Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.

Teach a man to fish and that will fill in the time between the end of football season and the start of football season.

Here are some tips on how to make your fishing experience more successful.

Lubricate Reels

It’s an impressive new world for reel lubricants. Readily available products like Xtreme Reel Plus and Reel Saver feature special formulas that allow for extremes of heat and cold. Unlike generic lubricants like silicone, these micro polymer formulas are engineered to be perfect for reducing friction without slowing down gear action or building up gunk inside the reel. Besides lubrication, specialized reel lubricants also increase reel life by protecting against corrosion.

Make Your Plastics Fantastic

1. The Miniskirt For Men
Trim the skirt of your spinnerbaits even with the bend of the hook. Less target area will encourage bass to be more aggressive where it counts.

2. Greater Grubs
If you’re regularly losing the curly tails from your grub lures, try shortening them a bit off the front so the hook is closer to the tail.

Other Easy Lure Mods

1. Wackier Worms
You can improve the movement of a wacky-rigged worm or Senko by pushing a small finishing nail into the head of the bait.

2. Fallback Plan
By pushing a nail into the back of a plastic shad just in front of the tail, then running a plain hook through the nose, the lure will be weighted to drop back when you pause your retrieval.

Switch Bail To Manual

If you pay attention to pro bass fisherman, you will almost never see them trip their bail by turning the handle. The reason being, closing the bail with the handle can often allow a little extra slack to spin onto the reel, causing line twists. The bail can also be the part of a spinning reel most likely to fail or malfunction. A manual bail forces you to close it by hand, which allows you better control of line tension.

To convert the bail to manual, first unscrew and remove the side plate that houses the bail gears, then remove the spring. Some reels need extra work here, such as the removal of small bail-tripping devices. On many models through, removal of the spring will do the trick.

That last one, I have done for about a decade and the difference is amazing. I almost never have those tangles that accumulate if you fish with a bail.

For more DIY and fishing tips, please visit I See I do I Make.