A smile starter kit--a road, bait, a float, a lead weight and a hook--can be put together for about $20. As a legal requirement, you may need to purchase a fishing license. Check your state and local laws to see what permits might be required. The local fishing store will have to equiptment and be able to give you good advice about licenses and local fishing grounds.
The classic fishing method is with a float. Maggots from bluebottle or greenbottle flies are spiked on a hook suspended from a float that bobs on the surface. Push the hook through the blunt end of the maggot, taking care not to burst it, as it dies faster.
It tends to be necessary to place a couple of ball lead weights on the line to keep the float upright. Ask in the fishing store if you're not sure how.
Cast carefully as a hook catching in your eyebrow is a deeply unpleasant experience. Watch out for overhead cables or tree branches. Your basic reel will have two settings--one for casting and one for retrieving the hook. Allow it to run loose and catch the hook and float upstream and allow the hook to come downstream toward you in the current. The first moment when that float dips is an experience to be treasured! Otherwise, wind back in slowly and try it again, replacing your maggots when they no loner move. If its a nice day, find a place to sit and enjoy the peace that lasts until someone comes along and says," any luck?"
The second classic method involves a heavier lead weight that keeps the hook on the bottom. First taking the bait feel no resistance. This works well with carp.
It should be clear that the method depends on the fish. Pike and perch tend to attack injured or dying fish. As a result, they can be caught using a "spinner,
" a device that resembels a wounded or dying fish as it moves through the water. Many anglers use complex lures that mimic insects on the surface. For a biginner, though, you'd hope to catch one of the following:
Brook trout (salvelinus fontinalis). A group of trout is called a hover, and these can usually be found in spring-red lakes, streams and ponds with sand a gravel bottoms, This is a beautiful, speckled fish that eight states, including Vermont and New york claim as their official symbol.
Pike (esox lucieus). Pike are greenish with bright yellow eyes, wand while they usually weight up to a few pounds when you catch them, old fish that have avoided the lure for years can reach up to twenty pounds.
Small mouth bass (micropterus dolomieui). Bass are green with a white underside. They love to eat crayfish, but in the winter, they fast and hide at the bottom of lakes and rivers. You might also encounter the largemouth bass, which is almost identical to its smaller cousin.
Walleye (Stizostedion viteum). Walleyes, the favorite game fish of many Americans, especially in the midwest, are really huge perch, and taste just as nice. Walleye season starts in the middle of may.
Minnows. The tiny fish whose name has actually come to mean "small and insignificant."
There are too many other types to include here--the rivers and lakes teem with them. "game fishing" is a specific reference to the salmon family: salmon, trout, char and grayling. "coarse" fish have five fins--ventral, anal, dorsal, pectoral and caudal. Members of the salmon family all have one extra fin close to the tail--known as the adipose fin. Salmon are born from eggs laid in rivers and swim to the sea, where they live for one to three years. After that they return by instinct to the river where they were born to bread, in what is known as the "spawning season."
They are caught as they travel upstream, with a lure containing a hook. Catching a fish can be exciting--the real skill is not in hooking one but in bringing it in without breaking the line or losing the fish. As a final note, try reading the classic fishing tale by Ernest Hemingway--The Old Man and the Sea. Happy fishing!
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