The Matt Walsh Show - Bass Fishing 101

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

Matt Walsh gives an introductory lesson on bass fishing for experienced and novice fishermen alike.  - - - Today’s Sponsor: Balance of Nature - Go to https://balanceofnature.com and use promo code WALSH for 35% off your first order PLUS get a free bottle of Fiber and Spice. - - - Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Find your precise probiotic at a Walmart near you. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. My dream has always been, for as long as I've been in the media business, is to do a fishing video. This is exciting. This is exciting for me. I don't know if it would be exciting for anyone else. We're going to find out if there's any interest in the audience for this kind of concept.

And if there isn't, then there isn't. But I'm interested in it, and that's what's really important. If you're just getting into fishing, if you've never done it before, if maybe the only kind of fishing you've ever done is where you go out with a worm and a bobber, you know, then this will be useful to you. If you're younger and you want to get into fishing, if you're a dad, maybe you want to teach your kids how to fish, these are the basics. This is bass fishing one-on-one.

Of course, the first thing that you need if you're going fishing is a fishing rod and a reel. So there are a couple different types of reels. This is called a spinning reel, which is probably the most common that you'll see a fisherman out there, an angler out there using a spinning reel. There's also kind of the push button. I think those are called spincasters and those. If you're over the age of 12, you shouldn't be using those. If you see like professional anglers, if you're insane like me and you actually watch people fish on TV, you'll see them using something called a bait caster. That's for, if you're, if you've been doing it for a little bit, it's a little bit more complicated, not very complicated,

but it's a little bit harder to use. So this spinning reel is what I like to use most of the time. baycasters. This is a kind of a mid- small to mid-sized lake. We're not going to catch any probably 10 pounders on this lake as much as I'd love to. And so the spinning reel is a great reel for this kind of fishing. We also have about a six and a half foot rod here. And with bass fishing, you want to be about six feet to eight feet at the absolute most for the size of the rod. If you go to Bass

Pro and you see these massive rods that are, that's what she said, that are nine to ten feet, that's like if you're going to catch sharks and salt water, but if you're doing just this kind of fishing, really you don't need to go above seven, seven and half, I don't think. And with rods, you've got light rods, medium rods, heavy rods. It's a very light rod. And because there's a lot, it's very, it's very bendable, as you can see. And I like that because there's more sensitivity to it. You can tell when you have a fish on. What else do you need? You're going to need your hooks. If you go to tackle shop, you're going to see 1-0-0-2-0. That's 1-a-2-0. That's 1-a-2-0.

all the hooks that I have in my little apartment here are four three four five o't hooks this is the kind of hook that I'm going to be using this is a four-aught which for bass fishing is kind of a bigger hook I like the I like the big hooks I cannot lie now again if you're going saltwater then the hooks are a lot bigger but for bass fishing this is kind of a on the bigger side of like the bigger hooks and I also usually use weight now one of the things that you want to look at when you come out are the conditions so right now it's so there's a little bit of a breeze and there's a little bit of a current and so I'm going to use a slightly

heavier weight because when I throw the bait out I want that bait to go vertical and if you don't have weight or if it's a smaller weight then it'll drift you know horizontally we want that vertical motion and so for me in my world this weight is what I would consider a bigger weight even though it's only about a quarter ounce I usually like to go with a 1 eighth ounce or 1 16th ounce so these are the two things that we're going to use so we're going to tie the hook on and we're going to put our hook and weight on and then I'll walk you through really the most important thing which is what the baits, the lords that you're going to use. And I also forgot to mention when you go to the tackle shop,

or you go to Bass Pro, and you want to look for fishing line, it's a little bit overwhelming because there's going to be, you know, hundreds of different kinds of fishing line. This is called a fluorocarbon line, which I think works great for bass fishing, and they're different pounds. So for bass fishing, I think you want to be in the world of like six pounds to 10 pounds, and that tells you how much weight the line can take.

Unless you're very ambitious, you don't need to go above 10 pounds. This is an eight-pound line. It's actually kind of an older line. It's been on this reel for probably about a month, and it's getting kind of a, you want to change the lines out sort of frequently, but I didn't change this out because I'm lazy. We're going to tie this on. There's all kinds of different fishing knots that you can do. And again, a little bit overwhelming if you're just getting into it. What I'm going to do is called a palomar knot, and you'll hardly be able to see this. You can look this up on YouTube. There's YouTube tutorials on how to do a palomar knot. I think that's the quickest, easiest knot to do, and it's very,

You know, you're not going to have a lot of fish breaking off with the palomar knot. If I can actually do it. Once you tie it on, you want to cut the tag end. This is the extra line. You don't want that on. You're going to cut that off. Now you've got your hook and your weight. Now what are you going to pawn the hook? Then we can talk about the baits.

Now, wherever you buy your fishing supplies, very overwhelming, you walk into the bait, the lower section, and there's thousands and thousands of different types. A lot of what are called moving baits. You've got crank baits. You've got spinning baits. You've got different kinds of jigs. You've got top.

water, frogs, all kinds of different baits. But this is bass fishing 101. I think the easiest bait to use, the highest percentage, the kind of bait that really works in any condition, and that's going to be your plastic worm. Now you get all different kinds of worms. This is like a called a stick worm, which are very, very popular. Sanko makes the most popular version of that bait. You've got these kinds of worms that are really like that are kind of a ribbon tail worm. You got to look at the action on the bait. So in the water, that ribbon tail is going to have a lot of action and it's going to attract the fish. What you also have to think about is color. So that's the other overwhelming part. You go, you find there's all kinds of different colors.

The kind of color of bait that you use is going to depend on the conditions, the time of day, and the water clarity. So we've got a bright sunny day. It's late morning. And as you'll see when we get down to the water, it's a very clear water. And I love clear water personally. This is about six to eight feet of visibility, which is very clear. And so for that type of fishing, you want what are called natural colors and so that's that's a color that looks like the color of a fish in the water in other words now if it's getting dark or if the water is really murky that's that's low visibility conditions and then you're gonna want a color that's either very dark very very dark and it creates a silhouette that

the fish will see in the water or bright and that's when you'll see guys fishing these like charteroose yellow bright yellow pink that sort of thing or really dark so for me there's only two kinds of colors that I ever really use because I think they cover any kind of condition and that is a black or really dark blue type of color, or green pumpkin. Probably the most popular color of bait is called green pumpkin, it's a very dark green.

If it's high visibility conditions, I use the green pumpkin. If it's low visibility, I use a black or dark blue, and it always works for me. So the type of bait that we're gonna start with, but I can't recommend enough. So you look at this, this is called a brush hog. That doesn't look like anything that,

if you actually saw this in the lake, then that means that there's been some sort of radioactive spill. You have mutant creatures in the lake, get the hell out, don't swim in it. This does not look like anything that a fish would actually eat. But that's fine because fish are very stupid and they're instinctive and they're reacting to color and they're reacting to movement. They're not thinking to themselves, oh, that doesn't look like something I would eat. They're reacting to movement and color.

What I like about it is it's got a lot of movement. You know, it's got all the kinds of different parts of it that move. There's a lot of action in the water. And so that's going to trigger it. So for the bass and their head to the extent that they have a brain at all, when they see this, they see a bait fish. They see like a panfish, a bluegill. They might see a crayfish. They could see it as a frog. I mean, in their heads they see anything because it's got the color and it's got the movement. So I love these things.

I use these all the time. I'll show you how we put this on. Again, Bass Fishing 101, there's a lot of different ways to do this, but the most common and the easiest and most effective, I think, is called the Texas rig. You're going to take the bait, you're going to put it in on the tip of the hook here. You're going to drag it around like that.

Okay, so you see what we got. And now you're going to put this part of the bait into the hook, And you're gonna bury the hook in the bait. So you can see that it's a very flat, very straight across presentation. The hook is not coming out. The hook is buried in this bait, you see. And that's gonna make it relatively weedless.

And that means that you can fish it in the weeds, in grass, around lily pads, and it won't get stuck. If you have the hook hanging out, that's gonna limit where you can fish it because the hook will get stuck on rocks and logs and sticks and everything, all the muck underneath. Two other things you need if you're gonna go out bass fishing. One is you need something to cut line with.

And I always have, this is a Savivi, I think I carry this everywhere I go all the time, but especially when I'm fishing. So either you got a pocket knife, or you could use little scissors, or even sometimes you see guys with nail clippers. And the second thing that you absolutely need, and it's kind of irresponsible to not have

when you're fishing, are pliers. Because what you're going to find sometimes is that you get a fish on, and if they swallow it, then that hook is going to be hooked. It's gut hooked. The hook is hooked deep down in their throat, basically in their guts. If you don't have pliers to get that hook out,

then you got to cut the line and throw the fish back with the hook caught in its guts and it'll die. And we don't want to do that. We don't want to kill the fish for no reason. So always have something to cut the line, always have pliers. So we'll walk down. I got this all ready to go. I'm going to take a couple other types of worms with us.

So if this isn't working, we can switch it out. Find something that you're confident in, something you think it will work. Go out there, start fishing and then you adjust as you go. So let's head down to the water. So now we're down to the water. I've got my GoPro on. I'm a real YouTuber now. Mom, I've finally made it.

One thing you got to keep in mind when you're fishing, this is one of the basic rules of fishing is that 90% of the fish will be in 10% of the lake. And what that means is that when you look out of the water, most of those spots aren't holding any fish. Okay, the fish like to relate to certain areas of the lake. They like to be in certain areas. So you got to go find them. That's what I like about fishing.

It's hunting. You got to go find the fish. Unless you're going to do live bait, a worm or something, you throw it out with a bobber and you just sit and wait. That can be fun to do with the kids, but I like to go out and do it hunting style. Let's go find them. Let's find where the fish are. Where do fish like to be?

Well, sunny day like today, they like shade. Okay, fish don't have eyelids, so they can't squint when the sun's in their eyes. It's hot, they like cooler water, so you want to look for shade. They like structure in the water. I'm standing on a dock right now, you know? So a dock has its structure, it's also shade, because they can be under the dock.

Tree stumps in the water, logs that have fallen in the water, rocks, anything like that, any kind of structure. They like to be around. If you find isolated structure, what that means is that you look out of the water and all by its lonesome, you see a stick popping up or a stump and there's nothing else around it, there's a very good chance there's going to be fish there because that's the only structure around.

They also like vegetation, because vegetation has bugs and that brings smaller fish. They're going to be looking for the bigger fish you're eating the smaller fish. Vegetation oxygenates the water, and there's also shade. And so I'm looking around what vegetation I see. I see I see right over there.

There's some grass. And I also know, because I know this like, that there's all along here, there's underwater vegetation. Now, if you really get into it and you start researching before you go to over there, searching before you go to a body of water, you get a topographical map. You find out what's happening underneath the surface of the water,

which maybe you don't feel like putting that kind of energy into it. I understand I'm insane fishermen, so I like to get the topographical maps. So I know that there's an underwater creek channel about 20 feet that way. The fish like to be in that. So it's kind of like a divot in the ground

and they like to hang out there. I'm not on a boat right now, so I only can access so much of this lake. So we'll just start fishing and see what we can find. I know what spots I'm sort of targeting. But then you just got to go. How do you operate one of these? This is a, again, this is a spinning reel. You want to hold the line with your finger like this,

and then you flip, this is called the bail, you flip the bail, hold that line with your finger, and then as you're casting it, you let go of the line. Once the bait hits the water, you flip the bail back. I'm going to cast it, flip the bail. One thing you can do, let it hit the bottom, and then you're going to drag it along the bottom like this. I'm already hung up on something.

You reel up to slack and you drag it on the bottom. And that's a good way to target fish that might be feeding off of the bottom. I've already caught something. Look, my first catch. A little clam here. You can't say that I didn't catch something. I did catch something. So there we go.

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kind of bait. They're not interested in the bait that you're throwing. Maybe it's the wrong color. Maybe it's the wrong shape. Maybe it has the wrong kind of action for them. It either means that or it means you're just in the wrong spot. And if you're confident in the bait, and I'm pretty confident in this bait, and I'm very confident in the color for these conditions. So I know I'm not going to change the color up. So if I'm not getting any bites after a while, it just means I'm in the wrong spot. There's no fish around here. Or if they're here, they're not hungry. If we catch something, I'll be able to show you this, but we've covered everything to get us to this point. Then what happens if you get a fish on? How do you know that you have a fish on your hook?

especially if there's no bobber. You're doing traditional bobber fishing. You see the bobbler goes down, you know, you know, you know a fish. How do you know if you don't have the bobbler? Well, there's two ways to know. One is you'll be able to feel it. You're going to feel not just a tug, but you're going to feel something taking the line and moving it. And you're going to watch the line.

You want to see the line. Can you see the line move? Now, the moment you feel the first tug, you want to wait. You want to have some patience because you want to get that fish to get the bait into its mouth and move with it. And as soon as that happens, you're going to do what's called set the hook. Setting the hook is really important. And people that, that fish and are just getting into it, or kind of amateurs, you'll see them, they get a fish on and they just start reeling right away.

You don't want to do that because you're going to rip the hook out of the fish's mouth. So when I know I have a fish on, I'm going to reel down, was that one? Might have been one. I'm going to reel down the slack if I have a fish on. Actually, there is a fish right there. You're going to reel down the slack so you have a tight line. Always keep the line tight. And then you're going to come up like this.

You're basically going to bring, and you're going to do it a lot more. violently than that. Very hard. You're going to bring the rod up to about 12 o'clock position. That's the fun part. Okay, now you have the fish hooked, right? Now you've got to reel it in. But the thing is you're actually not reeling the fish in. You're pulling the fish in. Okay? Again, if you're kind of an amateur, when you're bringing the fish in, all you're doing is you're just, you're doing it all with the reel, and you're just reeling it like this. And what's going to happen is you're going to lose a lot of fish that way, because as you're reeling, it's making the hook kind of jolt around in the fish's mouth, and it might come out. So what you're

actually going to do to reel it in is once you have that fish on you're going to be kind of reeling down the slack and pulling like this reel down the slack pull until you have that fish over here and that's going to keep that hook still in the fish's mouth okay so I've hit this part of the area pretty thoroughly so I'm pretty confident there are no hungry bass in this little area here oh that's another bite yeah there's one there now fish will bite for different reasons. You get what's called a reaction bite, and that's the instinctive just they see it move

and they grab it. You'll get a defensive bite. Defensive bites, particularly if it's during the spawn and the fish are on beds and they're spawning and you drag that bait across a bed, then they're going to attack the bait, they're defending their eggs, defending the bed. And then the best bite that you could possibly get

is they're actually hungry and they're out hunting themselves for something. But the kind of bite I'm getting right now, I'd say it's probably more of a reaction bite or just pure curiosity. You know, fish don't have hands. So they're exploring the world. They're trying to figure out what something is

and they're just sort of nibbling on it. You throw it back, catch and release, do you cook it? I'm catching release. And so, yeah, there are a lot of people who say, well, that's the point. You're just out here fishing all day. You catch fish, you throw them back.

I think the point is the act itself. That's what I like about it. What's the point of anything? Not everything you do has to bring about some immediate tangible benefit. Now you're also learning a valuable skill, so this is a real skill. This is one of the reasons why we have human civilization is fishing. That human beings thousands of years ago figured out how to do some version of this

and we wouldn't have human civilization without it. You know, if the crap ever hits the fan and human society falls apart, will put me on a body of water, give me some fishing tackle, I could probably bring in a fish. So I know that's a skill that I have. And the benefits of fishing are, you know, enjoyment. As I said, you learn patience. You're out in nature. See all the life.

That's the other thing too is that when you're fishing, you want to look for signs of life, especially if you're having a hard time and not catching anything. So you're looking for signs of life. And that's really anything. Obviously, if you see fish in the water, that's a good sign. You want to fish around there. Do you see birds? You see like waterfowl.

Do you see frogs, turtles? Anything. The more active the lake is, the more that you can see you can see. is the more that you can see going on on the surface and around it, then the more likely it is to hold the kind of fish that you're after. It's just important to have hobbies too as a man, and I think in particular as a father, something you can do with your children and pass on to them. I got into it probably when I was about 30, maybe a little young, maybe the 28, 27, 28. So I've been fishing for 10, 12, 13 years because I wanted to have some kind of actual hobby. Aside from, if you don't have a hobby, then what do you end up doing these days?

You end up just all your free time. You're sitting around staring at a screen, and I don't want that kind of life. I mean, I'm glad you're staring at a screen right now, but that's not, that's, you should have more going on in your life than that. Now all my kids know how to fish. In fact, just before we started filming this, my 12-year-old daughter, because I told her we were filming some fishing thing, she wanted me to make sure I tell the audience that she is a very good,

fisher and she's the best in the family aside from me okay so we tried off the dock a little bit and you're limited you can only hit so many spots from the dock haven't been able to get any fish to commit so I got it you gotta get on the move you got to look for them so I'm gonna get into the water and just walk now I know there's a little cove and we can't go all the way to the cove but over there there's some vegetation and as you enter into the cove that's a spot where fish might hang out so I'm gonna get into the water I'm just gonna walk over there see if we can find one prime time for fishing

really early in the morning, especially in the summer. For sun-up until about two hours from the sun-up is 5.30, then from about 5.30 to 7.30, which I really enjoy. Now you've got to drag yourself out of bed. But for me, one of the happiest places to be on Earth is a lake like this at about 6 a.m. on a day where it's going to be really hot, but it's not hot yet. And you've got a cup of coffee, you're just out on the lake, fishing.

And then to about, in my experience, about an hour, 90 minutes to an hour before sundown. So if sundown is 8.30, then prime time starts again at about seven. That's why I've called my biggest fish actually this summer is about 7 to 7.30. Because things are cooling down. The sun's going down, you've got more shade. And the summer, the fish are just going to be more active when it's cooler. When they've got enough light that they can see, but it's still cooler. But right now, I am just striking out. Now, one important tool you have to have with you, aside from your knife and your pliers, is your excuses. When you're not catching anything, like I'm not right now, what's your excuse?

You've got to have a good excuse. What are you going to blame for that fact? Because it can't just be that you suck at fishing. So for me right now, the excuse that I'm landing on is a time of day. I'm going with a time of day excuse. And also location. There's still fish there. Cannot get him to commit, though.

What's going to happen, I'll tell you right now what's going to happen, is we're going to finish up filming, and then I'm going to keep fishing, and then I'm going to catch one. That's what's going to happen. Well, as the prophecy foretold, as soon as we stopped filming and the gear went away, I decided to go back out of the water.

I can't end a fishing day without catching anything. It took about five minutes, and I finally caught one. This not a big one. This is a large mouth bass. The difference between a small mouth and a large mouth is that the large has a larger mouth. And also it has a horizontal line which you can sort of see going across its body. There's maybe a pound and a half, two pounds, not a huge one. But we did catch one on the brush hog in the kayak. So it still sort of counts.

And there it is and we'll put them back. Does that mean we don't have to do another fishing video? No, because now we have to do another one. do another one so that we can catch a bigger fish and actually reel it in on camera. So stay tuned. USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With USAA, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a quote at usa.com slash bundle.

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