Seeing It Makes It More Exciting

Fishing is fishing, right?  Not so much in my book. 

There are a lot of ways to fish, where fishing is loosely defined as an attempt to catch fish.  On the forum there are often discussions whether this applies to bow fishing, spear fishing, noodling, or any of the other methods of “fishing” that don’t include a pole, line, and hook.  From that narrow view most of the commercial fishing shouldn’t be called fishing either. 

I’ve already deviated, as my thoughts are centered on fishing with a pole, line, and hook.  Even there, I don’t find all forms of fishing to be equally enjoyable.  Personally, the long rod is my favorite, nearly to the point of exclusivity these days.  But that’s just me.  Others find great joy in their techniques and that's how it should be. There's room for us all.

Even within a type of fishing, be it fly, lure, or bait there are circumstances where how the fish takes and is caught are more pleasant than others.   I’m not near as selective on this point, but I know many who are.  For example many fly fish for carp purely by sight fish.  They like the thrill of stalking a single fish, selecting a fly, making a great presentation, and watching the fish eat.  I’ll admit it is great sport, but I’m also willing to blind cast in order to catch when conditions aren’t right for sight fishing. 

Any form of fishing where more than one sense is involved is without a doubt far more exciting.  When blind casting, I am thinking about a lot of things and to some extent vision, sound, and smell come into play. However, the truth is most of the sensations come from feel, the strike and the fight of the fish.  When the fish treats us with aerial displays vision plays a bigger role in fighting the fish.  Let’s face it, who doesn’t get a kick out of watching a trout, bass, pike, or other species go airborne in an effort to throw the hook?  I know I do.

Even more exciting than an aerial display is watching a fish take our offering, especially when it’s from the water’s surface.  Two of the more common methods are top water fishing for the lure angler, dry fly fishing to the long rodder.

This summer I’ve found myself doing more visually enhanced fishing than I have in years past, trout, black bass, carp, and white bass have been the primary targets, and interestingly enough most of it has been sight fishing, rather than “blind” casting top water or dry flies.

Just last Sunday I was stalking grass carp at a pond and noted a number of cruising trout.  It was rather satisfying to cast my “carp” fly to them and watch the take.  Regretfully, the carp weren’t near as cooperative. 

One of my best memories is of a club level bass tournament where we encountered a topwater bite that wouldn’t quit.  Using a floating Rapala I won the event.  That is after I calmed down and quit setting the hook until I felt the fish.  Setting up when I saw the fish resulted in me jerking the bait away from the bass.

Carp have been a regular target this year, primarily at Jackson.  Once they started feeding tight to the shoreline, especially along riprap and the dam, it was hard to stay away.  Let’s face it, tossing flies to big fish you can see actively feeding is exciting, especially when they honor you with a take.

However, out of all the “sight” fishing this year, I think chasing white bass boils has been the most enjoyable.  When it’s right, the catching is unbelievably easy.  You’re not casting to individual fish, rather to schools of marauding predators that have pushed a school of bait fish to the surface in their attempt to escape the melee. When the action starts, especially when birds are involved, it’s fascinating to watch.  And knowing that if you can get close enough to make a cast without killing the action you’ll almost always get an immediate hook up isn’t half bad either.

Yep, fishing always includes the sense of feel, but when you can add a visual element to the process, it’s all the more exciting, be a trout sipping a midge, a bass slamming a floating rapala, watching a carp casually take your fly, an aerial display, or casting to wiper/white bass busting baitfish. Seeing it happen makes it all the better.