Hello from a still beautiful Foxford. As has been the case over the past few weeks I don’t have a lot to report from the fishing front. I know some people are in the fortunate position that they can access fishing withing the 2k limit but for most anglers its a matter of sitting it out in safety and wait. Thankfully anglers have patience and are used to waiting. We will look on it as an extended closed season and the fish are just getting bigger :). In the end we will be better of for playing our part.

Last week in the Junior/beginner piece we made a simple fishing rod. I was delighted to receive some pictures from a well known Wexford angler who got his daughters involved. They went crab fishing and had some simple fun (see pics). That is what its all about, getting young people involved in the sport and all that goes with it. As I have said before, we as anglers bemoan the fact that young people are not taking up fishing. Its up to us to introduce them to it and we now have this extended closed season to do so. Wouldn’t it be nice to bring a beginner either young or not so young out fishing later in the summer when hopefully these restrictions will be relaxed. The next piece in the beginner section is bellow, its a simple worm set up.

Hi again

Well over the past few weeks we have really talked a lot about fishing. We know our local fishing spot, we know a little bit about the different types of fish we can target, we know about the baits to use, we know lots about rods, reels and fishing line, we know our fisherman’s knot and we have an idea of how to cast.

Casting is something that’s easier learned in practice. Next week I will make another little video demonstrating how to cast and you and ………….. can practice. You don’t actually need to go near the water to practice. You can do it in a field or park or even the lawn at home.

Worm fishing Set up

Today we will look at how we set up our rod for worm fishing. There s no need to panic if you don’t have a rod and reel yet, we have plenty of time. It’s not even summer yet.  You can look at the diagram and in a few weeks when we are all ready to get out and about you can chat with ………….. about getting a rod and reel and you can set it up together.

Your going to need

Rod ,reel and line

1 Barrel swivel

1 Single hook

1 ball of lead ( a pierced bullet, which is a ball of lead with a hole through the center)

A scissors or line clipper ( we never put fishing line in our mouths )

So here’s how we do it

First we attach our spinning reel to our spinning rod, it goes on the reel seat. Next we open the bail arm of the reel so the line can come of the spool freely. Then we thread our fishing line up through the rod eyes been careful not to miss any. Pull a little bit of extra line out so the end of the line comes at least half way down the rod after it has gone through the eyes. Now we need to attach our hook. We will use a single hook. The size of the hook we use will depend on what type of fish we are targeting. …………………. Will advise you on this. I would say that if we are after small fish we use small hooks and if we are after bigger fish like Salmon we use larger hooks.

Just so you know, There’s single, double and treble hooks. Single hooks have one point, double hooks have two points and treble hooks have three points. All hooks are pointy and sharp and can quite easily stick in you. We do not want this to happen so let’s be very very very careful with hooks (and someday you will remember me telling you that 🙂 ).

One other thing about the size of hooks. We use numbers to describe the size of our hooks. Generally, the smaller the number the bigger the hook. So a size 1 hook is much bigger than a size 10 hook. Its just good to know.

We attach our single hook using our fisherman’s knot and remember to leave a little tail on the knot in case it slips. Use a scissors or clipper to cut the line.

The hook is now attached to the very end of the fishing line.  Aproximatley 50cm back toward the rod tip we cut the line. Now we have our single hook attached to the end of a 50cm piece of lie and we have the end of the fishing line coming from the rod tip. Slide the Pierced bullet onto the end of the line coming from the rod tip. Now attach one end of the barrel swivel to the end of the line. To do this, pass the line through the eye of the swivel and make a fisherman’s knot. Attach the 50cm piece of line to the other eye of the barrel swivel.

You should now have a hook, swivel and lead hanging from your rod

…………….. will show you how to put the worm on and later on we will show you how to fish with worms.

Next week we will set up our rods for Spinning and i will also show you a special way to fish with flies using you spinning rod.  Michael 🙂