Where to Fish

Finding a good fishing pond is less about luck than most beginners assume. I spent my first two years driving past a dozen ponds within fifteen minutes of my house…

Kayak fishing for beginners looks simple in videos: paddle out, drop a line, reel in dinner. My first real trip took longer to rig than to fish, because I bought…

Beach fishing was the first kind of saltwater fishing I ever tried, and I got it almost completely wrong. I showed up with a bass rod, a handful of freshwater…

The first redfish I ever sight-cast to was tailing in six inches of water on a grass flat near Cedar Key, and I spooked it twice before I figured out…

I started fishing with a borrowed rod, no boat, and a stretch of riverbank ten minutes from my apartment, and honestly that is still how I would tell anyone to…

My uncle has a two-acre pond behind his property that has produced more solid largemouth for me than some lakes I have spent whole seasons on. A bass fishing pond…

The best bluegill spot I have ever fished was a neighbor’s dock two doors down from where I used to rent a lake house, and I never once needed a…

I have caught more fish standing on dirt and rock than I ever have from a boat, and I own a boat. That is not a brag, it is just…

The first time I fished a real fishing pier, the kind that stretches out well past the breakers, I hooked into something big enough to bend my rod into a…

The lake I learned to fish on was a flooded quarry behind my grandfather’s property, maybe fifteen acres, ringed with old fence posts that used to mark pasture before the…