Joe Cermele - Field & Stream: The Total Fishing Manual: 317 Essential Fishing Skills

has that wonderful quality of being at the same time both joyously simple and fascinatingly complex. At its most basic, it still satisfies. If hooking a panfish on a worm under a bobber doesnt make you smile, you should go see a doctor. At the other end of the spectrum, you can spend your whole life trying to master flyfishing for trout or surf casting for striped bass, and no matter how proficient you become, there will always be more for you to learn.

The key to becoming a truly great angler, and to getting the most out of this book, is to recognize that these two ends of the spectrum are not mutually exclusive. If you pursue both with the same zeal, the sport of fishing can make it easy for you to avoid boredom throughout your life. Thats the goal of the book youre holding in your hands. Field & Stream magazines experts want to make sure that you have the knowledge, skills, and attitude to have a blast every time youre on the water. While they dont ignore the fundamentals, they also draw from a collective well of knowledge that will help you master the subtlety and complexity of the toughest fishing.

Joe Cermele, Field & Streams fishing editor and the author of this book, is the ideal guide for this lesson. Cermele has traveled around the world fishing, and he is one of the most talented anglers Ive ever shared a boat with. He can lay out a long, beautiful cast to drop a fly in front of a bonefish on a Caribbean flatone of anglings most exclusive and sought-after experiences. But he gets just as excited hooking small pickerel in the Pine Barren ponds of his native New Jersey.

For me, the key is to try new things while not forgetting about what youve loved in the past. Lately Ive been obsessed with hiking to small mountain streams to cast tiny flies to small trout that spook as soon as I make a mistake. Im catching a few, but more important, Im learning a lot and loving the challenge. The other thing I find myself doing a lot lately is something I first did as a seven-year-old kid. I net some shiners in a tiny creek running through a local pasture. Then I go to a farm pond and fish them under a bobber. I wont say its easy, but I can do this while sitting in a lawn chair and smoking a cheap cigar. And no matter how many times Ive seen it before, my heart still leaps when a chunky bass smacks the shiner and makes the bobber disappear.

Tactics and tips, tackle and technique, this book will give you the tools. Its up to you to go out on the water and find your fun. Go for it.

ANTHONY LICATA

Editor-in-Chief

Field & Stream

My grandparents on my moms side owned a little bait and tackle shop in central New Jersey. My grandfather on my dads side dragged me to every catfish hole within a 30-mile radius of home as soon as I could walk. After school in the spring and fall, my mom would drive us straight to a local lake where wed catch sunfish together until dark, and my dad and I spent every weekend on our family boat at the Jersey Shore from first grade until I graduated high school. Now, having just turned 30, I can say that fishing is no longer a hobby or pastime for me. It has become a physical need, as important to my mental health as getting eight hours of sleep would be for someone else.

When youre young, all you want to do is catch fish. The outings worth is always defined by the end result. As you grow older, you come to realize that a fishing trip isnt just about what you catch, but about the conversations you have with good friends and family on the water and getting away from the hustle of daily life. For me, the most important thing I take away from a trip these days is knowledge. I may not have caught anything, but if I learned something new that I can use later, it was a good day. Working for Field & Stream has given me the chance to chase many different species of fish all over the world, and I cherish every single one I catch. But in the end, I get the most enjoyment out of meeting new people who share my passion and learning their favorite tricks and techniques.

A lot of those tricks and techniques can be found in these pages. Whether they were shared with me or shared with one of the many other contributors who lent their writing talent to this project, know that the book youre holding is a compilation of wisdom passed on by some of the most hard-working, fish-catching, passionate anglers on the planet. From guides who cast flies on Rocky Mountain rivers, to professional bass anglers with tournament-winning reputations to charter captains who have conquered vast oceans, the gangs all here.

The techniques, tactics, and tools presented in this book are aimed at giving you an edge every time you hit the water and will help you build a lifetime of fishing memories and (hopefully) a laundry list of trophy catches. However, always remember that no angler, regardless of how skilled they believe they are, will ever figure out the game so perfectly that they never fail. Fishing is a constant learning process, and thats what keeps us coming back to the water time and time again. If it were easy all the time, we probably wouldnt want to fish anymore.

JOE CERMELE

Fishing Editor

Field & Stream

Some non-angler walks into my garage, takes one look around, and says: Do you really need that many rods to catch fish? I always answer that question with another question: Do you play 18 holes of golf with nothing but a putter?

No matter how you slice it, there is no one rod, reel, bait, or lure that will get the job done in every situation, or at least not get it done with as much success as gear tailored to each specific fishing task. Choosing the right tackle means thinking about far more than what kind of fish you plan to catch, because gear thats perfectly suited to targeting trout in a lake could be totally ineffective for trout in a stream. How is that possible? Lets assume you have an 8-foot rod and a reel spooled with 10-pound-test line. On the lake, that outfit will send a weighted rig a mile and get your bait to the fish. On a small stream, a rod that long might be much harder to maneuver if overhanging tree limbs and brush flank the water. The 10-pound line will be too stiff and heavy for the tiny trout spinners youll want to use, and wont cast them half as far as a light, whippy 5-foot rod matched with thinner 6-pound-test line. Your surroundings, weight of baits and lures, distance you need to cast, and fighting ability of the fish you want to catch are just a few of the many factors that must be considered when gear shopping.

This chapter is designed to give you a solid foundation in what tackle, baits, lures, and flies are necessary for a wide variety of fishing situations. It will also help you better understand how these key elements of angling success function, so you know exactly what you need and why when you walk into the tackle shop. Youll also get some pointers on gear maintenance, as keeping your tackle well tuned is as important as changing the oil in your car.