Spring Means Fishing
In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of … fishing! Not to mangle Alfred Lord Tennyson’s famous quote too much, but when I was a young man fishing definitely occupied most of my thoughts. In fact, it still does.
There is something almost magical about watching a cork bobbing on the surface of the water, anticipating the thrill when it disappears and you hook whatever finny critter fell for your bait. If you don’t believe in magic, just take some kids fishing and watch their faces.
Fishing can be different things to different folks. My mom loved fishing just for fishing’s sake. She could be happy sitting for hours hoping for a bite. My dad thought fishing was only worthwhile to put something in the frying pan. I take after my mom.
If you love to fish, have you ever tried to figure out why you like it? One time, when I was about 12 years old, I was fishing at one of my uncle’s ponds. He was not a fisherman but kept a stocked pond for friends and relatives. I was happily casting a Heddon Sonic, trying to hook a bass, when he walked over to me.
“Why do you like to fish?” Uncle J.D. asked. I responded that I liked to feel the fish pulling on my line. He pointed and said “tie your line to that Billy goat – he will pull harder than any fish you are going to hook.”
Since then I have often wondered why I like fishing and have asked many people. Most respond with something about the fight, the food, or the challenge of outsmarting a fish. Think about that one. You are trying to outsmart a fish, an animal with a very rudimentary brain that cannot think; it just reacts.
I never played sports and don’t like games, I am just not competitive in anything but fishing. That is strange, fishing is supposed to be a contemplative activity where you enjoy the quiet and calm of nature, and I love that, too. But I also love fishing bass tournaments, trying to catch more and bigger bass than others in the tournament.
One reason I think I am competitive in bass fishing is the fact you are not really competing with other people, you are competing with the fish. And, like I said, they can’t think! In a bass tournament it makes no difference what others do, if you catch more fish, you win. So the conflict is between you and the bass, trying to figure out what they are doing and how to make them bite your bait.
Sitting by a pond watching a cork is great and one of the best things about fishing, but blasting down a lake first thing in the morning in a bass boat is special, too. There is nothing else that feels like running 60 miles per hour on a calm lake. The boat almost feels like it is floating, not connected to anything on earth. I guess it is as close to flying as I will ever get.
Opposed to that feeling, one of my best memories is of my mother and me putting a trot line across a cove at Clark’s Hill, then building a fire on the bank and casting out chicken liver for bait with our rods and reels, waiting on a catfish to bite. I was in college at that time and we talked as adults, one of the first times I remember being treated as an adult by her.
Memories are one of the reasons many people fish. Fishing trips provide the best memories for many folks about their youth. If you went fishing with your parents, think back. Can you remember any of the trips and the special feeling you had? There is an old saying that God doesn’t count time spent fishing against you. Fishermen often live longer because they have an escape from the hassle of every day living, and learn to relax and enjoy life, as well as learning to accept what happens without going crazy.
When kids go fishing with parents they learn many things, and kids that fished growing up seem to be happier and stay out of trouble. But that is true of any activity that parents and kids enjoy together. Fishing just enables them to talk without too much distraction.
If you have a child, take them fishing and make some memories. If makes no difference how old they are!