learn to fish

Learn to Fish Resources

Search ILFishing.com

This is your resource for learning about the various aspects of the great sport of fishing. We will provide you with links to information that will help you improve your fishing skills.

There are so many types of fish to pursue, techniques to use, and skills to learn that it is hard to know where to begin. We will organize this learning resource so you can easily find info on how to select your tackle and equipment, where to fish for your favorite species, and how fish behavior affects your fishing.

We will discuss live bait versus artificial lures, spinning gear versus baitcasting outfits, and which fishing lines and knots to use.

We will provide charts about how to identify species of fish species and detail how how their behavior varies, as well as list the state fishing records.

If your're looking for more information about the sport of fishing and fishing in Illinois in particular, this is the place to be.

We will create separate pages for links to fishing information on the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) web sites and for information specifically about bass fishing. Click on IDNR and Bass Fishing to visit these pages.

There will some overlap in information on the various learning pages, so be sure to visit them all.

If you find links to good sources of fishing information for young people, please email them to: youth@ilfishing.com

Getting started in fishing and the species available to fish for:
http://www.bassresource.com/beginner/beginning_fishing.html

Fish ID Chart:
http://www.fishinpals.net/Fish_ID.php

When to go fishing:
http://www.takemefishing.org/uploads/TipSheets/when_to_fish.pdf

Finding a place to fish:
http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/bassmaster/youth/news/story?page=b_youth_FishHoles_JrBMM_0106

How to make a proper cast:
http://www.bassresource.com/fish/casting.html

Types of fishing rods and reels:
http://www.bassresource.com/fish/reels.html http://www.takemefishing.org/typesoffishingtackle2

Types of fishing hooks:
http://www.bassresource.com/beginner/Fishinghooks.html

Fishing accessories such as line, hooks, etc.:
http://www.takemefishing.org/otherfishingtackle

Fishing knots:
http://flyanglersonline.com/begin/knots/ http://www.takemefishing.org/uploads/TipSheets/knots.pdf http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CFPage?storeId=10151&catalogId=10001&langId=-1&appID=84&cmid=SITEMAP http://www.fishinpals.net/Fishing_Knots.html

How to hook and land a fish:
http://www.takemefishing.org/landingafish