Bass fishing is a good way to spend your free time, check your skills and finally spend some time outdoors. Sooner or later, however, you might want to actually catch something, spending days on a boat doing nothing gets tiresome after some time. If you want to catch bass fish instead of only going fishing for them, there are some tips below that should help you both in that and in keeping your style.



1. Keep your feet dry. Seal skin socks and a waterproof pair of shoes are must-haves. It will help you a lot, especially if you need to push your boat. Wet feet will spoil the day and will make you think about them instead of bass fish.

2. Keep your rods in a good shape. Use a simple prep pad for cleaning the cork handles on the rod. If the cork is very dirty, it makes your rods look awful. To change it, use a light grade sand paper in order to sand the cork handles. This should be enough to make your rod look and handle like a brand new one.

3. High tech stuff helps. Such things as PDAs are extremely helpful. Logging the conditions, making a "before you go" checklist and storing the useful numbers of other bass fishermen are a good way to increase your fishing comfort AND your results.

4. Prepare yourself. Remember to take spare parts while going fishing sooner or later something WILL break down.

5. Take spare batteries. This will make your life easier and greatly increase your safety.

6. Organize the fishing. Make notes, buy fishing magazines and pay attention to other fishermen.

7. There are a lot of novice anglers who keep forgetting about checking the wheel bearings on the trailers. If you don't do it every springs, expect a serious accident soon.

8. Casting. Bait casting equipment should be cast overhand.

9. Graphite rods. Pay attention to what happens to them - the biggest killer of graphite rods is hitting it against something hard. While it does not break in that spot right away, this creates a weak spot at that point and may end in a rod breaking up for no apparent reason a few months later. Remember about that when storing rods for travel. Make sure the parts of the deck aren't rapping against the rod while you're moving to your position. In case you use a locker, strap them or put them in a horizontal position, and generally, keep them out of the harm's way by preventing the rod's parts from hitting each other.