How do you measure success/fun

[Rob Snowhite]

Do you have to catch fish to have success/fun?

I am at the point now where just getting out is the highlight.

example:

Saturday – my wife dropped me off with my kayak for some shad fishing. She was going to sit under a tree at the take out and read for the day. I waded and floated down the river. The weather was perfect – blue bird sky, no humidity, temps in the 70s.

I floated down the river and only landed one fish, a decent sized largemouth. Ospereys were all over, huge turtles sunbathed on exposed logs, herons and ducks galore. The trees were in bloom with their sweet perfume in the air.

At one point I reeled in, put my feet up and just floated lazily with my eyes closed. I drifted under and past trees with the ospreys, they didn’t mind me at all.

[lawrence underwood]

Sounds like success to me.

[bill webster]

Rob,

I have had the pleasure of knowing, and working with and for some great people while in the AF, but one in particular stands out.

[Tim Schulz]

Many of you will be familiar with this, but I believe this is the best answer that anyone has given to this question:

I fish because I love to; because I love the environs where trout are found, which are invariably beautiful, and hate the environs where crowds of people are found, which are invariably ugly; because of all the television commercials, cocktail parties, and assorted social posturing I thus escape; because, in a world where most men seem to spend their lives doing things they hate, my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion; because trout do not lie or cheat and cannot be bought or bribed or impressed by power, but respond only to quietude and humility and endless patience; because I suspect that men are going along this way for the last time, and I for one don’t want to waste the trip; because mercifully there are no telephones on trout waters; because only in the woods can I find solitude without loneliness; because bourbon out of an old tin cup always tastes better out there; because maybe one day I will catch a mermaid; and, finally, not because I regard fishing as being so terribly important but because I suspect that so many of the other concerns of men are equally unimportant – and not nearly so much fun.

John Voelker
(aka Robert Traver)
from his books Anatomy of a Fisherman and Trout Magic

This has special meaning for me because I have fished many of the same waters that the good judge fished.

[Bob Riggins]

Same thing.

[Gary Sundin]

We’ve all heard versions of the “sportsman’s evolution” model, in which the hunter/angler cycles through several stages of trophy-taking and target preference, eventually arriving at the enlightened, karma-like endpoint of, apparently, not caring about catching anything.  I think it’s lovely, and I don’t doubt it contains much truth.  Judging from my short 36 years of fishing experience, I project I’ll reach that final enlightened condition within 200 years.  

I personally rank fishing quality on 3 broad categories, equally weighted:

1) 33.3% Karma.  The most cerebral aspect of fishing, dealing with concepts like truth and beauty.  (I know, all aspects of fishing “quality” are subjective.)  Pristine wild settings, native fish, things like that.

2) 33.3% Strategy.  How the fishery is accessed.  What kind of seasonal and environmental factors make the fishery work.  In short, solving the problems that stand in the way of predictably putting fish in the hand.

3) 33.3% Fish.  The qualities of the quarry as a “game fish”.  Related to #2, but specific to the actual behavior of the target species.  Primarily, how big/strong are the fish, but also how aggressively they eat, whether they eat from the surface, how numerous they are, etc.

I will occasionally fish knowing that fish-in-hand success is unlikely.  One reason is “fishing” with my daughter.  We often do more hiking/playing than fishing.  My goal is to spend time with her and get her interested in the outdoors generally.  I don’t really categorize our trips together as fishing.  Another justifiable reason is limit-testing a fishery.  Eg. fishing in higher flows/colder temperatures/later in the season than I typically would, just to put a data point where one is lacking.  And of course, I always fish when I can.  If I have a trip scheduled and conditions go bad, and I can’t re-schedule, I’ll go somewhere and fish for something.  

A “perfect” day scores high in all categories and results in fish to hand.  I rarely count a day as a “bad day” just because I didn’t catch fish.  Beautiful places out of doors provide benefits regardless.  But I generally don’t call it a “great day” unless I put some target species in hand.  I fish, as opposed to hike/paddle/climb/swim, specifically to get that slimy fish firmly in my grasp.  I do it with a fly rod, preferably.  But if fly rods disappeared from the earth, and if all the beautiful places and native fish were destroyed, I would still be out with a gig or a net or a burlap sack, in the sewer or the ditch, catching snakeheads or big-eyed carp or what the hell ever, just in order to actually CATCH something.  That’s me.

G

[bill heffner]

I like to catch fish when I am out there but it is not a bad day if I don’t.
Some people find peace in church but I feal really at

[Mike L.]

How do you measure success/fun

By how many fish I catch and how awesome I look while catching them.

[Mike McKeown]

It’s seldom about the fish, but more often about the fishing…

Nice thread, nice posts…

I like this…

The thought that your trophy 14” fish is just around the next corner or that the black eagles, that have been stalking you for the last hour, might put on a display, or the Lammergeyer, that has been circling might drop in for a closer look, or that I might stumble across the spoor of a Karakul or an Otter. The thought that it is not the fish, nor the fishing, not even the idea that a fish might rise, but purely in “the being there”, that makes it what it is… I am not a fisherman, I am a mountain wanderer, that fact that I wander along some remote streams making some rudimentary gestures with a fly rod, makes me a fisherman…
-Me-

[george c moffett iii]

Hello friends.

[Mike Cline]

I fish, therefore I am. (Jung would have said that had he had any hobbies)

[Shannon Drawe]

So it’s safe to say, we don’t measure success with a stringer, scale or tape measure. shannon

[regan c. kenyon jr.]

With this:

just kidding.

[regan c. kenyon jr.]

I fish, therefore I am.

Rene Descartes: “Cogito ergo sum.”

Mike Cline: “Piscor ergo sum.”

Its a philosophical revolution!!!!

[Author]

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