FS Digest

So, I’m mid-twenties and pretty new to fishing. Would like to make it a new hobby. I have a fishing rod, I bought some hooks, bobbers, and lures. I am clueless on what to use for bait so I’ve literally been making tiny balls of bread and putting them on the hook. I’ve caught a catfish like this maybe two years ago. Since then, I haven’t fished. I tried yesterday for ~2hrs and caught nothing.

What I do is bring a portable chair, a cooler to hold my tackle box/supplies, my rod, and slice of bread. Then, I cast my line while standing, sit, and wait a couple minutes, then reel back in and repeat if I didn’t catch anything.

Any tips would be great. According to the Internet, the particular lake I’m fishing in have bass, but I’ve only caught catfish.

Here’s a panoramic view of the lake.

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by Tuisdheisj

FS Digest

Stop using the bread, in my experience all that’ll take it is catfish and maybe Bluegills. Next time you go out go to Walmart or the tackle store and grab a thing of worms, basically every freshwater fish will bite on a live worm if you put it in front of them

Edit: I fish the same way of throwing it out, waiting, and trying again. That’s the most effective way to bait fish imo. You can start getting into lures and soft plastics, they work for a lot of people, but it can be overwhelming at first when you don’t really know what to buy for what purpose. If you wanna get some lures try asking other people at the lake what they use

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by keith_ob

FS Digest

I just want to catch ANYthing at this point. So, while I’m sitting in front of the lake, should I always be aiming to cast my line to the center of the lake? Or is that irrelevant?

Is this considered fresh water?

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by Tuisdheisj

FS Digest

If there’s bass it’s freshwater. People have all sorts of methods of looking for deep spots or shallow spots or casting near weeds and underwater structure, the structure thing seems solid but as for whether you should cast left right or center it’s more or less up to you, you start getting a sense of where they hang out the more often you fish. If you really want to catch /something/ then put a sinker/split shot on and throw a chunk of hot dog on your hook. Let it sit on the bottom at dawn or dusk and a catfish almost definitely will come bite it. Bullheads are my favorite thing to fish for just because of how reliably i can catch them

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by keith_ob

FS Digest

So I should use a raw hotdog over worms, haha? And yeah, online it says bass but I’ve only seen/captured a catfish, but that was only two times.

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by Tuisdheisj

FS Digest

Both work fine for catfish, but worms have the edge for basically every other species. I like hot dogs cuz they don’t squirm and are easier to hook, but my friend who comes with me will only use worms cuz they’re his preferred bait. We both end up catching similar amounts of Cats, but whenever he uses a worm vs my lures or fake bait for other kinds of fish he cleans up

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by keith_ob

FS Digest

Ah, ok. So, what’s a recommended hook setup? I currently have a bobber, then hook attached to the bottom of the bobber, with a rubber fish lure attached on the hook, then my bread (which I’ll be switching for worms).

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by Tuisdheisj

FS Digest

Try not to mix bait and lure fishing, if you have a rubber fish lure use it as a lure, if you want to bait fish get some hooks. Truthfully any pack labeled “freshwater” or “assortment” would do fine for a beginner. If you’d rather go by size I’d recommend no smaller than a 10 and no bigger than a 1, i tend to stay around 8 and 4 when i use worms, but if you go that small you’ll get a lot of small sunfish (which are fun to catch but not that big). Also how far is the hook from the bobber? I tend to go 6” minimum, for catfish i don’t use a bobber at all i just use a weight and let it sit on the bottom. Most places you’ll do fine with a leader between like 8” and 24”. Also for catfish i do use bigger hooks, around 1 to 2/0, but these aren’t the most useful size for common freshwater fish. For the record, hook sizes go down and then up, so they’ll start at 16 (or something) and go down 15, 14, 13, and so on. The numbers get smaller but the size of the hook gets bigger. Then you reach a Size 1, the next step after that is 1/0 then 2/0 and so on, consistently getting bigger. When i said 1 to 2/0 i meant a Size 1, Size 1/0, or Size 2/0 (0 is said as “ought”, 1/0 is 1 Ought and is bigger than a 1 or 2 or anything else without the 0)

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by keith_ob

FS Digest

I need to learn these fishing terms, haha. Yeah, the hook is attached about 6” below the bobber. And ok, I’ll take the lure off. I have the lure hooked through the hook. Not sure about my hook size, but I could always post a photo. Thank you so much for the info so far!

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by Tuisdheisj

FS Digest

No problem dude. And if you have the lures give them a shot, cast it as far out as you can and as you reel back try to make it look like a dying fish, speed up and slow down, stop and start, twitch and bounce it, you can do any number of things with a swimbait

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by keith_ob

FS Digest

Photo of bobber/lure

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by Tuisdheisj

FS Digest

So that’s actually a grub, they’re usually used on weighted Jig Heads, it looks like a hook but with a metal ball around the top. Theres also a special way to hook them where you go in the nose and bring the hook out the back, that way combined with the jig it swims parallel to the bottom of the lake. Try looking up YouTube videos on how to rig grubs for a visual example

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by keith_ob

FS Digest

Well damn, lol. So this grub probably not recommended for bass / catfish?

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by Tuisdheisj

FS Digest

I wouldn’t say that. Definitely not catfish because they need to be able to smell the bait, they don’t see too good. I’m not a bass angler by any stretch so i can’t say it definitely will or won’t work for them, but as it is on your hook now it’s not doing you any favors

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by keith_ob

FS Digest

I'll jump in here - you've only got about 6 inches under the bobber, and you can't adjust the depth with your setup. You'll want to tie the snell (the hook + looped line combination) directly to the line on your rod. Then use the metal clip parts of the bobber to attach it to your line as well.

That will let you adjust depth so that you can get your bait where you need it

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by varsity14