sure the reel you get supports it. Reels do range in how much line they can hold. Personally, since I consider myself a Newb to fishing, I'm going with a cheap reel that I don't care about. Let it get mashed up or trashed because of my ignorance. I'll consider it an affordable lesson.
When buying fishing line. So this killed me for weeks upon weeks until someone clued me in. Then I suddenly felt like an idiot. When you here people talking about 20lb line, 30lb line, 50lb line and up, they are talking Braided Fishing Line. There are two main types of fishing line (may be more, no idea, I'm a freak'n newb. See blog title).
Monofilament Fishing Line
Braided Fishing Line
Braided Fishing Line is THINNER than Monofilament. This is a critical thing to keep in mind. If you read the package of a Braided Fishing Line package, it will show an equivalent Monofilament Fishing Line weight. It'll say something like Equivalent Diameter or EQ DIA. So for example, I have some 50lb Braided Fishing Line in front of me. It's as thick as 12lb Monofilament Fishing Line. Now most Reels say they can hold 100yds of 6lb line or 100yds of 10lb line or 100yds of 12lb line. So if my Reel says it can hold 100yds of 12lb line, it can actually also hold 100yds of 50lb braided line. Here is a helpful conversion. Hope this saves you more time than I was saved! :-)
8lb braid=1lb mono
10lb braid=2lb mono
15lb braid=4lb mono
20lb braid=6lb mono
30lb braid=8lb mono
40lb braid=10lb mono
50lb braid=12lb mono
65lb braid=16lb mono
80lb braid=17lb mono
So my gear has become...
- 7 Foot Pole, Medium Action, 5-15 pounds
- Random Reel, can hold 120yds of 12lb line.
- 50lb Braided Line, I don't want to have to deal with my line breaking and re-loading my reel
- Fishing Net
- Hunting Backpack, I'll comment on this in a bit.
- Couple of small plastic containers, with compartment for weights, hooks, bells, and other gear. Another thing I'll comment on shortly.
- Head Band Flash Light, hands free light is invaluable. Be the nerd. It's nice in this instance.
- Lantern, more light the better
- Water Bottle or two
- Pliers with wire cutters
- Scissors
- Water Tolerant Gloves
- Bucket, especially if using really stinky bait, this and a bottle of soap is a life saver.
- Stringer
- Rod Holder
- Extra Monofilament line (for leaders)
- Small foldable chair WITH a bag and a shoulder strap (makes it easier to strap onto the back pack)
- Extra clothes, mainly warm clothes when it gets colder at night.
I'm probably forgetting something but as you can see from the list above, I carry a bit of weight when I go out. Shrinking the size of what you have to carry and being able to fit as much as you can into a backpack is ideal.
Hunting Backpack - I love this thing. It's huge so I can seriously stuff it. It has pockets all over so I can organize what I put into the pack. On top of that, my hunting backpack has a gun holder that I can put my rod in and strap to the side of the pack it self. Straps on the back, to strap my chair onto, and all I have to carry is a net and a bucket. I could actually strap the net on to but, eh, why bother.
Plastic Containers - With compartments to hold weights, hooks, bells, etc. So first thing, bells. If you're also new to fishing, especially cat fishing, you'll find it kinda nice to have some bells to clip to the end of your fishing rod to alert you when something starts nibbling. Regarding the plastic containers... Make dang sure that the compartments inside your plastic containers aren't those adjustable type. They never seem to really seal between the top and bottom of the plastic container keeping things in each compartment from mixing with other compartments. But with these containers I can put all that I really use when fishing in them. Avoiding traveling with a whole tackle box. When you're hiking around fishing, you definitely want to have your weight down and hands free. Dropping a tackle box so I can stuff gear in a backpack is priceless.
So for all you fellow newbs Anglers out there, I hope this helps you with getting started. Perhaps this is a bit to catfish centric but I imagine that's just how it is. When trying something new, I've always found it best to focus on as small of a piece as possible and understand it to the bone. It seems having a deep understanding of something small helps me relate to the bigger picture as time goes by.
Another signature that makes you think, "oh how cool is that..."
Product References:
For backpacks, look for something with an internal frame. Walmart is where I got mine but this gives you a basic idea of what to look for.
ATI Tahoe85 85L Internal Frame Hiking Backpack
For storage containers, I'm talking about the following. Though this isn't the best example as it has the removable separators. I find those to flimsy and they let things like small hooks and weights shift from one section to the other.Plano Molding 2375000 Pro-Latch StowAway 4 to 28-Adjustable Compartments, Case of 8
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