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By Trevor Kugler
Has anyone had the experience of getting to your favorite trout stream, wading out into the water, then reaching into one of your pockets to add a couple of split shot to your line, only to then realize that you don't have any with you! Son of a bit.......!!!! This is no fun. Having your fishing equipment stocked up ready to go is paramount to your enjoyment.
One of my mottos is, "if you think you have enough of whatever type of terminal tackle that you may use, add one more package." For most of my river fishing excursions, I will almost exclusively use, split shot sinkers, swivels, gang hooks, and live bait (mostly worms). That's really all of the fishing gear that I need with me, but I need plenty of it. With the style of fishing I learned from my mentor, you get snagged a lot. And that means that you retie quite a bit. And that means that to have extra stuff, rather than not enough.
It's always a good idea to have extra line with you as well. I've seen many, many anglers who don't change their line nearly enough. I personally use four pound test, and with the amount of fishing I do, I have to change my line at least once a month. When fishing with line this small, catching one big fish can all but ruin it. So having an extra spool or two of line with you, it's a must. This way you can just change your line on the bank of the river, rather than having to go home.
I can't lie here though. Although split shot, gang hooks, swivels, and live bait are the fishing equipment I use most, I also have a couple of small boxes of spinners, spoons, and rapala's in my vest as well. After all, I am an angler, and as we all know you can never have enough crap. But there are days when the fish just won't even look at a worm, and for example, the only thing that you can catch them on is a 1/8 ounce black Rooster Tail. I've had this exact experience before. I caught 18" Rainbow Trout every second or third cast on a black Rooster Tail, and I hadn't even gotten a bump on anything else for three hours. And during the time that I was catching those trout, I got snagged and lost my Rooster tail. Now what do you think might have happened if I didn't have another one that was exactly the same in my vest? It wouldn't have been good if there had been children within earshot, because the profanities would have been flying. But as it was, all was well, because I always carry back-ups. I would suggest that you do the same.
How about wading a mile and a half downstream in 40 degree weather and realizing that there's a hole in your waders? Oh yea, this is no fun either. To be truly ready to wade fish, for god's sake, carry a patch kit in your vest as well. If anything like this happens to you, you'll be thanking old TK. Hopefully I've given you something to consider at least.
Trevor Kugler
Co-founder of JRWfishing.com
Trevor has more than 20 years of fishing experience, and specializes in ultralight river fishing.
http://www.jrwfishing.com - products and information to save you time and help you catch more fish.
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