CHAPTER 1

First Casts

In This Chapter

How fishing connects us with nature

Why fishing is a sport for you

What benefits fishing offers

In this chapter, you’ll learn that nature is an intrinsic part of fishing. You’ll also learn that fishing is a sport for you and for everyone else. Thirdly, you’ll see some of the major benefits for those who head to the water in pursuit of fish.

Time in Nature

Most North Americans live in urban areas, and as a result the majority of our population has limited contact with the natural world. We wake to the alarm clock, drive to our place of work via busy roads, work at our assigned tasks, return home on even busier roads, and likely watch television during the evening hours. Weekends may find us catching up on chores around the house, attending local athletic contests, socializing with family and friends, grocery shopping, visiting the mall, and more. Certainly, these activities are important, but what part does nature play in our lives other than when we combat it by controlling the temperature in our cars, workplaces, and homes?

My point is that society’s routines and expectations have removed us from the natural world, and this is why you and I need fishing in our lives. Spending time in nature reduces stress and improves one’s quality of life, and, most importantly, fishing allows us to be active participants in the great outdoors. Fishing is a natural human act that provides opportunities for our senses to come alive, opportunities to view wildlife in its natural habitat, opportunities to be one with the weather, and opportunities to experience an array of positive emotions.

Arousing the Senses

Fishing allows our senses to come alive. Our eyes view the colors and movements of water, the miracle of a sunrise, the brilliance of a sunset, patterns of drifting clouds, distant shorelines, ascending mountain peaks, and more. Our noses gather the scents of fresh air, the earthy shoreline, nearby vegetation, campfires, and fresh fish. Our ears hear the bubbling brook, lapping waves, chirping songbirds, quacking mallards, calling gulls, splashing fish, and swaying treetops. Our body feels the warmth of the sun, the freshness of the wind, the moisture of the rain, and the gentleness of the earth, sand, and water at our feet. Our taste buds enjoy the delightful flavor of lunch, a meal that is always more enjoyable at water’s edge. And if things go well, the angler also gets to enjoy a savory meal of fresh fish at day’s end.

Viewing Wildlife

Observing wildlife goes hand in hand with fishing. Common sightings of winged creatures who are also fishermen include terns, fish hawks, ospreys, herons, eagles, mergansers, and cormorants. Then there are gulls, geese, mallards, and more. Muskrats, mink, beavers, and otters inhabit fish-holding waters and shorelines. Chipmunks, squirrels, raccoons, foxes, and white-tailed deer make their way to the water’s edge, too. And if you are lucky enough to fish in such places as Yellowstone, Quebec, or Alaska, you will encounter creatures like moose, caribou, elk, black bears, brown bears, and wolves.

Real Fishing

Whenever a fishing trip is in the offing, I stay in tune with weather forecasts. For one thing, I want to make sure conditions are safe for being on the water. Also, conditions may affect my strategy for the day as well as my expectations for success. For example, strong winds might dictate that I troll rather than cast, and easterly winds indicate that fish will be less active so I might expect to catch fewer fish than when the wind blows from the southwest. Because of my keen interest in weather, my two sons tease me that the weather channel is my favorite television show.

Watching the Weather, Too

Except for extreme weather conditions such as wind storms and ice storms, we are pretty much weatherproof as a society today. For anglers, however, weather is very important because our sport demands that we be outside in the natural elements, not in a domed stadium. The weather affects such decisions as whether to even venture forth, where to go, and how to dress. Thunderstorms, drizzles, wind direction, wind strength, and temperatures impact our decision making, so the weather channel and other informational sources become an intimate part of our lives. As an angler becomes more immersed in the sport, he or she will learn how weather impacts fish activity and what conditions make for good fishing and what conditions mean the likelihood of a less productive outing.

Feeling the Emotion

Angling, like other sports, elicits emotional experiences. All ventures begin with anticipation and hopefully end with the thrill of the catch. Experiences may range from total relaxation in a lawn chair at a neighborhood park to extreme adventure at a remote Alaska lake. An individual who fishes is a person who is emotionally alive.

People of All Levels Can Participate

The term fisherman has a definite male ring, but fishing holds no prejudices. Fishing is open to all people regardless of gender, age, race, physical ability, income level, or skill level. Certainly a term like angler suggests more inclusivity, but a fisherman is not a male; a fisherman is anyone who fishes. The key part of fisherman is fisher, not man so world-class fly caster Joan Wulff is an angler, a fisher, a fisherwoman, and a fisherman.

Open to All

Our age, physical ability, income level, and transportation options influence our activity choices, but none of the four should prevent someone from fishing. If a youngster can turn the reel handle while an adult holds the rod, that child can fish. My eighty-five-year-old aunt and uncle continue to fish together as they have throughout their married life. Fishing ramps, access sites, guides, charter boats, electric reels, and more are available for the physically challenged individual. A week-long lake trout trip to Manitoba may cost thousands of dollars, but less than $50 will get an angler started with a rod, reel, terminal tackle, bait, and fishing license. Not all people have the means to travel to distant fishing destinations, but each of us has fish-holding waters nearby.

Fishing Vocab

An angler is a person who fishes. The term originally referred to fishing with a hook rather than a net, spear, etc. Angler is derived from the word anka in a now-extinct language of India, and anka means bend, which refers to the curved fishhook.

Skill Levels

Like other sports, fishing is a skill, but individuals can participate no matter what their skill level may be. A basic level consists of baiting a hook, casting the offering into the water, and setting the rod in a Y-stick. At the other end of the spectrum is fly fishing, which consists of softly casting a dry fly onto the water and then guiding the offering skillfully into a trout-holding lair by mending the line. Despite the stereotype of the lucky fisherman, it is the skilled angler who routinely catches fish, and improving one’s angling skills amounts to making a conscious effort in that direction. Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers currently hits one hundred-mile-per-hour fastballs out of major league parks, but he likely began his skill development by hitting plastic balls off a tee. If you want to improve your angling skills, the formula is a simple one: go fishing.

Why People Fish

People fish for different reasons. Some may simply want to relax for a few hours at water’s edge or bring home some fresh fish for dinner, while others may want to catch a record fish or compete for millions of dollars in prize money on the professional bass circuit. The majority of anglers, though, have desired goals that lie somewhere in between. What are your objectives?

Benefits of Fishing

Spending time in nature and putting fish on the table rank high on the list of the benefits of fishing, but other noteworthy benefits include the fun of fishing, the development of a lifetime activity, exercise, solitude, and camaraderie.

Plain Old Fun

Fishing gives pleasure to those who take part. Anglers draw pleasure from the entire experience, which includes preparing for a trip, getting away from regular routines, spending time outdoors, being with family and friends, and the act of fishing itself. There is fun in anticipating a bite, the actual bite, the playing of the fish, seeing the fish in the water, and watching the fish swim away upon release or eating fresh fish at the dinner table, whatever the choice may be.

Learning, too, is part of the fun of fishing. If you are like me, you enjoy the act of learning, and fishing is an ongoing, never-ending learning process. Anglers spend their fishing lives learning about various fish species, bodies of water, fishing techniques, and equipment. Speaking of gear, checking out or, better yet, acquiring new equipment that we hope will improve our success on the water is also fun. I enjoy browsing through a fishing catalog, stopping at a local bait shop, or wandering up and down the aisles at a large retail outlet. My attraction to fishing products allows me to appreciate my wife’s fascination with shoe stores.

Lifetime Activity

Youth activities typically include sports such as soccer, baseball, softball, basketball, football, hockey, and running. Although we can participate in these sports well into adulthood, we usually move away from them once we finish school. Such is not the case with fishing, though, as fishing is a sport that one can enjoy throughout life.

There is a growing movement in physical education classes to offer students lifetime activities rather than traditional sports such as soccer and softball. In reality, fishing would make an excellent course in such programs, and, indeed, fishing is offered at some schools. No matter where life takes an individual, fishing remains a viable activity.

Real Fishing

Eighty-five-year-old Bob Seymour is the ultimate example of someone for whom fishing has been a lifetime sport. Uncle Bob has a St. Lawrence River cottage, where he keeps a 14-foot boat with a 9.9-horsepower motor. His fishing consists of trolling for northern pike in spring, anchoring and using live minnows for smallmouth bass and yellow perch during the summer, and trolling for walleyes in the fall. This past year he won a local walleye derby with a 7-plus-pound fish. Bob’s secret to catching fish is his intimate knowledge of the area he fishes.

Exercise

Despite the stereotype of an angler asleep on the riverbank with a hat pulled over his head, fishing is an active sport that offers the benefit of exercise. Okay, a fishing outing is not like running the Boston Marathon, but the outing does allow us to engage in big-muscle activity that might include walking, hiking, carrying gear, casting and retrieving, getting up and down, paddling or rowing, launching a boat, lifting an anchor, and hopefully hoisting big fish for the camera.

Solitude and Camaraderie

Anglers can go it alone or do it with others. Ironically, fishing is unique in that the sport offers opportunities for both solitude and camaraderie, two important needs of the human spirit. A lone angler casting for rainbows on an isolated stretch of stream in autumn, bobber fishing for crappies on a dock at sunrise, or trolling for muskies on a star-filled evening has the occasion to reflect on his or her lot in life and to revel in solitude. Still, fishing is more about camaraderie than solitude. That camaraderie may be an outing with a regular fishing partner, an annual gathering of friends on opening day, or participating in an ice fishing derby with hundreds of other anglers. Fishermen love to be among others who share their passion for the sport.

A special bond forms between individuals who fish together, so fishing makes an excellent family activity. On a fishing trip, a merging and equality of the generations occurs. Children behave more maturely, and adults become more youthful.