[numbskull]

Last night, in spite of excellent conditions I didn't want to go fishing. The night before I had made a solid effort and found nothing more than a lot small bumps and one mediocre fish. The prior several weeks had been hardly better. Small fish, sometimes on every cast, but nothing that would take drag. An occasional weak, sick looking 34" fish covered in sores. But I went anyways, angry at myself for going, resigned to doing poorly, questioning my commitment to the sport and all it costs me, mad that I don't live a more balanced life.

The travel was easy. Then a long difficult hike after that over broken rock. An early 34" fish then nothing, so another long hike further in, alone, to a spot Flap and I used to fish, somewhere I'd not taken a fish for several years. And there was nothing. One tiny fish and a few half-hearted bumps. But standing there, on Flap's favorite rock, with some of the best striped bass water in the world in front of me, it all started to feel OK again. I started back. I took me past a place where I had taken several nice fish years before, a place full of possibility and promise, but where on the way in I'd found nothing. I stopped and made a few casts with a parrot darter. 2/3 of the way through the second cast the plug stopped solidly, the water exploded in a surge of phosphorescence, the little GSB1201L doubled over and the small Stella screamed. Under-gunned. Five seconds and it was over, my plug rubbed off on the nearest boulder, the plug covered in gobs of red rock weed, hooks straightened. How big? Who knows? I doubt anything massive. Probably a #30. It didn't really matter. She was there, I was there, and for a precious few moments we were connected. She won, good for her. I won, too. The hike out felt different.

Why post this? Because I think good fishermen get jaded. The better we get the more we count on doing well. We learn to predict when and where our chances are best. Often we are right. And what we catch is impressive. Five, six,....twenty fish, large fish, fish that fight like champs, fish that take strength to lift, with mouths big enough for your hand. And we feel good about ourselves because of it. We get used to that feeling, expect it, and it becomes why we fish. But this is a trap. Fishing when you are confident you will catch becomes limiting. You find you don't go, because it is not June and new moon at the canal, or October and beaches packed with bait. Summer accentuates that. Success is much more difficult to find, failure the more likely outcome. Unless, that is, you measure success differently, measure it not by what you catch but by what you touch.

Last night, standing on Flap's rock, casting in his foot prints, I remembered this. That is what I learned from Steve.
He was right.