Fishing Question?
My son is 12 and is just starting out learning how to fish. Being that I am a woman, he tends not to listen to what I have to say, therefore I am leaving this question to, as he puts it, “the experts”. He has a small pond near his home in Ohio. He usually fishes with worms, and has just gotten a set of jigs for Christmas. All he catches usually is Blue Gill. He has not had a chance to use his jigs yet. Anyhow, he knows that there are Bass in ther and wants to know how to lure them in, and what baits, lures, jigs etc to use. He wants to build a basic tackle box and has no idea what to start with. Can anyone help, since he won’t listen to me, who has been fishing for over 20 years?
there are literally thousands of jig/lure/bait combinations for bass. one of my favorites is a plastic worm made by Bill’s scented worms. they are bent and contain three smaller hooks and have a nice action when fished slowly. the bass around here (im in minnesota) cant stay away from them.
If he wants to catch bass in the pond he should try some plastic lizards or worms. Use just enough weight to get them to sink. He can also try a small spinner-bait. White and chartreuse are 2 good colors or white/chartreuse together. With the jigs, just use plastic or pork trailers and fish them slow and he should do fine. Plastic trailers, swimming chunks, skinny chunks, etc. are easier to store since they come in a resealable bag and aren’t as messy as pork chunks. Good luck and good fishing.
Both of these first answers are very good. When it’s hot, he needs to cast close to downfalls, rocks, ledges, ext. Since he may not find thse in a small pond he should fish alittle deeper. Bigger fish seek shade when it’s hot.
curly tailed jigs are a good all around bait for bass, bream, and white perch. as the weather warms up, the bass will become more aggressive, fish the bait slow and in deep water while the weather is cold. as it warms up and fish metabolism speeds up, go to shallower parts of the water and speed up on the retrieve of the jigs.
Go to this link from field and stream. It shows the 50 greatest lures of all time and tells when, how, and where to use them.
Practice makes perfect.
the jigs he got for christmas would do well in catching bass. i bet he’ll have fun catching bass.
Shallow running crankbaits that dive to 3 to 5 feet work great as well as grape (purple) plastic worms and yellow and/or white spinnerbaits in 1/4 to 3/8 ounce. He will really have to crank the spinnerbaits because I bet being a beginner he has a spincast reel (push the button on the back to cast). Take him to a local bait shop and they will be glad to suggest lures appropriate for your area and show you how to rig them and tie knots. Have fun and fry a few now and then.
lyfsavr,
All the answers are good here, but I can’t believe no one is bringing up spinners?? I mean, c’mon, he’s just starting out so the easiest thing to try for starters would be spinners. All you do is cast them out and reel’em in. All he has to worry about is reeling fast or reeling slow. Get him some with different colors…chartreuse and white or a combo of both seem to be effective anywhere…or just pure silver (shiny). Once he has fun with that THEN he can move on to more sophisticated techniques such as plastics (carolina or texas rigging), jigging, flippin, yadda yadda.
So…for “beginners”, won’t hurt to get him a couple of spinner baits. They’re very easy.
Tell him to make sure he has an open face reel for starters.
Use 14 lb test line.
Use a 3/8 ounce Rattle Trap (Bill Lewis Lures) Get the Purple or the Gold colored one.
Tie a Trilene knot the instructions are in the box when you buy Trilene line.
Use a medium Heavy pole…this is very important especially when going for Bass because that/s what I am setting you up for.
Now get out there and cast that Rattle Trap as far as you can outward and then reel it in semi fast so that it rattles constantly. The closer you cast near the banks the faster you reel it in because it drops in the water approximately 1 ft per second in shallow water so you want to reel fast to prevent it from dropping any more than 1 1/2 ft at best in three feet of water.
If there is Bass in that pond, he will strike that Rattle Trap and this is any time of the day!
One more thing…The proper drag to set on this open face reel is simple. grab the line from the tip of the rod and pull it down downward like a fish is on it and see how fast that line comes out.
Tighten that drag so that your pole bends about 45 degrees before it releases the line through drag. and this is about a 12 to 15 pound thrust drag,.
The reason I call it a thrust drag is because when the Bass haul off with your lure and I mean Bass hit hard and haul butt with it, the drag will thrust out quickly and you don’t want this drag to run much when that happens so what it sounds like is a quick scream of your drag and then it stops when about 6 to 10 ft of your line has just zipped out of your reel in about 4 seconds.and all you have a is bent pole afterwards and that Bass is not going anywhere at least not yet.. The Bass slows down within two seconds after the thrust and 4 second scream.
If you catch a two pound Bass and your drag was running it’s too lose.
If you catch a three-Pound Bass and your drag runs that is a strong river Bass action. The only 3 pound Bass that pull my drag are river Bass because they’re strong fighting the current swimming upstream and these Bass are alot stronger than pond Bass and will fight harder.\
My 14 lb Largemouth can be seen on line at Wold Record Bass stories (Aldo Rosado). I have only landed two 14 LB Bass in my career that size, but I have hooked many of them just never landed them./ Visit mypage or blog and look at some fish pics I have.
Good Luck Sport:)
floating rapala rubber worms beetle spins hula popper jitter bug rooster tail red and white spoon tell him that he just needs to experiment with how to work each lure and have fun fishing some times bass want it slow some times the want it fast let him teach his self
Best things to use for bass cause I fish for them is rubber worms hands down. The blugill or sunnies, will nip them at first, then they won’t mess with them, making it better for the fisherman cause he won’t get frustrated. I recommend the rusty brown color, and dark purple. Have fun, and make sure you don’t hurt the fish. : )
A great lure for a youngster to start with is a surface lure like a jitterbug or hula popper, they work like a charm and the excitement of a bass hitting a surface lure will be very fun and keep him interested.
It’s great to see a child into fishing, it sounds like he wants to be a die hard. Pond bass are genrally easy to catch. A small spinner bait, even the ones at wal-mart in the dollar bin will work, I would try a couple different colors say a white,white and yellow(chartruse), and a chartruse one. I would try some floating frog’s, Jigs are a great lure but it takes time to catch fish on them if your talking jigs for jig and pig, a weet beaver trailer works prettty well, if your talking about jig heads then that is fine the round ball jigs are great for a worm or power grub, Mister twister’s usually work great in white, yellow, or black. Their is something fairly new called a shaky head, this is a stand up jig that you put a small 4 to 6 inch worm on cast out tighten the line up and just wiggle the rod tip, watermelon with red flake work well for this, their are thousands of these worms out their. A worm called a senko or Kinami flash(sold at walmart) in black with blue flake or green pumkin usually work well in the north. I would say to use a 2/0 or 3/0 ewg hook for these lures and rig them wackey style if that doesn’t work then rig them texas style. I would also get a few top water baits. A jitter bug usually works well in the evening just before dark in the warmer months. I would suggest that he only need 8 to 10 pound test. He’ll get more bites, I just started using Gamma line, I fish the Walmart BFL in NY and I travel to Virginia to fish them also I don’t believe that their is another line out their that can compete with it. They sell it at dicks sporting goods. I’m thinking of fishing some tournaments in Ohio this spring. I’ve won some local tournaments and love fishing and seeing kids out their having fun, It’s not fun when your fishing it’s fun when your catching. I hope this helps you out some and if you have more questions feel free to contact me at
I think the basic problem is That he is at the age where he views parents as the lowest form of life. Where did the attitude “Being as I am a woman…” come from, have you inadvertently taught the kid to be a chauvinist???? You can leave him to sort out his fishing for himself, you can go fishing with him sometime and SHOW him you know what you are talking about, or you can go buy him a basic tackle box and let him play with it on his own terms. Another thing you could do is just go fishing by yourself and let him see your results without rubbing his face in it.