What are your expectations when you’re out fishing? Do you just want to spend the time sitting by the water? Do you expect always to catch the most or biggest fish, or some other lofty type goal?
How we look at the day before we even go out has a lot to do with how the day ends up being in the long run. If we decide ahead of time to take the joy that the day sends us, we will all be a lot happier. Yes, of course we would like to catch a couple fish, or maybe a big fish, but that should not be the ultimate goal of the day out on the water.
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Many times, you’re not going to catch anything. That’s the way fishing goes. Oftentimes, even the most experienced and skilled angler can spend the day on the water and not come home with anything but stories.
There were many years that I considered myself kind of a big-time fly-fishing guide. I traveled the around the continent and fished from Alaska to Florida to back home here in North Carolina. I saw a lot of things from a lot of people who showed a lot of themselves.
Among the more notable things that I did was to be among the innovators of the autumn false albacore fishery at Cape Lookout. It’s an amazing fishery if you’ve been around it, and you may know that people come here from all across the country.
These two dudes came down to fish with me from Arlington, Virginia. They talked about all the places they had been and the fishing that they had done. We got out there and almost immediately there was a huge blitz of feeding fish on the surface. Big fish. By the time it was over, four hours later, both anglers had boated multiple fish in the 20-pound class and had seen things that people only dream about: Huge fish blowing out of the water; walls of albacore feeding into the current; huge clouds of seagulls feeding on and chasing bait fish seemingly to the horizon; whales crashing out of the water. Amazing.
Then things changed. It got very windy and the guys couldn’t make any kind of casts in the conditions. It was very difficult and they did not land another fish in the second half of the day, even though they had many opportunities.
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That’s the way it goes sometimes. It’s difficult.
When it was over, we were driving back to the dock. I looked to the guys and said, “That was pretty awesome, wasn’t it?” They both looked at me with sadness in their eyes. “What’s the problem?” I asked.
The one guy then replied, “I thought we would catch more fish.”
Baffled, I responded by stating, “Dude, that’s as good as it gets here. That was the show.”
They were not to be mollified.
A man from Durham came to fish with me years ago. The plan was to spend an evening fly fishing to redfish tailing on spartina grass flats, and the following morning casting surface plugs over sea grass meadows.
The evening tide came on and redfish were there just as we expected them to be. It was beautiful. Gorgeous sunset. Tails waving. Everything seemed to be in place. Unfortunately, he did not catch a fish. He had couple of chances and missed strikes. But it was not meant to be.
We consoled ourselves over steaks and potatoes I made for us. The next morning, we started dark and early and were casting over the grass flats as the sun was coming up. We caught speckled trout almost every cast for the first hour and proceeded to find singles and doubles of redfish over the flats the rest of the day. Nothing too big, but pretty steady action. Not outlandish. You wouldn’t say the fish were jumping over the top of each other to get in the boat by any means.
When we were done, he said to me, “That’s the best two days of fishing that I’ve ever had.”
I asked what he meant by that. He told me, “It was the company, the surroundings, and the total experience that made it for me.”
Jule McDowell was his name, and after years of us subsequently fishing together, he recently succumbed to cancer. I think about that day often.
Coach John Wooden, legendary basketball coach of the University of California, Los Angeles Bruins, was known for saying, “Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”
I have found this to be especially true when talking about fishing, in the sense that what we bring to the endeavor often flavors it and colors our perceptions. Those guys from Arlington had a once-in-a-lifetime experience that most people can only dream about, but because they had their expectations set so high, they could not enjoy themselves.
My friend Jule, on the other hand, just enjoyed being out there, and because of that he had a good time. And yes, he caught some fish, but to him it was about more than simply catching. He enjoyed the whole experience and everything about the day: the ecology, the weed beds, the wildlife – all of it. He took it all in and enjoyed it all for what it was, and he was a happier person because of it.
I miss him today.
