I don’t know about other anglers but I think the February/March time is usually where I figure out what my fishing is going to be about for the rest of the year. The winter time of plenty is fading away, the rush of spring is yet to come and the shore angler is left to peck at the scraps in the furrow between the two. Typically, looking at my pictures from the last few years, January is good for getting about a dozen or so quick species on the chalkboard and not a great deal else goes on until March at the earliest. This year has been a little bit different so far as I’ve managed to get a couple of good fish through February, I’m even quite enjoying the scrappy fishing, and one or two things have made me look again at what sort of things I’m typically doing.
For a while now I’ve been concentrating on changing my habits away from using my longer casts a lot to switching it up and varying the distances. Something that helps me with this is casting at known features or spots where I know there is a change in depth. Doing both these things will, on average, result in more fish than just casting blind. To keep focussed, I have a little saying that I remind myself of mentally: ‘fish smart’. The first time I can remember seeing this phrase was in an advert for Sonik rods: ‘fish smart, fish Sonik’. I don’t fish Sonik as a rule (although I have nothing against their stuff) but, despite that, I think I am gradually learning to fish smart.
If I fish a spot where there aren’t many features to aim for and the bottom is fairly uniform then I have another little saying: ‘explore the space’. I first heard this useful little combination of words watching comedy clips on Youtube. The sketch in question was a Spinal Tap-esque spoof with Christopher Walken as a record producer in charge of overseeing the Blue Oyster Cult laying down ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’. Walken is smitten with Will Ferrell’s cowbell playing and urges him to ‘explore the space’ in the next take. Something clicked for me then, I thought to myself ‘this is what I’ve been missing’ and from then on I’ve been reminding myself to explore that space, whether fishing boring spots or playing the cowbell.
Looking at the choices I’ve made about where to do my fishing, particularly last year, I realise that I’ve been playing it safe a little too often and there’s a few things that I keep coming back to in my thoughts but haven’t gotten round to doing yet. I suspect this might be because I’m wary of trying, failing, and feeling like I’ve wasted a fishing session. However, time spent learning how to fish somewhere or catch something new is not going to be time wasted and would probably be more exciting for me than the familiar stuff that I would be doing otherwise. The phrase I’ve hit upon to spur me into taking punts on these kind of longer shots is ‘no guts, no glory’. I can’t remember where I got this little gem from but it sounds very British and I like it.
I think I identify strongly with people from all walks of life that don’t pay too much attention to what other people around them are up to and are just into their own trip. I do get locked into that sometimes and it feels to me like that is when I’m getting the most fulfilment by the water. Generally, when I’m going with the herd and fishing the ‘in’ mark at that time, I’m still pretty happy but I think I enjoy myself the most when I feel like I’m out there on my own like some lunatic pioneer. This doesn’t have to be in search of some specimen fish or anything either, I can get that feeling from fishing a new spot for the first time. Often I find that my first session somewhere is the most memorable one I ever have there and quite often I catch a better fish than I have in the next umpteen return trips. I’m thinking about that feeling now and it excites me way more than another session sat at a familiar spot hoping for a bigger fish than the last dozen I caught there. I’m not saying that going and fishing the in-form places is something that I’m not going to do, often it’s the best way to get a fix of catching a good fish, but I want to temper it more with stuff that’s as much about the value of the experience as the value of the catch.
So that’s kind of what I’ve decided I want my fishing to be about this year. To continue trying to improve the reasoning behind why I’m doing what I’m doing, to not shy away from taking chances on new things that I want to get into and (to some extent) to disregard what other people are doing and pursue my own thing. I’m sure this set of ideals will have gone completely to pot by the time we start getting into the sharp end of the fishing calendar but hopefully I’ll keep enough of it in mind to take on some fresh challenges, learn some new things and have a great time along the way.
For a while now I’ve been concentrating on changing my habits away from using my longer casts a lot to switching it up and varying the distances. Something that helps me with this is casting at known features or spots where I know there is a change in depth. Doing both these things will, on average, result in more fish than just casting blind. To keep focussed, I have a little saying that I remind myself of mentally: ‘fish smart’. The first time I can remember seeing this phrase was in an advert for Sonik rods: ‘fish smart, fish Sonik’. I don’t fish Sonik as a rule (although I have nothing against their stuff) but, despite that, I think I am gradually learning to fish smart.
If I fish a spot where there aren’t many features to aim for and the bottom is fairly uniform then I have another little saying: ‘explore the space’. I first heard this useful little combination of words watching comedy clips on Youtube. The sketch in question was a Spinal Tap-esque spoof with Christopher Walken as a record producer in charge of overseeing the Blue Oyster Cult laying down ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’. Walken is smitten with Will Ferrell’s cowbell playing and urges him to ‘explore the space’ in the next take. Something clicked for me then, I thought to myself ‘this is what I’ve been missing’ and from then on I’ve been reminding myself to explore that space, whether fishing boring spots or playing the cowbell.
Looking at the choices I’ve made about where to do my fishing, particularly last year, I realise that I’ve been playing it safe a little too often and there’s a few things that I keep coming back to in my thoughts but haven’t gotten round to doing yet. I suspect this might be because I’m wary of trying, failing, and feeling like I’ve wasted a fishing session. However, time spent learning how to fish somewhere or catch something new is not going to be time wasted and would probably be more exciting for me than the familiar stuff that I would be doing otherwise. The phrase I’ve hit upon to spur me into taking punts on these kind of longer shots is ‘no guts, no glory’. I can’t remember where I got this little gem from but it sounds very British and I like it.
I think I identify strongly with people from all walks of life that don’t pay too much attention to what other people around them are up to and are just into their own trip. I do get locked into that sometimes and it feels to me like that is when I’m getting the most fulfilment by the water. Generally, when I’m going with the herd and fishing the ‘in’ mark at that time, I’m still pretty happy but I think I enjoy myself the most when I feel like I’m out there on my own like some lunatic pioneer. This doesn’t have to be in search of some specimen fish or anything either, I can get that feeling from fishing a new spot for the first time. Often I find that my first session somewhere is the most memorable one I ever have there and quite often I catch a better fish than I have in the next umpteen return trips. I’m thinking about that feeling now and it excites me way more than another session sat at a familiar spot hoping for a bigger fish than the last dozen I caught there. I’m not saying that going and fishing the in-form places is something that I’m not going to do, often it’s the best way to get a fix of catching a good fish, but I want to temper it more with stuff that’s as much about the value of the experience as the value of the catch.
So that’s kind of what I’ve decided I want my fishing to be about this year. To continue trying to improve the reasoning behind why I’m doing what I’m doing, to not shy away from taking chances on new things that I want to get into and (to some extent) to disregard what other people are doing and pursue my own thing. I’m sure this set of ideals will have gone completely to pot by the time we start getting into the sharp end of the fishing calendar but hopefully I’ll keep enough of it in mind to take on some fresh challenges, learn some new things and have a great time along the way.