1. Less is better, if it can get the job done, the lighter your line and the terminal tackle attached to it, the more fish you fool.
2. Never contaminate your line or terminal tackle with lubricants, insect repellent, sunblock, suntan lotion, or any substance that will repel fish.
3. Keep your line tight. Give a fish slack, and you give it a chance to throw the hook. Also, in order to tire a fish as quickly as possible, its important that you always maintain maximum pressure.
4. No matter how far you cast, the best-looking spot is almost sure to be out of range. Concentrate on casting accuracy, not on distance.
5. Gaffs can be just as deadly to fishermen as to the fish. Keep gaff tips covered until just before use.
6. All unneeded fish should be released to the water unharmed.
7. Whenever you cover a lot of ground searching for fish - be it trolling, circling a lake, walking a river bank, or driving from pond to pond - return to the most productive or promising spot for dusk.
8. To find your target fish, find its ambush site.
9. When you cast your bait to a spot where you think there may be a fish, cast it as if you are 100 percent positive there is a fish. The more you put into a cast, the more you get out of it.
10. When searching for a fish, try a few casts at anything that catches your eye. It may have caught some fish eyes also, and it only cost a few casts to find out.
11. If you can't get the fish to bite on what you have brought, try using what's there to catch - a frog off a lily pad, a grasshopper from the bank, a piece of barnacle off a boulder, a piece of shellfish on a grass patch or any bait fish you can catch.
12. Trophy fish of almost any species are likely to be in the best place to get food without becoming food.
13. When trolling, unless your lines are tangle proof, always turn to the side of your longest line.
14. If the fish are not biting, whatever you do, do not do nothing.
15. The best place to find fish is where you have just found a fish. When you get a strike, keep going to the same spot until you stop getting strikes.
16. The most important technique in trolling is to keep your lines in the water. When they aren't all the other techniques are worthless.
17. If you don't take time to check the sharpness of every hook you use, you are wasting fishing time.
18. Always leave your fishing spots as close as possible to the pristine conditions you found or had hoped to find.
19. A good fisherman always brings a spare knife
20. Too large a bait on a hook does little more than increase the chances a fish will strip it.
21. Bring a variety of baits. Even if you plan on using only artificial bait, always bring along at least a small amount of natural bait - to use as bait, as bait to catch bait, or as chum.
22. A fisherman's tackle should always contain a source of fire.
23. If you don't know if there are fish, or exactly where they are, for your first attempt choose the bait and rig most likely to get you a strike, not the bait and rig that will get you a fish. Once you know there are fish, then focus upon catching them.
24. The most necessary, the most important requirement for an artificial bait is your confidence in it!
25. Last but not least, while fishing, we are actually venturing into the fish's homes. Please respect them by not abusing their environment or the fish themselves, and fishing will have a bright future!
