Hunting vs. Fishing: The Epiphany
My primary hobby is probably hunting. Fishing has always just been a relaxing past time. It was an inexpensive foray that bided the time until bucks started making scrapes; that is until a very recent epiphany. As I sat blurry eyed, staring at YOUTUBE, scribbling notes, learning yet another technique to pique the interest of a creature with a brain, allegedly smoother than mine. At some point, on the phone reading off my credit card numbers, yet again, it dawned on me that as I've been attempting to fool fish, fishing has fooled me.
Oh sure, if you have a specific niche you like to fish, maybe one of the thousands of niches possible, you could escape this life without being consumed by the fine art of finding a science to angling. Most likely though you'd just be fooling yourself and maybe…if you're lucky, whoever you've chosen to share your bank account with.
Even if you decide that you're going to be a trout fisherman only, you'll probably still end up in trouble. Angling the Driftwood is different than the lake which is different than a wild trout stream. Conditions, flows, and turbidity all affect how and what you should fish with. If you get snagged up in the dark underbelly of the fishing world, you may fall down a rabbit hole known as fly fishing. Not that I'm an expert on that but my perception from the law enforcement side and the fishing side says that a heroin habit could be cheaper and less time consuming than picking up a fly rod, albeit slightly healthier.
Chasing the wily, watery, wild fish is literally entering a three-dimensional world where you can't really see conventionally, thus you need a lot more thought, science, intuition, touch and don't tell the better half, cash, to conquer. When we hunt, we pick up our gear and search the landscape in similar ways while using gun or bow. Find the feed, beds, sun, play the weather and wind then take the shot, rinse and repeat.
Oh, with fishing though, all those same considerations still apply plus a few. If you're really into it, you end up with a boat or boats which creates a whole other realm, not to mention they come with trailers. Then electronics, sonar, side imaging etc. Then you have to be prepared to use a great variety of rigs depending on the finicky mood of your scaley quarry of choice. You can use a lindy rig, dipsy diver, jig (jigging has dozens of different presentations), use downriggers or planer boards and more. Each presentation to do it properly and give yourself the best chance uses different rods, reels, lines, and a variety of knots to rig correctly. Can you tie a fluorocarbon line to a braided line or should you use a barrel swivel and those choices of knots? Can you tie of a leader above a drop shot? There are GE knots, San Diego Jam knots, uni-knots, sinch knots, figure eight knots, palomar knots, dodge, parry, thrust! Ahem, sorry, you get the picture. What is the right weight of the weights? Just to determine the length of line to troll whether it be walleye on Lake Erie or rainbows on Stevenson Dam takes a computer app like “precision trolling data” that genius mathematicians (probably while taking their lunch break from designing new nuclear missiles) built. It determines the amount of line needed for lure depth using a formula that requires plugging in water temp (water changes density based on temperature) speed, size and type of line, length and type of leader, specific lure, to keep it simple for us. Not to mention, while hunting, I don't get guns snagged and lose them. I just have to replace a few bullets each season. The difference between hunting and fishing is; if I don't see a buck, I tend to act like momma ripped a binky from my mouth. When I don't get a big fish or another fish, I can shrug it off…unless the guy next to me is yanking them in, then its binky up time again.
The gear requirements to bring on creel success in all conditions are endless. “A friend” of mine has accumulated three, no four, different tackle boxes just for walleye! One for high, muddy water, one for big lakes, one for small lakes, and one for trolling. I'm not sure how many trout gear containers I, I mean “my friend”, has but its numerous. Then there are bass boxes, catfish boxes and salmon boxes not to mention the various rods and reels required for each presentation and species. It's a lot of gear. So much gear that if “my friend's” bride found out, he would be dead before he finished this sen…
Argh…