Dam hand line fishin...

So today I headed out on a different kind of fishing adventure. I brought the trusty spinning rod as a crutch in case I needed it but I was hoping to catch some fish on a handline. Turns out I could have left the rod at home. Everyone I know has been catching a bunch of channels lately so it seemed like the time was right to try it so I headed out to a local lowhead dam. My rig was simple, maybe a bit too simple. Some 50lb test mono wrapped around a plastic bottle with an egg sinker, swivel, and hook. I also brought a minnow bucket and a cast net. I'm no great shakes with a cast net but I am getting better and it makes getting bait as fun as the fishing sometimes. What I ended up with were mostly shiners. You hook the bait and twirl it in a circle overhead letting go at the right moment to send it out where you want. It takes a bit of practice but it's not really that hard. There is a million videos on you tube if you haven't seen someone cast. You can actually cast a pretty good ways without slinging off your bait and next time I'll have more line. There were a couple times I actually cast all of what I had. Then you just hold the line and feel for a bite. Which to me was the funnest part of the whole thing, the direct feeling you get of the fish hitting your bait then feeding it a bit of line as it took it. The hardest thing I found was setting the hook without the long lever of the rod. I missed several and had a few come off after just a few seconds. Fighting the fish is actually pretty straightforward and with the heavy line pretty easy. I guess if I had hooked a 50 lb shovel it might not have been so simple. All in all it's actually a pretty effective way to fish bait and I might have to come up with a rig I can keep in the pack.