1.Consider the time of day. Fish are coldblooded, so their activity depends on the temperature of the water around them.They are inactive when it is cold, and when it is very hot they retreat to deeper waters to stay cool. Because fish eat bugs and/or little fish that eat bugs, they are most active when bugs are most active. When the air is warm and thick with mosquitos, fishing will be good.

2.Consider the season. Like all animals, fish come out in greater numbers during particular times of year. This will of course vary based on where you live and what sort of fish you hope to catch, but there are some general guidelines to keep in mind.

• Spring – Fish bite on and off during this season. You will have better luck later in the season, and later in the day, when things get a little warmer. Fish can’t do much eating on spring mornings, because the bugs aren’t out much yet, so your best bet is to take advantage of their feeding time at dusk. At this time of year winds will push the warmer, food-filled surface water toward the shore, so try to position yourself downwind along the shoreline.
• Summer – This is a good season for fishing if you avoid the hottest times of day. The fish will be biting well just before sunup and just after sundown, when food is abundant. Mid-day, when the sun is at its zenith, the fish will retreat to cooler, deeper water.
• Fall – This can be an inconsistent time, but when the fishing is good, it is really good. They will likely not bite much in the morning and early afternoon. Toward the end of the day, however, the water will be warm from hours of sunlight, and the fish will be driven to eat more than usual because of the impending food shortage that winter brings. Dusk is therefore an excellent time for fishing.
• Winter – For obvious reasons, not the best time for fishing. Unless you are ice fishing, which is a different thing entirely, you should leave your fishing rod in storage during this season.

3.Consider the tides. It is best to fish when the tide is rising or falling, as this change causes prey to move en-mass, and thus makes a great time for coastal fish to feed. Fishing will be much harder during low or high tide, when there is less water movement.

• To find out what time high and low tides are in your area, just Google "tide chart" and the name of the town you're in.
• If you are fishing during a high tide, look for a shallow area.
• If you are fishing during a low tide, look for a mud bank near a slough (an area with a depression in the bottom).

1. Keep an eye out for warm and cold fronts. Because fish are coldblooded, they are deeply impacted by water temperature. This means their behavior can change quite a bit before and after cold or warm fronts.

• Many fish increase their feeding in the hours before a cold front hits, and slow in its aftermath. Thus, fishing after a cold front will rarely be a successful venture.
• Warm fronts warm the surface water, and increase the amount of feeding fish can do. The difference is most noticeable in cold weather, when fish are usually not out much, and will not be of much use if it is summer, and the temperature was already quite high to begin with.

2. Keep an eye on the wind. Wind pushes surface water toward the far shore, and small prey fish with it, luring game fish. This makes windy days a good time for fishing.

• If you are fishing from shore on a windy day, cast into the wind. This will make your lure move in the same direction as the rest of the food, which will make it easier to attract game fish.
• If fishing from a boat, cast toward shore in the same direction as the wind.

3. Keep an eye out for clouds. Overcast days make fish bolder. They tend to swim further from safe structures when it is a little dim out. These are good fishing days
4. Keep an eye out for rain. Rain can be your friend or your enemy, depending on how hard it is. Light rain is excellent fishing weather, especially in warm weather. It blurs the waters surface, making it harder for the fish to see you. It also washes lots of insects into the water, making it a prime time for fish to eat. Hard rain stirs up mud, and makes it harder for fish to hunt, breathe, and navigate. The fish don’t want to be out in that weather any more than you do, which is good because hard rains also create unsafe fishing conditions.

1. Research the area where you're fishing to see when other people have caught fish. Check with local bait shops and fishing stores and let them know what fish you're trying to catch. they may be able to offer locations or times when other anglers are the most successful. You can also check local fishing blogs, podcasts, and magazines to see if they have recommendations.
2. Pay attention to bugs. Fish feeding activity is, of course, directly tied to insect activity. Smaller fish eat the insects, and game fish eat the smaller fish. As such, a hatch of flies or mosquitos is sure to create excellent fishing conditions. Just make sure you wear plenty of insect repellent.
3. Make the moon your friend. The moon controls the tides, which play a big role in fishing conditions. It is fairly easy to keep track of the tides by simply observing, but it can pay off to pay closer attention to the movements of the moon. Full moons, and times when the moon is close to the earth, tend to make for especially good fishing.There are lots of free online lunar calendars designed to help you find peak fishing hours.
4. Know your fish. Different types of fish prefer different water temperatures, times of day, and food. If you are fishing for a particular species, do your research. If you want to catch catfish, it won’t matter when you go out if you never venture from shallow waters.
5.Go fishing when you have the time. It’s all well and good to know when the fish will be out in force, but the truth is that most of us simply go fishing when we have the time for it. You can enjoy a lovely afternoon of fishing with some beers and a friend without ever catching a thing. Don’t get so wrapped up in finding the right time that you forget to have a good time.

1. Use plastic worms when fishing for largemouth bass. Invented in 1949 by Nick and Cosma Crème and first marketed in 1951, plastic worms are probably the best-known largemouth bass lures. Available in a host of colors and lengths from 4 to 10 inches (10 to 25 cm), plastic worms have spawned a number of other soft plastic artificial lures: grubs, crayfish, and salamanders among them. Occasionally fished on the surface, plastic worms are most commonly fished in timber, brush, weeds, and along rocky drop-offs, and they are usually rigged by threading the hook through the worm so that its body covers the hook point and makes a self-weedless rig. (This rig is called a Texas rig when fished with a bullet-shaped slip sinker and a Carolina rig when fished with a leader, swivel, and egg-shaped slip sinker.)

2. Use crankbaits in a variety of situations. Also known as plugs, crankbaits are artificial lures made of hard plastic. They are so named because they are designed to be cast out and retrieved, with some versions intended to be retrieved rapidly to trigger fish to strike them aggressively. Although some are weedless, they are usually not intended to be fished around weeds, brush, or timber. Crankbaits come in several varieties, as described below:

• Topwater lures are designed to be fished on the surface. These include poppers, which feature a vertical concave surface that makes a popping noise when jerked with the rod tip; wobblers, which feature plates that cause the lure to move from side to side when retrieved; and stick baits, which are thin lures without any special attachments that are given their action solely by the fisherman.
• Thin minnow lures are shaped and usually colored like minnows. They feature a small lip at the front, differentiating them from stick baits; otherwise, they may be fished on the surface or underwater, usually with a twitching motion. Normark's Rapala is the best known lure of this type.
• Swimming crankbaits, or swim baits, are artificial lures designed to move from side to side as they are pulled through the water. One style of this type of lure is curved with a flat or concave surface at the head, which functions similarly to the lip on a thin minnow in causing the lure to swim. The Lazy Ike and Helin Flatfish are 2 examples of this type of lure.
• Diving lures feature a larger lip than thin minnows, enabling them to dive deeper when retrieved or trolled; the larger the lip, the deeper it dives. These lures may have either long, thin bodies, or short, stocky bodies. The faster the lure is retrieved, the deeper it will dive; if the retrieve is stopped, the lure, being hollow, will usually rise to the surface, although some crankbaits will remain suspended at the depth they reached.

3. Use spinnerbaits in situations where other lures would get hung up. Sometimes called safety-pin spinners for their resemblance to an open safety pin, spinnerbaits feature a weighted end with a single hook and skirt and an end with 1 or more spinners. Spinnerbaits can be fished by being rapidly retrieved across the surface so that the blades flash and splash, bumped off standing timber, or let fall to the bottom around drop-offs and other vertical structures.

• Spinnerbaits come equipped with either propeller- or teardrop-shaped blades. Teardrop-shaped blades are further divided into 3 types: the willow-leaf, which is narrow and pointed on both ends; the Indiana, which is a rounded-end version of the willow-leaf; and the Colorado, which is broad and rounded at 1 end and comes to a rounded point at the other.
• Related to the spinner bait is the inline, or French, spinner, which features a tubular metal body with a willow-leaf or Indiana blade spinner ahead of it and a treble hook with a feather skirt behind it. French spinners are usually fished around rocky areas or in streams and attract trout, smallmouth bass, and walleye more than largemouth bass

4. Use jigs any time during the year. Jigs consist of a hook with a weighted head and either feature a hair or feather skirt or a plastic grub. Most jigs have round heads, but some jigs feature flat or triangular heads that either impart a swimming motion or keep the hook upright and out of rocks and weeds. Jigs are normally retrieved in an up-and-down motion and can be fished in warm or cold water situations, usually by slowing the retrieve as the water gets colder. Some jigs feature stiff brush or wire guards to keep them weedless, while most feature only a bare hook. Nonetheless, the best places to fish jigs are usually those places where they can get hung up, near weeds, brush, or rocks. (Jigs are the cheapest type of artificial lure, however, so the loss of a few jigs is usually not as consequential as the loss of a crank bait.)

• Some jigs are rigged with removable safety-pin spinners, usually with a small grub body. The most familiar jig of this type is the Bass Buster Beetle Spin, a popular lure for a number of fish species.
• Jigs may be fished in several ways. When fishing for bass, jigs are often flipped or pitched short distances instead of being cast long distances like most lures. They are usually retrieved with a lift-and-drop motion, slowly raising and lowering the rod so that the jig falls on a taut line. They may also be retrieved straight, with the rod kept at a 10 o'clock position to impart a swimming motion to the lure.

5. Use spoons for a number of different species. One of the oldest lures, the spoon was developed in 1850 by Julio T. Buel of New York, supposedly by cutting the handle off a teaspoon and putting a hook on it. The resemblance to the bowl of a spoon causes spoons to wobble from side to side as they are retrieved, which is what draws fish to them. Smaller spoons have been used to fish for trout and panfish, while larger spoons have been used to fish for bass, pike, walleye, and other large fish.

• Most spoons are designed to fish below the surface; these spoons feature a treble hook attached with a split ring. Two of the best-known spoons of this type are the Eppinger Dardevle, most familiar in its red-and-white striped pattern, and the Hofschneider Red-Eye, noted for 2 plastic eye-beads and hooks at the front and back. Thicker versions of these spoons may be cast or trolled, with the thickest designed to be fished like jigs, while the thinnest versions are designed exclusively for trolling.
• Another type of spoon features a single wire-weedless hook whose shank is attached to the back of the spoon. This type of spoon is designed to be rapidly retrieved across the surface and is often dressed with a strip of pork rind or other bait attached to the hook.

6. Use flies when fishing for trout. Flies consist of a single hook with either a hair or feather skirt. They are the smallest and lightest fishing lure and are usually used when stream fishing for trout, using special rods that cast weighted line with the fly attached with a monofilament leader. Flies are available in a number of patterns to match fly species trout feed on; many anglers tie their own flies, sometimes even at stream side to "match the hatch." Flies are available in 5 types, described below:

• Dry flies float on the surface and are usually dressed with a waterproofing compound to keep them from waterlogging and sinking. They are attached to a floating line and fished in a way that matches the natural surface motion of the insect they are imitating.
• Wet flies are designed to sink and to simulate swimming or drowning insects, as well as insects either laying eggs or hatching from them. They can be fished with floating, sinking, or sinking-tip lines, according to how deep you want to fish the fly. In calm water, you cast a wet fly beyond the fish's position and let it sink to the proper depth before retrieving it in as natural a fashion as you can. In moving water, you cast closer to and upstream from the fish and let the water move the fly to the fish.
• Nymphs are a form of wet fly that simulates young insects or other small aquatic life. They are generally fished the same way as other wet flies.
• Streamers may be fished the same way as either a dry or a wet fly. They are intended to simulate minnows or other small fish.
• Bugs are dry flies designed to suggest large insects, amphibians, mice, or injured minnows. Some are designed with popper heads, like the topwater plug previously mentioned. They can be fished with either a floating or sinking-tip line.
• Some fly fishermen fish multiple flies to determine which type of fly the fish are biting. It is possible to combine several fly types when doing this; however, you'll need to consult the fishing regulations for your state to determine how many hooks (lures) you can have attached to your line at once.

Use spinnerbaits in situations where other lures would get hung up. Sometimes called safety-pin spinners for their resemblance to an open safety pin, spinnerbaits feature a weighted end with a single hook and skirt and an end with 1 or more spinners. Spinnerbaits can be fished by being rapidly retrieved across the surface so that the blades flash and splash, bumped off standing timber, or let fall to the bottom around drop-offs and other vertical structures.

• Spinnerbaits come equipped with either propeller- or teardrop-shaped blades. Teardrop-shaped blades are further divided into 3 types: the willow-leaf, which is narrow and pointed on both ends; the Indiana, which is a rounded-end version of the willow-leaf; and the Colorado, which is broad and rounded at 1 end and comes to a rounded point at the other.
• Related to the spinner bait is the inline, or French, spinner, which features a tubular metal body with a willow-leaf or Indiana blade spinner ahead of it and a treble hook with a feather skirt behind it. French spinners are usually fished around rocky areas or in streams and attract trout, smallmouth bass, and walleye more than largemouth bass

• Do not exceed the recommend line rating or drag rating for your rod.
• Never ‘High Stick’ your rod – Over bending your rod when fighting or landing a fish is commonly referred to high sticking. Always maintain a maximum load angle of 45 – 60 degrees when fighting a fish and these parameters should never be exceeded.
• If your lure or rig becomes snagged always keep the rod pointed towards the snag and walk backwards keeping tension on the line. More than likely you will lose your tackle, but you cannot break your rod with this procedure.
• Like a diamond, carbon fibre rods are incredibly strong but can be brittle – Be careful not to drop or hit them on hard surfaces. It may also seem a bit obvious, but many expensive rods have been damaged by ceiling fans and car doors.
• Fishing rods are designed to evenly distribute the stress over the entire rod blank – Never place your hand high above the reel seat to assist the rod, as this will increase stress and cause the rod to break. Always maintain a maximum load angle of 45 – 60 degrees and never high stick it.
• Graphite carbon rods are excellent conductors of electricity – Never use a carbon fibre fishing rod during an electrical storm or near power lines.
• After using your fishing rod in a saltwater environment, always wash your rod well with fresh clean water as soon as you can and pay attention to the guide rings and reel seat. You can use apply light reel grease on the guide metal – but use it sparingly.
• Use caution when transporting your rod and always disassemble it and place the rod in the rod case during transport.
• Use caution when winding your line in and never pull the swivel through the guide tip as this will damage the guide ring.
• Check all guide rings for hair line cracks or chips – replace immediately if damaged

 

1. Choose a rod shorter than you use for open water fishing. While you can ice fish with a rod the same length as you normally use for open water fishing, most fishermen prefer to use a shorter rod; since baits are dropped through holes bored in the ice rather than cast, the extra length isn't necessary. A shorter rod is also an advantage in the tight quarters of most ice fishing shacks. A typical ice fishing rod is 3 to 4 feet (0.9 to 1.2 m) in length and thinner overall than a rod used for open water fishing.

2.Choose a sensitive rod. Because fish move more slowly in cold water, they usually do not hit baits or artificial lures as aggressively as they do in warmer water. You'll want a rod made from graphite or boron fiber to better help you sense the light taps you're likely to feel when a fish takes your bait.

​​1. Use tiny jigs for panfish. Bluegill, crappie, and other panfish eat tiny insects and plankton during the winter months. Jigs of 1/16 ounce (1.77 g) or less simulate these tiny food items.

• Some ice fishing jigs more closely resemble the flies used in fly fishing and are called ice flies.

2. Use tiny spoons for larger game fish species. Spoons wobble and flash their way through the water as they are retrieved, attracting bass, walleye, trout, and pike. Like jigs, they are typically fished in an up-and-down motion when ice fishing.

• Some fishermen take the treble hook off the spoon and attach a short leader in its place, to which they attach a jig. This setup attracts perch and other panfish.

3. Try swimming lures for a different presentation. Made of metal, swimming lures for ice fishing are thin and flat, with a fluke at one end to give them a swimming motion. The eye of the lure, however, is typically opposite a treble hook in the center of the lure body, with single hooks projecting from the front and rear.
4. Consider sweetening your lure with some live bait. Although ice fishermen more commonly use live bait when fishing with tip-ups, some add tiny minnows to swimming lures or small pieces of fish underbelly meat to a spoon. The fish meat adds a natural smell and taste that the artificial lure alone can't provide and makes finicky fish more likely to take the bait.
5. Add a spring bobber for a more fluid lure or bait action. A spring bobber is a small bobber that attaches to the line by means of a spring wound around one of its projections. The bobber's buoyancy helps to smooth out the jerkiness of jigging small jigs, spoons, and swimming lures up and down and also helps detect when fish take the bait. This aspect can be useful when wearing gloves while fishing or in other situations where it's necessary to rely on sight instead of touch to detect when you have a bite.

​

By Massimo Magliocco 

Being a fly rod designer for many years, I want to give some advice to those who have to buy a fly rod. One of the elements that often make the neophyte "crazy" but also the expert fisherman, is to understand if a rod has the right features to make it a good fly rod. Questions like these: "what kind of features has to have a 9' rod to fish in a creek ? Or "which rod is the best ?" and so on. It is easy to read it everywhere.

Who knows me, knows that I was lucky to have two masters who have taught me so much about fly rods, one is Aldo Silva who is the greatest Italian expert regarding how to make a fly rod. He knows everything about carbons and resines and what is the best way to combine them together. The other one is Roberto Pragliola a big name about Italian fly casting technique who was my master too. He is the greatest expert in Italy regarding the connection between rod and cast.

Having had in these last fifteen years these two "masters" as friends with whom I spent a lot of time to talk about rods and also experiment on them, I behaved like a sponge absorbing all that both, separately, they explained me understanding all details about rods conception. So one day I started putting everything learned together and get a thorough understanding on the subject concerning fly rods. So let's see how we can understand if a fly rod works well for our needs.

The first elements to be evaluated are:
1) Where and what type of fishing we want to do
2) What weight of line we want to use
3) Choice of rod length

Many fishermen orient themselves on brands that they know or choose a rod that has a beautiful cosmetic. In these cases, a first mistake is often made because the choices are made emotionally and not analyzing the rod quality.

From a dynamic point of view, it is necessary to know well what are the three components that delineate a rod's features, they are:
1) rapidity
2) power
3) action, (the most important one)

These components have a priority in relation to the various types of rods, in other words one component is more important in a short rod, another in a long one and so on.

The rapidity is nothing more than the time that a rod has to return to the initial position, in a more or less short time, after giving it a thrust.  One rod will be faster than another one if this time is lower than the other.

In the modern casting style, rapidity has great importance since this involves very fast casting operations. Hence a tool that adapts better to the operations of the cast and that is able to greatly speed up the line, this last very important element.

It is clear that the rapidity alone is not enough since it must be added to the other component, the action, even if both of them work together. This is a concept that we will see later.

For longer rods which are designed to be able to cast heavier lines, the rapidity will be less pronounced since the most important element will be the power.

In fact, a long rod calibrated to cast lines weight 8 - 9 and more, must necessarily have very different casting timing than a shorter rod as well as being more powerful for obvious reasons. The power of a rod is the element that characterizes its strength.  

In other words, the energy that a rod can accumulate and then return during the cast, can be defined as power.

The third component, the action, has a great importance in a rod because being the curve of the rod when it is loaded, inevitably also affects the other two. In fact a rod has its rapidity and its power, but both must submit the action because a rod will not be speed if it has parabolic action, or it may not be powerful if it has a tip action.
​
Nowadays casting technique has inevitably produced an evolution of the equipment and first of all of the curves.

A curve for a fast rod, must be built with material that facilitates this feature, and besides must be progressive, a generic word that many fishermen cannot understand. This means that this kind of curve takes shape proportionally to the weight of the line out of the tip of the rod.

What does this mean ? It means that with a little line out the tip of the rod, only the tip gets curved, but increasing the line out of the tip, the curve will increase progressively. This will give the line a constant increase in speed which is our goal.

That said, how do we test a rod to evaluate its features ?
​
Let see it 

​Tighten the handle of the rod with one hand and with the other hand push the palm on the butt going, at the same time, from the cork to the stripping guide.  Discard all those rods that have a stiff butt that does not bend and those rods with the butt too soft that goes down suddenly. The right butt is the one that bends under the palm but with a little difficulty. The butt is the most important part of the rod. This is the first test that must be done but this is not enough. We must continue with the tests. For example, if a rod is line weight 3, we must test it with line weight 2 and line weight 4.
The rod will have to load with both lines, but it will be with the weight 3 that the rod will give the best results.
If this does not happen it means that the rod has not been calibrated well from the factory.

​Then we test the tip. For this test we use a line weight 3, 5 meters' leader, 2 meters' line out of the tip. We will only do the false casts and we will have to feel that the tip loads well and we will have to see a good shape of the loop and the leader will be stretched.
If this not happened the tip wasn't work well. Usually in this case it is too soft so we have to discard the rod.
We have already done the test of the butt with the palm of the hand, now we have to test it with a cast. I know that many fishermen do not know casts used to load the butt, for example the low parallel cast or the superimposed cast, and this does not allow them to test the butt, who wants can read how to do this cast here: http: //www.massimomagliocco .co.uk / index.php / 232-2 /
Finally, remember to avoid buying a rod only for its cosmetic or for its blazoned name.
These two elements can be important but you must remember that they cannot be so important as the action. Fly fishing is a beautifull technique but the most important element to get it fantastic is to cast in the best way, but to do it you have to have a good rod. So, let me finish with a my saying "you can't forget that you can have the best fly tied with the best materials but if you cannot put it in the right place and in the best way, then it no serves purpose.  

Perhaps nothing you do while you're fishing puts you under as much pressure as netting someone else's fish, especially if you are in a tournament. If you have to make several tries, or if you accidentally enable the fish to escape, you'll never be allowed to forget it. Know how to scoop up Mr. Fish before you go out.

1. Be prepared to be netting for someone else. Most of the time when a net is required, you will be netting for someone else. When your partner gets a fish on, be ready to drop what you are doing and get the net.

2. Reel your own line in as quickly as you can. If you just set the rod down, you are going to lose it.​

7. Turn the net so that it offers the largest possible entry to the fish.

9. Bring the net into the boat. Don't place it on the front or back deck where the fish could get back into the water with a single leap. The bottom of the boat is much safer

Choosing a fishing rod may seem overwhelming, but selecting the right rod is no different from finding the right pair of shoes.  Depending on what kind of fishing you will be doing, there are many parameters to help guide you towards the right fishing rod for your lifestyle. Ultimately, fishing rods come in so many models and styles because each is designed for a different kind of fisherman. Figure out what fishing rod is best for you based on your specific needs, and you will be on your way to making a quality purchase.