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Don’t forget to do your homework
Homework is but a distant memory for most of us, a long-lost burden we shed after graduation day.
But those who go to school this winter to improve their fishing will not regret the time they invest in reading, watching and practicing. A few extra hours spent on your fishing homework now will be well worth the effort when the bell rings this spring.
I have been a student of fishing for pretty much my entire adult life. I’ve learned plenty, but the primary lesson is this: Knowledge leads to understanding, which in turn brings better results.
How far you want to go with your schooling is up to you. Some are happy with a sixth-grade education, while others want to graduate from high school. A few strive for college degrees, and the brainiacs aren’t happy until they have earned their doctorates.
We’ve never lived in a better time to amass knowledge.
Information is everywhere. Books, magazines and newsletters are the traditional resources. They worked for our grandparents, and they’ll still work today for us.
We’ve also got the guys in the fishing tackle departments at Fin, Feather & Fur and Gander Mountain. For couch-potato anglers, television viewing includes programming that spans the range of species and tactics from freshwater to salt.
But the learning curve reached new heights when information went digital. Online information is just a couple of clicks away. An angler with a smartphone can Google weed-bed walleyes from the grass lines out on Mosquito Reservoir and gain access to more information than can possibly be processed.
Today’s onboard electronics take data to the ultimate, with sonar-GPS units today able to serve up details about lake bottoms, structure and cover that are virtually as good as the anglers themselves finning through the depths and seeing with their own eyes.
So much information is available today that anglers’ heads are literally swimming with facts.
Some drown and others rise above to ride the wave to fishing success.
The ticket is to process the readings, viewings and digital screen displays with context, experience and perspective. Those who succeed soak in the information and it becomes part of their conscious plan on game day, not a stray bolt out of the blue.
I recall an angler many years ago who wondered why his jigs weren’t producing bites at Mosquito Creek Reservoir. He’d heard the jig bite was on big time and he went to the lake with a box of chartreuse-painted ball head jigs and a couple of dozen nightcrawlers.
The only thing he had at the end of the day to show for his efforts was a lot of black worm gunk in the creases of his fingers.
He’d taken the latest intel to the lake, but lacked the understanding about where to put it to use. The walleyes were eating jigs in six feet of water, but he fished out in the middle of the lake in water too deep for his baits to be effective.
January is a great time to bury your nose in learning. Glean the knowledge, then think about where and when you fish. Determine how the information you learn will work for you and, very importantly, why.
It’s high time we make homework worth our while. The fish go to school and so must you. Learn and apply and graduate at the top of your class.