characteristics. Also, techniques that work in one stream will work in another. (See Chapter 17 for more on techniques.) And local bait shops can provide the best baits or lures for that area, as well as helpful advice.
Getting the Scoop
Okay, so you find some fishable water. You fish it a few times, and try to pay attention to what the water (and the frog and minnow) tells you. But you still can’t catch fish, or catch enough of them. There’s no shame in asking for a little advice. Every good angler has done this many times.
Pretty much everyone has advice when it comes to fishing. Everyone! Some old guy at the gas station who hasn’t fished since before color television will tell you to dangle a marshmallow under the bridge out on Tailbone Road to catch trout. Then he might tell you about alien transmissions you can pick up in your fillings or what the President is doing wrong. You need advice you can use, and you don’t have all day. There’s fish to be caught! This section takes you on a tour of reliable places to gather information.
From bait shops
Local bait shops are a tried-and-true source of fishing insight. Good ones carry an established reputation along with hooks and sinkers. Bait shop owners (and your fellow customers) often know the water nearby. They can refer to the handy map taped to the wall, or even mark the copy they sell you. They stock lures and livebait that works in local waters, as well as advice on how to use them.
From online forums
People say all fishermen are liars, and I suppose there might be some truth to that. But I’ve found that anglers are surprisingly forthcoming in online forums. Often dedicated to a particular species or region, forums and websites can save you a lot of time on the water. And unlike bait shops, they’re open all night long, allowing you to do your research at night and your fishing during the day. Use a search engine to find and bookmark the best ones for your area or your kind of fish. The free forum I’m a member of allows me to search every state, and then I can select “local talk,” “streams/rivers,” or “lakes/ponds.” Within each section are countless threads about what’s being caught and through what methods. Often members will offer to take strangers fishing. Like all things online, it’s good to be cautious, but it’s a pretty amazing resource when you think about it.
From guides
Guides are anglers who get paid to take you fishing, and the best guides are equal parts anglers and teachers. A good guide will know the water and a great deal about the fish within it. You can find guides online, in the yellow pages, or through word of mouth at the bait shop or marina. Most can be hired for either half- or full-day trips.
What do you do as a client? Pack sunscreen, rain gear, a camera, and a good attitude. (Ask if lunch and drinks are included; if they aren’t, pack those too.) Pay attention and ask questions. Guides fish their home waters five or six days a week, and that kind of experience is invaluable. Most guides will offer advice on technique, lure selection, and habitat. Costs vary from location to location, but plan on tipping if your guide works hard for you. (Don’t punish a guide for the morning’s cold front that shut the fish down. Even the best get skunked sometimes.)
From YouTube celebrities
Watch one clip on YouTube and you’ll invariably watch another, often from the “up next” column. It’s an odd addiction. Try this: Type in the kind of fishing that most interests you. You can even add your geographic area to the search — something like “white bass fishing in Indiana.” Boom! Suddenly you have access to a video that should reveal the techniques an angler is using, the bait or lure, and maybe even the specific location. You can learn a lot about fishing in your neck of the woods and the kind of fish you’re interested in from a ten-minute clip.
Often the person you’re watching on YouTube will have a channel you can subscribe to. Now you have a steady stream of similar videos at your fingertips. Maybe the first video you watched about white bass fishing in Indiana was posted by a guy who only fishes small streams. So what can his other videos teach you about other fish, and other kinds of fishing, in small streams?
When no one knows: Walk the bank
Suppose you find a fishing hole no one has seen before. Let’s say there’s no local bait shop; no online forum mentions it. No YouTube celebrity has ever fished it. Can you still figure out this lake, and what lives within it? Of course you can. It comes back to paying attention: Walk the banks and watch the water. What’s the water clarity like? Cloudy or stained water means fish probably aren’t feeding visually — a loud, noisy lure like a spinnerbait might work. Or a smelly livebait, like a nightcrawler or a piece of cutbait. Are weeds prevalent? Moss? Baitfish will hide under moss and in weed beds, which mean predator fish will patrol nearby. Do you see schools of baitfish? Can you identify the species? If there are babies, there will be adults to catch, of course. Be on the lookout for dead fish or skeletons because these, too, will tell you what species live here. Without wetting a line, you can learn a lot about a body of water and the fish that live there.
Evaluating Freshwater Sites
From a backwater slough to the Mississippi River to Lake Tahoe, how can an angler approach such varying freshwater? It can be done, and you can do it. But it requires flexibility in your strategy. Different kinds of water call for different techniques (see Chapter 17), different gear, and different mindsets. Sure, all fishing has a lot in common, and your angling knowledge is transferable from one situation to another, but great anglers adapt to the situation and habitat they’re facing.
Ponds
Natural and manmade ponds dot the landscape. They range from farm ponds steam-shoveled out of a valley as a source of drinking water for animals, to depressions left from a glacier’s path that have filled with rainwater, to strip pits — stone-lined quarries left behind after mining companies move on. Ponds can support a lot of fish if carefully managed, and they provide a safe fishing environment for millions of anglers.
