I have ben fishing since I was 4 and have caught so many fish that I lost track years ago, but a few fish have made their way to the top of the list.

My Top 5 Most Amazing Fish I Have Caught:

#1. The day I caught a 4 foot long Trophy Carp at Isaac Walton Park Lake. as I finaly reeled it in after about a half an hour it broke my line.  I was so determened to catch it,(after all it was a once in a fishing cereer event ), that I jumped in to the seemingly ice cold water and grabbed the massive thrashing carp by the gills and wressled it up a steep bank!  That was the best fishing experience I have had and I will have for a long time

#2. The time I caught a 15 pound Catfish also at Isaac Walton Park Lake.  When I had finished the strenuous but fun task of reeling that sucker in, I realized I forgot my stringer at home so I got my jacket out and put the catfish inside of it and zipped up the jacket placing it under a shade tree while I walked around and found some string to tie the catfish up.

#3. One day I was fishing and had hooked a small Bluegill and as I was reeling it in a HUGE 5 pound Bass swallowed it whole!  I was able to reel it in after a ten minute fight!  So worth it!

#4 The time I caught an 18 inch Rainbow Trout at Gross Reservoir.  Nothing funny happened on this fishing expedition except that I caught a HUGE fish.

#5. The time I caught a 10 pound Catfish accidentaly with a square bill crankbait lure which is not supposed to happen, because the crankbait lure I was using was strictly a Bass lure.  Awesome luck!

Bait fishing can be a very fun and rewarding type of fishing  even with the somtimes seemingly never ending wait for fish to bite.

A big mistake that is easy to do is reel in the line too early. Adults and kids alike even me somtimes will do this. As long as the bait is still on the hook and the cast was good there is not a reason to reel in the line early.

A good rule of thumb is leave the line in for at least 30 minutes, if all is well more time wont hurt either. But in some rare situations it’s posible to get so many bites that you need to keep replacing the bait frequently. This has happened to me a few times as well.

A good thing to do when fishing is to bring enough tackle in your tackle box to support the amount and type of fishing you will be doing. Well one sunny evening the fish made me learn that the hard way. I was fishing at a great fishing spot I regularly go to called golden ponds. I casted my line out into the cool clear water near some other fisherman with my favorite crankbait lure. Almost instantly i got a strike quickly i set the hook then as I reeled it in to shore it became clear that it was a pretty good sized 3 pound largemouth bass. I put it back and casted again almost instantly i got a bite exactly as before. But a after about 4 to 5 seconds of fighting it it snapped my line disappointed i casted again. Another fish bite and broke my line a second time this happened over and over the fish bite of my lure every time until my tackle box was completely empty. Except for a few hooks and weights  scattered around.  I went home out of tackle in one of my boxes and disappointed.

Nasty old food, rotten meat-things that you wouldn’t eat.  I don’t blame you I wouldn’t eat it either, but it makes great catfish bait.  Catfish love old, rotten, food.  It’s a 5 course meal to them.  A good example is, a few summers ago, I was catfishing at a local pond. The secret to that pond was that there was also a lot of easy-to-catch trout. So the cool thing was, I didn’t need to bring bait at all. Because I would catch a trout and slice it up into chunks with my pocket knife, (also making sure it was not still alive and suffering).

Next, I would put it out in the hot, colorado summer sun for an hour to ferment.  After all of that it was the perfect bait.  My homemade trout-bait caught me over 5 ten pound catfish in that one day.  So my point is, if it smells bad, or tastes rancid, then good!  It might  just make good bait for catfish.

Trout love shiny lures.  They just cant resist biting into something that glimmers and shines. The secret is: the shinier the better!  

This secret is how I have caught countless amounts of trout.  About 70% of the trout that I catch is always on the shiniest lures I can find.

The best lure to buy for the “shine importance” is the Pot-O Gold brand all silver spoon.  It works  very well.  This lure can be found at any Walmart or tackle retailer.