Every lesson on FishCast.
Fly, spin, and bait - grouped by learning track. Use search to cut straight to a knot, a hatch, or a technique.
50 cardsFirst Cast
Zero to first fish
Setting the Hook
What to do in the half-second after a fish takes - and how to not blow it.
The Improved Clinch Knot
The only knot you need to tie a fly on. Holds, doesn't slip, fast in the cold.
The Overhead Cast
How to make a fly land where you want it without hooking yourself in the ear.
Your Starter Kit
The shortest list of gear that'll actually catch fish. Skip the marketing.
The Bottom Drift Rig
Bait fished on the bottom, drifting with the current. The simplest effective setup for trout in pools and runs.
The Palomar Knot
The strongest connection between line and lure, especially with braided line. The knot every spin and bait angler should know.
The Slip-Bobber Rig
Live bait at any depth, fished without dragging bottom. The setup that catches everything from panfish to trophy walleye.
The Catfish Bottom Rig
A heavy sinker, a tough hook, and a smelly bait sitting still on the bottom. Catfish hunt with their noses - give the bait time to call them in.
The Inline Spinner Retrieve
A good spinner retrieve isn't a steady reel-in. It's a five-step rhythm that triggers strikes on the pause, not the pull.
The PowerBait Stillwater Setup
The reliable way to put a stocked rainbow in a creel. A simple slip-sinker rig with a small treble, set off bottom and forgotten about.
Worm Rigging for Trout
A live nightcrawler is the deadliest small-stream bait there is. The trick is hooking it so it acts alive in the current, not dead at the end of a line.
Know the Regulations
Before you cast on new water, check the rules. Here is what to look for and why it exists.
Landing and Releasing a Fish
You hooked it. Now don't lose it - and if you let it go, let it swim away healthy.
The Roll Cast
Trees behind you, fish in front? This is the cast that works when a backcast can't.
Building
Presentation, mending, reading water
The Dead-Drift
The most-talked-about cast in fly fishing. Here's what it actually means and why it matters.
Choosing a Crankbait
Pick by depth first, then color, then size. Get those three right and a crankbait fishes itself.
The Carolina Rig
Drag a soft plastic across the bottom on a long leader. The most reliable summer bass rig - and it works for big lake trout, too.
Choosing a Spinner
Inline spinners catch fish, but the wrong choice catches none. How to pick weight, blade, and color for the water in front of you.
Jig Fishing for Trout
A small marabou jig under a bobber catches trout most days, even when nothing else does. The setup, the cadence, and the where-to-cast.
Reading Rises
Splash, sip, or dimple - what the rise form tells you about which fly the fish actually wants.
Streamer Basics
When nothing's rising, big flies on the strip can save the day. The basic rig and three retrieves to learn first.
The Hopper-Dropper
A buoyant terrestrial up top, a heavy nymph below. The summer rig that catches fish where dries alone get refused.
Tying on a Dropper Rig
Running a nymph below a dry - the workhorse rig that gives you a strike chance on the surface and below at once.
Drop Shot for Trout
A bass finesse rig that quietly destroys stillwater trout. Suspend a small bait six inches off bottom and shake - most strikes happen before you even retrieve.
The Egg Loop Knot
The bait knot for steelhead and salmon. Holds soft baits without piercing them - clean drift, intact eggs, less time re-baiting.
How to Mend
A dead-drift only lasts a few feet before the current ruins it. A mend is how you buy more.
Indicator Nymphing
The easiest way to get a nymph down where trout feed, and the on-ramp to euro nymphing.
Matching the Hatch
Bugs are on the water, fish are rising, and they ignore your fly. Here is the order that actually fixes it.
Reading Water
Where fish actually live
Reading a Riffle
Where fish actually feed in fast, broken water - and where they don't.
Eddies and Soft Spots
Slack water inside fast water. Where fish wait between bites.
Pools, Runs, and Riffles
Every stream is a sequence of three water types. Each one fishes differently.
Spring Creeks vs Freestones
Two different kinds of trout streams, two different fishing strategies. How to read each one.
Fishing Seams
If you only learn to read one piece of water, make it the seam. It out-fishes everything else.
Reading a Tailwater
Cold, clear, regulated water below a dam. Different rules than a freestone - and more selective fish.
Where to Cast a Spinner
Reading water for hardware. Adapting the same lie-and-structure logic to lures that pull through the strike zone instead of drifting through it.
Reading Bass Structure
Bass don't live everywhere in a lake. They live on edges. Find the edge between two things - and you've found the fish.
Stillwater Bait Tactics
Bait in a lake isn't bait in a river. No current to drift, no obvious lies - you have to know how trout move through still water before the bait works.
Fishing High or Muddy Water
Rain blows the river out and most anglers go home. The fish don't leave - they just move.
Reading a Lake
A river tells you where the fish are. A lake makes you find them. Here's how to read still water.
Water Temperature and Fish
Trout are cold-blooded, so the water temperature sets the whole day. It is the one number that decides everything else.
Advanced
Euro nymphing, streamers, specialty
Articulated Streamers
Two-hook streamer rigs with a flexible joint between the front and rear bodies. Bigger profiles, more motion, fewer missed strikes.
Euro Nymphing 101
A different way to fish a nymph - no indicator, rod tip leading, line off the water. Catches fish where other rigs can't reach.
Sight-Fishing Basics
Spotting fish before you cast. The visual half of fly fishing - and the most rewarding way to fish on a clear sunny day.
The Spinner Fall
After mayflies mate, they fall to the water dead. Trout gorge. Most anglers miss it because they're looking for splashy rises.
Dry-Dropper for Pocket Water
Pocket water is fast, broken, technical, and full of fish. A short-line dry-dropper lets you cover ten lies a minute - and pick off the trout that other anglers walk right past.
Reading the Surface Film
Half the rises you see aren't fish eating dry flies. They're fish eating emergers stuck in the film - and switching to the right pattern changes everything.
Streamer Retrieves Decoded
Strip-pause, swing, dead-drift, slow crawl. Streamer fishing isn't one technique - it's five, and the right one changes day to day with the water and the mood of the fish.
The Mouse Pattern
Big trout eat mice. Most anglers will never throw one. Dead-of-night, slow strip across the surface - and the biggest browns in your river come out to play.
Cold-Water Spin Tactics
When the water drops under 45F, trout quit chasing, so the whole game is putting it slow, deep, and right on their nose.
Float Fishing for Trout
A long, drag-free drift under a float - the spin-and-bait answer to the fly angler's dead-drift.