Articles Archive:

Fundamentals
by Ken Abrames

The fact of the matter is fishermen are more intelligent than fish. I know that many of us find that hard to believe but it is true. The catching of fish could come under the heading of "Being Able to Use Superior Intelligence in a Focused Way."

It is amazing how well a fisherman can rationalize his poor luck. There are at least a million possible reasons why the fish didn't hit, and any experienced angler has all of them at the tip of his tongue. Bite that tongue and take a good honest look at what really happened!

A consistently successful fisherman is not a lucky fisherman. He is a disciplined observer and the first thing he pays attention to is himself. This is the hardest task of all because our emotions get involved. No one likes to admit, even to himself, that he is responsible for his own luck and that the fish he did catch could have been suicidal. But such an admission is the source of real and continuing growth for a fisherman.

Some people never get past thinking that luck is the only factor in fishing. Others have progressed to the "Secret lure", mentality. Some believe that science is the answer and buy into every gadget or "Revolutionary new concept", that comes out on the market. Some just plain don't care if they catch fish or not, they fish for reasons of their own.

A fish is kind of a neutral creature. He swims around and eats. That's about all he ever does, and that is one reason we are interested in him to begin with. That neutrality allows us to create myths about our favorite fish that reflect our own personalities. To a mid-western farmer, a two hundred-pound catfish dangling from the hook of a tow truck is a thing of beauty and of course, local fame. It is the biggest, strongest, most intelligent fish that ever swam. The freshwater bass fisherman has coined the phrase "Inch for inch and pound for pound the gamest fish that swims ". The salmon is noble, the swordfish, a gladiator, the trout, discriminating; and the giant tuna, anything you want him to be.

Luckily for the fish, they don't know about the reputations that they are supposed to maintain. If they did their lives would rapidly become as complicated as ours. Can you imagine a fish being told by a wizened old lunker that he should pursue baitfish in the two to four inch range until he reaches a certain status among his fellow fish? Sound silly? I've heard and read equally ludicrous statements passed down from "Knowledgeable anglers", to naive beginners all my life.

Old fisherman's tales are part of fishing lore, some are founded in truth but many are not. For years, marlin fishermen believed that the only way to hook a fish was to drop back and wait for the marlin to pick up the bait after it had knocked it out of the outrigger. The fact of the matter is - marlin can be caught with more regularity if other techniques are employed. Experienced fly fishermen have been surprised to witness an unsophisticated beginner use a streamer fly and catch trout with regularity during a hatch. The "Match the hatch", mentality sometimes can work against success. Likewise, if you have been told that bluefish can only be caught on a certain lure at a particular spot and you believe this, you are handicapped until you question the, "Secret knowledge", that binds your options to other peoples' opinions.

Fishing is a wonderful sport. It doesn't demand anything from its' adherents except a desire to participate. Fish don't care who you are or what you've done. In order to gain the most from our personal fishing experience we would be well advised to take our lessons from the fish and not from touters of popular and trendy secret information. Granted, a small part of this information is valid, but much of it is a marketing smoke screen. The business of fishing is big business and it is not about catching fish but rather catching the attention of the fisherman for reasons of their own. Experienced fishermen are the ones who know about catching fish, ask them how to do it.

We tend to make fishing more complicated than it is. Year after year the same fishermen catch 90-percent of the fish. They do it by using their intelligence and by being alert to what is happening at the moment. They have learned the fundamentals and they make sure they put them into practice. They know how baitfish and gamefish interrelate; they are aware of the normal patterns of fish migration; they understand the physical and mechanical limitation of their tackle and learn from their experiences not from their routines.