Ultralight Fishing Tackle: The Key to Ultralight Fishing Success

Of all manners of fishing my favorite by far is ultralight fishing. It’s interesting to me because the term “ultralight” in many ways is a misnomer. In my opinion ultralight fishing,whether you’re fishing for 20 pound catfish, 10 pound bass, or 5 pound trout it should and can be done using ultralight fishing tackle. To most people this type of tackle conjures up images of tiny little rods and reels and line light enough to be used by spiders to make their webs. Although for some people this may be somewhat true, for most of us ultralight fishing means matching our rods, reels, line, bait, and hooks to the type of fish that we’re fishing for.

In my experience most anglers use fishing tackle that’s much too heavy for the type of fish that they are intending on catching. For example, I’ve seen many trout anglers on various rivers using light to medium action rods spooled with line as heavy as 8-10 pound test! I’ve also seen many normal bass anglers geared up with heavy action rods spooled with 15-20 pound test line. Both of these scenarios are complete overkill and take much of the sport out of fishing in my opinion. Not to mention the fact that using fishing tackle that’s too heavy ends up costing a ton of bites.

The key to ultra light fishing is to match your tackle to the fish that you’re fishing for. I think it’s also important to understand something about fishing line. Did you know that the pound test of your fishing line is the amount of dead weight that line will hold without breaking at its weakest point? This means that six pound test will hold six pound of weight without breaking. And this fact obviously doesn’t take into account the bend of your rod or the drag of your reel for taking tension off of the line. My point is that many anglers are using line that’s entirely too heavy.

Your fishing rod & reel should be purchased after thinking about the type and size of fish that you intend to catch and then obviously matching these to the line you intend to use for the same reasons. When it comes to fishing hooks smaller is normally better as well. A great way to start using smaller fishing hooks is to use gang hooks. When it comes to ultralight fishing tackle gang hooks are a must for the ultralight fisherman that uses bait. Especially is that bait is worms, either live or synthetic.

The key to ultralight fishing success is to match your fishing tackle to the fish that you’re fishing for. We should all stop acting like the pro bass fishermen (who catch fish for money) and thus need to “winch” them in, and bring the sport back to fishing. After all the fun of the fight is the reason we like fishing in the first place, right?


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