Anyone do any fishing?

Notabot · Post by **Notabot** » Fri Apr 30, 2010 9:19 pm

So, being in South Dakota for almost 4 years now, I've decided to take up fishing. I took my son yesterday, and we "caught" 3 tiny perch. (Two never actually made it to our bucket. Funny story if there's any interest, but I won't waste the space yet.)

Apparently I suck at my new hobby, but have vowed to get better. Any tips on surefire rigs/bait? We've got mostly walleye, bluegill, northern pike, and some small- and large-mouth bass in the area. Also some muskie and sturgeons around, but I think that's out of my league. Or any amusing fishing stories. Those are cool too.

electro girl · Post by **electro girl** » Fri Apr 30, 2010 9:36 pm

Fishin aint about catchin fish there boy, it's about telling the tales. Ain't none of us been fishin fer years. Old Neville over there he aint never been fishin.

Post by **Hound** » Sat May 01, 2010 1:44 am

Fish? No, but I can sit on a boat with a case of beer and tell stories all day while someone else is fishing for sure...

Notabot · Post by **Notabot** » Sat May 01, 2010 2:02 am

"There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot."
-Steven Wright

burnitall · Post by **burnitall** » Sat May 01, 2010 4:01 am

Hound wrote:Fish? No, but I can sit on a boat with a case of beer and tell stories all day while someone else is fishing for sure...

What he said.

Post by **Warcry** » Sat May 01, 2010 4:41 am

I go fishing with my old man quite a bit. In fact, right now I'm supposed to be studying for a boating-safety test that I have to take tomorrow. The study materials are so idiotic, though, that it's hard to concentrate. For instance, apparently you're not supposed to waterski behind a boat while remote-controlling it!

Were you fishing from shore? I find that you'll get better results anchored in a boat, or trolling, than you will fishing off of a dock. You can cover a lot more water in a boat than you can in from shore, which gives you a better chance to find where the fish are feeding.

Certain fish tend to hang around in certain types of water. Smallmouth bass often like shallow, weedy bays. Walleye can sometimes be found in shallow, rocky bays (if you're in a lake) or near a point just outside of the current (if you're in a river). Pike are predators, so anywhere you're likely to find a lot of smaller bass or walleye, you can pretty much count on seeing one or two pike -- but if you do, it usually means the other fish will have been spooked away for a while.

Every body of water is different though, and there are no real hard and fast rules. Once you get to know a lake or a river a bit better, you'll start to develop a feeling for what looks like a good spot. Usually you'll be wrong, but the days when you can't drop your line in the water for more than five minutes without hauling in a fish will more than make up for it.

There's no such thing as sure-fire rigs or bait. Different fish will gravitate toward different bait, but everything from the amount of sunlight to the temperature of the water will have an impact on what they'll be biting on on any given day.

Basically, don't worry too much if you don't catch too many fish on any given day. Especially if you've got a nice place close to you -- if you can take the kid out for a couple hours, and you both have fun, that's more important than bringing home a bucket full of fish.

Notabot · Post by **Notabot** » Sat May 01, 2010 5:42 am

Yeah, we're shore fishing right now, for lack of a boat. A member of our church took me out in his boat last year and we brought in about 40 bluegills in a couple hours. It helps that he does professional fishing trip leading.

I'm actually not upset that we haven't caught any keepers yet, just because when we do, I'll have to clean them. The biggest victory for me so far is that I can now put the bait on the hook without gagging or squealing like a little girl. We're going to try by the dam later this weekend. I've heard that's a great place, because everyone talks about all the dam fish they get, having a dam good day, and the big dam walleyes that got away.

Vin Ghostal · Post by **Vin Ghostal** » Sat May 01, 2010 8:06 am

Notabot wrote:Anyone do any fishing?

No. Murderer.

HeavyArms · Post by **HeavyArms** » Sat May 01, 2010 11:49 am

Used to fish, years ago, back when I used to go camping, years ago. The last time I went was four years ago, I distinctly remember catching an ugly bastard of an Elephant fish, ugly bastard he was.

Notabot · Post by **Notabot** » Sat May 01, 2010 1:58 pm

Vin Ghostal wrote:No. Murderer.

It's okay to eat fish 'cause they don't have any fee-lings.

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Sat May 01, 2010 2:56 pm

Yeh, it's an established scientific fact that fishes, like lesbians or the Welsh, don't have souls.

Halfshell · Post by **Halfshell** » Sat May 01, 2010 3:21 pm

On the main forum index, I misread the "h" as a "t".

Notabot · Post by **Notabot** » Sat May 01, 2010 4:17 pm

But as long as your here, would you like to stay for tea?

Heinrad · Post by **Heinrad** » Sat May 01, 2010 7:34 pm

I haven't been fishing in years. Back home, we'd fish on the riverbank and catch sunfish, mostly Moved to Vermont, and the two times I tried to fish in a pond, all I caught was crawdads. Between that and the ever rising cost of a license, I gave up.

Now, if I had a good recipe for crawdad gumbo, that might be a different story......

DrSpengler · Post by **DrSpengler** » Sat May 01, 2010 7:37 pm

I haven't gone fishing since I was 13 or so. I was fishing off a dock behind my Grandad's place in Florida. Did it in the afternoon's during the week I was visting and caught three...uh...fish and a crab.

Gave the fish to a neighbor to use as bait in her traps and boiled and ate the crab.

I"ve wanted to pursue the hobby for years now, but I've never had the enthusiasm to get a license, much less drive some place way the Hell away from my home where you might actually be able to catch fish. All the lakes around here are more beer cans than fish.

Oh yeah, and the crab? After I got him onto the dock (he had snagged the hook with his claw and I hoisted him up and dropped off) I panicked and impaled him on the handle of my fishing rod.

Couldn't just let him get away....

Post by **Sades** » Sat May 01, 2010 11:02 pm

I went through a phase when I was a kid where all I wanted to do was fish. I actually bought fishing magazines. I had a tackle box, multiple test line and two different types of rods. Then I sorta just grew out of it. I've been thinking about it lately though, and camping in general. I used to love camping, too.

Goddammit. Now I'm seeing that all with a "t" in it instead of an "h".

skywarp408 · Post by **skywarp408** » Sun May 02, 2010 2:48 pm

I go at least once a week. Usually for largemouth bass because that's whats mostly around where I live. Soon I will be going up to Lake Tahoe for trout fishing. I'm also going on a backpacking trip to some lakes in a few days. You could say I fish quite a bit.

Vin Ghostal · Post by **Vin Ghostal** » Sun May 02, 2010 9:21 pm

Cliffjumper wrote:Yeh, it's an established scientific fact that fishes, like lesbians or the Welsh, don't have souls.

Don't ruin last night for me.

Notabot · Post by **Notabot** » Mon May 03, 2010 2:01 am

I officially hate fishing... for at least a few days. Wasted an afternoon driving down to the dam, lost a bunch of lures on the rocks, didn't catch anything or even get bites while the people on either side of us were pulling in big ones hand over fish. I could have saved time and money staying home watching hockey, or could just as easily have thrown a handful of lures into a lake nearer to home.

On the plus side, the lures I lost were half price at Scheels yesterday, so I'm not out that much.

Ackula · Post by **Ackula** » Mon May 03, 2010 3:35 am

I used to go fishing with my father and granddad a lot as a kid. We always went for catfish though, which must be relatively simple, seeing as how we always caught tons of them. We used different things for bait, but never anything designed for fishing, like a lure or anything artificial. IIRC the most successful bait for catfish was always chicken livers, although blood worms worked fairly well also.

I also did a lot of fishing as a kid in the creek behind my parent's house. This creek was really more akin to a river though, in size and depth. I used to just use earth worms dug up in the back yard, or crickets if any were around to catch. I usually caught these catfish like things that the old timers back home called "knotty heads", not too sure what the technical name is. Also used to catch my fair share of craw daddies in the creek too, usually by hand though.

The only time I have ever fished from a boat was with my granddad in a large lake. He used to use lures to catch bass and so forth, but I never had any luck trying that, so I never really enjoyed it the few times we went.

We also used to fish off of a pier down at the beach once a year when we were on vacation, when I was a kid. Not sure what sort of fish we were catching, but sometimes you'd snag a little baby shark, and on one occasion I caught a sting ray!