The Dues


Dues to the Fish



I remember being 12 years old going into my local fly shop craving knowledge about fishing and how to be a better fisherman. I would ask the big questions, questions like “How do I catch more steelhead” or “How do I catch bigger brown trout” and could remember hearing honest answers referring to different flies and tactics but one reply I was a little too young to understand the power behind it, “If you want to catch more fish, go fishing more, you’ll learn the rest if you pay your dues”. Me being twelve years old I pushed that comment to the side and kept digging for more than people were willing to give. They put the hard work to obtain such knowledge and it only made sense to make me do the same.

 Everyone can watch a video or hear a story as a source of knowledge but the first-person experience is unbeatable. In a video, you see what they do, what they use, and how they do it, but what It lacks is the whole experience. Sight, sound, touch, smell, and sometimes taste are all senses used in a day of fishing. The ability to live the whole fishing experience allows you to pick up on more than what a video offers. After years of fishing and catching fish, you get this “It feels fishy” instinct and you simply cannot obtain that instinct from a video. In real life you can put together why did that fish bite. On the water you notice temperature changes, more cloud cover, less cloud cover, more wind, less wind, active aquatic insects, the list in unlimited. These patterns start clicking in your head as you gain experience. After years of fishing you have so many connections between conditions and probably fish behavior.

Fishing gives you confidence. All successful fisherman have one thing in common; confidence in what they are doing. Confidence is obtained by proving to yourself that what you are doing works. No one can make you believe in yourself and your decisions better than you can. Exposing ourselves to as many different conditions and rivers allows us to build confidence in any situation. Even on days where everything isn’t going right, and things aren’t happening, keeping confidence in what you are doing in the end will convert more of those bad days into great days on the water with more fish in the net.

Word Count: 407

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Flow like The River

Image
           Fishing is what gives my life meaning. Something about the ability to spend the rest of my life improving myself and expanding my horizons in many aspects of fishing nearly promises happiness for the rest of my life. The second someone believes they know it all is the second they proved to be foolish. Michigan alone has 10,000 lakes and 10,000 barriers for me to overcome. To learn every single one in Michigan would take many life times to achieve. A fisherman could spend their whole life learning one body of water and will never know everything there is to be known. The area for growth is endless.               My love for rivers has to do with the fact that if you stand in one spot for any given time, the water in front of you is continuously rejuvenated. With new water comes new change. Sediment is deposited, and sediment is carried away. The river is always changing. Life is always changing. A river is metaphorically a symbol of life. Life will change but it will a
Read more

A Day on the River

Image
Why did I choose this topic as the foundation for this blog? I figured since this is my first post I’d like to give a little insight into the life on the river. A day on the river involves much more than a day waiting for fish to bite. Many times, the day starts well before sun rise. The Hardest Part of the Day                  At 5:00 am the horrid sound of an alarm set to high volume chimes. This is the hardest part of the day. Every time, I drag myself out of bed and contemplate sleeping in for just a few more minutes. After a battle with myself to wake up, I always start the morning by cooking my Lawn Boy signature 5-star meal: unseasoned chicken with boiled noodles, covered in the cheapest tomato sauce you can find. Believe me, it tastes great… but apparently my buddies say it doesn’t have the most beautiful aroma. My meals are made, my gear is loaded, and I head out the door. A typical morning commute to the river is between one hour and two and a half depending
Read more

The River Experience

Winter warm up Last weekend, Michigan went from a frozen tundra to a warm beautiful sunny weekend. Nothing beats a warm day after months of freezing temperatures and a depressing lack of sun exposure. To cure the winter blues I headed out for my weekly fishing excursion. The best thing about a warm-up is the fact you can wake up and not have to sit In a partially frozen automobile, hoping you won’t crash due to the lack of visibility. You can almost wake up and smell the excitement going around. The birds, the squirrels and even the people seem to be energized by this beautiful weather. What I like the most about a warm-up is the fact the fish love it too. My journey took me to the Pere Marquette River In search of winter steelhead. In my last blog post, I discussed the experience of fighting fish but lacked the description of the atmosphere of a river. The atmosphere of the river is almost what fishermen feed off of. Something about the how the sun feels extra toasty
Read more