i dont think i could be a professional fisherman..professional anything really.
 

what a weekend. i went fishing sat. it was freezing out on the water in my kayak. we all know how tough it is to catch a bass in the winter.

well, i got skunked. what hurt was the friend i was with got FIVE! hahah.

this tells me it isnt the fish, it was me!! me!

to really drive the point home, i woke up early Sunday and tried again. BOOM!! big gooseegg again.

it ruiined my entire weekend. sour mood and everything. even the guy at the boat launch that said, "even a bad day of fishing is better than a day at work" was no help. i'm pretty sure a crappy fisherman coined that phrase.

it got me thinking about competitions. mtn biking, fishing whatever. it takes a something that challenges yourself, and add MORE COMPETITION! no thanks. my wife would divorce me from my perpetual bad mood. haha.. now i am at my office, and it doesnt feel as bad as yesterday :D happy Monday friends.

There are things that "we" should do as work/job/career, and then are things that are better suited for hobby/interest/fun. You can try moving things back and forth, but I think it often ends up souring.

Yes. I shouldn’t be a professional many things. Including construction management.

But you do this. And rock it.

I am pretty amazing at selling crap. This has paid for my life.

We all do what we do.

You should try ice fishing....that's a real test of your patience.

Vash, my parents both just loved bass fishing. When I was in high school, they would pack up the car, and drive to the cabin at the lake and go fishing all weekend. Golly, I just hated being a high school kid with no parents at home for the weekend.

They had a neighbor that lived at the lake full time, and considered himself a super good fisherman. It was a really large lake, lake Martin in Alabama. Anyway the neighbor guy often left to go fishing in the morning at the same time as my parents, and he went west, my parents went east most days. For whatever reason one day he west east, so my parents went west.

Shortly after getting the lines in the water a guy approached in his boat, and asked if they were in a tournament, and my parents laughed and said no. He said he had been out since dawn, and had a string of fish, but he his pager went off, and he has to get back ASAP, and can't take the time to clean the fish, and he asked if they wanted the fish. They said sure. He left and shortly after that a thunderstorm started to form on the horizon, so they headed in.

Dad was busy cleaning a lot of fish and the no-it-all neighbor docked with no fish. Dad casually asked if he needed a couple of fish to eat that night. The neighbor just scowled, and went inside. Dad never mentioned to him how they had so many fish is such a short time.

Every Monday night we had fresh lake bass for dinner.

Next weekend tell yourself that you are going out catching not fishing.

That's the beauty of having 50 acres of water in my backyard. One can set the tips and then retreat to the house and watch.

I used to go fishing every weekend off the Ventura Pier when I was in high school. Sold everything I caught to the Vietnamese fishermen, then go to the motorcycle salvage yard to buy stuff for my CB750.

^^^ FB
That's cheating...you have to sit on a box in the middle of the lake after spudding an 8 inch hole.
Then wait for an hour for a nibble...and don't want to haul it up because your hands will freeze when you go to unhook it. :D

Competitions :( I know what you mean. I won a baby competition about 63 years ago and haven't won anything since.

Think of fishing as escapism. And by going fishing automatically makes you an expert at it. Actually catching something is neither here nor there.

I don't get fishing. I really, REALLY don't get ice fishing.

Vash, my father once told me, through repetition, something is learned every time. No one is born an expert or with a gift but the exception of the very few. The two brothers I grew up up the street with are high level fishermen. They can tell by the way the crawdad thumps at the end of the line if there's a large 8-10 lbs bass around. This is all according to them. I call BS then they both pull out these monsters standing on a little bass boat on both side of me. Me? I got not a freaking thing, not a bite.

As far as riding a bike, I have been riding (and training on a very serious level) since I was a teenager and learn how to suffer over the years. Racing help me further hone that skill. Still, I am no expert but I am better then most and can really make most guys my age or younger hurt and when to hit em'. I understand my body, how to condition it to get the most out of my training. I'm able to ride twice a week, but they are pretty intense workouts, whereas some of the guys that have been riding for 5-7 years are riding 3-4 times weekly and I have no problem hanging with them when the hammer goes down. Its time, experience, just like what you do at work. You can run circles around those that have been there for 5-8 years without too much effort. Chin up, dude, get out do it again and have fun. Think of the suffering part of the fun.

"I don't get fishing. I really, REALLY don't get ice fishing."


The fish taste better when you put that much effort into it. :)

Oh speaking of competition. In my ten+ years of racing, I won one race, DQ for the other first place because I ran the other dirty rider into the hay bale like he did to me some corners back only the ref saw it this time around. Ten plus years, all I have to show for are a few third place placings. Oh yeah, I suck at it. It was tremendously fun I must say.

My Father loved fishing, trout, salt, fresh.

I hate fishing.

My son LOVES to fish, trout, salt fresh, nets, spear, gigs...

My neighbor loves to fish. He has a boat. My son is a friend of his.

I love my neighbor.

Blame both sets of my immigrant grandparents who thought Southern California was a better location to move to than Michigan.

Love fishing (some types...) but don't eat fish. All catch and release, unless someone else wants them.

The last king salmon I caught - off the pier - out of lake ontario was 2015.

Before that was probably 2011. Its a lot of work making coffee, filling the thermos, packing up the car and getting up at 4am and walking out to the end of the pier in the cold and in the dark, casting hundreds of times.......energizing glow-in-the-dark spoons with a flashlight or headlamp...

got skunked 4 YEARS in a row (going out probably 3 times a week for about a month and a half each year) so 2 years ago in an effort to motivate I ordered a dozen or more custom spoons from some guy out in oregon that took 6 weeks to be delivered (didnt need these, probably have over a thousand lures), bought another salmon rod from temple fork (already have 3) and a beautiful blue anodized daiwa saltist reel (didnt need one of these as I already have probably 4 complete salmon casting setups)...

Since then, ive used this new stuff exactly once, and skunked again.

Im done with salmon I think. im too old and grumpy and I noticed that I actually worry that I might slip off a wet rock netting a fish and end up dead (water is ice cold here) .....sorta like how I drive the speed limit now with 2 hands on the wheel.


As for bass in the winter, well as Im sure you know, their metabolism drops and they dont eat much, if anything. At least you catch them during spring summer and fall

best to find something else to do when its cold....tying flies or whittling...this will motivate you to buy more knives and get into fly fishing gear

I'm sorry about that.:D

Good observation...I've known people who have tried turning hobbies into jobs. Seldom works out well.