Fishing Methods Explained

Seven methods, and they are not interchangeable. Each solves a different problem: covering water, reaching distance, getting deep, or reaching fish nobody else can.

If you are starting, start with spinning. Everything else builds on it.

The seven, compared

Spinning — start here

The default, and correctly so. A spinning reel hangs under the rod and cannot backlash, the cast is a single simple motion, and the whole setup is the cheapest complete rig you can buy. It works in fresh and salt water on nearly any species.

The principle: the weight of the lure carries the cast, pulling line off a fixed spool. That is why lure weight matters so much, and why the printed range on the rod is the number to respect — see rod action and power.

Everything else on this page assumes casting and retrieving skills you build here.

Bottom fishing — the most underrated

Bait on or near the bottom, held there with a weight. Simple, cheap, and it catches an enormous share of what people catch, because an enormous share of fish feed down there.

Two skills carry it:

• The right amount of weight. Enough to hold in the current, not so much that you cannot feel anything.
• Telling a bite from the bottom. Everything feels like a bite at first. Learning the difference is most of the method.

Our rigs page covers the standard arrangements — the Carolina rig, the fish finder rig and the high-low rig are all bottom rigs.

Surfcasting — distance from the beach

Fishing a beach into the surf, with a long rod (typically 10 to 14 feet) because you are generating distance from a standing start with no boat to help.

The mistake beginners make is assuming further is better. Fish patrol the trough just beyond the breaking waves, hunting food the surf churns loose — and that trough is frequently much closer than people think. A great many surf fish are caught well short of a maximum cast, sometimes almost at your feet.

Read the beach at low tide, before you fish it. The holes, bars and cuts you can see then are invisible when the water comes up, and they are where the fish will be.

Jigging — the answer to depth

Working a weighted lure vertically: lift the rod so it darts upward, then let it fall on a controlled line.

The bite almost always comes on the drop, which is why "controlled" matters. Slack line means you never feel it.

This is the method for depth, current and wind — anywhere a light lure simply never reaches bottom. It works from a boat, from a pier, and through a hole in the ice. Metal jigs are covered in fishing lure types.

Trolling — covering water

Dragging lures or baits behind a moving boat. Nothing else covers as much water, which makes it the method for finding fish scattered across open water — salmon in the Great Lakes, tuna and marlin offshore.

You control two variables, and both matter more than they sound:

• Speed — often the single difference between a blank day and a good one
• Depth — set by lure choice, line length, and downriggers or weights

Because you cover so much ground, trolling is a search method. Once you find them, another method often out-fishes it in the same spot.

Fly fishing — a different physics

The one method that works backwards from everything else.

In spinning, the lure's weight carries the line. In fly fishing the line carries the fly, which weighs almost nothing. That single inversion explains everything that looks strange about it — the thick tapered line, the long rod, the peculiar casting stroke.

It exists because some of what fish eat is far too light to cast any other way. An insect weighs nothing; you cannot throw it. So you weight the line instead.

The fly reel is mostly a line holder rather than a casting tool, and it carries backing — cheap thin line beneath the fly line that fills the spool and gives you reserve if a fish runs further than your fly line is long.

Genuinely harder to learn than the rest. Also the method people fall hardest for.

Kayak fishing — access, with a safety cost

A kayak reaches water a boat cannot enter and a bank angler cannot reach: skinny flats, backwater, small lakes with no ramp. It is quiet, cheap compared to a boat, and it puts you on fish that see very little pressure.

It also puts you in the water rather than beside it, so two facts are worth stating plainly.

The life jacket is not optional

Federal rules require one wearable PFD for each person aboard any recreational vessel. Kayaks and canoes are exempt only from the additional throwable device that boats 16 feet and over must carry — not from the wearable one.

Carrying is the legal minimum. Wearing is the point. A life jacket in a hatch has never saved anyone, and a kayak angler who goes over does not get a second chance to put it on.

State law can be stricter than the federal minimum, particularly for children. Check your state's boating rules.

Cold water shock is not only a winter problem

This is the fact that surprises people. The National Weather Service states that "gasping for a breath or rapid breathing from sudden immersion can be triggered by water as warm as 77°F (25°C)", and that this response "occurs during the first 2-3 minutes or more."

Seventy-seven degrees is a comfortable swimming temperature. The involuntary gasp is what kills — inhale underwater and it becomes a drowning long before hypothermia is a consideration.

NWS's own advice is one line: "Always wear a life jacket in and around the water."

Sensible kayak practice

• Wear the PFD, always
• Tell someone your launch point and return time
• Leash rod and paddle
• Dress for the water temperature, not the air temperature
• Know how to re-enter your kayak, and practise it somewhere safe before you need it

So which should you learn?

1. Spinning — the base skill, and enough on its own for years
2. Bottom fishing — cheap, easy, and it catches fish while you learn
3. Then whichever your water demands: surfcasting on a coast, jigging for depth, kayak for access
4. Fly fishing when you want it for itself, not because it is "better"

The fastest progress comes from fishing one method properly rather than four badly.

Related

• Fishing reels explained — the reel each method wants
• Rod action and power — matching the rod to the method
• How to read water for fishing — where to point any of them
• Rigs & setups — the arrangements bottom fishing depends on

Sources

• A Boater's Guide to the Federal Requirements for Recreational Boats — US Coast Guard — that all recreational vessels must carry one wearable PFD per person aboard, and that canoes and kayaks are exempt from the additional throwable device required on boats 16 feet and longer.
• Cold Water Hazards and Safety — NOAA National Weather Service — that gasping or rapid breathing from sudden immersion can be triggered by water as warm as 77°F (25°C), that it occurs during the first 2–3 minutes or more, and the advice always to wear a life jacket in and around the water.