I clearly remembered being just 11 years old when I first went on a fishing trip. The trip was organized by the dad of Peter; a friend of mine from Primary School. It was going to be day trip to a commercial fishing pond on a Saturday during our school’s term break. I was very fired up since I had never gone on a fishing trip before, but had always wanted to.
realizing how strict my parents were, I cracked my head trying to find the best excuse to go on that fishing trip. I Ultimately told my parents I had to be in school for extra curriculum activity. My parents knew such activities usually wouldn’t last the whole day, they agreed “knowing” at least I am in school and not someplace else. I figured I will come up with some other excuse for not returning home by lunchtime from my extra “curriculum activity” in school.
Peter’s father picked me up with his car, bright and early at seven in the morning. We arrived at the farm and got down to finding ourselves a nice location to offload our fishing equipment, live baits, picnic basket and a cooler box of soda & water. Since I didn’t have my own fishing gear, I rented a fishing rod with reel from the shop.
I was put through a quick introductory brief by the commercial fishing pond operator on how to use the fishing rod, hooking up the bait, functions of the sinker & float, and basic casting methods with a reel. I learned pretty quickly since I had watched on television a fishing program on how to fish.
Commercial Pond Fishing is one of the best sites to fish since you know for sure there are fishes to be caught. Their movement is constrained by the boundary and dimension of the pond. All that is required is to cast the lines out and wait patiently.
True as intended, I landed my first catch within 15mins of casting my lines. From there on, it was a breeze. Catch after catch, I had so much fun I totally forgot about time and before long it was almost five in the afternoon. Excitement and accomplishment in reeling in almost a dozen groupers was replaced by anxiety. What excuse am I going to tell my parents for coming home late!
I was dropped off home with a bag full of groupers in hand. As I was nearing home, I saw from a distance away two policemen speaking to my mother. Apparently, my mother had called the police and reported me missing! When she saw me, she ran towards me and hugged me with relief. I explained and Eventually came clean about my “disappearance”. The look of relief turned to anger on my mother’s face. I had a good verbal dressing down and a smacking with a cane on my buttocks for a good 15mins.
I was only spared further punishment after my grandmother intervened. I was grounded for a month. The night ended well though. Everyone had my catch for dinner and joked about my adventure.
Fast forward twenty years on. I still enjoy fishing for recreation now and then, with a couple of my close pals. My fishing skills and know-how has since expanded, although I must add that, in all honesty trying to learn the ropes of fishing wasn’t exactly a breeze in the beginning. I didn’t have anyone to guide me nor was there any resources offered for free anywhere.
I had completely no idea how to set-up my first fishing rod with reel that I bought. attempting to tie a fishing knot felt like figuring out a math problem. Getting the right hooks and weights to match the lines that I have was also a real undertaking.
I decided the best way was to make friends with seasoned fishermen at our neighborhood fishing spot. I was quickly able to put Everything that I have learned together. The general rule of thumb for a newbie is to start small and steadily build up from there. Don’t be shy to ask questions and I can assure you, your learning curve will be exponentially steeper that way.
When buying your first fishing rod and reel set, remember not to go out and buy the first set that you see displayed on the rack in a fishing supply store. There are many low price, readily set-up rod and reel sets that are put together for Beginners that can be bought for less than $25.
These sets usually come in short 5-8feet long light rods with 4-8lb monofilament lines on reels with 3-5gram sinkers (or weights), plastic round floats with size 10 or 12 small j-shape hooks. Ask the sales staff to help you put together in addition, a mix as spares; sinkers in different weights of up to about 10grams each, packets of hooks in size 10 or 12, and an additional small roll of 4-8lb monofilament lines just in case you need to replace hooks or weights if lines snap. Have one or two more floats handy if you like. Do note that sizes of hooks vary between manufacturers. One manufacturer might have small numbers for small size hooks, while another manufacturer use big numbers for small size hooks. Be sure to check packing labels and look before you buy.
For additional knowledge, floats are used to set a predetermined depth for lines to sink as well as to serve as a visual indication when there is a bite. Weights are used to sink the lines with hooks to a depth for presentation to fishes.
In your learning progression, there will come a time that you will need to tie a fishing knot. More often it will happen earlier than later. You should master three basic knots quickly. They are the Clinch knot, Palomar and Uni-knot. The first two knots are to tie fishing hook or weights to a line, while the Uni-knot is use when you need to tie two lines together. These three knots are pretty easy to learn and would serve the beginner very well.
The basic set-up sequence of the different parts of a typical fishing rod and reel set, starts with the lines from the reel through the eyelets of the rod, followed by the float. Depending on how deep your fishing spot is, I usually set a 3foot line with a couple of hooks after the float with a weight at the end.
To summarize. It is not difficult for a newbie to learn how to fish from scratch. There are so many resources available on the internet. However, they are in bits and pieces and not dedicated in clarity for the beginner. My advice, always start slowly and progress as you go along. Use my recommendations above as a fundamental guide to get you started. Don’t be embarrassed or shy to ask for help. If you ask, you might get, but if you don’t, you certainly won’t; that’s for sure.
At the end of the day, nothing beats mixing with seasoned anglers or fishermen to learn. Sometimes trying to figure out or put something together by searching from the internet can be a real pain.
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