 Over
the years I have read a lot about where to fish and what
to use, there are many talented Bass anglers that can
give advice about a multitude of subjects. We all owe
thanks to fellow members , magazines, television shows
and various instructional videos. We all posses the best
equipment money can buy, sensetive rods and line, smooth
reels, hypodermic needle sharp hooks, fast and quiet boats,
sonar units with sidefinders and how much better have
we become? Have our tournament wheights skyrocketed? With
all of this information and technolgy how come we fail
more than we succed, one "reason" (excuse) is
all the educated fishing pressure. Another favorite "reason"
(excuse) is the weather pattern at the time we are fishing.
We basically share the same excuses with every Bass fisherman
from the beginning of time, if we are unsuccesful we blame
it on something and usauslly we are to blame. The first
step to becoming a good Bassfisherman is to have an interest
in catchting Bass, kinda makes sense right. So we start
watching Roland Martin and practicing our "HEY SON'S".
Then we start imatateing every thing they do or use most
of which is wronge for us from the beginning . We now
have a bunch of equipment that is suppose to work, and
a stack of magazines and books, we are all ready to catch
big limits of Bass. Here we go out the door early in the
morning ready for success the primal urge to conquer the
Bass and nature, as we drive to the lake our "false
confidence" seems unshakeable . In the first hour
we try all the recommended methods for catching Bass with
all the hot lures and we start to think about the weather
the lack of clouds, then our stomachs start to growl our
mouth is dry our mind starts to wander , we start to think
about everything other than Bass fishing. At hours three
and four we finally get a hit and now our mental breakdown
is complete we miss the fish and do not recall where we
were fishing and what we were doing , dejected we finish
off the morning with a run through our tackle box for
the thirtyfith time and go to the next great spot. If
it is a tournament we sulk dejected our emotional and
mental rollercoaster is heading down faster and furthe
than any magazine or television pro has prepared us for
as people wheigh in bag after bag of fish you ponder what
happen and to add to your confusion reach out to the succesful
to find out what they were doing and what you should have
been doing , unfortunatly their succes has cuased them
to forget some of the key things the did during their
temporary reign of success. The afternoon brings with
it the reality that you now have only four hours to catch
up, so we start to hurry up we make to many moves , we
fish to fast and everything seems to go to fast, every
glance at the clock brings heartache and the reality of
another hour gone by. It would seem that as slow as the
morning went that's how fast the afternoon went. A soccer
coach and trainer I know told me whenever things get bad
and our rythme is out of control slow down , because the
only thing that happens when you go fast and things are
bad is bad things happen fastter, so take a deep breath
and get back your rhythm and focus. But back to our dashed
hopes and broken spirit, at the afternoon weigh in were
another temporary champion is crowned and we return to
the drawing board, what went wrong? The long packing up
followed by the long ride home that did not seem that
far in the optimism of the morning. Was it the weather,
our equipment, our partner, the other fishermen, or maybe
I should take up an easy sport like golf. Does this sound
familiar? As long as man has been fishing we will always
find better tools to do the job, our equipment excels,
our mind swells, and we still fail as many times as we
succeed, why? Can we ever own enough equipment or posses
enough knowledge? I believe the best stringer hasn't been
caught yet and the best Bassfisherman hasn't been born
yet!!! What is missing from the big picture? First we
have a desire to succeed and because of that desire there
become two groups of fisherman those who would fish for
anything from marbles to money and fish whether their
was a tournament or not and those that want to win to
beat others, through the beating of others the hope to
master themselves, usually these people although at times
successful leave Bassfishing in pursuit of other means
of glory. As we hunger for knowledge to catch more Bass
and we gain more experience we learn that our success
has more to do with our attitude than anything else, in
one of the greatest books ever written about Bassfishing
"100 years of Bassfishing" by Dave Hawk the
opening suggests that our attitude and mindset must be
mastered, and in order to do this we must eliminate all
sources of distraction and become one with nature . This
is the only purpose good equipment has in fishing it eliminates
distractions, and once we have become knowledgeable and
technically perfect this eliminates the other distractions.
This means our casting has to become like walking, when
was the last time you forgot or had to think about how
to walk, that's because we practiced walking so much starting
out slowly and becoming so good at it that we no longer
must think about it, you should cast this way visualize
the target and you make the cast. In any discipline you
must first master forms, they are to say the least boring,
until you focus and get into the rhythm and put the effort
into performing them perfect, casting should be done this
way. Practice every day you want your casts to seem like
the come from nature itself, listen to sounds of the wind,
the water and the noise in the silence. Nature can and
does talk to us and it can hear every arrogant word we
have ever uttered, and it can feel our trying to tune
into it.
Once we have mastered our casting and technical aspects
of the sport, we must then work on something that has
up to recently evaded me. A few years ago some of the
long time Bassfishermen in the club would remember chasing
after Phil Uruburu year after year, Phil was a superb
Bassfisherman, Duckhunter, Deerhunter, and outdoorsman,
and I had the good fortune to fish with him and learn
a whole lot about a lot of subjects from him. After many
of his tournament wins I would wonder what it was that
he did that made the difference between his success and
my lack of success. We both fished the same way on the
outside, I could cast and he could cast , I fished efficiently
and he fished efficiently. What he had you can not get
in any catalogue or fishing magazine, what he had was
a deep understanding of all that nature was and not just
the Bass, he had intuition and rhythm he knew when to
zig and when to zag!! With this he also was very open
to listening and being confident in his intuition, something
that we all must work on. All around us the mechanized
and technical world rushes by making all kinds of demands
on us, ironically most of us think all week about winning
the big tournament while were at work and then after a
bad hour of fishing start thinking about what we have
to do at work. A couple of years later along came a fisherman
who never ever though about failure, Neil Destefano would
pick peoples brains and then improve on the original.
But most importantly he always visualized success, in
the morning hours before a tournament he would be in his
boat laying on the floor out of the way seeing that first
to the boat dock and that first strike. Neil is the most
positive thinker I have ever fished with, if he has twenty
pounds in the well he knows he can cull out to twentyfour
pounds. You may ask why I am mentioning two past members
and anglers of the year, well that is because the lesson
learned from both of them is a simple one master yourself,
learn your spirit, observe and eliminate all distractions.
This finally brings us to the conclusion of this article.
I hope the conclusion is not by any means the end of your
thinking about improving the mental aspects of your Bassfishing.
In closing I will tell you that the biggest difference
in this year and previous years has been my opening up
to my intuition and taking a step back and feeling what
is going on, I try to enter each day on the water not
as a thief, or conqueror but as a part of the big picture
one with nature. Remember to be as confident on the last
cast as you were on the first, play the math game eight
hours I need five bites, that's less than one bite per
hour. Work on your listening skills take walks in the
woods and listen to a world that has become as strange
to most of us as going to the moon. Eliminate as many
distractions as possible and always keep a positive attitude.
Remember the story of the chief of a tribe and his hunting
guide. The chiefs hunting guide always had a habit of
saying that is good, despite something bad happening.
One day while hunting the guide accidentally hit the chief
in the hand with an arrow causing the chief to lose two
fingers, and as usual the guide said this is good. Well
the chief did not think so, and he put his guide in prison
for life.. Some weeks later the chief and his new guide
were captured by another tribe who were cannibals, as
they were preparing to cook them their chief noticed the
chiefs two fingers missing and told his tribe to release
them as it was their custom not to eat anything that was
not perfect. Upon his return the chief released his guide
from prison and said he was sorry after hearing the chief's
story the guide once again said this is a good thing.
In amazement the chief asked what was so good about being
in prison, to which the guide replied if I were with you
the would have killed and eaten me!!! So we see all is
not as it seems. If you like discussing the mental part
of fishing, the best collection of books on the subject
that has been written yet. These journals can and should
be studied and discussed, they also give the reader lists
of other though provoking material and unlike other material
out there these journals are in the truest sense for the
person who has discovered for every answer a thousand
questions are spawned.
For information contact "ANGLERS QUEST" RT.1
BOX 916 MONTGOMERY , TX. 77356I hope you enjoy the essay
and I will see you on the water Dan
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