Top 5 Suggestions For Novice Fishermen (To Make Them Good Fishermen)

[chambug]

CHUM!!!!!!

[wdberkley]

1. Pick three techniques -- one for shallow water, one for deep water and one for suspended fish -- and learn them well. Don't be a jack of all trades and master of none.

2. Determine early on if it's the fishing that interests you most or the catching. If it's the latter, save yourself a bunch of time and money and find another sport. I don't care how good you become, you're gonna spend more time fishing than catching.

3. Spend as much or more time learning about the fish as techniques. It matters not what you're throwing or how skillfully you can throw it if you can't get yourself around the fish. Guides like Babler and Beck prove every day that just about anyone can catch em. It's the finding 'em that's hard.

4. Find yourself a source or two of dependable info (such as this forum) and keep your ears open and piehole shut, except to ask an intelligent question now and then.

5. Keep it simple. When you can't seem to get bit on anything else, get "finessey" with it and go to a little green pumpkin worm on a shaky head or a finesse jig with a small crawfish trailer.

That's my 2-cents worth. Good luck out there.

Outstanding points Champ, as always. #1 especially. It's easy to get scatterbrained if you THINK you know to much. Pickup 3 solid techniques, one for each situation, and stick to what you know.

[Fishin Hodge]

1. Try to go with someone that knows what they are doing. You can learn more in 1 day than you will in a month on your own most likely.

2. You need to spend as much time on the water as you can. Nothing beats time on the water, except for time on the water with someone that knows what they are doing; and more time on the water.

3. Research what the fish should be doing. Don't be afraid to try something off the wall, but start with looking were they should be with presentations that should be working.

4. Don't be satisfied to just beat the bank. Look around away from the bank.

5. Get a loan, your going to need it.

[*T*]

Yep. Which proves that it's only the putting together of the puzzle that feeds the addiction. Only after all the pieces are in place can you step away from the table and feel any sense of satisfaction.

It's always been easier for me to NOT go fishing when I am 100% certain that I can catch them. Crazy ain't it?

Hmmm...I don't know about that last sentence. Maybe it's the kid in me but just can't get over pulling on the line and having something pull back. Gets me every time. Puzzle analogy is real though.

[Quillback]

If I only fished when I didn't think I was going to catch anything, I wouldn't be fishing much.

[mjk86]

1) Always latch your tackle box, and double check that before you pick it up next.

2) Spend all of your money on outrageously expensive fishing gear

3) Lie to your wife about how much it all really costs

4) Doors of any sort are a rod tips worst enemy, be very careful

5) Have fun regardless of how much you catch

[Champ188]

Your not foolin me you stuburn old coot. No matter what you hear you are just like me. Your going to catch them the way you want or your. not going to catch them. Really does not matter to you. They had better like that jig or tube or they ain't eatin today.

Just like most fishermen, that get to fish when they want. This is not good advice for folks that cannot go to the lake everyday. Most good fly fisherman I know after they get them biting something, take that off and put another fly on. They know they can catch them now they want to bend them and see how far they can push the envelope.

Quill somedays they don't bend some days they do. We are the very fortunate who for us it really does not matter either way.

Good Luck

Guess ya'll better make room for another passenger in the "my way or no way" boat. I'm the same way. I have my techniques and I can cover everything from dry land out to 30 feet deep. Any deeper than that and I'm pretty much screwed ... or disinterested, to be really honest.

[*T*]

Sure are some great suggestions here for new fishermen, and some hilarious ones. Kinda thinking post #1 had it right though. Oh.....wait a minute.......

[Fish24/7]

KVD says, when it comes to fishing, "It's all about the attitude."

Fish can sense if your having a bad day.

[fishinwrench]

And when it's being swung over a gunnel the fish can sense that it is HIM that's having a bad day.