In order to “string” a fishing pole you need to look carefully at the pole and see if there is a recommended line strength shown. If this is the first time you’ve ever done this task, listen carefully.. YOU CAN DO IT!

First time around just follow these instructions. Later on you can experiment.

1. Buy a quality mono-filament line of the recommended line weight for the fishing pole you’ll be using.

2. Determine whether the rod you’ll be stringing is a spinning rod, bait casting rod, ultra light, deep sea rod or a surf stick. If it’s anything other than a spinning rod than I suggest that you ask about how to put on line at the tackle store and they’ll gladly help you.

3. If you have a spinning rod than you must use a spinning reel and/or a spin cast reel. If you use a bait casting rod than you must use a regular bait casting reel with it, or you can also use the spin cast reel. Bait casting rods are strung somewhat differently than spinning rods.

4. If this is your first outing of the season, you probably should remove all of the old line from whatever reel that you intend to mount on your rod. The reason we do that is because fishing line is often dragged over sharp rocks or other abrasive surfaces. These abrasions can cause line to break upon stress and you don’t want that to happen.

5. Time to mount the reel on the rod. We are going to go with a spinning reel in our example because that is the most popular reel. The correct way for that reel to be seated is so that it “hangs” below the rod and that the eyes or line guides also show below the rod. There are some people who insist on fishing with the reel on top and from a gravitational point of view, that just doesn’t make any sense. I always think that the person may not be comfortable with the way the reel winds up line. The winding handle on a spinning reel can be moved from one side to the other so that it accommodates right or left handed line returns. That should make anyone comfortable with positioning the reel below the rod.

6. Once you’ve mounted the spinning reel. You can then tie the line from the roll carefully to the rotating barrel of your reel and put the roll of line on a stick, which you shove into the ground. This keeps the roll of line from traveling when you reel in the line to the point where your reel looks full. I rarely use a full roll on one of my reels.

7. You’ve found the correct line and spooled it on your reel so now you need to thread the line through the guides. Make certain that the line goes straight through the guides with no knots or tangles. Once the line is through the last guide hole than the rod is strung. Now you just have to learn how to attach leaders, snap swivels, weights, lures, hooks, floats, and of course live bait. Once you get all rigged up than you need to learn to cast.