One of the best ways for young angler to learn how to fish...

[WTL]

I thought about not posting this, because its not available to every agnler and its pretty dang simple, but I will anyways.



When you are a young angler, just getting started, every fish you catch tells you something. Not every cast. So why pick a big, notoriously difficult lake to learn to fish?

Starting with small, unpressured water is really one of the best secrets I can offer the young angler. Ask your dad or your buddies at work if they know of any private ponds that they would feel comfortable letting you learn at. If you live north of the gulf coast scour the maps for streams that you can wade for smaller, more active and more readily patternable bass. Throw smaller lures with an eye towards maximizing hits and not trying to get a personal best worth bragging about that first year. In short, go fish places that make you look good, and pretty soon you will pick up bass behavoir. Once you get a feel for what you are doing, you can try branching out and fishing more difficult locales, you can throw ig lures trying to get a throphy and it wont be a game of luck anymore cause you will have experience.

[Jim80]

One of the things I've found in helping my sons learn is to mix up the fish you are after . Last year i only took them trout fishing and then let them play with the panfish , and this year they have started to learn to fish for bass . when all else fails a younger kid will get a little boost of confidence from catching that sunny or bluegill and it will make them feel a little more comfortable in handling a fish . One of the biggest feats with a young angler is building their confidence .

[WTL]

Jim, the truth about sunfish is that they all behave very similar to bass. In actuality, can you name one lure that you can catch bass on that you cant catch sunfish on (size limitations aside)? I've caught them flipping, on jigs, on topwater, crankbaits, spinnerbaits, traps jerkbaits floating worms flukes creature baits fly lures - they will literally hit anything a bass hits and in the same manner - cause bass are sunfish.

So learning how to fish artificials for bream will get you loads of good experience.

[Jim80]

True i've never met anything a sunfish would eat and they are def related , good point all the way around .

[bamabassman]

great post wtl. a private pond is mostly where i learnded to fish. went to several private ponds when i was young. but to day it is hard to find someone who will let you do that nowadays. good luck younguns!!