Fun/no fun

Hello my fellow amateur anglers. I am going to ask you a question, but first let me relate today’s fishing trip.

It’s Saturday May 21, 2016. My alarm goes off at the “arrgh” hour of 2 a.m. letting me know it’s time to begin my fishing day. I have a 2.5 hour drive ahead of me if I want to be on the water early. You see, today I am going to southern NH to meet up with my brother. We are headed to today’s fishing spot, Powder Mill Pond in Bennington, NH to do some Largemouth Bass fishing.

When we arrived, there were two other fisherman launching a beautiful 17 ft. Nitro X-5 bass boat with 115 HP motor and all the tech you’d expect on such a fishing machine. With such a boat, all of the pond was open to them and they were on the water and off  to fish in mere minutes.

We on the other hand were launching our 14 ft. jon boat with a 5 hp outboard and a trolling motor. First, taking the boat off the rack of the truck, and then setting it up with the motors and all our fishing gear. This was not accomplished in mere minutes. Unfortunately for us, the day began on the downside when we could not get the outboard to fire up. Though we tried everything we could think of, it just wouldn’t start. So back to the truck to drop it off. After all that, it was a good half hour after the Nitro left before we got under way.

Now, armed with only a trolling motor, we knew our range of travel was going to be limited. We were only able to fish that section of pond inside the red boundary.

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We caught a few Perch..

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…and a couple kibbies…

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…a couple Rock Bass…

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…and a couple of stunning Crappie…

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but we did not catch what we came after, the Largemouth Bass. Though we originally came to hunt Largemouth, we discovered early that it was the Pickerel that were active, and after the first couple of Pickerel, we forgot all about the Bass. We were casting top water baits and the excitement of watching the blow ups as the Pickerel attacked left us in awe. In one section, the water was so shallow that the jon boat was grounded, but even water only 8 inches deep didn’t stop the voracious attacks of the aggressive Pickerel.

Let me tell you, we had a fantastic day catching fish. We had so much fun catching some big Pickerel. We joked as the Lunkerhunt frog I was using first lost one leg, then a couple casts later lost his other leg, to be followed by the loss of the whole lure when a large fish pull with enough power to straighten out my coast lock leader. We continued to bring up my poor frog all afternoon and laughed again. It was a day that had both factors for great memories, good company + good fishing.

We finally called it a day and shortly after we got back to the launch, the Nitro pulled in. When I asked how they did, there was a lot of grumbling from both men. When I remarked that the Pickerel sure were active, one of the men said “don’t talk to me about the effing Pickerel” while the other said “I’m sick of the GD pickerel”. Everything about their deportment screamed bad mood. Despite the beautiful day, the great surroundings, and being out fishing, it was absolutely obvious that these two fellows felt like they wasted a day.

Now for the question I told you I was going to ask at the beginning of this post. Four men go Bass fishing. Two in a dedicated Bass boat loaded with technology, and two in a row boat. They catch the same fish in the same amount of time, but only the two in the row boat have a great time. Why? What is the difference between fun and no fun?

Attitude, plain and simple. They weren’t catching the fish they wanted to be catching and their “fun” was dependent on that, whereas, we weren’t catching the fish we started out after, but we were catching fish and we were loving it. My fellow amateurs, check your expectations at the boat launch and just enjoy a day of catching fish. At the end of the day who would you rather be? The guys who had a great time, or the guys who wasted a day?

tight lines, the Amateur Angler