Fishing: Patience and Preparation

I wouldn't consider myself an avid outdoorsman, but I am definitely an enthusiast. As a child, fishing was a connection to my father and my grandfather. I admit, as a young man, I did not see in fishing what they did but as I age into their position, the murky water is beginning to clear. For starters I suppose, I was not exactly the most patient little skipper. As we sat on those boats, I dreaded the seconds between the exciting action of the "hunt", but what I failed to see was that this was only half of the game. The actual hunt, or larger picture of fishing is that the excitement doesn't lie just in the physical labor of menial reeling, but rather in the deception of the fish.

It is incredible the lengths career fisherman will go to stage and lure fish. The most eye-opening experience any amateur fisherman can have in my opinion, is going on a fishing charter. Through this I learned that fishing is much more than throwing a line in the water and rolling the dice.

Pictured above is a fish that I pulled in on Lake Ontario. Unfortunately, an expert fisherman staged the lure and set me up for success so I cannot take all of the credit.

The key to this success was however, not completely leaving the fate of the lure to chance. Considering the tides, wind speed, local weather patterns and currents, the fisherman made many calculations in order to ensure the most educated moves would be made for his valued customers. The captains goal, as he would tell us, was to minimize variables. Using probes, he measured water temperature and current speed at different depths. Taking these into account, he strategically placed lures of different shape, size and color at different depths around known salmon and trout "hot spots". Just when you thought this was impressive enough he and his mate further increased our odds through a spectacular feat of organization and rigging TEN poles behind the boat.

Other than being an extremely relaxing day out on the water, our boat of four pulled in a decent days work. I am not sure if it is the disconnect from outside society or the pride of primitive ways (pulling the fish out of the water, into a cleaning station and onto your plate for dinner), but, what I do know is that fishing will always be a sacred activity for me.

Here is a picture of our days work:

An assortment of lake trout and king salmon on a charter that we did through Midway Charters in Sandy Creek, NY. The link to their page is in the image above.