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Why we’re never satisfied
Earlier this week, while planning where I might drag the BassCat for a few hours of fishing today, it hit me like a ton of bricks.
“It” is the fact that we anglers are never satisfied. Never ever.
When the weather is hot, we want it cooler. When the day dawns chilly, we want it warmer. When rain is falling, we long for sunshine. When ... well, you get the picture.
We’re never quite there – wherever “there” might actually be.
The wonder that is fishing no doubt has grown because anglers are never satisfied. Our nature is to look for the next challenge and figure it out.
I fish for bass mostly. Over the years, I’ve added new lakes, new lures, new techniques, new electronics, new everything – all because I wasn’t thoroughly satisfied with the status quo. Every time I think I’ve pretty much figured out the bass game, along comes a new set of circumstances to absorb.
And so I was thinking earlier this week as I hemmed and hawed about today’s possible venues, “I wish we had more weekends still to come this summer.” The irony was in July I was looking ahead to the cooler evenings and later sunrises, a time like today.
So the plan I hatched was to be on the lake at dawn to get the morning started with some fast topwater action. Almost immediately, I felt the twinge of regret that the summer is waning.
It’s been a decent summer with good fishing, but as the days shorten and the water cools, the local reservoirs undergo changes that enhance our chances of hooking up with big catches of our favorite fish. Whether you like to fish for crappies or walleyes, bass or muskies, by the time we are deep into the countdown to Labor Day, the action is bound to be improving.
That we are never satisfied also is manifested in the unspoken sentiment behind the common call heard in boats everywhere: One more cast.
Regardless of the day’s success, every angler wants to catch one more fish before heading to the dock.
Ten or so years ago I had a day on Lake Erie like no other I’ve ever experienced.
I caught a 5-pound largemouth early that morning and in the next 30 minutes I boated 15 or more bass as they boiled the surface all around my boat, gorging on baitfish.
That action finally subsided and I had a few moments to reorganize the deck clutter created by the frantic action. The school had sounded, but I hypothesized the fish were still in the neighborhood, so I pulled out two rods rigged with the perfect set-ups to bounce plastics off the bottom.
The first cast that followed was rewarded by a solid strike. It connected as I dragged a tube jig down a sandbar’s steep slope from 4 feet to 12. The next cast also scored. And so did the third. All of the fish were largemouths between three and four pounds.
I’d set up over what may very well have been the biggest school of largemouths I’d ever experienced. For the next three hours, I hooked a fish every four or five casts. I lost count somewhere above 75 keepers. I didn’t move the boat more than 20 yards all day.
I would take a break for water and food, then return to the bow for more. Shredded tubes littered the deck. I retied a dozen times or more. My thumbs were tattered from the raspy bass teeth and my clothes would need a good laundering to rid them of the slime and scent that comes with a banner day on the water.
Soon, of course, the time came to head to the dock. “One more cast.”
Did I want to go? Of course not. I wanted one more bass.
We’re just never satisfied.