How To Fish—Casting, Tackle & More

Published June 5, 2024

Learning how to fish has spawned a proverb—and plenty of dad jokes—which suggest that fishing is a difficult and expensive sport to start. But fishing may be easier than you think! And new anglers can gear up for fishing without buying boat and taking out a second mortgage (despite those dad jokes). With a little know-how—and some basic gear and tackle—even first-timers have a decent chance at catching some fish. That’s why we created this short guide to conventional fishing. Our Gearhead® Experts have compiled some beginner-friendly tips on what you need, how to cast, where to find fish, and how to catch them with either a spinning or baitcasting rod. Even if you’ve never put a line in the water, our how-to tips can help you try fishing for the first time.

Fishing Checklist

Sure, you can spend a small fortune on fishing. (Many of us Gearheads are more than guilty!) But at its most basic level, fishing only requires a few things:

• Fishing rod and reel
• Fishing line
• Lures and tackle
• Fishing license

Rod And Reel Basics

Your fishing rod is your most important purchase as an angler. For beginners, the big decision is choosing between a spinning rod and reel or a baitcasting rod and reel.

A spinning rod pairs with a spinning reel, which hangs below the rod when fishing and casting. Spinning combos are the most versatile rod and reel setup because they can handle lighter lines, lighter lures, and finesse presentations better than a baitcaster while often being able to handle heavier lures and more aggressive presentations, too.

A baitcasting rod features a trigger grip on the bottom and a seat for the baitcasting reel to sit on top. Baitcasters work better for heavier lines and lures, and they allow seasoned anglers to exercise more control over their casts with their thumbs. At the same time, baitcasters are not as beginner-friendly to cast—beginners + baitcasters = backlashes (birds’ nests of tangled fishing line caused by the spool spinning too fast).

Most first-timers start with a versatile spinning rod combo. A 6ft 6in medium power spinning rod is a good first rod for many freshwater anglers. Choose a longer, heavier spinning rod for saltwater fishing.

Fishing Line

Next, you need fishing line that’s the appropriate size and strength for your rod, reel, and the species of fish you want to catch. Conventional fishing line is measured by “pound test.” A 6lb test line refers to its breaking strength—anglers should expect 6lb test line to break with 6 pounds of pressure applied to it.

Here’s a rough line guide for popular North American gamefish:

• Panfish and Trout: 4-6lb test
• Walleye: 6-10lb test
• Bass: 6-14lb test
• Catfish: 10-50lb test (depending on size of fish)

Beginners usually start with a traditional monofilament fishing line. Monofilaments are affordable, easy for beginners to use, and difficult for fish to see. Win. Win. Win.

Best Lures And Tackle For Beginners

To get you started fishing, here’s our top ten list of fishing lures and tackle for beginners:

• Hook and Bobber rigs float worms, minnows, and other critters in front of fish’s noses and make strikes easy to see (bobber dips underwater)
• Hook and Sinker rigs hold worms, minnows, and other bait near the bottom, where many walleye, bass, catfish, and saltwater fish feed
• Twister TailJigs are soft plastics threaded over weighted, ball-headed jig hooks with wiggling tails that temp panfish, bass, walleye, etc. when retrieved
• Spinner Baits are heavy lures with 1-2 flashing blades that mimic baitfish and trigger territorial bass, pike, and musky strikes
• Inline spinners, such as Mepps or Panther Martins, are small lures with flashes and vibrations that attract trout, large panfish, bass, and salmon
• Plastic worms can be weighted and fished slowly around cover to temp largemouth and smallmouth bass looking for an easy meal
• Tubes are soft, hollow plastics with tentacles that imitate crayfish and other prey—use mini-tubes for panfish and larger ones for bass
• Lindy Rigs are live bait rigs to troll behind a boat—their attractor beads and flashing spinner blade attract panfish, walleye, and other species
• Topwater lures float on the surface, typically with annoying actions that trigger savage strikes from territorial bass, pike, and muskellunge
• Crankbaits have bills that make them dive when reeled in. Crankbaits that imitate baitfish or crayfish can be deadly on bass, walleye, etc.

Fishing License

Finally, you’ll need a fishing license before you hit the water. Each state has its own license requirements and fishing regulations, so be sure to purchase the appropriate license(s) in advance—either online or at a local sporting goods store, bait shop, or fly shop. Know that some species of fish (especially trout) may require an additional license or stamp. States also set their own fishing seasons and regulate which fish are legal (and not legal) to keep, so study those before you go fishing to make sure you’re abiding by the state’s laws and fishing regulations.

How To Tie Lures And Tackle To Your Line

The easiest way to tie lures and tackle to your fishing line is with a basic cinch knot. Here’s how to tie a cinch knot:

1. Grab your hook or lure with one hand and use your other hand to thread the end of your line through the eyelet of the hook or lure—work about 3 inches of line through the eyelet to use for your knot.
2. Form a small loop around the eyelet with the tag end of your line and pinch it between the thumb and pointer finger of your hand that’s holding the lure. (We like to wrap this loop around the tip of our pointer finger to keep it easy.)
3. Keep holding this loop in place with your finger and thumb as you use your free fingers to wrap the tag end of the line around the main line 8 times.
4. Holding the loop and wraps in place, pass the tag end of the line back through the little loop you’ve been pinching. When the tip of the line has gone through the loop, give that tag end a partial pull until the knot starts to come together.
5. Moisten the partial knot with your mouth (or dunk it in the water)
6. Seat the knot by pulling up on the main line (not the tag end) as you pull down on the hook/lure. Once the knot is snug, trim any extra tag line with a clipper, etc.

Now that you’re rigged up, you’re ready to cast.

How To Cast

Casting a conventional spinning rod or baitcasting rod isn’t as tricky as casting a fly rod. Still, it takes some practice before it feels natural. Since a spinning rod and reel is easier to cast than a baitcasting rod, let’s walk through the spinning cast:

How To Cast A Spinning Rod

1. Grip the spinning rod with your dominant hand. Your thumb should be on top of the rod, pointing toward the rod tip, with your four fingers wrapped underneath the rod handle. Your pointer and flipper fingers should be in front of the reel foot, and your ring and pinky fingers should be behind it. Maintain a gentle grip.
2. Dangle the lure or bait about a foot below the rod tip.
3. Extend your pointer finger and curl it under the line to hold it in place.
4. Keep holding the line with your pointer finger and reach with your non-rod hand to open the bail on the reel to switch it to its casting position.
5. Keep holding the line with your finger as you rotate the rod tip behind your shoulder (with the rod either overhead or off to the side).
6. Snap the rod tip forward with your arm/wrist until it points at your target, releasing the line with your pointer finger about half-way through the cast.*
7. Use your non-rod hand to flip the bail of the spinning reel back to its reeling position and then grip the reel handle. You’re now ready to fish!

*The release point is the tough part when we’re just starting out. It will soon become second nature when to let go of the line, but here’s how to trouble-shoot your release:

• If your lure flies straight up in the air (or falls behind you), you let go of the line too early.
• If your lure or bait splashes right in front of you, you let go too late.

How To Set The Hook

Now let’s catch a fish. Once you’ve reeled in any slack line (live bait) or started to retrieve your artificial lure, focus your senses on detecting a strike from a hungry fish. Some bites are easy to detect—your bobber gets pulled underwater, a largemouth blows up your topwater lure, a smallmouth swims off with your lure at 100mph, a tarpon tattoos your swimbait, or a striper almost jerks the rod out of your hand with a slobber knocker of a strike. Other takes are more subtle—a crappie bite barely twitches your bobber, a trout take only pauses the downstream drift of your rig, or your line feels a little heavier once a walleye sucks in the tail or your minnow or jig. You should set the hook when you feel or see a fish strike. Set the hook by quickly sweeping the rod up or back to drive the hook into the fish’s mouth. You’ll feel the weight of the fish—and maybe a bit of bedlam—when you’ve hooked one.

How To Land And Release A Fish

Fight the fish by reeling in your line and maintaining steady pressure on the fish with your fishing rod. For beginners, it’s usually best to keep your rod tip up. Maintain some bend in the rod to keep pressure on the fish (but not so much pressure that you break your line or pull the hook out of the fish’s mouth). For little fish, landing a fish may be as simple as reeling in the fish until you can reach it and take it off the hook. For big fish, you may need to play them—that is, you may not be able to reel them in right away. Fighting a bigger fish is more give and take—sometimes hanging on for dear life, sometimes using the drag on your reel to maintain pressure on the line without it snapping as the fish goes on a run, and reeling it in when you can. Once you’ve reeled the fish in close enough to reach, you can net it or land it with your hands (after wetting them to protect the fish). Congratulations, you’ve caught a fish!

How To Release Or Keep Fish Responsibly

At Backcountry, we support anglers who practice catch and release and those who keep fish to eat. Some of our Herd are exclusively catch and release anglers while some of us keep some eaters when and where it’s responsible to harvest them. Either way, it’s our responsibly to protect the fish and waters we love. Here are some basic fishing ethics to protect our fisheries and minimize our environmental impact:

How To catch and release:

• Keep fish wet! Try to remove hooks with the fish in the water/net and only lift fish up for a few seconds if you need to snap a fish selfie. Keep them off the rocks, sand, and grass (unless you like people holding your head underwater).
• Wet your hands before handling fish. Touch them as little as possible to prevent removing their protective slime.
• Watch water temperatures, especially when fishing cold water species, such as trout. (Trout mortality skyrockets between 65-67F water temperatures).
• Play fish as quickly as possible, especially in warm water (where’s there’s less available oxygen), to prevent fish dying from the stress of the fight.
• Use barbless hooks or pinch down the barbs of your hooks to limit injuries to fish, help hooks pass through them if swallowed, and release fish quickly.
• Don’t squeeze a fish to remove the hook—and cut the line (don’t pull on it) if a fish is hooked deep (a common problem with live bait fishing for beginners)
• Release fish into calm (not fast) water. If they’re fatigued from a fight, gently hold them upright with their heads turned into current to run more oxygen through their gills. Let fish swim away under their own power once they’re recovered

How to keep fish responsibly:

• Know and observe all laws and regulations for the waters you fish, especially size restrictions, possession limits, species restrictions, open/closed seasons, etc.
• Note water quality warnings
• Practice selective harvest: Keep mid-sized fish and release small fish, large fish, and spawning females to maintain healthy fish populations and better fishing

Where To Find Fish And What To Use

More than anything, newbies want to know where to find fish and how to catch them. Experienced anglers consider many variables when deciding which spots to fish, what bait or lures to choose, and which presentations to try—there's no universal, surefire way to catch fish. However, here are some general recommendations on where and how to catch popular species of gamefish.

How To Fish For Panfish

Panfish, such as crappie, perch, bluegill, and other sunfish, are usually the easiest fish for beginners to catch. Panfish spend much of the year in shallow water—within easy casting distance—and often can be fooled by live bait or small lures. Try casting next to weed beds, docks, and downed trees with a bobber and live bait (minnows for crappies, nightcrawlers for sunfish) or slowly retrieve small twister tails or tube jigs near shallow water cover.

How To Fish For Bass

Bass are aggressive predators, which means they’re sometimes easy to catch when they’re active. However, different bass species prefer different habitats and food sources:

• Fish for active largemouth bass near slack-water weed edges, drop offs, and shoreline cover, using lures that imitate smaller sunfish, minnows, and worms
• Smallmouth bass prefer rocky areas and often feed in or near current. They eat minnows and insects but absolutely crave crayfish (crawfish for y’all down South)
• White bass and striped bass are nomads that follow schools of baitfish to ambush.
• Look for schools of shad in open water or stunned baitfish in tailwaters below dams to find feeding white bass, stripers, and wipers (white bass-striper hybrids).

Bass anglers, in particular, have developed specialized systems for catching their targets. However, beginners should stick to the basics. Start by casting spinner baits or weighted worms near cover for largemouth bass, small spinners and crawdad-colored tube jigs for smallmouth, and white twister tails or chrome-colored crankbaits for roaming white bass and stripers.

How To Fish For Walleye

Walleyes are generally tougher for beginners to catch. These cold-water fish use their superior vision to ambush minnows and small prey in choppy water and low-light conditions. Beginners may be able to catch wary walleyes in northern lakes and rivers using jigs or live bait rigs fished near the bottom. Focus on points, depth changes, and rock jetties, especially at night.

How To Fish For Trout

Trout are another cold-water species of fish that are generally harder for beginners to catch—especially wild trout. However, first timers may be able to land a trout or two by casting small spinners or live bait rigs (where legal) near classic ambush sites, such as cut banks, boulders, log jams, and shadowy pools.

How To Fish For Pike And Muskellunge

Northern Pike and musky are the apex predators in most northern lakes and river systems. Beginners can have a ball catching small pike—these territorial torpedoes hit almost anything that flashes, vibrates, or wiggles and then fight like Mike Tyson. (Just remember your needle nose pliers—you don’t want to put your fingers anywhere near their razor - sharp teeth). Beginners won’t have much luck with big Northerns and (especially) musky, “the fish of 10,000 casts.” But catching a bunch of hammer handles builds confidence in a hurry. Try casting spinner baits, swim baits, or top water lures around backwater weed beds, underwater logs, and murky pools.

How To Fish For Saltwater Fish

Finally, coastal anglers can cut their teeth on saltwater fish. Depending on where you live, beginners can try casting heavy spoons into bays and surf or heaving weighted live bait rigs from piers and jetties to hook bottom-oriented fish. Popular live baits include shrimp, small shellfish, and cut bait weighed down by heavy sinkers.

Start Fishing

These beginner tips may or may not feed you for a lifetime, but we hope they’ll at least encourage you to try fishing for the first time. Fish are healthy to eat—and fun to catch and release—so we hope you do learn how to fish. Just gear up, get out on the water, try some of these tips, and let us know what you catch!

FAQ

Q: What is the easiest type of fishing?

A: Fishing for panfish with a bobber, hook, and live bait (e.g. nightcrawlers, minnows) is the easiest type of fishing for beginners.

Q: Is fishing hard to learn?

A: Conventional spin-fishing and baitcasting is easier to learn than fly fishing. Like all kinds of fishing, however, it takes a lot of practice and experience to get really good.

Q: Is fishing an expensive hobby?

A: Yes and no. You can choose to sink a lot of money into fishing equipment, but many of the most effective fishing methods do not require expensive rigs. We’ve landed some of our biggest fish with entry-level rods, simple tackle, and live bait.