If you don’t know where to begin, the first thing you want to do is find information. So do a quick online search on the fishing report of that specific plate. If that doesn’t fill up anything, go to your local bait shop. Then, you pick up worms or minnows (as the bait shop owners they’ll give you a lot of information).

Whenever you go to a lake, there are two baits you should not go to the lake without. One is worms, and the other is minnows. There’s a reason why these are in every bait shop across the US, and that’s because they work so well on most fish species in America.

Always open up the container before you buy in because sometimes they are dead or really weak.

There are all sorts of different types of reels and fishing: spin cast reels, spinning reels, bait casting reels, fly reels, bow fishing. There’s probably a hundred of different ways to fish or even more than that.

But what most people do start off with is something like a spin cast reel. It works simply:  you press the button, it releases the thing, so you hold down the button, and then you just cast.

More advanced gear gives you more control. I don’t recommend anything too complex for a beginner. A starter kit sounds like a good idea.