Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
Recently I ran a few fly-fishing charters from my boat and needless to say, on those trips most of the discussions where about - you guessed it - “fly-fishing.” Now I know a lot of folks don’t really want to hear about fly-fishing because they aren’t fly-fishers themselves and really don’t understand enough about it to have any interest. In fact, I expect that after just those first two sentences most of them have already turned the page of this fine publication and are reading an ad by someone who claims they make the best pizza in town, which is just as well because if they’re so much against fly-fishing that they won’t at least hear me out, then maybe they should be in charge of ordering the pizza while the rest of us talk about fishing. And by the way – I like mine with anchovies.
For those of you who are still with me, I’ll let you know now that the rest of this column is not going to be all about fly-fishing. I just wanted to weed-out the others who don’t deserve to hear this so I thought I’d send them off on a road trip for a while.
“Commitment” is what I want to discuss this week and how it can help anglers achieve some pretty lofty goals throughout their fishing careers. “Commitment” in terms of focusing on an objective and going for it regardless of what else is going on around you. And now let me fall back to fly-fishing as an example of what I’m talking about.
An avid fly-fisherman myself, I always have at least a couple fly rods hanging from the cabin ceiling of my boat, rigged and ready for whatever opportunities might pop up in the course of any fishing day. Since most of my clients see the rods hanging there but are not fly-anglers themselves, I often get questions from them about saltwater fly-fishing and sometimes hear stories about their own half-hearted attempts at the sport. Many of them have actually had fly tackle of their own for many years but never use it. So, many times I’ve listened as anglers explained how they would like to catch fish on flies but they are always reluctant to use their fly tackle because when they go fishing they feel compelled to use the most effective tackle they have to catch whatever fish come along.
I understand where they’re coming from – a school of fish pops up and you know that if you cast a bait or a particular lure to them it’s a guaranteed fish dinner. Go for the fly rod and it might be dinner at Wendy’s, and that’s where “commitment” comes in. How bad do you want it? How bad do you want to be able to say, “I caught those fish on a fly!” If the dinner is more important, then by all means, grab the spinning rod and have at it. But if you really want to take those fish on a fly, then make the commitment and accept the risk that maybe you won’t catch a darn thing, but if you do, it could well be a highlight in your fishing career.
Fishermen so often fall into a quagmire of always trying to land fish the most “effective” way rather than the most “fun” way. I guess it all boils down to a quantity over quality thing and each angler must decide for themselves if just getting the fish by any means possible is better than milking the most fun out of every opportunity. While my example was the challenge of fly-fishing, it could just as easily been the use of light spinning tackle or any other type of unconventional method of hooking and landing a particular fish. How about jigging for tuna when everyone else is trolling, or for that matter trolling for flounder when everyone else is jigging? Breaking away from the norm and catching fish the way I want to catch them has always provided me with some of my most satisfying catches, and that’s why I gravitated to fly-fishing – every opportunity comes with its own set of challenges and every hook-up provides a sense of satisfaction I’ve never known in any other type of fishing. In the process I’ve missed a lot of shots of landing fish simply for choosing to use something other than conventional tackle to do the job, but I was committed, and through perseverance have often found ways to make some kind of a catch, and I’ve learned that three fish on a fly beats twenty on conventional tackle every time – trust me!
I know a fellow who after many years of offshore fishing had never caught a blue marlin and it was on the very top of his bucket-list. One season he made the commitment to “git-r-done” and he did nothing else but fish for blue marlin. Day after day he caught a whole lot of nothing because he stuck with his blue marlin tactics even though everyone else was tearing up the tuna. But before the season was out his commitment to stay the course got him his blue.
More than once I’ve watched my wife spend most of her day fishing without catching a thing even though very catchable fish are all around her. She was trying to land an ultra-light line class record and to do so required that she not waste time trying to catch fish that wouldn’t be potential records. At times we’d be surrounded by fish that I was able to hook on every cast, but knowing that none of the fish met the standards she needed to meet for the record she wouldn’t even wet a line. Her commitment to the goal of landing a record had her ending some days without hooking a single fish. It took a while but eventually her persistence paid off and she met her goal.
Regardless of what tackle or techniques someone considers to be the ultimate way to catch a fish, and unless they’re willing to make and stick to the commitment to pursue their quarry in a particular fashion, even if it means that they might not catch a fish at all, they’re going to have a tough time fulfilling their dreams. And by the way, the best way I know to prevent succumbing to the use of conventional tackle is not to have it on the boat in the first place. Leaving the dock, armed only with your specialty-type tackle, so when the fish pop up you’ll have no other choice but to work though the challenges with the tools on hand. You might only end up throwing three fish up on the cleaning table while everyone else has twenty – but you’ll be wearing a bigger smile!
Captain Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and captain of the charter boat “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center.
