Category
Fishing Foundations
The stuff people call basic right up until it costs them a fish: first setups, casting, knots, drag, observation and the small decisions that make the next trip less confusing. Start with Fishing Skills and Decision Making.
Everything filed under this heading, newest first.
Worth opening first
- Teach the Fishing Decision, Not the Tackle AisleWhat to hand somebody new that isn’t a shopping list.
- The Most Annoying Fishing Sounds, Ranked by UsefulnessSome of the noise on the water is information. Most of it is weather.
- What to Tell a Future Kid on Their First Fishing TripShort, honest, and mostly about what happens when nothing bites.
- Fly Fishing for Beginners With One Simple Setup and a Lot Less ShoppingOne setup that works, put together before the catalog shows up.
- April Vokey Keeps the Story Attached to the SkillWhy instruction lands harder when the person giving it hasn’t sanded the failures off.
- Tournament Fishing Is Most Useful When You Look Past the TrophyThe weigh-in is the least transferable part of a tournament day.
- You Don’t Need Seven Fishing Tools at OnceWhich tool answers which question, and the order they stop being useful in.
You Don’t Need Seven Fishing Tools at Once
Seven tools, and most trips only need one or two of them. Figure out which question is actually in your way and leave the rest closed.
How to Find Fish in Rivers and Streams as Conditions Change
The obvious boulder isn’t automatically the right boulder. Flow and temperature decide which part of a river deserves a cast today, and both can change before lunch.
How to Find Fish in a Lake Without Chasing Random Spots
A lake full of points, docks, weeds and coves isn’t handing you options so much as homework, at least until you cut it down to a few spots that can actually tell you something.
The Best Fishing Teachers Make the Water Easier to See
Some fishing teachers leave you needing them. The good ones leave you able to spot the problem yourself, and six of them, from Bill Dance’s bloopers to Brian Latimer’s bank fishing, show how that works.
Tournament Fishing Is Most Useful When You Look Past the Trophy
Nobody learns much from a number on a scale, but the decisions behind it, from Roland Martin’s patterns to Jacob Wheeler calling a violation on himself, carry straight to a two-hour bank trip.
Fishing Media Works Better When the Camera Serves the Water
A fish in a net photographs beautifully and teaches almost nothing. From Jeremy Wade’s investigations to Hilary Hutcheson’s river conservation work, the fishing media worth watching keeps the water in the shot.
Tom Rosenbauer and the Discipline of Saying ‘I Don’t Know’
Tom Rosenbauer’s teaching left me with a habit more than a technique: know enough to make the call, then leave the water room to prove you wrong.
April Vokey Keeps the Story Attached to the Skill
April Vokey’s Anchored podcast started because television kept cutting long conversations short, and those long conversations are where a fishing lesson keeps the context that made it true in the first place.
Fly Fishing for Beginners With One Simple Setup and a Lot Less Shopping
You don’t need a wall of rods to start fly fishing. One matched rod and floating line, a few kinds of flies, and knots you can tie with cold hands will carry you a long way.
Teach the Fishing Decision, Not the Tackle Aisle
Somebody new to fishing doesn’t need the whole tackle aisle explained. They need one thing to notice on the water, and a real reason to change what they’re doing when it isn’t working.