Inside Edge

Doctor, heal thyself

“Time can bring you down; time can bend your knee.” Eric Clapton. -- Tears in Heaven

Clapton’s words are true, as anyone with life experience knows. Clapton might also have written “Fishing can bring you down; fishing can bend your knee.” Anyone who has ever wet a line can attest to that truth. In fact, fishing even bends the knee and humbles the self-proclaimed experts.

Your correspondent has been fishing for over 50 years. He has been a psychologist for more than three decades, and nearly 20 years ago he published his first article combining fishing and psychology. If you are a trusting, honest soul you might assume he has learned the psychological side of fishing so well that he never makes mental mistakes himself. Well, you would be wrong.

Recently in a club tournament I had the opportunity to make not one but three major mental blunders in the course of a single day. “Be prepared” is both the Boy Scout motto and one of my most cherished personal beliefs. And so, when it came to fishing Trader Joe Lake in northern Wisconsin, was I well-prepared? Of course not! Having found something to do instead of pre-fish, tournament morning dawned with me dropping my boat into a lake I had never laid eyes on. “That was dumb”, you are no doubt thinking, and dumb is indeed an accurate characterization of my performance. It took me over half my tournament day to figure out that one part of Trader Joe Lake was clear, deep and very cold while another part of the lake was shallow, dark and significantly warmer. I might also have been able to figure that out if I had paid close attention to my map, but that didn’t happen either.

Still, I might have salvaged the day if that was the only dumb mental mistake I made. “Believe what you know to be true” is another topic on which I have written about a zillion words over the years. Somehow none of those words were in my head this day. At the motel the night before, my roommates and I had discussed our options. After factoring in weather, water and seasonal conditions, we decided the thing to do was target pre-spawn bass away from shore. We included crankbaits and rattle baits among the lures we should certainly try. Years of personal experience, as well as information from countless articles and books align with this reasoning. Did I use this wisdom on tournament day? Yes, for about 20 minutes. At the weigh-in, I hung my head while the tournament winner described his crankbait pattern: the exact one we had identified the evening before.

“Pay attention to what the fish are telling you today” are words that both tournament anglers and casual fishermen know to follow. Nevertheless, I also found a way to ignore this principle, even after I discovered the darker, warmer water. In looking at the map the night before, I had made up my mind that the largest bay on the main lake must have pre-spawn fish in or near it. So after fishing the dark water where I was able to scratch out a couple small keepers, I decided to return for the last two hours of the tournament to the cold, clear deep water where I had spent four fishless hours that morning -- where I also went fishless for the last two hours!

What was I thinking there? Well, I guess you could say I wasn’t thinking.

“Time (fishing) can break your heart, have you begging please”… please don’t make those same stupid mental mistakes again next week!”