Hello fishing world ! I have been asked how I start my fishing outings to increase my chances of catching fish and most of the time on each outing I catch fish. There are times where too many factors come together that makes fishing tough and you have what we call a “GETTING SKUNKED DAY”, BUT this does not happen often.
Trick is to locate the fish, what I mean by this is try to find the level of water at which the fish are hanging out in. In a boat with electronics this is much easier, but from shore it can be a challenge so the only way to do this is to follow some easy steps:
1) Observe the water upon arrival for where bait fish are swimming, fish breaching on the surface, frogs being snatched up on the surface, look around sunken logs to see if you actually see any fish hanging out, stuff like this. This goes for ocean fishing as well, from the beach, rocks, or pier you will look for fish swimming around in the shallows, along the pier post’s, near rock piles around the bend any activity.
2) Try surface baits then works your way down a few feet at a time with different baits, example use a top water frog for several cast’s, then try a shallow running crank bait that goes down a couple of feet, from there try a deeper running crank bait that goes another few feet below, from here you try a a rubber worm or soft plastic bait rigged on a jig head that you can bounce along the bottom. You need to pull out all the stops when it comes to trying to find out what level of water the fish are hanging out in on each and every outing. From shore you can’t rely on the electronics to help you so it is crucial to try various things that will help you. You can do the same thing when ocean fishing, put on extra weights to get your bait deeper or on the other hand take weights off some your baits sinks slower.
3) Watch the people that are always fishing there, you know who I am talking about the old man that you see catching fish each time. You can learn a lot about a body of water and how to catch fish from observing what other successful people do to catch fish ! Don’t be afraid to ask them questions either, over the years I have asked many questions to get to where I am today, which sure does contribute to why I catch fish on every outing.
4) Make a log of what works on each lake, this is very important that way you are not struggling along each time you fish that water. Simple tips would be to have a tray of baits per lake that have worked and keep adding to it with other baits that start working.
Little tips like this will take you further then you think when it comes to catching fish, keep learning and watch what happens…
The AMFisH guy…