A Beginner's Guide To Flats Fishing

(A parody of life, love, and fishing)

By Mark Bellotte (aka CooKnFish)

Some call it the battle of the sexes. Some call it sacrilegious.  Some would like to call it chum. However you look at it, there comes a time when your lover/girlfriend/wife decides that they want to learn how to fish (so they can spend more time with you). I have spent countless hours in researching and studying how to go about teaching your other half how to fish. Here are some of my notes and experiences to share with you in hopes to help out my fellow fishermen.

Step 1: Casting and Catching   First you need to teach them the basics to build their confidence and get acclimated to the fishing scene. Casting ability is going to take some time and practice. At first you will want to keep them in open water. I made the mistake of trying to teach my girl how to pitch docks too early in her studies. Needless to say that poor old man was a little upset to find a woman muddling through his flowerbed right outside his window. I was entertained by it but she was not happy. (The tears of laughter streaming down my face might have had something to do with it) So to keep her happy and interested, I needed to make sure she was catching fish. Women do not like to go fishing just to sit around holding a pole between their legs and not doing anything with it. You have to make that pole wiggle, jiggle, and shake! Show them how to use live bait and a float and put them on a school of (what else) Ladyfish. The aerial acrobats will keep them entertained for hours upon hours.

Step 2: Working with bigger fish   After they get comfortable with actually having something at the other end of the line pulling back, you can teach them how to handle fighting bigger fish. It never fails… if you turn your back for the slightest moment they always seem to hook into the biggest fish of the day. Just in case, it is a good idea to make sure they can handle the battle until you are able to assist. Even though they are nasty, slimy, ugly denizens, there is nothing like a tug-o-war with an 8 lb. Sailcat from a canoe. A great place to find these are on the backside of Weedon Island. You have beautiful natural scenery of the preserve and the sailcats are willing to hit just about anything… especially DOA! That leads us to Step 3.

Step 3: Artificial Baits   If your woman is like mine, she smirked at me when I tied on a DOA shrimp and said, “You’re never going to catch anything on that. I have never seen anyone catch anything using a lure”. Using the same schools of ladyfish and sailcats, and maybe even find a good school of jacks, DOA makes it real easy for them to enjoy the tug of a catch using a lure. The excitement of having a top water snapped at will keep them wondering why they even used live bait in the past.

Now you have her all chummed up with new knowledge and experiences. They can’t wait to catch the good stuff like reds, snook, and trout. They know just enough to work a lure and get the hits. Keep an eye on them so they don’t get themselves in trouble like stuck in the mangroves, rocks, someone’s flowerbed and coach them with little bits of advice. Also, you want to pay attention to where they are casting and where they felt the hit. You’ll know when she gets the hit. She will be so excited and can’t wait to tell you, “OO-OO-OO… I felt a hit!” That’s when you turn around and cast in the same area! You know there’s a fish there so all you have to do is use the expertise that you have not quite taught her and… BAM! Now you have caught 4 snook, a red, 2 trout, 2 ladyfish, and 2 jacks all in 2 hours while she managed to catch 1 lil’ grass grouper.

Fish on my brothers! Go and teach your women how to fish!

By the way, I am being forced to mention that my sweetie can now bait her own hook, tie her own knots, and has the ability to skip DOA shrimp under docks and mangroves. She also has her own kayak and swears she will out fish me. Now that she has graduated Fish Camp, she is working on her Master Baiter degree. So be careful guys! Once they get hungry, they might turn on the hand that fed them the knowledge

Return Home