Fishing Terms: 690+ Words, Slang and Acronyms Anglers Use

Fishing terms sort into thirteen groups: the tackle, the hooks and weights, the lures and rigs, the ways of fishing them, fly fishing, ice fishing, boats and electronics, the fish, the water, tournaments, the rules, and a thick layer of slang and acronyms on top. All 690 are defined below in plain words, alphabetical inside each group, with the number attached wherever a term has one. Ten of them carry a first day of fishing:

1. Tackle: all the gear you fish with, from the rod to the hook.
2. Cast: the throw that sends the bait or lure out with the rod.
3. Pound test: the pull a line takes before it breaks; 8 lb test covers most first trips for panfish, trout and bass.
4. Drag: the brake in the reel that lets a strong fish pull line out instead of snapping it.
5. Bail: the wire arm on a spinning reel; open it to cast, close it to reel.
6. Bobber: the float that holds a bait at one depth and goes under when a fish takes it.
7. Sinker: the weight that takes a bait down and adds casting distance.
8. Lure: an artificial bait made to look or move like food.
9. Hookset: the sharp lift of the rod that drives the hook home when a fish bites.
10. Bag limit: the number of fish of one species the law lets you keep in a day.

The world-record largemouth bass is a tie because of one line in the rule book. A fish under 25 lb has to beat the old record by 2 oz, and the 22 lb 4.97 oz bass Manabu Kurita caught in Japan in 2009 beat George Perry’s 22 lb 4 oz fish from 1932 by less than one.

The full story of both fish is in the world-record largemouth bass. New to all of it? Start with fishing for beginners, then come back for the words.

A to Z index

The terms anglers look up most, by first letter. Each one jumps to the group where it is defined.

• A: action, angler, aught
• B: backlash, bag limit, baitcaster, bobber, braid, bucketmouth
• C: Carolina rig, catch and release, chatterbait, chop, circle hook, co-angler, cover, crankbait, culling
• D: dink, drag, drop shot, dry fly
• E: eater, eddy
• F: finesse fishing, flasher, flipping, fluorocarbon, forward-facing sonar
• G: gator, gear ratio
• H: hatch, hawg, honey hole, hookset
• I: IGFA
• J: jerkbait, jig
• K: keeper, kicker
• L: leader, livewell, lunker
• M: match the hatch, monofilament
• N: Ned rig, noodling, nymph
• O: offshore
• P: panfish, PB, pitching, possession limit, power
• R: riffle
• S: side imaging, skunked, slab, slot limit, snell, spinnerbait, Spot-Lock, structure, swivel
• T: terminal tackle, Texas rig, thermocline, tight lines, tippet, tip-up, trolling
• U: ultralight
• W: wacky rig, walk the dog, walleye chop, weigh-in
• X, Y, Z: X (tippet size), YOY, yo-yoing

What anglers say and what they mean

Rods, reels and line

A rod carries two ratings that beginners mix up: power is how hard it is to bend, action is where it bends.

• Action: Where a rod bends under load. A fast action bends in the top third, a moderate action into the middle, and a slow action through the whole blank.
• Anti-reverse: The mechanism that stops a reel handle from turning backward, so the hookset is solid.
• Arbor: The center of a reel spool. Line is tied to it with an arbor knot; a large arbor picks up more line per turn.
• Backbone: The stiff lower section of a rod that does the lifting once the tip has bent.
• Backlash (bird’s nest, professional overrun): The tangle on a baitcaster when the spool spins faster than line leaves it. Brakes, spool tension and a trained thumb prevent it.
• Bail: The wire arm on a spinning reel that guides the line onto the spool. Open it to cast, close it by hand or with a turn of the handle.
• Baitcaster (baitcasting reel): A reel with a revolving spool that sits on top of the rod. It is accurate and strong, and the standard for bass lures over about 1/4 oz.
• Ball bearings: The small steel bearings that make a reel turn smoothly, listed as 5+1 and the like. Quality matters more than the count.
• Blank: The bare rod before guides, handle and reel seat are added.
• Braid (braided line, superline): Line woven from synthetic fibers. It is thin for its strength and has almost no stretch; 30 lb braid is about as thick as 8 lb mono.
• Brakes: The centrifugal or magnetic system in a baitcaster that slows the spool during the cast to prevent a backlash.
• Butt: The handle end of a rod, and the thick lower section of a fly leader.
• Cane pole: A simple pole with a fixed length of line tied to the tip and no reel. Generations learned to fish for bluegill with one.
• Casting rod: A rod built for a baitcaster or spincast reel, with small guides on top and a trigger under the reel seat.
• Conventional reel: The saltwater name for a revolving-spool reel, used for trolling and bottom fishing with heavy line.
• Copolymer: A nylon line made from two or more polymers, with less stretch and memory than plain mono.
• Drag: The adjustable brake in a reel that lets a fish take line under pressure. A common setting is a quarter to a third of the line’s breaking strength.
• Ferrule: The joint where the sections of a multi-piece rod fit together.
• Fiberglass: The heavier, slower, tougher rod material. Its soft bend keeps treble hooks pinned, so many crankbait rods are glass.
• Fluorocarbon: Line that sinks, resists abrasion and is harder to see under water than mono. It is the usual leader material; how it differs from nylon is in fluorocarbon vs. monofilament.
• Free spool: A reel disengaged so line runs off with no resistance, as during a cast or while a fish runs with a bait.
• Gear ratio: Spool turns per turn of the handle, written 7.1:1. Around 5:1 is slow and strong, around 7:1 is all-round, and 8:1 and up is fast.
• Graphite: The light, stiff, sensitive carbon material most modern rods are made of.
• Guides: The rings along a rod that carry the line. The one at the very end is the tip-top.
• Inches per turn (IPT): The length of line a reel takes in with one turn of the handle, a more honest speed figure than gear ratio.
• Lead-core line: Trolling line with a lead center, colored in 10-yard sections. A rough rule is about 5 ft (1.5 m) of depth per color at 2 mph.
• Leader: A length of different line between the main line and the hook or lure, added for stealth, abrasion resistance or protection from teeth.
• Level wind: The guide on a baitcaster that travels back and forth to lay line evenly on the spool.
• Lever drag: A drag set with a lever on the side of a conventional reel, with preset strike and full positions; standard offshore.
• Line capacity: How much line of a given size a spool holds, printed on the reel as 12/120: 120 yards of 12 lb line.
• Line memory: A line’s habit of keeping the coils of the spool. Stiff, thick mono and fluorocarbon have the most.
• Line roller: The small wheel on a spinning reel’s bail that the line runs over. A stuck roller twists line.
• Line twist: Twist built into the line by a spinning lure or by reeling against a slipping drag. It shows up as loops and tangles.
• Lure rating: The range of lure weights printed on a rod, such as 1/4–3/4 oz, that the blank is built to cast.
• Main line: The line on the reel, as opposed to the leader tied to its end.
• Monofilament (mono): Single-strand nylon line. It stretches, floats or sinks slowly, knots easily and costs the least.
• Pound test (lb test): The pull, in pounds, at which a line is rated to break: 10 lb test. Many lines break above the label; IGFA-rated lines break at or below it.
• Power: The force it takes to bend a rod: ultralight, light, medium-light, medium, medium-heavy, heavy, extra-heavy. A medium-heavy bass rod typically handles 12–20 lb line.
• Reel seat: The fitting on the handle that clamps the reel foot to the rod.
• Rod and reel combo: A rod sold with a matched reel, often already spooled with line.
• Rod holder: A tube or cradle that holds a rod on a boat, bank or pier while the bait soaks.
• Shock leader: A heavy leader, several rod lengths long, that takes the strain of casting a heavy sinker in the surf.
• Spincast reel (closed-face reel, push-button reel): A reel with the spool under a cone and a thumb button to cast. It is the classic first reel for kids.
• Spinning reel (open-face reel): A fixed-spool reel that hangs under the rod. It is the easiest reel for casting light lures.
• Spinning rod: A rod for a spinning reel, with the guides underneath and a large first guide to gather the coils of line.
• Spool tension knob: The cap on the handle side of a baitcaster that sets how freely the spool turns. Set it so the lure falls slowly when the reel is in free spool.
• Spool: The part of the reel that holds the line. To spool a reel is to fill it with line.
• Star drag: A star-shaped wheel beside the reel handle that tightens or loosens the drag.
• Tackle: All fishing gear together. The word first meant a ship’s rigging and has been used for fishing gear since the late 1300s.
• Telescopic rod: A rod whose sections slide into each other for travel.
• Thumb bar: The bar on a low-profile baitcaster that you press to put the reel in free spool.
• Tip-top: The guide at the very tip of the rod.
• Ultralight: The lightest class of tackle: a soft rod, a small reel and 2–6 lb line for panfish, trout and small lures.

Hooks and terminal tackle

Terminal tackle is everything tied to the end of the line: hooks, sinkers, floats, snaps and swivels.

• Aught: The “/0” in hook sizes above size 1: 1/0 is said “one aught.” These hooks get bigger as the number rises, up to 20/0 for sharks.
• Bait-holder hook: A hook with small barbs on the back of the shank that keep a worm from sliding down.
• Bank sinker: A teardrop-shaped weight with a molded eye, for bottom fishing in current.
• Barb: The small reverse point behind the hook point that keeps the hook from backing out.
• Barbless hook: A hook made without a barb, or with the barb pinched flat. Some trout and salmon waters require it.
• Barrel swivel: The basic swivel: two eyes on a barrel-shaped body that turns.
• Bead: A plastic or glass bead threaded between a sliding sinker and the knot to protect the knot, and to add a click.
• Bell sinker (dipsey sinker): A bell-shaped weight with a swiveling wire eye on top.
• Bend: The curved part of a hook between the shank and the point.
• Bobber (float, cork): A float that holds bait at a set depth and dips or runs when a fish takes. “Cork” is the Southern word.
• Bobber stop: A small knot or rubber stop on the line that sets how deep a slip bobber fishes.
• Bottom bouncer: An L-shaped wire with a weight on the long arm. It ticks along the bottom while a spinner rig trails from the short arm; a walleye staple.
• Bullet weight (worm weight): A cone-shaped sliding sinker, the weight of a Texas rig. Sizes run from 1/16 oz to more than 1 oz.
• Circle hook: A hook whose point turns back toward the shank, so it slides to the corner of the mouth and catches there. You do not jerk to set it; you reel tight. It is required with bait for striped bass on the Atlantic coast.
• Crimp (sleeve): A small metal tube squeezed with pliers to fasten heavy mono or wire where a knot will not hold.
• Dropper loop: A loop tied in the middle of a line to carry a second hook or fly.
• Egg sinker: An egg-shaped weight with a hole through it that slides on the line, used on Carolina rigs and catfish rigs.
• EWG hook (extra wide gap): A worm hook with a deep, wide bend that leaves room for a thick soft plastic to collapse on the hookset.
• Eye: The loop at the top of a hook where the line is tied. How to tie it is in how to tie a hook.
• Gap (gape): The distance between the hook point and the shank. It decides how much the hook can grab.
• Hook size: The number on the packet. From size 1 down, hooks get smaller as the number rises (a 10 is small, a 32 is tiny); from 1/0 up they get bigger. The hook size chart shows every step.
• J-hook: The traditional hook shaped like the letter J, set with a firm sweep of the rod.
• Kahle hook: A wide-bend hook halfway between a J-hook and a circle hook, popular with live shiners and minnows.
• No-roll sinker: A flat sliding sinker that stays put in river current; a catfish standard.
• Octopus hook: A short-shank hook with an eye bent back, used for live bait, drop shots and snelled rigs.
• Offset hook: A worm hook with a Z-bend below the eye that holds the nose of a soft plastic in place.
• Point: The sharp end of the hook.
• Popping cork: A float with beads on a wire that clacks when you jerk the rod, calling redfish and speckled trout to the bait below it.
• Pyramid sinker: A pyramid-shaped weight that digs into sand, for surf fishing.
• Shank: The straight part of a hook from the eye to the bend.
• Sinker (weight): Any weight on the line. Lead is traditional; tungsten, steel and bismuth replace it where lead is restricted.
• Siwash hook: A long-shank single hook with an open eye, used to replace the treble on spoons and spinners.
• Slip bobber: A float that slides freely on the line until it meets a bobber stop, so you can fish 20 ft (6 m) deep and still cast.
• Slip sinker: Any sinker with a hole that lets the line slide through, so a fish can run with the bait without feeling the weight.
• Snap: A small wire clip for changing lures without retying.
• Snap swivel: A snap and a swivel in one piece. It is handy for spoons and spinners and too much hardware for most other lures.
• Snell: A knot that wraps the line around the hook shank instead of tying it to the eye. A snelled hook is one sold with a leader already attached.
• Split ring: A tiny double ring, like a key ring, that connects a hook or line tie to a lure.
• Split shot: A small round weight with a slit, pinched onto the line with pliers or fingers.
• Stinger hook (trailer hook): An extra hook behind the main one for fish that strike short.
• Swivel: A small fitting with two eyes that turn independently, to stop line twist and join main line to leader.
• Terminal tackle: The collective name for hooks, weights, floats, swivels, snaps and beads.
• Three-way swivel: A swivel with three eyes: one for the main line, one for a weight line and one for the hook line.
• Treble hook: Three points on one shank, standard on crankbaits, spoons and spinners.
• Tungsten: A metal denser than lead. A tungsten weight is smaller for the same weight and transmits the feel of the bottom better.
• Walking sinker: A boot-shaped slip sinker that slides over rock without wedging; the weight of a Lindy rig.
• Weed guard: A wire or fiber brush in front of a hook point that keeps it from snagging.
• Wire leader: A short steel or titanium leader that pike, muskie, bluefish and mackerel cannot bite through.
• Worm hook: A hook built for rigging soft plastics, in offset, EWG and straight-shank shapes. The other families are in types of fishing hooks.

Lures, baits and rigs

A lure is artificial, bait is natural, and a rig is the way hook, weight and line are put together. The families are sorted in types of fishing lures.

• Alabama rig (umbrella rig, A-rig): A wire frame with several arms that swims a small school of swimbaits at once. It took over bass fishing after Paul Elias won an FLW Tour event on Lake Guntersville with it in October 2011.
• Artificial: Any lure, as opposed to natural bait. “Artificials only” is also a legal rule on some waters.
• Bait: Natural food on a hook: worms, minnows, cut fish, shrimp, dough. Bass anglers also call any lure a bait.
• Blade bait: A thin metal lure with a weighted nose that vibrates hard when lifted; a cold-water lure.
• Blade: The spinning or flashing metal part of a spinner, spinnerbait or blade bait.
• Bucktail: Deer-tail hair tied on a jig or a treble hook. A bucktail jig is a saltwater standard; in muskie fishing a bucktail is a large inline spinner.
• Buzzbait: A wire topwater lure with a propeller blade that churns and squeaks across the surface.
• Carolina rig (C-rig): A sliding weight and bead ahead of a swivel, then a leader of 1 to 4 ft to the hook. The weight drags the bottom while the bait floats behind.
• Chatterbait (bladed jig): A jig with a six-sided blade hinged at its nose that makes the whole lure shake. ChatterBait is Z-Man’s brand name; the generic term is bladed jig.
• Colorado blade: A round spinner blade that thumps hard and lifts the lure; for muddy water and slow retrieves.
• Countdown: Counting seconds while a sinking lure falls, to fish the same depth on every cast.
• Crankbait: A hard-bodied lure with a plastic lip that makes it dive and wobble when reeled. The length and angle of the lip set the depth.
• Crawler harness (spinner rig): A leader with two or three hooks, beads and a spinner blade, baited with a nightcrawler and trolled or drifted for walleye.
• Creature bait: A soft plastic with flaps, arms and claws that looks like nothing in particular and moves a lot of water.
• Cut bait: Chunks or strips of fish used as bait, the standard for big catfish.
• Damiki rig: A small straight-tail minnow on a jighead with a 90-degree line tie, held still under the boat over fish seen on sonar.
• Deep-diving crankbait: A crankbait with a long lip that reaches 12 to 25 ft (3.5 to 7.5 m) or more.
• Dough bait: Scented paste molded on a hook for stocked trout and catfish. PowerBait is the best known.
• Drop shot: A hook tied 6 to 24 in above a weight at the end of the line, so the bait hovers off the bottom.
• Fish-finder rig: A surf rig with the sinker on a sliding sleeve above a swivel, so a fish can take line without moving the weight.
• Float-and-fly: A tiny hair jig hung 8 to 14 ft under a bobber on a long rod, for winter smallmouth in clear highland lakes.
• Florida rig: A Texas rig with a weight that screws into the nose of the soft plastic so it cannot slide.
• Fluke (soft jerkbait): A soft-plastic baitfish shape with a forked tail, twitched just under the surface. Named for the Zoom Fluke.
• Football jig: A jig with a wide, football-shaped head that rocks over gravel and rock without tipping.
• Free rig: A soft plastic on a bare hook below a free-sliding ring weight. The weight falls first and the bait glides down after it.
• Frog: A hollow, weedless topwater lure for mats, pads and scum.
• Glide bait: A big, single-jointed hard swimbait that swings wide left and right on each turn of the handle.
• Grub: A short soft-plastic body with a curly tail, usually on a jighead.
• Hair jig: A jig dressed with bucktail, marabou or rabbit instead of a rubber skirt.
• Hard bait: Any lure with a hard body: crankbaits, jerkbaits, topwater plugs.
• High-low rig (chicken rig): A saltwater bottom rig with two hooks on dropper loops above a sinker.
• Indiana blade: A teardrop-shaped blade between a Colorado and a willow in flash and thump.
• Inline spinner: A blade that spins around a straight wire shaft with a weighted body and a hook behind. The Rooster Tail and the Mepps Aglia are the classics.
• Jerkbait: A slim minnow-shaped hard lure worked with jerks of the rod and pauses.
• Jig: A hook with a weighted head molded onto it, dressed with a skirt, hair or a soft plastic. It may be the most widely fished lure there is.
• Jig and pig: A skirted bass jig with a pork-rind or soft-plastic chunk trailer.
• Jighead: The bare weighted hook of a jig, for rigging soft plastics. Common weights run from 1/32 oz to 1 oz.
• Jointed lure: A hard lure built in two or more hinged sections for a looser swimming action.
• Lindy rig: A walking sinker, a swivel and a 3 to 6 ft leader to a small hook with a leech, minnow or nightcrawler. It is the classic live-bait rig for walleye.
• Lip (bill): The plastic or metal plate on the nose of a crankbait or jerkbait that makes it dive.
• Lipless crankbait: A flat-sided, sinking, rattling crankbait with no lip and the line tie on its back. The Rat-L-Trap gave the type its nickname, “trap.”
• Live bait: Any living bait: worms, minnows, leeches, crickets, crayfish, shiners, shrimp.
• Lure: Anything artificial with a hook that is made to draw a strike. A rundown by fish is in the best fishing lures.
• Ned rig: A 2.5 to 3 in buoyant stick bait on a light mushroom jighead. Named for Kansas outdoor writer Ned Kehde, who made it known.
• Neko rig: A wacky-rigged worm with a nail weight pushed into one end, so it falls nose-first and stands on the bottom.
• Nightcrawler: A large earthworm, the most widely used live bait in fresh water.
• Paddle tail: A soft plastic whose tail ends in a flat boot that kicks side to side on a steady retrieve.
• Plug: The older word for a hard-bodied lure, still common in salt water and for topwaters.
• Popper (chugger): A topwater plug with a cupped face that spits and pops when twitched.
• Prop bait: A topwater plug with a propeller at one or both ends.
• Punch rig: A heavy tungsten weight of 1 oz or more, pegged above a compact soft plastic on a stout hook, built to break through matted grass.
• Rattle: A chamber of beads inside a lure, or a glass tube pushed into a soft plastic, that adds sound.
• Ribbon-tail worm: A plastic worm with a long, thin, curling tail; a summer standard on a Texas rig.
• Sabiki rig: A string of six or so tiny feathered hooks jigged to catch baitfish.
• Santee Cooper rig: A catfish Carolina rig with a small float on the leader that lifts the bait off the bottom. It is named for the South Carolina lakes; more setups are in catfish rigs.
• Scent: A liquid, gel or built-in flavor meant to make a fish hold a lure longer.
• Senko (stick bait, stick worm): A thick, straight soft-plastic worm that shimmies as it sinks. Gary Yamamoto’s Senko named the type.
• Shaky head: A light jighead with a screw-lock or wire keeper that stands a finesse worm tail-up on the bottom.
• Shiner: A silvery minnow sold as bait. A wild golden shiner is the trophy largemouth bait in Florida.
• Skirt: The collar of silicone or rubber strands on a jig, spinnerbait or buzzbait.
• Soft plastic: Any lure molded from soft plastic: worms, craws, grubs, tubes, swimbaits.
• Spinner: A lure with a blade that turns around a wire shaft. Yes, it is a fishing term three times over: this lure, a spinning-reel angler, and a spent mayfly in fly fishing.
• Spinnerbait: A V-shaped wire lure with one or two blades on the upper arm and a skirted, weighted hook on the lower.
• Spoon: A curved piece of metal that wobbles and flashes. Casting, trolling, jigging and weedless spoons are the four families.
• Spybait: A small sinking minnow with a propeller at each end, reeled slowly and steadily in clear water.
• Squarebill: A shallow crankbait with a square lip that kicks off wood and rock instead of hanging up.
• Stink bait (punch bait, dip bait): A strong-smelling paste for channel catfish, held on a treble hook, a sponge or a ribbed worm.
• Suspending: Said of a lure that neither rises nor sinks when you stop reeling.
• Swim jig: A jig with a pointed head and a light weed guard, reeled steadily through grass with a swimming trailer.
• Swimbait: A lure shaped like a baitfish that swims on a straight retrieve, soft or hard, from 3 in to more than 10 in.
• Tail spinner: A compact lead body with a small blade on the tail, for casting far and fishing deep.
• Teardrop: A small teardrop-shaped jig, mostly for panfish through the ice.
• Texas rig (T-rig): A soft plastic on a worm hook with the point buried in the body and a bullet weight ahead of it. It is weedless and the first rig a bass angler should learn.
• Three-way rig (Wolf River rig): A three-way swivel with a short dropper to a sinker and a longer leader to the hook, for holding bait in river current.
• Tokyo rig: A hook on a ring with a stiff wire dropper that carries the weights below the bait.
• Topwater: Any lure fished on the surface.
• Trailer: A soft plastic added to the hook of a jig, spinnerbait or bladed jig for bulk and action.
• Tube: A hollow soft-plastic cylinder with a fringe of tentacles, a smallmouth classic.
• Underspin: A jighead with a small willow blade on a swivel under the head, dressed with a swimbait.
• Wacky rig: A stick worm hooked through the middle so both ends flutter as it falls.
• Wake bait: A lure that swims just under the surface and pushes a V-shaped wake.
• Walking bait: A lipless topwater stickbait made to zigzag. The Heddon Zara Spook is the original, hence “spook.”
• Weedless: Rigged or built so the hook point does not catch weeds: buried in plastic or shielded by a weed guard.
• Whopper Plopper: River2Sea’s topwater plug with a rotating tail that plops loudly; “plopper” has become the name of the whole type.
• Willow blade: A long, narrow blade that flashes more than it thumps and runs well at speed.

Techniques

• Back-trolling: Running a tiller boat stern-first into the wind or waves to crawl a live-bait rig along a contour with fine control; a walleye method.
• Bank fishing (shore fishing): Fishing from land rather than a boat.
• Bed fishing: Casting to bass that are guarding a nest in the shallows in spring.
• Bottom bouncing: Trolling or drifting a bottom-bouncer weight so it taps the bottom while a spinner rig follows behind.
• Bottom fishing: Fishing bait on or just above the bottom with a weight, in fresh or salt water.
• Bowfishing: Shooting fish with a barbed arrow tied to a line. In most states it is legal only for nongame fish such as carp, gar and buffalo.
• Burning: Reeling a lure as fast as the reel allows.
• Cast: To throw a bait or lure with the rod. Overhead, sidearm, roll, pitch, flip and skip are all casts.
• Catch and release (C&R): Letting fish go alive. Wet hands, a short fight and little time in the air are the three things that keep them that way.
• Chumming: Putting bait, ground fish or scent in the water to pull fish to you. Some states restrict it in fresh water.
• Countdown method: Letting a sinking lure fall for a fixed count before the retrieve, then changing the count until fish answer.
• Cranking: Fishing a crankbait; also simply turning the reel handle.
• Dabbling (dapping, dipping): Lowering a bait straight down into a gap in cover with a long rod and a short line.
• Dead-sticking: Leaving a lure completely still, on the bottom or hanging in the water, for many seconds at a time.
• Dock shooting: Bending a short rod like a slingshot to fire a small jig far under a dock; a crappie method.
• Doodling: Shaking a small worm on a light Texas rig in deep, clear water; a Western finesse method.
• Dragging: Pulling a jig or Carolina rig along the bottom with slow sweeps of the rod instead of hops.
• Drifting: Letting wind or current move the boat, and the baits with it, over fish.
• Fan casting: Casting in a fan pattern, like the hours on a clock, to cover all the water in reach.
• Feathering (thumbing): Slowing the line with a finger or thumb during the cast, to drop a lure softly on target.
• Finesse fishing: Small lures, light line of 6–10 lb and slow, subtle presentations, for clear water and pressured fish.
• Flat-lining: Trolling a lure straight behind the boat with no weight, downrigger or board.
• Flipping: A short-range presentation with a fixed length of line: you swing the lure out like a pendulum while the other hand feeds line by pulling it away from the reel. It puts a jig quietly into cover 10 to 20 ft away.
• Fly fishing: Casting a nearly weightless fly with the weight of the line itself rather than the weight of the lure.
• Gigging: Taking fish or frogs with a multi-pronged spear, usually at night with a light. Flounder and suckers are typical targets where it is legal.
• Hand-lining: Fishing or landing a fish with the line held in the hand rather than on a rod.
• Hookset: Driving the hook into the fish’s mouth: a hard upward snap with a jig, a sideways sweep with a crankbait, and only steady reeling with a circle hook.
• Hopping: Lifting a jig or worm off the bottom with short snaps of the rod and letting it fall back.
• Jigging: Working a lure up and down with the rod. Vertical jigging is done straight under the boat or through the ice.
• Jug fishing (jugging): Catfishing with baited lines hung from free-floating jugs. Texas, for one, caps a jug line at five hooks and requires a tag.
• Kayak fishing: Fishing from a kayak, usually a wide sit-on-top or pedal-drive model built for it.
• Lipping: Landing a bass by gripping its lower jaw between thumb and forefinger. Do not do it to fish with teeth.
• Live-lining: Fishing a live baitfish with no float and little or no weight, so it swims freely.
• Long-lining: Trolling small jigs or crankbaits far behind the boat on several rods; a crappie method.
• Noodling (hand fishing, grabbling): Catching catfish by reaching into their nest holes and pulling them out by the jaw. It is legal only in some states.
• Pattern: The combination of depth, cover, lure and retrieve that is catching fish on a given day, repeatable around the lake.
• Pegging: Fixing a sliding sinker in place with a rubber stop or toothpick so it stays against the bait in thick cover.
• Pier fishing: Fishing from a public pier or jetty. Some states let you fish from a public or licensed pier without a license of your own.
• Pitching: An underhand cast for targets 15 to 40 ft away: the lure swings from the off hand and travels low, landing with little splash.
• Playing a fish (fighting): Tiring a hooked fish with rod pressure and drag before landing it.
• Power fishing: Covering water fast with moving lures and heavy line, hunting for active fish.
• Presentation: Everything about how a lure or bait reaches the fish: the cast, depth, speed and action.
• Pumping: Lifting the rod to gain line and reeling as you lower it; the way to raise a heavy fish.
• Punching: Dropping a heavy punch rig straight through a mat of vegetation to bass underneath.
• Retrieve: The way a lure is brought back: steady, stop-and-go, twitching, burning.
• Ripping: A hard, sharp pull of the rod that tears a lure free of grass or makes a jerkbait dart.
• Run and gun: Hitting many spots quickly and leaving each after a few casts.
• Sight fishing: Casting to a fish you can see, from bedding bass to tailing redfish. Polarized glasses do most of the work.
• Sink and draw: Letting a lure sink, lifting it with the rod, and repeating.
• Skipping: A low sidearm cast that bounces a lure across the surface like a flat stone, to reach under docks and branches.
• Slow rolling: Reeling a spinnerbait or swimbait just fast enough to turn the blades or tail, close to the bottom.
• Snagging: Hooking a fish anywhere but the mouth by jerking a hook through the water. It is illegal for game fish in most states, and legal by season for paddlefish and some salmon runs.
• Snap jigging: Ripping a jig 1 to 3 ft off the bottom and letting it fall on a slack line; a walleye method.
• Spearfishing: Taking fish with a spear, pole spear or speargun, usually while diving.
• Spider rigging: Slow-trolling with many long rods fanned from the bow like spider legs, each with a minnow or jig; a crappie method.
• Still fishing: Waiting with bait under a float or on the bottom.
• Stroking: Snapping a jig several feet off the bottom with a long upward sweep, then following it down; a ledge-fishing method.
• Strolling: Dragging a lure behind a boat moved slowly by the trolling motor.
• Surf fishing: Fishing from an ocean beach, usually with a 9 to 12 ft (2.7 to 3.7 m) rod.
• Swinging (boat flipping): Lifting a hooked fish out of the water and into the boat with the rod alone.
• Tight-lining: Fishing bait on the bottom with a taut line and no float, feeling for the bite through the rod.
• Trolling: Pulling lures or baits behind a moving boat. Typical speeds run from under 1 mph for walleye to 7 mph and more offshore.
• Trotline: A long main line stretched across the water with many baited hooks on short droppers. States limit the number of hooks and require tags.
• Twitching: Short, quick snaps of the rod tip that make a lure dart.
• Wade fishing: Fishing while standing in the water, in waders or wet.
• Walk the dog: Twitching the rod on a slack line so a topwater stickbait swings left, right, left.
• Yo-yoing: Lifting a lipless crankbait or spoon off the bottom and letting it flutter back, again and again.

Fly fishing

In fly fishing the line is the weight that carries the cast, and the fly weighs almost nothing. The whole outfit is laid out in how to fly fish for trout.

• Attractor: A fly that imitates nothing exactly and draws strikes with color, flash or movement; the Royal Wulff is one.
• Backcast: The part of the cast that unrolls behind the caster.
• Backing: Thin braided line under the fly line that fills the spool and gives a running fish 100 yards or more of extra line.
• Beadhead: A nymph or streamer with a metal bead behind the eye for weight and flash.
• Caddis: An aquatic insect whose adult holds its wings like a tent. The Elk Hair Caddis is the standard imitation.
• Clouser Minnow: A streamer with weighted dumbbell eyes that rides hook-up; it has caught most fish that eat minnows, in fresh and salt water.
• Dead drift: A fly traveling at exactly the speed of the current, like a loose insect.
• Double haul: A pull on the line with the free hand during both the backcast and the forward cast, for line speed and distance.
• Double taper (DT): A fly line tapered the same at both ends, so it can be turned around when one end wears.
• Drag (fly fishing): Unnatural movement of a fly caused by the current pulling on the line. Trout refuse a dragging dry fly.
• Dry fly: A fly that floats and imitates an adult insect on the surface.
• Dry-dropper: A buoyant dry fly with a nymph tied 12 to 24 in below it; the dry is also the strike indicator.
• Dubbing: Fur or synthetic fiber twisted onto thread to form the body of a fly.
• Dun: A mayfly that has just hatched into a winged adult and rides the surface while its wings dry.
• Emerger: A fly that imitates an insect in the surface film as it hatches.
• Euro nymphing (tight-line nymphing): Fishing heavy nymphs on a long rod and a thin leader with no indicator, keeping direct contact and reading a colored section of line called a sighter.
• False cast: A cast kept in the air, forward and back, to lengthen line, change direction or dry a fly.
• Floatant: A gel, liquid or powder that keeps a dry fly floating.
• Fly: A hook dressed with feathers, fur, thread or synthetics to imitate food. The patterns by job are in trout flies.
• Fly line: The thick, coated, weighted line that carries the cast. It comes as floating, sinking or sink-tip.
• Fly tying: Making flies by binding materials to a hook held in a vise.
• Hackle: A feather, usually from a rooster’s neck or saddle, wound around the hook so its fibers hold a dry fly up.
• Hatch: The emergence of one kind of aquatic insect as winged adults, often many at once.
• Hopper: A grasshopper, and the big foam or hair dry fly that copies it in late summer.
• Indicator (strike indicator): A small float on the leader that shows the take when nymphing.
• Leader (fly fishing): The clear, tapered line between fly line and fly, most often 7.5 or 9 ft (2.3 or 2.7 m) long.
• Line weight: The number that matches line to rod, from 1 (lightest) to 14 and up. A 5-weight is the all-round trout outfit; an 8-weight is the bass and inshore standard.
• Loop: The U-shape the line makes as it unrolls in the air. A tight loop cuts wind; an open loop is kinder to heavy flies.
• Match the hatch: Choosing a fly by the size, shape and color of the insect the fish are eating. Bass anglers borrowed it for matching lures to baitfish.
• Mayfly: The upright-winged aquatic insect at the heart of dry-fly fishing. It passes through nymph, dun and spinner stages.
• Mend: Lifting and flipping the line upstream or downstream after the cast so the current does not drag the fly.
• Midge: A tiny two-winged insect that hatches all year; often the main trout food in winter and in tailwaters.
• Nymph: The underwater stage of an aquatic insect, and the fly that imitates it. Trout take most of their food below the surface.
• Parachute: A dry fly with the hackle wound flat around an upright post, so it sits low and is easy to see.
• Popping bug: A cork, foam or deer-hair surface fly for bass and bluegill.
• Reach cast: A cast finished by reaching the rod upstream, laying the line at an angle for a longer drag-free drift.
• Rise: A fish taking something at the surface, and the ring it leaves.
• Roll cast: A cast with no backcast: the line is drawn back on the water and rolled forward. It is the answer to trees behind you.
• Shooting line: Letting loose line slide out through the guides at the end of a cast for distance.
• Sink tip: A floating fly line whose front 5 to 15 ft sinks, for swinging streamers and wet flies.
• Spey casting: A family of long roll casts made with a two-handed rod of 12 to 15 ft, named for the River Spey in Scotland and used on big steelhead and salmon rivers.
• Spinner (mayfly): The final, clear-winged adult stage of a mayfly. After mating the insects fall dead on the water, an event called a spinner fall.
• Stonefly: A large, flat-bodied aquatic insect of fast, clean rivers. The salmonfly hatch in the West is a stonefly hatch.
• Streamer: A long fly that imitates a baitfish, leech or crayfish and is stripped back or swung.
• Strip set: Setting the hook by pulling the line hard with the line hand while the rod stays low; the hookset for streamers and salt water.
• Strip: To pull line in by hand to move the fly.
• Swing: Letting the current carry a wet fly or streamer in an arc across the river on a tight line.
• Tailing loop: A casting fault in which the top of the loop drops below the bottom and crosses it, tying knots in the leader.
• Tenkara: A Japanese method that uses a long telescoping rod, a fixed line and no reel.
• Terrestrial: A land insect that falls in the water: ants, beetles, grasshoppers, crickets.
• Tippet: The thin final section of the leader to which the fly is tied, typically 18 to 24 in long and replaced as it is used up.
• Trout set: Lifting the rod to set the hook, as on a trout stream. It is the habit that pulls the fly away from saltwater fish, which need a strip set.
• Vise: The clamp that holds the hook while a fly is tied.
• Waders: Waterproof overalls for standing in the river. Chest waders with separate wading boots are the norm.
• Weight forward (WF): A fly line with its weight in the first 30 ft or so; the easiest to cast and by far the most common.
• Wet fly: A fly fished under the surface, traditionally swung across the current.
• Wind knot: An overhand knot in the leader, made by a tailing loop and not by wind. It can cut the leader’s strength by half.
• Woolly Bugger: A marabou-tailed, hackled streamer that passes for a leech, a minnow or a crayfish; often the first fly a beginner ties on.
• X (tippet size): Tippet diameter. Subtract the X number from 11 for thousandths of an inch: 5X is 0.006 in, 3X is 0.008 in. A bigger X is a thinner tippet.
• Zinger: A retractable cord pinned to a vest that holds nippers or forceps.

Ice fishing

• Auger: The drill that cuts the hole. Hand, gas, propane and battery augers cut holes 6 to 10 in (15 to 25 cm) wide.
• Dead stick (ice fishing): A second rod set in a holder with a live minnow, left alone beside the hole you jig in.
• First ice (early ice): The first weeks of safe ice, known for fish that are still shallow and biting.
• Fish house (shanty, shack, ice house): Any shelter on the ice. What it is called depends on the state: fish house in Minnesota, shanty in Michigan, Wisconsin and New York, shack almost anywhere.
• Flag: The spring-loaded signal on a tip-up. “Flag!” is the shout when one pops.
• Flasher: A sonar unit with a circular dial that shows the bottom, your lure and any fish under the hole as colored bands in real time. Anglers often call any flasher a Vexilar, after the best-known brand.
• Flip-over: A sled-based shelter whose frame and fabric fold over the angler in seconds.
• Hard water: Ice, as opposed to open water or “soft water.”
• Hole hopping: Drilling many holes and fishing each for a few minutes until fish show up.
• Hub shelter: A pop-up ice shelter held open by a hub in each wall, light for its size.
• Ice cleats (creepers): Spiked soles strapped over boots for grip on bare ice.
• Ice picks: Two spiked handles on a cord worn around the neck, for pulling yourself out if you fall through.
• Ice rod: A short rod of 24 to 36 in (60 to 90 cm) for jigging over a hole.
• Ice scoop (skimmer): A slotted ladle for clearing slush and ice chips from the hole.
• Jigging Rap: Rapala’s weighted minnow with a nose hook, a tail hook and a plastic fin that makes it swim in circles when jigged. The name is used for the whole class of swimming jigs.
• Last ice (late ice): The final weeks of the season, when fish move toward spawning areas and the ice is least trustworthy.
• Mark: A fish showing on the flasher. “Marking fish” means they are under you, whether or not they bite.
• Rattle reel: A reel mounted on the wall of a fish house with a bell or rattle that sounds when a fish runs.
• Safe ice: Minnesota’s guideline for new, clear ice is at least 4 in (10 cm) to walk on, 5–7 in (13–18 cm) for a snowmobile and 9–12 in (23–30 cm) for a car. White ice is about half as strong.
• Spearing (darkhouse spearing): Waiting in a dark shelter over a large hole and spearing pike, or sturgeon in Wisconsin’s Lake Winnebago season, as they come to a decoy.
• Spring bobber: A fine wire or spring on the tip of an ice rod that shows bites too light to feel.
• Spud bar (ice chisel): A heavy steel chisel on a long handle, used to test the ice ahead of each step and to open old holes.
• Tip-down: A balanced rod holder that lets the rod tip dip toward the hole when a fish takes.
• Tip-up: A frame set over the hole with a spool of line under water and a flag that springs up when a fish takes the bait. States limit how many lines you may set.
• Waxworm (waxie): The larva of the wax moth, a top panfish bait. “Spikes” are fly maggots used the same way.
• Wheelhouse: A fish house built on a trailer frame that lowers flat onto the ice, often with bunks and a heater.

Boats and electronics

• 2D sonar: The traditional sonar view: a cone pointed straight down, with fish drawn as arches.
• 360 imaging: A sonar transducer that rotates to sweep a full circle around the boat.
• Aerator: The pump that brings fresh water or air into a livewell or bait bucket.
• Arch: The curved mark a fish makes on 2D sonar as it passes through the cone.
• Bass boat: A low, fast boat with casting decks at bow and stern, a trolling motor on the bow and a large outboard, usually 17 to 21 ft long.
• Bay boat: A center-console boat with low sides for shallow coastal water.
• Big motor: The main outboard, as opposed to the trolling motor.
• Bilge: The lowest inside part of the hull, where water collects until the bilge pump throws it out.
• Bow: The front of the boat.
• Bump board: A measuring board with an upright end plate that the fish’s nose is pushed against.
• Center console: A boat with the wheel on a console in the middle, leaving room to fish all the way around it.
• Chartplotter: A GPS screen that shows the boat on a map, usually combined with sonar in one unit.
• CHIRP: Sonar that sweeps a range of frequencies in each pulse instead of one, for sharper separation between fish and bottom. It stands for compressed high-intensity radiated pulse.
• Contour lines: The lines on a lake map that join points of equal depth. Lines close together mean a steep drop.
• Deep-V: A hull with a sharp V shape that cuts through waves; the walleye and big-water boat.
• Down imaging: High-frequency sonar that draws a picture-like view of what is straight under the boat.
• Downrigger: A winch with a cable and a heavy weight, the cannonball, that carries a trolled line to an exact depth. The line pops free of a release clip when a fish hits.
• Drift boat: A rowed river boat with a flat, upswept bottom, built for floating trout and steelhead rivers.
• Drift sock: An underwater parachute tied to the boat to slow a wind drift.
• Electronics: The collective word for a boat’s sonar, GPS and live-sonar screens.
• Fish finder (depth finder, graph): A sonar unit that shows depth, bottom and fish on a screen. What the screen is telling you is in how to read a fish finder.
• Float tube (belly boat): An inflatable seat in which the angler sits half in the water and kicks with fins.
• Forward-facing sonar (FFS, live sonar): Sonar that shows fish, and your lure, moving in real time ahead of the boat. Garmin’s LiveScope started it in 2018; Lowrance ActiveTarget and Humminbird MEGA Live followed.
• GPS: Satellite positioning. On a boat it marks waypoints, draws trails and drives the anchor function of a trolling motor.
• Gunwale (gunnel): The top edge of the boat’s side.
• Hole shot: How quickly a boat climbs from a standstill onto plane.
• Jack plate: A bracket that raises and lowers the outboard on the transom for speed and for running shallow.
• Jon boat: A flat-bottomed aluminum boat with a square bow, usually 10 to 18 ft long; cheap, stable and at home on small water.
• Kicker motor: A small second outboard used for trolling.
• Kill switch: A lanyard or wireless fob that stops the engine if the driver leaves the seat. Federal law requires its use on most boats under 26 ft when on plane.
• Livewell: A tank in the boat with circulating water that keeps the catch alive. A baitwell does the same for bait.
• On plane: Riding on top of the water at speed instead of plowing through it.
• Outboard: An engine that mounts on the transom, with motor, gearbox and propeller in one unit.
• Outrigger: A long pole that swings out from the side of an offshore boat to spread trolling lines.
• Pedal drive: A fishing-kayak drive worked with the feet, which leaves the hands free for the rod.
• Planer board: A small board that pulls a trolled line out to the side of the boat, so lures run wide of the wake.
• Port and starboard: The left and right sides of a boat when facing the bow.
• Push pole: A long pole for moving a skiff silently across shallow flats.
• Ramp (boat launch): The sloped slab where trailers back boats into the water.
• Rod locker: A long compartment in the deck that stores rods flat.
• Shallow-water anchor: A powered pole on the transom that drops into the bottom and pins the boat in water up to about 8 or 10 ft. Power-Pole and Minn Kota Talon are the two names you hear.
• Side imaging: Sonar that scans thin slices out to both sides of the boat and draws the bottom like an aerial photo. Hard objects cast sonar shadows.
• Skiff: A light, shallow-draft open boat for flats and backwaters.
• Sonar: Sound pulses sent into the water and timed as they echo back; the principle behind every fish finder.
• Spot-Lock: Minn Kota’s name for a GPS anchor: the trolling motor holds the boat on one spot without a rope. Anglers use the word for any brand’s version.
• Stern: The back of the boat.
• Tiller: A handle on the motor itself for steering, in place of a wheel.
• Transducer: The part of a sonar that sends and receives the sound, mounted on the transom, in the hull or on the trolling motor.
• Transom: The flat back wall of the boat, where the outboard hangs.
• Trim: The angle of the outboard, and so of the bow. Trimming up lifts the bow at speed.
• Trolling motor: A quiet electric motor, usually on the bow, for moving along a bank while casting. Thrust is rated in pounds and power in volts: 12, 24 or 36.
• Waypoint: A spot saved on the GPS.

The fish and their bodies

• Active, neutral and negative fish: Shorthand for mood. Active fish chase, neutral fish take an easy meal put in front of them, and negative fish ignore nearly everything.
• Adipose fin: The small fleshy fin without rays between the dorsal fin and the tail on trout, salmon, whitefish and catfish. Hatcheries clip it to mark stocked salmon and steelhead.
• Anadromous: Born in fresh water, grown at sea, back to fresh water to spawn: salmon, steelhead, shad and striped bass.
• Anal fin: The single fin on the underside between the vent and the tail.
• Baitfish: Small fish that bigger fish eat: shad, shiners, alewives, herring, minnows.
• Barbels: The whiskers of a catfish, carp or sturgeon: organs of taste and touch that cannot sting. The sharp parts of a catfish are the fin spines, as shown in how to hold a catfish.
• Bedding: Guarding a nest. Bass and sunfish fan a round bed on the bottom and the male stays to defend it.
• Black bass: The genus Micropterus: largemouth, smallmouth, spotted and their relatives. They are sunfish, not true bass.
• Bream (brim): The Southern name for bluegill and other sunfish, said “brim.”
• Brood stock: Adult fish kept in a hatchery to produce eggs and milt.
• Buck: A male fish, most often said of bass, trout and salmon.
• Catadromous: The reverse of anadromous: living in fresh water and spawning at sea, like the American eel.
• Caudal fin: The tail fin.
• Char: The group of trout relatives with light spots on a dark body: brook trout, lake trout, bull trout, Dolly Varden and Arctic char.
• Coldwater, coolwater and warmwater fish: The three temperature groups managers use: trout and salmon; walleye, pike, perch and smallmouth; largemouth, sunfish and catfish.
• Dorsal fin: The fin on the back. Perch, walleye and bass have a spiny part and a soft part.
• Esox: The pike genus: northern pike, muskellunge and the pickerels. Their place in fishing is covered under pike.
• Fingerling: A young fish about as long as a finger, the size many hatcheries stock.
• Forage: Whatever a predator fish eats in a given water: shad, perch, crayfish, insects.
• Fry: Fish in the first weeks after hatching.
• Game fish (gamefish): A species the state manages for sport, with seasons and limits. Texas law lists its game fish by name; most states do.
• Gill plate (operculum): The bony flap that covers the gills. On a walleye or snook its edge is sharp enough to cut a hand.
• Gill rakers: Comb-like projections on the gill arches that strain food. Counting them separates some look-alike species.
• Gills: The red, feathery organs that take oxygen from the water. Never put fingers in the gills of a fish you plan to release.
• Grilse: An Atlantic salmon that returns to its river after one winter at sea.
• Hen: A female trout, salmon or steelhead.
• Holdover: A stocked trout that has survived at least one season in the water and grown wilder.
• Hybrid: A cross of two species, such as the tiger trout, the splake, the tiger muskie, the saugeye and the wiper.
• Jack: A male salmon that returns to spawn a year or more early and is much smaller than the adults.
• Kelt: A steelhead or Atlantic salmon that has spawned and is heading back to sea, thin and dark.
• Kype: The hooked lower jaw that male trout and salmon grow before spawning.
• Lateral line: The row of sensory pores along each side of a fish that feels vibration and pressure. It is how a bass finds a spinnerbait in muddy water.
• Maxillary: The upper jawbone. On a largemouth bass it reaches past the back of the eye; on a smallmouth it stops below the eye.
• Milt: The sperm of a male fish, released over the eggs.
• Native: Living where the species evolved, as opposed to stocked or introduced. A brook trout is native in Appalachia and introduced in the Rockies.
• Nongame fish: Species without game-fish status, such as suckers, carp and gar. Rules for taking them are usually looser.
• Otolith: The ear stone of a fish. Biologists count its rings, like those of a tree, to age the fish.
• Panfish: Small fish that fit in a frying pan: bluegill, crappie, perch and the other sunfish.
• Parr marks: Dark oval bars along the sides of young trout and salmon.
• Pectoral fins: The paired fins just behind the gill covers.
• Pelvic fins: The paired fins on the belly.
• Post-spawn: The weeks after spawning, when fish are thin and recovering and then feed hard.
• Pre-spawn: The weeks before spawning, when fish move toward the shallows and feed heavily. It is the season for the heaviest bass of the year.
• Redd: The nest of a trout or salmon: a patch of clean gravel dug by the female. Do not wade on them.
• Roe: Fish eggs. A cluster cured for bait is a spawn sack or egg sack.
• Rough fish: An old, loose label for fish not counted as game or food fish. Several states have dropped it for native species such as gar, bowfin and buffalo.
• Salmonid: A member of the salmon family: salmon, trout, char, whitefish and grayling.
• Saugeye: A cross of walleye and sauger, stocked in rivers and reservoirs.
• School: A group of fish swimming together. Schooling fish chase bait as a pack, often at the surface.
• Slime coat: The mucus on a fish’s skin that keeps out infection. Wet hands and rubber nets leave it on.
• Smolt: A young salmon or steelhead that has turned silver and is ready to go to sea.
• Sow: A big female bass.
• Spawn: To reproduce, and the season when it happens. Largemouth start when the water reaches roughly 60°F (16°C), as described in the bass spawn.
• Staging: Holding on the last deep water near a spawning area, waiting for the right temperature.
• Stocker: A hatchery fish, usually a trout, released for anglers to catch.
• Strike zone: The distance a fish is willing to move to take a lure. It shrinks in cold or muddy water.
• Sunfish: The family Centrarchidae: bluegill, pumpkinseed, redear, crappie, rock bass and the black bass.
• Suspended fish: Fish holding in open water between the surface and the bottom, tied to nothing you can see.
• Swim bladder: The gas-filled organ a fish uses to hold its depth. It swells when a fish is pulled up fast from deep water.
• Temperate bass (true bass): The family Morone: striped bass, white bass, yellow bass and white perch.
• Tiger muskie: A cross of northern pike and muskellunge, usually sterile, with bold vertical bars.
• Triploid: A fish with three sets of chromosomes, made sterile in the hatchery so stocked fish cannot breed with wild ones.
• Vent: The opening on the belly just ahead of the anal fin.
• Wild: Born in the water it lives in, even if the species was introduced there long ago.
• Wiper (hybrid striped bass): A cross of striped bass and white bass, stocked in reservoirs.
• Year class: All the fish of one species born in the same year. A strong year class can carry a fishery for a decade.

Water, structure and weather

Structure is the shape of the bottom; cover is whatever sits on it. Bass anglers have kept the two words apart since Buck Perry’s writing in the 1950s and 1960s.

• Backwater: A side area off a river’s main channel with little or no current.
• Bait ball: A tight ball of baitfish, packed together by predators attacking from below.
• Bar: A long ridge of sand, gravel or rock that rises from deeper water.
• Blitz: Predators tearing into baitfish at the surface, usually with birds diving on top; a striper and bluefish word.
• Bluff: A steep rock bank that drops straight into deep water.
• Boil: A swirl on the surface made by a feeding fish or by current hitting something below.
• Brackish: Water that is a mix of fresh and salt, as in estuaries and coastal marshes.
• Breakline (break): A line where depth changes quickly, or where one bottom type, weed edge or water color meets another.
• Brush pile: A heap of sunken branches or trees, natural or planted by anglers, that holds crappie and bass.
• Channel swing: A spot where the channel bends in against the bank or a point.
• Channel: The old riverbed or creek bed running through a reservoir, deeper than the water beside it.
• Chop: Short, steep wind waves on the surface, between a ripple and whitecaps.
• Clarity: How far you can see into the water: clear (several feet or more), stained (a foot or two) or muddy (inches).
• Cold front: The leading edge of cooler, drier air. The bright, calm, high-pressure day behind it is the hardest to catch fish on, as covered in cold fronts and wind.
• Cove (pocket): A small bay off the main lake. A pocket is a short one.
• Cover: Objects fish hide in or beside: weeds, wood, docks, boulders.
• Creek arm: A flooded creek valley branching off a reservoir.
• Current break: Anything that blocks the flow and leaves a patch of slower water behind it.
• Drop-off: A fast change from shallow to deep.
• Eddy: A pocket of slow or backward-circling current behind an obstruction.
• Estuary: The stretch where a river meets the sea and fresh water mixes with salt.
• Fish crib: A log or brush structure sunk on purpose as fish habitat, common on Northern lakes and often marked on maps.
• Flat: A wide area of nearly even depth. In salt water, “the flats” are shallow expanses of sand, mud or grass.
• Flow (cfs): River discharge in cubic feet per second, read from a stream gauge before a trip.
• Freestone: A river fed by rain and snowmelt, which swings in flow and temperature through the year.
• Grass: The bass angler’s word for all underwater vegetation: hydrilla, milfoil, coontail, eelgrass. In the North the broad-leaved pondweeds are called cabbage.
• Hard bottom: Rock, gravel, shell or packed clay, as opposed to mud or silt.
• Hump: An underwater hill with deeper water all around it.
• Ice-out: The day in spring when a lake loses its ice.
• Inshore, nearshore and offshore: Saltwater zones: bays and coast in sight of land; the first miles of open ocean; and deep blue water beyond.
• Jetty: A rock wall built out from shore to protect an inlet or harbor.
• Laydown (blowdown): A tree that has fallen from the bank into the water.
• Ledge: A sharp step in the bottom, most often the edge of the river channel in a reservoir.
• Lily pads (pads): Floating round leaves on long stems, shade and cover in shallow water.
• Main lake: The open body of a reservoir, as opposed to its creeks and coves.
• Mat: A floating roof of dense vegetation.
• Mudline: The edge between muddy and clearer water, made by waves on a bank or by a muddy creek flowing in.
• Nervous water: A patch of surface that shivers differently from the water around it because fish are moving just below.
• Oxbow: A curved lake left behind when a river cuts a new channel.
• Pelagic: Living in open water rather than near the bottom or shore: tuna, mahi, and in lakes ciscoes and open-water shad. Bottom-oriented fish are demersal.
• Pocket water: Fast, broken water full of boulders, with small calm pockets behind each one.
• Point: A finger of land that runs out into the water and continues under it. A secondary point is one inside a creek or cove.
• Pool: A deep, slow stretch of a stream.
• Reservoir (impoundment): A lake made by damming a river.
• Riffle: A shallow, fast, broken stretch over gravel or cobble.
• Riprap: Broken rock laid along a dam, bridge or bank to stop erosion.
• Run: Smooth, steady current of medium depth between a riffle and a pool.
• Runoff: The spring weeks when snowmelt makes Western rivers high, cold and muddy.
• Saddle: A low ridge that connects two humps or an island and a point.
• Seam: The line where fast current meets slow. Trout hold in the slow side and feed from the fast side.
• Slack tide: The pause at the top or bottom of the tide when the water stops moving.
• Slick: A smooth patch on a rippled surface. Offshore it can be oil rising from feeding fish.
• Slough: A shallow, slow side channel or backwater, said “sloo.”
• Spring creek: A stream fed by groundwater, steady in flow and temperature and usually very clear.
• Standing timber: Trees left upright when a reservoir was filled.
• Structure: Features of the bottom itself: points, humps, ledges, drop-offs, channels.
• Tailout: The shallowing, speeding end of a pool, just above the next riffle.
• Tailwater (tailrace): The river directly below a dam. Water released from the bottom of a deep reservoir keeps many tailwaters cold enough for trout all summer.
• Thermocline: The layer in a summer lake where temperature falls fast with depth. Below it there is often too little oxygen for fish.
• Tide: The twice-daily rise and fall of the sea. The incoming tide is the flood and the outgoing is the ebb; moving water is when coastal fish feed.
• Transition: A place where one bottom type changes to another, such as rock to clay.
• Turnover: The mixing of a lake in fall, when the surface cools to the temperature of the deep water and sinks.
• Undercut bank: A bank the current has hollowed out underneath; prime trout cover.
• Walleye chop: A steady wind chop, with waves of roughly 1 to 2 ft. Walleye anglers welcome it because it breaks up the light and brings the fish shallow.
• Weed line (grass line): The edge of a weed bed. The outside or deep weed line is where the plants stop for lack of light.
• Wing dam: A rock wall built partway into a river to push current toward the channel; a classic walleye and smallmouth spot on the Mississippi.

How much temperature decides is in water temperature. The rest of the weather is in barometric pressure, moon phase, rain and the best time of day to fish.

Tournaments

• Angler of the Year (AOY): The season-long points title on a tournament trail.
• Bag (sack): The total catch an angler brings to the scales in a day: “a 20-pound bag.”
• Bassmaster Classic: The world championship of B.A.S.S., held every year since 1971.
• Big bass: The prize for the heaviest single fish of the day or the event.
• Blast-off (takeoff): The start of a tournament day, when boats leave by number.
• Boater: The angler who owns and drives the boat and chooses the water.
• Bubble: The last place that still makes the cut or the check. An angler “on the bubble” is sitting right at that line.
• Catch, weigh, release: A format in which every legal fish is weighed in the boat by an official and let go at once, with no limit and no livewell. Major League Fishing’s Bass Pro Tour is run this way.
• Check: Prize money. To “cash a check” is to finish in the paid places.
• Co-angler: An amateur who fishes from the back deck of a boater’s boat and competes only against other co-anglers.
• Cull tags: Numbered or colored floats clipped to each fish so the smallest can be found fast.
• Culling: Replacing a smaller fish in the livewell with a bigger one once you have a limit. Legal in tournaments in most states, and banned or restricted for some species in others.
• Cut: The point at which the field is reduced, such as the top 50 after day two and the top 10 for the final day.
• Dead-fish penalty: Weight taken off for each dead fish brought to the scales: 4 oz per fish in the Bassmaster Elite Series.
• Derby: A casual word for any fishing contest, and the usual name for kids’ events and salmon contests.
• Elite Series: The top professional trail of B.A.S.S.
• Fizzing: Releasing gas from the swollen swim bladder of a bass caught deep, with a needle, so it can stay upright in the livewell and swim back down.
• Flight: A group of boats sharing a takeoff time and a check-in time.
• Kicker: One fish much bigger than the rest of the limit.
• Limit: The maximum number of fish that may be weighed. Five bass per day is the standard in professional events.
• Marshal (observer): A rider in a pro’s boat who watches for rule violations and reports catches, and does not fish.
• No-information rule: A rule that bars competitors from getting help about where and how to fish from locals or guides before an event.
• Off-limits: The period before a tournament when competitors may not be on the water.
• Opens: Events that anyone may enter for a fee, and the path by which anglers qualify for the top trails.
• Practice (pre-fishing): The official days before competition when anglers search for fish, often shaking them off without hooking them.
• Team tournament: An event in which two anglers in one boat weigh a single limit together.
• Weigh-in: The end of the day, when bags are carried to the stage and put on the scales.
• Zero (blank): A day with nothing to weigh.

Rules, records and conservation

Every state writes its own definitions, and the rule booklet for the water in front of you is the one that counts.

• All-tackle record: The IGFA world record for the heaviest fish of a species caught on any line up to 130 lb (60 kg) class, on rod and reel, by one angler under its rules.
• Angler: The proper word for anyone who fishes with a hook and line. It comes from the Old English angel, a fishhook, so an angler is literally a hook user.
• Angling: The legal word for fishing with a hook and line.
• Artificial fly: A legal term on fly-only waters. Alaska defines it as a fly made by common tying methods and free of bait.
• Artificials only: A rule that bans natural bait, and on some waters scented lures too.
• Bag limit (daily limit, creel limit): The number of fish of one species you may keep in a day. Texas, for example, allows five largemouth bass.
• Barotrauma: Injury from the expansion of gas when a fish is brought up from depths of roughly 30 ft (9 m) or more: a swollen belly, bulging eyes, the stomach pushed out of the mouth.
• Bycatch: Fish caught unintentionally while fishing for something else.
• Catch card (harvest card, report card): A card on which each kept fish of certain species is recorded, such as salmon and steelhead in Washington and California.
• Catch-and-release water: A stretch where every fish, or every fish of one species, must be let go.
• Certified scale: A scale tested for accuracy by an official body. A record claim needs the fish weighed on one, on land.
• Clean, drain, dry: The routine that stops boats from carrying invasive species between waters: clean off plants and mud, drain all water, dry everything.
• Closed season: The dates when a species may not be kept, or may not be fished for at all, most often around spawning.
• Consumption advisory: Official advice on how many meals of fish from a given water are safe to eat, because of mercury, PCBs or PFAS.
• Creel: A basket for carrying the catch. A creel survey is a clerk counting and measuring what anglers caught.
• Delayed harvest: A stocked-trout rule: catch and release with artificials from fall through spring, then regular limits from late spring.
• Descending device: A weighted clip or cage that takes a fish with barotrauma back down to depth and releases it. Federal rules require one on board when fishing for snapper and grouper in the South Atlantic.
• Dressed fish: A fish with the entrails removed, and often the head and scales too. Many states forbid filleting on the water so that length and species can still be checked.
• Fishing license: The permit to fish, sold by each state by the day or year. Fresh water and salt water are often separate.
• Fork length: The length from the tip of the snout to the fork of the tail, used for fish with deeply forked tails such as mackerel and amberjack.
• Free fishing days: Days set by a state on which no license is needed. Most states hold at least one a year, often in early June.
• Gaff: A pole with a large hook for lifting a fish into the boat. It kills the fish, so it is banned for many species; the IGFA caps its length at 8 ft.
• Girth: The distance around a fish at its fattest point. With length it gives a fair weight estimate: length × girth × girth ÷ 800, in inches and pounds, or use the fish weight calculator.
• Invasive species: A non-native plant or animal that harms the waters it spreads to: zebra mussels, Asian carp, snakeheads, hydrilla.
• Keeper: A fish that is legal to keep, or big enough to be worth keeping.
• Length record: An IGFA all-tackle length record: the fish is measured on an official device, photographed and released alive.
• Line class: An IGFA record category set by the breaking strength of the line, in eleven steps from 2 lb (1 kg) to 130 lb (60 kg).
• Line limit: The number of rods or lines one angler may fish at once, commonly one to three and more through the ice.
• Minimum length limit: Fish shorter than this must go back. A 15 in walleye minimum means a 14.75 in fish is released.
• Party fishing: Pooling limits among anglers in a group. Minnesota allows it for people fishing together; many states hold each angler to a personal limit.
• Possession limit: The most fish of a species you may have at any time, counting the cooler, the truck and the freezer at home. In Texas and Wisconsin it is twice the daily bag for most species.
• Slot limit: A length range with its own rule. A protected slot (say 12 to 16 in) must be released; a harvest slot is the only size you may keep, like the 18 to 27 in slot for redfish in Florida.
• Stamp: An extra permit added to a license for one kind of fishing, such as a trout stamp or a salmon stamp.
• State record: The heaviest fish of a species certified by a state, with its own rules for scales, witnesses and identification.
• Stocking: Releasing hatchery fish into a water.
• Tagged fish: A fish carrying a numbered tag from a research study. Report the number, place and date; some tags pay a reward.
• Tippet class: The IGFA fly-fishing record category, set by the breaking strength of the tippet, up to 20 lb (10 kg).
• Total length: The length from the tip of the closed mouth to the end of the tail with the tail squeezed together, the fish lying flat. Most state limits use it.
• Venting: Releasing gas from a deep-caught fish with a hollow needle so it can swim down. Descending devices have largely replaced it.
• Wanton waste: The offense of killing a fish and leaving it to spoil.

Slang

No list of fishing slang is complete, because every dock has its own. These are the words heard across the United States, with the region noted where one stays home.

• Bank beater: An angler who fishes only the visible shoreline.
• Bendo: A rod bent hard under a fish; West Coast saltwater talk.
• Bite: A fish taking the bait, and also the mood of the fish in general: “the bite is on.”
• Blow-up: An explosive strike on a topwater lure.
• Bow: A rainbow trout.
• Bronzeback: A smallmouth bass, for its bronze-brown back; also brownie, brown fish and smallie.
• Brookie: A brook trout. In parts of the Northeast and Canada the same fish is a speck or speckled trout.
• Bucketmouth: A largemouth bass, for the mouth that opens wide enough to swallow a fist.
• Bull: A big male of several species. A bull bluegill is a thick male of 9 in or more; a bull red is a redfish grown past the slot, often over 27 in; a bull dolphin is a male mahi with a square forehead.
• Bump (tick, tap): A light touch felt through the line that may or may not be a bite.
• Chrome: A steelhead or salmon fresh from the ocean or the Great Lakes, still bright silver.
• Community hole: A well-known spot that everyone fishes.
• Cow: A big female striped bass, usually 30 lb or more.
• Dink: A small fish, especially a bass under the legal length.
• Ditch pickle: A largemouth bass, a Northern joke about a green fish that lives in weedy backwaters.
• Donkey: A very big fish; also tank, toad, pig, stud, slob and giant.
• Doormat: A summer flounder (fluke) big enough to cover one, near 10 lb.
• Eater: A fish of the best size for the table, kept while the big breeders go back: a 15 to 18 in walleye is the textbook eater.
• Eyes: Walleye; also marble-eyes and, in the Upper Midwest, walters.
• Farmed: Lost through the angler’s own mistake. “I farmed it” is river talk from the Pacific Northwest.
• Fish on: The call when a fish is hooked, so other anglers clear their lines.
• Fish story: A tale that grows with each telling, like the fish in it.
• Football: A short, fat fish, most often a smallmouth or a tuna.
• Gator: A big, toothy fish. In the North it is a large northern pike, for the shape of the head; on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts a gator trout is a speckled trout past about 25 in, and a gator blue is a big bluefish.
• Goggle-eye: A rock bass, or in parts of the South a warmouth.
• Green fish: A largemouth bass, as against a brown fish, a smallmouth.
• Grip and grin: The standard photo: fish held out, angler smiling.
• Hammer handle: A small, skinny northern pike; also snot rocket and snake.
• Hawg: A big bass, from the Southern way of saying “hog.”
• Honey hole: A spot that reliably gives up fish, and that its finder keeps quiet about.
• Junk fishing: Having a dozen rods on deck and switching lures all day because no single pattern holds.
• Laker: A lake trout.
• Limit out: To catch the full legal limit.
• Linesider: A striped bass, for the dark stripes along its sides. In Florida the word means a snook.
• Lit up: Showing bright feeding colors, said of a marlin, sailfish or mahi behind the boat.
• Lockjaw: The condition of fish that will not bite.
• Lunker: A very big fish, above all a bass. The word is American, in print since the early 1900s, and of unclear origin. Texas gives it a number: its ShareLunker program starts at 8 lb or 24 in.
• Meat: Live or dead bait. A meat fisherman fishes to fill the cooler.
• Mossback: An old, big bass.
• Mudcat: A bullhead or flathead catfish, depending on the state.
• Old salt: A veteran saltwater angler or sailor.
• One that got away: The big fish that broke off, always bigger than any that were landed.
• Papermouth: A crappie, for the thin membrane around its mouth that tears on a hard hookset.
• Rockfish: A striped bass in the Chesapeake Bay and the Carolinas. On the Pacific coast the word means the many species of the genus Sebastes.
• Sac-a-lait: Crappie in Louisiana; Cajun French, usually explained as “sack of milk.”
• Schoolie: A small striped bass that still travels in a school, under the keeper size.
• Short: A fish under the legal length; also a shaker or a throwback.
• Short strike: A hit on the tail of the lure that misses the hook.
• Silver king: A tarpon.
• Skunked: Caught nothing. It comes from 19th-century American slang for being shut out in a game without scoring. Also blanked or zeroed.
• Slab: A big crappie, thick and flat as a slab, usually said of fish over 12 in or about a pound.
• Slay: To catch a great many; also hammer, whack and wear them out.
• Smoker: A king mackerel of 30 lb or more, whose first run makes the reel smoke.
• Sore-mouthed: Said of fish that were hooked earlier and are now wary.
• Specks: Crappie in Florida, where they are also speckled perch; speckled trout (spotted seatrout) on the Gulf coast.
• Spot burning: Giving away the location of a good spot, usually in a photo or a post.
• Steelie: A steelhead. A fuller picture of the fish is in steelhead fishing.
• Stick: A very good angler: “he’s a real stick.”
• Tight lines: The angler’s goodbye and good-luck wish: may your line be tight with a fish on it. Many anglers treat a plain “good luck” as bad luck.
• Toothy critter: A pike, muskie, pickerel, gar or any other fish that cuts line with its teeth.
• Trash fish: An unwanted catch. Many of them, from drum to bowfin, fight hard and eat well.
• Unbuttoned: Came off the hook mid-fight. A long-distance release is the same thing, said kindly.
• Wall hanger: A fish big enough to mount.
• Water wolf: A northern pike.
• Wet a line: To go fishing.
• Yak: A fishing kayak.

Acronyms and abbreviations

Quick answers about fishing words

What do fishermen say for good luck?

“Tight lines.” It wishes the other angler a line pulled tight by a fish. Many anglers avoid saying “good luck” before a trip, the way actors say “break a leg.”

What is a fisherman called?

An angler, if the fishing is done with a hook and line; the word covers men and women alike. “Fisherman” and “fisher” also cover people who fish with nets for a living. The old literary word is piscator, from the Latin for fish.

What is it called when a fish bites?

A bite, a strike, a hit or a take. A soft one is a bump, a tick or a tap, and a loud one on a surface lure is a blow-up. The angler’s answer is the hookset.

What is slang for a big fish?

Lunker, hawg, hog, pig, toad, tank, donkey, slob, giant, stud and wall hanger. Species have their own: a slab is a big crappie, a gator a big pike or speckled trout, a cow a big striped bass, a doormat a big flounder, a bull a big bluegill or redfish.

What is slang for a small fish?

A dink, a short, a shaker or a throwback. Small pike are hammer handles and small stripers are schoolies.

What does “skunked” mean in fishing?

It means the angler caught nothing at all. The word is older than sport fishing’s use of it: Americans in the 1800s said a team was skunked when it lost without scoring.

What does PB mean in fishing?

Personal best: the biggest fish of a species that an angler has ever landed, by weight or by length.

What is a honey hole?

A spot that produces fish trip after trip. It can be a brush pile, a bend in a creek or a single dock. The custom is not to ask where it is.

Is “spinner” a fishing term?

Yes, with three meanings: a lure with a revolving blade, the last adult stage of a mayfly, and, loosely, an angler who fishes with spinning tackle.

Is “brah” a fishing term?

No. “Brah” is Hawaiian Pidgin for brother, a way of greeting a friend. You will hear it on boats and beaches in Hawaii, as you hear it everywhere else there, but it names nothing in fishing.

What does “chop” mean in fishing?

Chop is the short, steep waves a steady wind raises on a lake or bay. A walleye chop is the kind walleye anglers hope for: waves of a foot or two that dim the light under water.

Where to go from the words

A glossary gets you through the conversation at the ramp; the fishing itself starts in fishing basics. The first skill to learn is a knot, and the knots pages begin with the improved clinch and the Palomar. After that, how to catch bass and trout fishing put most of these words to work.