California is the most populous state in the United States of America, but there is still plenty of room to fish. California is broken up into six distinct regions, all with various fishing regulations. California boasts 1,100 miles of ocean coastline, 220,000 square miles of ocean waters, 4,172 lakes and reservoirs, 29,664 miles of streams and rivers, and 1,800 miles of bay and delta waters, California has more fishing opportunities than any other state in the country. With that amount of water available to fish in, California is an anglers dream.

If you're interested in deep sea fishing, ocean wade fishing, river and stream fishing, or lake fishing for Largemouth Bass, California can accommodate you. California has almost every species of game fish available to the avid angler. From crappie to sturgeon and every freshwater fish in between, California has them. And saltwater fish from mackerel to great white sharks can all be found off of the California coast as well.

As far as freshwater fishing goes, one of the best methods for fishing live bait is a set of gang hooks. A set of gang hooks is simply two small hooks tied in tandem. Small hooks work well, because they are then concealed with in bait quite nicely. In fact, gang hooks are the best way to present a live worm, as well as many other live types of live bait. The biggest strong point is that gang hooks enable the angler to present the bait naturally, rather than trying to thread the worm onto a larger single hook. If you're bait fishing in California, you may want to give gang hooks a shot,

Remember, a California fishing license is required to fish in the state of California. A fishing license will run you from $37.50 for a resident to $100 for a non resident. If you're traveling, a two day license is available for less than $20. And if you happen to be going after Steelhead on inland waters in California, you need a Steelhead report card, which is under $10. As you can see, fishing in California isn't at all an expensive proposition (especially for residents). If you plan on staying in California for the rest of your life, there is even lifetime fishing licenses available, which is really good idea.

The bottom line is if your like to fish, California is an anglers paradise. Any type of fishing that you can imagine is available within the state of California. And with its thousands of miles of coastline, there are good runs of both salmon and steelhead as well. Many states within the United States don't offer fishing for these wonderful fish simply because of their proximity to large bodies of water. Yep, as far as the sport of fishing goes, California is a hard state to beat.