A Beginner’s Guide to Buying Fishing Gear

Hey guys I’m ready to go fishing!When was the last time you went fishing?Were you six? I guess it has been a long time. Yeah dude, It might be time to upgrade your rod. Think you might be right about that one. Hello, may I help you with anything today?Yes actually that’d be great. I just got a fishing license but I haven’t been fishing in several years. And I think it’s time I trade this up. Well I know a thing or two about fishing. Why don’t you come with me, I’d be happy to show you a few things. Awesome, thank you so much. First of all I’ll show you the spinning
rod and reel combos. There’s two different types of spinning reels, one is an open-face and one is a closed face. And basically you can tell the
difference between those by by looking at them. Here you see that has a closed
face on it, you can see the line there. And this one is the open face real. So which one is easier to use out of these two?Well I think for starting out a lot of people find the closed face a little bit easier to use. But over time with a little bit of practice, I think the open face is a better one. You can cast it a little further. TAYLOR: I want to get to that one . Well i’ll show you. TAYLOR: How do you cast them?With this one, the closed face,You see that button right there?TAYLOR: I see it. The way you would do it is hold that button down and as you as you cast it, you would let that button go. So if you want to try that. So I hold it, that’s right, then let it go and let it go . That doesn’t seem too bad. No it’s uh it’s a great rod and reel to to start out with. Okay, so I get to this one after I’ve been doing this for a little while. On the open face spinning reel, what you would do if this had the line on it you would open this. And then you would hold the line in your
finger like that,And then let the line go as you as you
cast it. A little more advanced. I think I’ll go with the closed space for just starting out. I like that one right. Okay. What would happen if I forgot
to close the bail on that one?If you forgot to close the bail on this
basically your line would just be open. So if you’re fishing and a fish were to
take your bait, it would just keep running and it would take your line up. So you would have a mess basically. It’s not a too big of a problem but you
just want to close that. And then that allows you to to reel the line. I’m glad you told me that I probably would have forgotten to close that. Alright like I said, I think I’m gonna stick with a closed face first. Okay great. So would these same rods work at the beach? Because I see people fishing in the surf all the time when I’m there. If you were going to be fishing at the beach or really any saltwater for that matter,You’d want to use something a little
bigger, a little stronger especially ifyou’re looking at fishing for sharks
which is a popular pastime,Or redfish or some other type of large saltwater fish,You want to go with a rod that’s a little bit stronger, a little bit thicker and the reel will also be a little bit larger. So here you see it’s very similar to the other open-faced spinning reel that we were looking at. But it’s gonna be much larger. It has the same functions same bail have to close the bail just a little bit bigger. Alright so what is this one?this one is a bait caster real. it’s similar in the close face in how you push the the button down. Here you would push the button down but when you’re casting you would actually keep your thumb on the line,And you would sort of let your thumb up and reduce the tension a little bit as you cast the line. Although this is a popular rod-and-reel,I would not recommend it as a first-time rod-and-reel,Some people frustrated because if you don’t do this just right,Your line will get into what’s called a bird’s nest and backlash and it gets pretty messy. We’ll work up to that one eventually. Once you get the hang of it, a lot of people like these for the casting distance. Okay that’s good to know. And last but not least we also have some fly rod and reel combos. I’ve heard of that one several times. Yes these are popular for a lot of people in the Upstate who are fishing for trout or fishing in cold water. It’s a different kind of fishing you’ll lose a lot of flies when you first get started. But it’s just another another type of rod that that you have to choose from. Where are you going fishing, Where are you planning on fishing?I figured just some local lakes maybe the State park,Not too crazy to start out. Okay so
you’ll probably want to look at this this close face spinning reel. Seems like the one to go with. So is this all I’m gonna need to go fishing?Well now that you have the rod and reel picked out,Let’s go get a few other materials and
I’ll show you the rest of what you need. Alright, let’s do it. This all looks incredibly overwhelming. Where do you even start with this?Well I will show you a rig, it’s probably the most common type of rig for live bait fishing, it’s just called a basic Barbour rig. TAYLOR: Sounds easy enough. And how we do that is if you hold this okayBasically the first thing we do is we take a bobber, they come in all sorts of different colors and sizes. TAYLOR: Okay,I like to to place it about about 12 to 12 inches foot and a half above the hook. And once you’ve done that, you’ll want to
take a couple of split shotTAYLOR: What is a split shot?Split shot weights that we have here is basically a weight that will just take some pliers and put it on the line between the bobber and the hook. TAYLOR: OkayAnd that just helps your bait get down a little bit in the water so it’s not floating on the top. TAYLOR: Why would I want that?It’ll keep your bait in place beneath the beneath the bobber and on the hook,And if you were fishing for something like catfish or a bull head or something like thatWhere those normally feed on the bottom, you would just take this bobber offYou would still leave the the weight on where it is with the hook to help you cast that extra weight. So can I add more than one?You can add as many as you really need for the situation. How do you know how many you need?It depends on say if there was there were some wind a lot of winds you might need a an extra weight on there to cast into the windThat makes sense. Or maybe if your your weight of your bait was too light you would need that and I’ll show you some examples here of the debate that we would use. Okay. So here we have some worms. TAYLOR: Alright my favorite. And what you would do is just take this worm and put it on the hook here. And you would you would cast cast your line out as as I showed you earlier. So how do I know what size hook to use for that? Do I use the same size for all
of this stuff?That’s a good question. The size hook that you’ll use really depends on the type of fish that you’re trying to catch. So the smaller the fish, something like a brim or a pan fish, you’ll want to use a smaller hook. This is a size 6 hook which would be fine for a type of fish like that, a brim or a or sunfish. If you were going for something larger like a bass or a catfish you’d want to use a little bit bigger hook. And here you see that’s a
size 2. TAYLOR: WowSo it’s a good bit larger than the
other oneAlright, so if I wanted to go for the South Carolina state record of a largemouth bass, which one of these would I use?You’d want to use the larger one. So do I use the same kind of string for all these same hooks?Much like the hooks the size really depends on the type of fish that you’re targeting. With the type of fishing that you’re going to be doing eight pound test is
really fine. But if you were going for something larger like a really big bass or something like that, you’d want to use a heavier pound test like a twenty pound test or something like that. So if I was going to break the South Carolina state record for largemouth bass, I’d use a twenty pound test?That would be the better choice. I’ll remember that one. So I see the pros using this kind of stuff
on TV all the time and that live bait really grossed me out. So what are my options here?Well when it comes to artificial lures your
possibilities are really limitless. Alot of it depends on where you’re fishing
and what you’re going to be fishing for. So for example, earlier if you didn’t want to use a real worm you could use an artificial one. TAYLOR: I like artificial ones. And other examples would be like a frog or something like you even get as wild as ducks and rats. Really what you’re looking for is something that’s going to be mimicking the type of bait live bait that you would normally use, either through sound or motion or something like that. I didn’t realize that the motion of the bait would affect the fish. it’s good to know. That’s great. I think
these will work for me. This is actually a spinning bait. TAYLOR: What would i catch with this?So earlier when we were looking at that that bait caster reel, these are popular artificial lures to use with those types of reels. You see that a lot of the bass tournaments and those anglers using them. This is designed so that when it swims
through the water these will will flash and create motion to mimic a live fish. Alright I think I might want one of those. Great. I’ve gathered some other things here
that I’d like you to look at. What were you thinking of wearing when you go out on the water?I was kind of thinking what I’ve got on. Jeans, sandals, comfy shirt,Well here I’ve gathered a few choices which may be better for when you go out
on the water. Some of these hook shirts for example are quick dry and they’re also SPF protection. Now for SPF protection from the Sun. That’s important. So you want to look at some some shirts that are breathable, lightweight, protects you from the sun. If you get some splash on you or get wet from fishing they’ll dry quicklyYou also want to look at maybe getting a hat and some sunglasses, maybe some sunscreen also while you’re out on the water. I kind of like this one, what would what would this do?That’s a great choice. The Cabela’s guide where like what we were discussing,It’s lightweight you have long sleeves so
you’re protected from the sun. If that gets wet it’ll dry very quickly so that’s a good choice. I think I’ll take this one with me. Great. I feel so much more prepared now for my trip than I did walking in here thank you so much for all your help. Thanks for coming in, if there’s anything else we can do please let us know. You will definitely be seeing me again.
Thank you. I’m coming for you fish.