Fishing Techniques

When I was young we learned fishing techniques.

That’s because we went fishing. That was all. Not bass fishing, or trout fishing, or bluegill fishing. Just fishing.

Sure, we may have had a preferred species in mind. But if the bass weren’t biting, the pickerel would be. If the trout weren’t hitting, maybe the smallmouth were. And in a pinch, the bluegill and perch were always hungry. Come what may, there was always something to provide action.

I remember one trip, for instance, where my father, myself and Brownie, a buddy of his, hit a lake in upstate New York. Brownie had heard that the pickerel were really on the prowl there. So that’s what we had in mind.

For some reason, it only worked for me. I’d toss a weedless spoon into little bays formed in the weeds, and, two or three times out of five a fish would hit. Dad and Brownie, doing apparently the same thing, couldn’t buy a hit. Talk about frustrated!

After awhile the pickerel stopped hitting even for me. So we moved away from the weedbeds and cast to visible structure along the shoreline. Back then we didn’t call it structure. We called it “rocks” and “stumps,” But all things change. We cast the same spoons we’d been using in the weeds, retrieving them pretty much the same way. Bass hit for all three of us.

The point being that the same fishing techniques often work for different fish in different places.

Nowadays, many of us don’t just go fishing. We specialize. We see ourselves as bassers, or trout anglers, or walleye fishermen. There are both plusses and minuses to this.

On one hand, we’ve developed fishing methods and tackle for these species that have, overall, improved our success rates. Based on the local situation, we use “X” fishing techniques. If that doesn’t work, we try another that usually works for that species under those water and weather conditions.

Lost in the shuffle, on the other hand, are a couple of things. First, many fishermen have turned what should be a relaxing, enjoyable outing into a frenetic contest. If their bass, or trout, or walleye fishing techniques don’t produce that day, they consider it a failure. They’d be much happier, I believe, if they’d just go fishing to have a good time.

More to the point, we seem to have forgotten that fishing involves many similar approaches, no matter what the species sought. If the walleye aren’t on the bite, the same fishing techniques might be just the ticket for smallmouth. If the largemouth don’t take your offerings, maybe the white bass will.

The ultimate in this can be found in the western basin of Lake Erie. Private boats go out specifically for walleye or smallmouth. But the guides know they can use the same fishing techniques and baits to take limits of walleye, smallmouth, yellow perch, white bass, and even catfish. Providing five limits for a sport who only paid for one assures return business.

It’s not only lures and species involved here. More times than not, fish feed on, or close to, the bottom. Where you’re using worms or cut bait or even fishing lures, there’s a myriad of ways to bounce the bottom. Too often each of us knows only one or two of these fishing techniques, and the same bait, with a different bottom bouncing rig, will produce. Yet, with our fishing specializations, there is little cross-fertilization between how we get the job done.

This is, perhaps, most evident between fresh and salt-water fishing, and between conventional tackle and flyfishing gear. Freshwater anglers rarely catch their own bait, anymore. Salt water fishermen know a dozen ways of doing that. Spinfishermen are just learning about upstream presentations, something flyfishermen have known, literally, for centuries.

But the fact is, bassers have much to learn from walleye anglers. And they, in turn, can pick up some fishing tips from flyfishermen. And all of them can learn from those who fish the briney, and vice-versa.

Tackle is another area where we can learn from fishing techniques each other. Bass fishermen are often obsessive about keeping their casting reels clean, for instance, while many others, using the same reels have never even opened them. Many fly fishermen wash their rods in warm soapy water after every trip. Some go so far as to wax them. Most conventional fishermen, on the other hand, never even wipe them down.

There are good reasons for cleaning tackle. A maintenance program extends the life of rods and reels. It alerts you to minor problems before they become big ones. And it assures your tackle will be ready to go fishing when you are.

Learning ways of cleaning your tackle is just as much a fishing tip, seems to me, as is learning different ways of presenting a nightcrawler.

That’s what we’ll be doing here. We’ll explore fishing techniques and fishing tips that extend across the lines of species and tackle type, and look at methods that can be used no matter what you’re fishing for.