Bass Fishing 101
Episode Stats
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Summary
In this episode I talk about the basics of what you need to know to go fishing and how to set up for a good day of fishing. I also talk about some of the baits and lures you should be using.
Transcript
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My dream has always been, for as long as I've been in the media business, is to do a fishing video.
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This is exciting. This is exciting for me. I don't know if it'll be exciting for anyone else.
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We're going to find out if there's any interest in the audience for this kind of content.
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And if there isn't, then there isn't. But I'm interested in it, and that's what's really important.
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If you're just getting into fishing, if you've never done it before,
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if maybe the only kind of fishing you've ever done is where you go out with a worm and a bobber,
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then this will be useful to you. If you're younger and you want to get into fishing,
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if you're a dad, maybe you want to teach your kids how to fish, these are the basics.
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This is Bass Fishing 101. Of course, the first thing that you need if you're going fishing is a fishing rod and a reel.
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So there are a couple different types of reels. This is called a spinning reel,
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which is probably the most common that you'll see a fisherman out there, an angler out there using a spinning reel.
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There's also kind of the push button. I think those are called spin casters.
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If you're over the age of 12, you shouldn't be using those.
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If you see professional anglers, if you're insane like me and you actually watch people fish on TV,
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you'll see them using something called a bait caster.
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If you've been doing it for a little bit, it's a little bit more complicated.
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Not very complicated, but it's a little bit harder to use.
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So this spinning reel is what I like to use most of the time. I have a few bait casters.
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This is kind of a small to mid-sized lake. We're not going to catch any probably 10-pounders on this lake as much as I'd love to.
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And so the spinning reel is a great reel for this kind of fishing.
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We also have about a six and a half foot rod here.
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And with bass fishing, you want to be about six feet to eight feet at the absolute most for the size of the rod.
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If you go to Bass Pro and you see these massive rods that are, that's what she said, that are 9 to 10 feet,
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that's like if you're going to catch sharks in saltwater.
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But if you're doing just this kind of fishing, really, you don't need to go above seven, seven and a half, I don't think.
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And with rods, you've got light rods, medium rods, heavy rods.
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It's a very light rod. And because there's a lot, it's very, it's very bendable, as you can see.
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And I like that because there's more sensitivity to it. You can tell when you have a fish on.
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What else do you need? You're going to need your hooks.
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If you go to tackle shop, you're going to see 1-0, 2-0.
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All the hooks that I have in my little compartment here are 4, 3, 4, 5-0 hooks.
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This is the kind of hook that I'm going to be using. This is a 4-0, which for bass fishing is kind of a bigger hook.
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I like the, I like the big hooks. I cannot lie.
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Now, again, if you're going saltwater, then the hooks are a lot bigger.
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But for bass fishing, this is kind of a, on the bigger side, I like the bigger hooks.
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Now, one of the things that you want to look at when you come out are the conditions.
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So right now it's, so there's a little bit of a breeze and there's a little bit of a current.
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And so I'm going to use a slightly heavier weight because when I throw the bait out, I want that bait to go vertical.
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And if you don't have weight or if it's a smaller weight, then it'll drift, you know, horizontally.
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And so for me, in my world, this weight is what I would consider a bigger weight.
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Even though it's only about a quarter ounce, I usually like to go with a one-eighth ounce or a one-sixteenth ounce.
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So these are the two things that we're going to use.
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So what we're going to do is we're going to tie the hook on and we're going to put our hook and weight on.
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And then I'll walk you through really the most important thing, which is what the baits, the lures that you're going to use.
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And I also forgot to mention when you go to the tackle shop or you go to Bass Pro and you want to look for fishing line,
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it's a little bit overwhelming because there's going to be, you know, hundreds of different kinds of fishing line.
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This is called a fluorocarbon line, which I think works great for bass fishing.
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So for bass fishing, I think you want to be in the world of like six pounds to 10 pounds.
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And that tells you how much weight the line can take.
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Unless you're very ambitious, you don't need to go above 10 pounds.
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It's been on this reel for probably about a month and it's getting kind of a, you want to change the lines out sort of frequently.
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There's all kinds of different fishing knots that you can do.
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And again, a little bit overwhelming if you're just getting into it.
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What I'm going to do is call it a Palomar knot.
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There's YouTube tutorials on how to do a Palomar knot.
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I think that's the quickest, easiest knot to do.
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You know, you're not going to have a lot of fish breaking off with a Palomar knot.
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Once you tie it on, you want to cut the tag end.
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Now, wherever you buy your fishing supplies, very overwhelming.
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And there's thousands and thousands and thousands of different types.
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You've got topwater frogs, all kinds of different baits.
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I think the easiest bait to use, the highest percentage, the kind of bait that really works in any condition.
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This is called a stick worm, which are very, very popular.
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Sanko makes the most popular version of that bait.
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You've got these kinds of worms that I really like that are kind of a ribbon tail worm.
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So in the water, that ribbon tail is going to have a lot of action and it's going to attract the fish.
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You go, you find there's all kinds of different colors.
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The kind of color of bait that you use is going to depend on the conditions, the time of day, and the water clarity.
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And as you'll see when we get down to the water, it's a very clear water.
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This is about six to eight feet of visibility, which is very clear.
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And so for that type of fishing, you want what are called natural colors.
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And so that's a color that looks like the color of a fish in the water, in other words.
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Now, if it's getting dark or if the water is really murky, that's low visibility conditions.
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And then you're going to want a color that's either very dark, very, very dark.
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And it creates a silhouette that the fish will see in the water or bright.
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And that's when you'll see guys fishing these like chartreuse yellow, bright yellow, pink, that sort of thing, or really dark.
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So for me, there's only two kinds of colors that I ever really use because I think they cover any kind of condition.
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And that is a black or really dark blue type of color or green pumpkin.
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Probably the most popular color of bait is called green pumpkin.
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If it's high visibility conditions, I use the green pumpkin.
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If it's low visibility, I use a black or dark blue.
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So the type of bait that we're going to start with that I can't recommend enough.
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That doesn't look like anything that if you actually saw this in the lake, then that means that there's been some sort of radioactive spill.
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This does not look like anything that a fish would actually eat.
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But that's fine because fish are very stupid and they're instinctive and they're reacting to color and they're reacting to movement.
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They're not thinking to themselves, oh, that doesn't look like something I would eat.
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What I like about it is it's got a lot of movement.
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You know, it's got all the kinds of different parts of it that move.
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So for the bass and their head, to the extent that they have a brain at all, when they see this, they see a bait fish.
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I mean, in their heads, they see anything because it's got the color and it's got the movement.
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Again, Best Fishing 101, there's a lot of different ways to do this.
00:07:29.000
But the most common and the easiest and most effective, I think, is called the Texas rig.
00:07:35.000
You're going to put it in on the tip of the hook here.
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And now you're going to put this part of the bait into the hook and you're going to bury the hook in the bait.
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So you can see that it's a very flat, very straight across presentation.
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The hook is buried in this bait, you see, and that's going to make it relatively weedless.
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And that means that you can fish it in the weeds, in grass, around lily pads, and it won't get stuck.
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If you have the hook hanging out, that's going to limit where you can fish it because the hook will get stuck on rocks and logs and sticks and everything, all the muck underneath.
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Two other things you need if you're going to go out bass fishing.
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I carry this everywhere I go all the time, but especially when I'm fishing.
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So either you've got a pocket knife or you could use little scissors or even sometimes you see guys with nail clippers.
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And the second thing that you absolutely need, and it's kind of irresponsible to not have when you're fishing, are pliers.
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Because what you're going to find sometimes is that you get a fish on and if they swallow it, then that hook is going to be hooked.
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It's gut hooked. The hook is hooked deep down in their throat, basically in their guts.
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If you don't have pliers to get that hook out, then you've got to cut the line and throw the fish back with the hook caught in its guts and it'll die.
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And we don't want to do that. We don't want to kill the fish for no reason.
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So always have something to cut the line, always have pliers.
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So we'll walk down. I got this all ready to go.
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I'm going to take a couple other types of worms with us.
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So if this isn't working, we can switch it out.
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Find something that you're confident in, something you think it will work.
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Go out there, start fishing, and then you adjust as you go.
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So now we're down to the water. I've got my GoPro on.
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I'm a real YouTuber now. Mom, I've finally made it.
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One thing you've got to keep in mind when you're fishing, this is one of the basic rules of fishing,
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is that 90% of the fish will be in 10% of the lake.
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And what that means is that when you look out at the water, most of those spots aren't holding any fish.
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Okay, the fish like to relate to certain areas of the lake.
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They like to be in certain areas. So you've got to go find them.
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That's what I like about fishing. It's hunting. You've got to go find the fish.
00:09:34.000
Unless you're going to do live bait, a worm or something, you throw it out with a bobber and you just sit and wait.
00:09:38.000
That can be fun to do with the kids, but I like to go out and do it hunting style.
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Let's go find them. Let's find where the fish are. Where do fish like to be?
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Okay, fish don't have eyelids, so they can't squint when the sun's in their eyes.
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It's hot. They like cooler water. So you want to look for shade.
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They like structure in the water. I'm standing on a dock right now.
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You know, so a dock has its structure. It's also shade because they can be under the dock.
00:10:00.000
Tree stumps in the water, logs that have fallen in the water, rocks, anything like that, any kind of structure.
00:10:05.000
They like to be around. If you find isolated structure, what that means is that you look out of the water and all by its lonesome, you see a stick popping up or a stump and there's nothing else around it.
00:10:15.000
There's a very good chance there's going to be fish there because that's the only structure around.
00:10:19.000
They also like vegetation because vegetation has bugs and that brings smaller fish.
00:10:23.000
They're going to be looking for the bigger fish. You're eating the smaller fish. Vegetation oxygenates the water.
00:10:28.000
And there's also shade. And so I'm looking around what vegetation I see. I see right over there.
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There's some some grass. And I also know because I know this lake that there's all along here, there's underwater vegetation.
00:10:39.000
Now, if you really get into it and you start researching before you go to a body of water, you get a topographical map.
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You find out what's happening underneath the surface of the water, which maybe you don't feel like putting that kind of energy into it.
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I understand I'm an insane fisherman, so I like to get the topographical maps.
00:10:55.000
So I know that there's an underwater creek channel about 20 feet that way.
00:11:00.000
The fish like to be in that. So it's kind of like a divot in the ground and they like to hang out there.
00:11:04.000
I'm not on a boat right now, so I only can access so much of this lake.
00:11:08.000
So we'll just start fishing and see what we can see what we can find.
00:11:11.000
I know what spots I'm sort of targeting, but then you just got to you just got to go.
00:11:16.000
How do you operate one of these? This is, again, a spinning reel.
00:11:19.000
You want to hold the line with your finger like this and then you flip. This is called the bail.
00:11:24.000
You flip the bail, hold that line with your finger, and then as you're casting it, you let go of the line.
00:11:30.000
Once the bait hits the water, you flip the bail back.
00:11:36.000
One thing you can do, let it hit the bottom, and then you're going to drag it along the bottom like this.
00:11:44.000
You reel up the slack and you drag it on the bottom.
00:11:46.000
And that's a good way to target fish that might be feeding off of the bottom.
00:11:50.000
I've already caught something. Look, my first catch.
00:11:56.000
You can't say that I didn't catch something. I did catch something.
00:12:00.000
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00:12:04.000
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00:12:07.000
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00:12:18.000
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00:12:22.000
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00:12:24.000
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00:12:30.000
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00:12:37.000
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00:12:40.000
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00:12:42.000
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00:12:47.000
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00:12:51.000
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00:12:57.000
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00:13:12.000
If you're fishing for a while and you're not getting any bites, either it means you're throwing the wrong kind of bait.
00:13:17.000
They're not interested in the bait that you're throwing.
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Maybe it's the wrong color. Maybe it's the wrong shape.
00:13:20.000
Maybe it has the wrong kind of action for them.
00:13:22.000
It either means that or it means you're just in the wrong spot.
00:13:24.000
And if you're confident in the bait, and I'm pretty confident in this bait,
00:13:28.000
and I'm very confident in the color for these conditions.
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So I know I'm not going to change the color up.
00:13:32.000
So if I'm not getting any bites after a while, it just means I'm in the wrong spot.
00:13:37.000
If we catch something, I'll be able to show you this, but we've covered everything to get us to this point.
00:13:45.000
How do you know that you have a fish on your hook, especially if there's no bobber?
00:13:48.000
You're doing traditional bobber fishing. You see the bobber goes down, you know you have a fish.
00:13:56.000
You're going to feel not just a tug, but you're going to feel something taking the line and moving it.
00:14:00.000
And you're going to watch the line. You want to see the line. Can you see the line move?
00:14:04.000
Now, the moment you feel the first tug, you want to wait. You want to have some patience.
00:14:08.000
Because you want to get the fish to get the bait into its mouth and move with it.
00:14:11.000
And as soon as that happens, you're going to do what's called set the hook.
00:14:16.000
And people that fish and are just getting into it are kind of amateurs.
00:14:19.000
You'll see them, they get a fish on and they just start reeling right away.
00:14:22.000
You don't want to do that because you're going to rip the hook out of the fish's mouth.
00:14:25.000
So when I know I have a fish on, I'm going to reel down.
00:14:33.000
I'm going to reel down the slack if I have a fish on.
00:14:37.000
You're going to reel down the slack so you have a tight line.
00:14:44.000
You're basically going to bring, and you're going to do it a lot more violently than that.
00:14:48.000
Very hard. You're going to bring the rod up to about 12 o'clock position.
00:14:51.000
That's the fun part. Okay, now you have the fish hooked, right?
00:14:55.000
But the thing is you're actually not reeling the fish in.
00:14:59.000
Again, if you're kind of an amateur, when you're bringing the fish in,
00:15:02.000
all you're doing is you're doing it all with the reel.
00:15:05.000
And what's going to happen is you're going to lose a lot of fish that way.
00:15:08.000
Because as you're reeling, it's making the hook kind of jolt around in the fish's mouth and it might come out.
00:15:15.000
So what you're actually going to do to reel it in is once you have that fish on,
00:15:20.000
you're going to be kind of reeling down the slack and pulling like this.
00:15:23.000
Reel down the slack, pull until you have that fish over here.
00:15:27.000
And that's going to keep that hook still in the fish's mouth.
00:15:36.000
Okay, so I've hit this part of the area pretty thoroughly.
00:15:38.000
So I'm pretty confident there are no hungry bass in this little area here.
00:15:50.000
This is, you get what's called a reaction bite.
00:15:52.000
And that's the instinctive just, they see it move and they grab it.
00:15:57.000
Defensive bites, particularly if it's during the spawn and the fish are on beds and they're spawning,
00:16:02.000
and you drag that bait across a bed, then they're going to attack the bait.
00:16:06.000
Like defending, they're defending their eggs, defending the bed.
00:16:08.000
And then the best bite that you could possibly get is they're actually hungry.
00:16:11.000
And they're out, they're out hunting themselves for something.
00:16:14.000
But the kind of bite I'm getting right now, I'd say is probably more of a reaction bite or just pure curiosity.
00:16:22.000
They're trying to figure out what something is.
00:16:31.000
And so, yeah, there are a lot of people who say, well, that's the point.
00:16:44.000
Not everything you do has to bring about some immediate, tangible benefit.
00:16:54.000
This is one of the reasons why we have human civilization is fishing.
00:16:58.000
That human beings thousands of years ago figured out how to do some version of this.
00:17:02.000
And we wouldn't have human civilization without it.
00:17:05.000
You know, if the crap ever hits the fan and human society falls apart,
00:17:10.000
well, put me on a body of water, give me some fishing tackle, I could probably bring in a fish.
00:17:16.000
And the benefits of fishing are, you know, enjoyment.
00:17:28.000
That's the other thing, too, is that when you're fishing, you want to look for signs of life,
00:17:31.000
especially if you're having a hard time and not catching anything.
00:17:36.000
That's obviously if you see fish in the water, that's a good sign.
00:17:46.000
The more active the lake is, the more that you can see going on on the surface and around it,
00:17:50.000
then the more likely it is to hold the kind of fish that you're after.
00:17:54.000
It's just important to have hobbies, too, as a man.
00:17:56.000
And I think in particular as a father, something you can do with your children and pass on to them.
00:18:01.000
I got into it probably when I was about 30, maybe a little, maybe a 28, 27, 28.
00:18:07.000
So I've been fishing for 10, 12, 13 years because I wanted to have some kind of actual hobby.
00:18:15.000
Aside from if you don't have a hobby, then what do you end up doing these days?
00:18:25.000
I mean, I'm glad you're staring at a screen right now, but that's not.
00:18:28.000
You should have more. There should be more going on in your life than that.
00:18:34.000
In fact, just before we started filming this, my 12-year-old daughter,
00:18:38.000
because I told her we were filming some fishing thing,
00:18:41.000
she wanted me to make sure I tell the audience that she is a very good fisher
00:18:46.000
and she's the best in the family aside from me.
00:18:53.000
Okay, so we've tried off the dock a little bit, and you're limited.
00:18:58.000
I haven't been able to get any fish to commit, so you've got to get on the move.
00:19:02.000
So I'm going to get into the water and just walk.
00:19:05.000
Now I know there's a little cove, and we can't go all the way to the cove,
00:19:08.000
but over there there's some vegetation, and as you enter into the cove,
00:19:14.000
I'm just going to walk over there and see if we can find one.
00:19:17.000
Prime time for fishing really early in the morning, especially in the summer.
00:19:28.000
Sunup is 5.30, then from about 5.30 to 7.30, which I really enjoy.
00:19:35.000
But for me, one of the happiest places to be on Earth is a lake like this at about 6 a.m.
00:19:41.000
on a day where it's going to be really hot, but it's not hot yet.
00:19:44.000
And you've got a cup of coffee, and you're just out on the lake fishing.
00:19:49.000
And then to about, in my experience, about an hour, 90 minutes to an hour before sundown.
00:19:57.000
So if sundown is 8.30, then prime time starts again at about 7.00.
00:20:04.000
That's when I've caught my biggest fish, actually, this summer is about 7.00 to 7.30.
00:20:13.000
And in the summer, the fish are just going to be more active when it's cooler.
00:20:17.000
When they've got enough light that they can see, but it's still cooler.
00:20:28.000
Now, one important tool you have to have with you, aside from your knife and your pliers, is your excuses.
00:20:37.000
When you're not catching anything, like I'm not right now, you've got to have a good excuse.
00:20:45.000
Because it can't just be that you suck at fishing.
00:20:48.000
So for me right now, the excuse that I'm landing on is time of day.
00:21:09.000
What's going to happen, I'll tell you right now what's going to happen, is we're going to finish up filming, and then I'm going to keep fishing, and then I'm going to catch one.
00:21:21.000
Well, as the prophecy foretold, as soon as we stopped filming and the gear went away, I decided to go back out of the water.
00:21:30.000
Because I can't end a fishing day without catching anything.
00:21:32.000
It took about five minutes and I finally caught one.
00:21:38.000
The difference between a smallmouth and a largemouth is that the large has a larger mouth.
00:21:43.000
And also it has a horizontal line, which you can sort of see going across its body.
00:21:50.000
But we did catch one on the brush hog in the kayak.
00:22:00.000
Does that mean we don't have to do another fishing video?
00:22:03.000
No, because now we have to do another one so that we can catch a bigger fish and actually reel it in on camera.