What's the biggest thing that will keep you from catching bragging fish this time of year?
I finally figured out what it is pretty recently although I've been suspecting the answer to it for a while. It was a real epiphany for me personally.
It's a number of things, among them a home, a mortgage, a family and a wife - what Zorba the Greek called "the whole calamity."
You know, I've gotten myself back in relatively good shape for an old bastard in just the last couple of months after my hiatus. I could still pace the younger guys now for a night just about anywhere that I don't feel will have people saying what a funny old SOB I was after I get washed off the rocks. I just can't do it 4 or 5 nights a week anymore because of all of the above.
May God bless the twenty and thirty-somethings who can fish themselves into a delirium with little if anything to stop them like all the responsibilities we older guys seem to gather as we move further on down the road.
For me it's all about time now and balancing things in your life. The younger guys without the ties can go out and fish themselves around the bend if they want and they're gonna have some ripping tales to tell. I've already got most of mine and to tell you the truth, it really doesn't bother me.
Sooner or later most of us have the come-to-Jesus-moment on how we fish - hell, even #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^& did and I respect him more for that than his catch record.
So if you're not catching fish this time of year, it's probably age related - and I don't mean you're turning into a doddering old #$%&#, you're just trying to keep your program in balance.
Actually it's pretty nice from my perspective even if I don't have the time to fish an entire week of tides on succesive nights on the prowl for bass. Being able to go out less often actually has it's own set of perks. The salt air seems sweeter now, the water feels better, the fish feel like old friends and the flocks of long-legged bed-thrashers fluttering down the Tems flyway at night are prettier than ever as I pass them on my way out to my favorite spot
It ain't all that bad.