When (and if ) you should lie about fishing

The trouble with writing an occasional fish story is, most readers won’t even agree on what kind of fish to catch, much less what to do with it afterward. (Eat that carp? or Let It Live to Bite Another Day?) Dig further into the nuances of our sport - for example whether or not to tell the unembellished truth - and you can shatter more friendships than a show of hands at a political rally.

I’m not absolutely sure what I think about folks who choose to share intimate details about exactly where and how a fish was caught, especially when another person may be naively expecting “the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth.” Seems like a religious question to me, best left to my minister brother. I do, however, feel compelled to share the limits of my own candor in a public forum. To me, the crucial question is, Just how frank and open should one be in a crowded room, social media, print media, or a popular website like this one? 

The founding father of this nifty website of ours, Fish Explorer Executive Editor Matt Snider, says he came up with the basic premise “when I got my first boat and couldn't find a list of lakes showing where I could launch it. I wanted to fly fish for wipers and hunt tiger muskie, but couldn't find a map showing which lakes had them. And if I was going to travel hours to get to a lake, I had very few options if any to determine whether the lake was full enough to launch, or warm enough to find active fish.”

The end result of all that heavy thinking was the 2006 launch of Fish Explorer, and its core concept of mapping lakes, cross-referencing fish species and updating other anglers about current lake and stream conditions. Things like water level, water temperature and general conditions like visibility. It is an absolute jewel of a resource, at its best when advising you, before you waste time and gas, on time-sensitive conditions like fluctuating water levels or the approaching end of the ice fishing season on a given body of water. 

Fair enough. In fact, thanks again, Matt!

Ask even me for water temperature, or current bait of choice, or how deep I caught fish, and you can pretty much count on a pretty honest answer. The trickier bit - and you see it on just about every social media group about fishing - comes when someone asks:  “Where’s a good spot on West Murray Pond where I can catch a big crappie this time of year?” This is the angling equivalent of asking a homely guy exactly how they landed a first date with the prettiest girl in school, or what they accomplished on that date.

This subject would never come up in water-wealthy places like Florida or Minnesota, “The Land of 10,000 Lakes.” But I would argue that the public waters we share in Colorado are too tiny for that kind of candor with anyone but a spouse or maybe a favorite sister. I am annoyed by overly chatty apps like Fishbrain, for example, that seem to expect everyone to share GPS coordinates for a favorite bluegill spawning bed. 

Here’s a better alternative: When asking for advice about a body of water, limit yourself to questions you might be willing to answer in front of an unseen, larger audience. Aim for the level of detail other Fish Explorer contributors share in a well-crafted Lake or Stream Update. Or ones like these:  “Are there crappie in this lake?” “How deep were you fishing?” “Can you get in there with a belly boat?” If a new friend really wants to help, they might respond, ““Hey, drop me an e-mail.” Or, “I’m free Wednesday. Let’s go fishing.”