Relearning Old Lessons

I wrote this last week as an essay to myself. I had not planned on publishing it. The more I thought about it, maybe it will help others to not make the same mistakes I made.

Friday (October 11)I went saltwater fishing. As I mentioned I caught 13 and saw at least 100 caught. There were three guys that caught over twenty fish. Sadly, there are a couple of reasons I was on the low end of the numbers. I made a couple of mistakes, because of them, I missed some fish.

In the afternoon the fish were not hitting too well at first. My friend Tom was anxious to try other spots. He was considering leaving to try them. I told him I’d put my phone in my pocket and check it every few minutes. That way if he found fish he could text me. If fish started hitting, I could text him. Tom never left and we all caught fish for the next hour or so. Closer to dark when the water was near low the fish were way out past the breakers. The couple guys that could get near the breakers were nailing fish at the end of the cast. Until low tide we were all catching at about the same rate. Once the fish went way out, those guys that could walk those extra few feet out did the best.

I was standing in knee deep water and having waves crash my waste but I was hesitant to go any further out. Not because I didn’t want to get wet, but because I didn’t want to fall and ruin my phone. The shore consisted of bowling ball sized slippery rocks. Every step was a challenge. If I would have left my phone in the car, I easily would have gone a few feet further out. Having my phone on me certainly cost me fish. Another very simply solution could have been to put my phone in a ziplock bag. I usually keep some in the car for just that purpose. However, when I got my phone, I rushed to get back to the water instead of spending the extra 15 seconds at my trunk. I lost fish today and for that I am embarrassed.

I had my gear with me carp fishing to also go saltwater. I had my “bay bag” with me as opposed to my surf bag. That in itself is no big deal. My surf bag consists mostly of large plugs and poppers. Both bags have bucktails, cocahoes, and flukes. Since the fish were on small bait the big plugs would have been useless. Having the “bay bag” was probably better today anyway. However, I do not carry one critical piece of hardware in my bay bag that I need at the ocean…heavy shock leaders.

When I fish the bay the water is usually calm. I fish a sandy point and outflows. A lot of the time I’ll just use a piece of twenty pound mono tied to my main line with a blood knot. An angry ocean full of sharp boulders definitely is a place for a three foot shock leader. Normally I use thirty to forty pound test leader material. I had one of these with me today. After I lost it, I had to use 20 pound mono. The truth is it didn’t really make a difference today because the fish were small. But if I hooked anything near keeper size never mind a trophy, it surely would have cut me off in the rocks.

So this day was certainly a learning experience for me. I fished a place that I never would have attempted if I was alone because it was so rough. Now I have the confidence to go there even during a storm. It helped that I had success and success breeds confidence. But I could have done better and I hopefully learned and remembered a few things that will help me in the future.