Cathcing and cleaning fresh water Bass

Fishing is something I have done from a very young age, as far back as I can remember precisely. My father and grandfather took me out as a young boy and spoke of thing I did on the boat I do not recollect. One time apparently I pushed the boat throttle forward while the boat was still in gear, if you're imagining gear and people flying to the rear end of the bought you thought with accuracy. I have plenty of fishing pictures with myself and numerous species of fish. From popular small mouth bass from the Great lakes of Southern Ontario, Northern Michigan and Ohio, to the salmon of the pacific ocean, sturgeon, hallibut and more. Every fish is unique in the way it fights on the line, what it eats and how it spends its time in the water. Some fish like small mouth bass can be caught with a classic spinner pole, very traditional and easy to use and tie on tackle. Once you have your rod you can easily tie on a hook with a handful of easy steps. ( slide the line through the eyeloop of the hook with approximately 30cm of line you have pulled through. Pull up the lines so they are parallel to eachother just like either side of the roads would be. While holding the hook in your left or right hand in one index finger with help of your thumb hold the end of the line which is still parallel to the line in general with your other hand, thumb and index finger and twist the hook about a dozen or twelve to twenty times. The more times you twist it the longer your final knot will be. This may be tricky at first and requires practice to perfect, one word of advice be patient. The line may untwist on you the first few attempts. Once you have the line twisted enough take the end of the in one hand with your thumb and index finger while still hanging onto the hook with your other thumb and index finger and slide the line through the fire sphere like shape in the line directly above the eyeloop of the hook. This is the second last step because once this is done all you have to do is pull the line tight with a thumb and index finger while using your other thumb and index finger to pull the hook. Pull the line tight and snip off any remaining line with your teeth, scissors, knife, lighter etc. The line should have spherical rings above the eyeloop now for approximately the number of corresponding twists you put in the earlier steps) That is the basic knot for beginners, there is a palmer knot that is also useful and if you check the internet you will find videos on how to tie them there. If you're fishing in an active feeding place that bass prefer all you need is your hook and worm. Typically weights do well to sink the worm in about five or six feet of water. Other useful baits are crayfish, leeches, and minnows which are all environmentally friendly seeing as they contain no plastics. I have used spinner baits and rubber baits as well to catch bass, however my self-esteem is lowered a tad after that because I catch my fish to eat them and nobody feels great about eating plastic. Occasionally bass fishing sometimes results in perch and sunfish catches. These can be very good eating fish if caught in abundance as well. Sometimes a shiney lure works well, you can tie on a liter and swivel just as i described above as you become more experienced at fishing you will realize these tools come in handier. Bass travel to different environments but overall are actually a fragile species when it comes to water temperatures. They normally bite when the water is above eighteen degrees celsius and below twenty five degrees celsius in my experience. They move from depths of four meters to thirty centimeters. They jump out of water to feed and cath their prey. You can catch them in some thin pencil weeds that arise out of the water well over a meter. The bass caught in shallower waters containing weeds are generally large mouth bass. The bass in deeper waters in this case are generally small mouth bass. You will want some decent line in my opinion something strong enough of a test for around three kilograms. Some bass can reach seven to eight pounds on an extraordinary fishing day. On average the bass coming out of lake Erie are are smaller these years around two pounders. However in Northern Ontario these normals rise to the four pound range. Be patient fishing you may have to move around the lake or shoreline and try new spots to catch them. I would recommend trying each spot for twenty minutes or so each. By the end of that time if you haven't had any bites it's time to move to a new spot and get on the fish as they say. Bass will evade larger predators such as pike, pickeral, musky and snapping turtles. You may hook into a pike but that normally makes for a dinner filled with a few more bones depending on how well you are trained with a knife. Once you have caught yourself some bass for dinner, assuming you have the sport license which allows you a maximum of six bass to be in your possesion per day. So you either need to eat those six bass or gift them to have zero in your possession for the next day. If they sit in your freezer, a bucket, on the boat, shoreline or more they are still in your possesion. To prepare the bass for dinner well you can do it however you want. You could even cook the fish as is over a fire and throw some lemons and limes on it and maybe even pickle the eyes for later. But actually, how I clean a fish is in a handful of steps approximately, all you need is a sharp filleting knife. Once the fish is dead preferably especially as a begineer so you do not get any flop or nerve endings splatting around while your hands are slippery and theres a knife in your hand you are ready to be go. Take the precaution to always keep the hand with your knife in it dry. You do not want a slippery hand while holding a knife ever. Especially while cleaning a fish. Have the fish flat on the board with its tail running from your left hand and its eyes closest to your right hand or vice versa. Pinch the tail with your finger nails hard against the board and I mean hard. Slowly slither the knife where the scale begin and the fishs' tail ends. While keeping the knife in the fish you want to maintain the cute all the way along its spine and along its stomach through the anus but do not go through the spine just along it. While sliding the knife through the fish you are slowly slicing through its stomach, intestines and other internal organs. Stay as close as possible to the spine as you can to get the optimum amount of food from your fillet. At this point you should have the knife about seventy percent of the way through the fish but stop once you reach the fin that comes out of the side. Take your knife out of the fish and slide it at about a fourty five degree angle roughly, sometimes it can be as high as fifty five to even sixty degrees to work a correctional cut. Remember this is gritty stuff especially the first time learning to fillet a fish and a handful of times after that but eventually the niche will come. Cut the fish with the knife under that fin all the way to the spine once again and the first side of the fish should be completer with the skin and rib cage still attached. Flip the piece you have extracted from the fish so the scales are on the board. I know at this point there is probably a bit of a mess on the table. This is one way to contain your inner demons for the colour red in a psychologically sain way. Hold the fish so the end the tail was on is closest to your left hand and the head was closest to your right hand or vice versa. Push two fingers or finger nails in the end closest to the fish tail, if theres some skin hanging over that you can get your nailes into that's acceptable and in experienced terms good. Otherwise go slightly into the meat. Slide the knive almost against your fingernails and downto the skin, tilt the knife so it is perpendicular to the fillet you are about to slice off of the skin. Slide the knife along the skin as close to it as possible. You may need to force down on a ten or fifteen degree angle depending on the sharpness of the knive. Food for thought all of these are approximations. Finally the fillet should be free and just about ready for the pan, oven or deep fryer! To get the rib cage out which you will be able to feel with your fingers and see with your eyes. You will need to start from the top of it sliding the knive under the bones while applying grams of pressure upwards to life the ribcage away from the fillet. The fillet under the rib cage may only be five to seven to ten millimeters in thickness depending on the size of the fish and the adequate skills of removing the ribcage. Removing the ribcage can be an articulate and delicate task considering the fragility of the bones. Lastly to remove any additionaly bones put your fingers in a piece sign by the tail end, this time holding the tail end closest to you and the head end furthest away. Between the peace sign and aprroximately one centimeter up there should be the beginning of a row of bones that runes straight for approximately six to eight centimets. All of these sizes are proportional to the size of the fish. Make a cut on both sides along the bone ridge and either pull out the piece or make an additional cut. My elders taught me to do an additional check for bones upon completion removing by hand or knife. Repeat this procedure for the other side of the fillet. This technique is also commong for gathering fillets from perch and pickeral. Useful in many other fresh water fish gatherings as well such as salmon and pike although pike contain an additional Y bone to be removed.