Fishing just for the heck of it

[BassSteve]

I feel the same as a lot of you do, not catching fish used to annoy me but not these days. I often use the casting time now to reflect on any problems I have or even just thinking about the past, good times. I have to be careful though, because if I do that too long it sours my mood a little! 

[kayaking_kev]

It's pretty easy to enjoy nature out on a small river in a kayak regardless of catching fish or not.

 

When I'm bank fishing it just depends on the time of year and the body of water I'm fishing. There are some times when I pretty much know I'm not going to catch anything, but I just want to get out and get some practice in with some new rods, reels, or techniques. And at the very least, I'm getting in some exercise.

 

Maybe after I've been fishing for a decade(s) like some of you, I might feel differently. I still even enjoy catching the dinks.

[NYWayfarer]

I fish for what the water will give me. I would love to catch Smallmouth Bass right now. No access to a boat and waters to cold to launch a kayak safely in my area. 
 

That means I am shore bound at the moment. I have been hitting a local pond at sunrise for Sunfish, Perch, Pickerel and finally Largemouth action. It relieves the stress of what’s going on right now.

[lo n slo]

some days i’m Hank Parker and quite positive that i should hit the pro circuit.

 

some days i’m Happy Gilmore and ready to break all my rods over somebody’s head.

[TnRiver46]

12 hours ago, keagbassr said:

Enjoying nature is not possible where i fish so I'm definatly out there to catch. However even if I have a bad day I'm still doing what I want to do with my time so  while I  may be frustrated I'm never upset. 

Well it sure is healthy water judging by the big LM youre always holding 

[NHBull]

A few of my best says fishing I was scunked!

It's not always about the fish

 

.......but often is?

[Catt]

18 hours ago, BassSteve said:

Are you like me and just go fish sometimes to simply cast, enjoy nature/the weather

 

That's what my back porch is for ?

[BassSteve]

6 minutes ago, Catt said:

 

That's what my back porch is for ?

lol so you cast while sitting on your back porch huh ? good practice i guess

[Catt]

1 minute ago, BassSteve said:

lol so you cast while sitting on your back porch huh ? good practice i guess

 

To be a porch doesn't necessarily have to an awning!

 

It's a concrete slab with a Oklahoma Joe's® Highland Offset Smoker, a Cajun Propane Fryer, Adirondack Chairs, & a table.

[BassSteve]

25 minutes ago, Catt said:

 

To be a porch doesn't necessarily have to an awning!

 

It's a concrete slab with a Oklahoma Joe's® Highland Offset Smoker, a Cajun Propane Fryer, Adirondack Chairs, & a table.

Ok now I see you have an awesome area setup in the back

[Catt]

2 minutes ago, BassSteve said:

Ok now I see you have an awesome area setup in the back

 

Since you're new here I have a pitching/casting range setup in my backyard. 69 yrs old & still practice pitching-n-casting!

[BassSteve]

1 minute ago, Catt said:

 

Since you're new here I have a pitching/casting range setup in my backyard. 69 yrs old & still practice pitching-n-casting!

Does not hurt to practice that's for sure.

[ww2farmer]

I go fishing to catch fish. "Just being out" does nothing for me. I treat every trip as if my life depended on me catching a respectable limit of bass weather I'm in a tournament or not. It's just the way I am.

 

Slow days of catching however, are not wasted days. Any time on the water is valuable "class room" time. And I learn as much from slow days,  if not more, than days when they are jumping in the boat. Anyone can catch them when they are biting good.....a select few can catch them when they are not.  

 

I don't know how many times that I have been in a tournament when the bite is "ON" and have come in with a big bag only to finish 2nd, 3rd, or just out of the money to guys whom usually don't do well. But it's been a lot.... but on the flip side, I have also won and finished in the money a lot when I'm the only one who can catch them that day...and that's all due to my vast time on the water when they are not very active and knowing what to do to get a few bites. Had I taken the "oh it's just nice to be out" approach over the years on slow days, instead of putting my head down and grinding... even in a non tournament situation, I feel like I wouldn't be nearly as successful as I have been.

 

But that's just me. Not everyone is wired the same, and I don't look down my nose at people who get different things out of life than I do.

[Catt]

13 minutes ago, BassSteve said:

Does not hurt to practice that's for sure.

 

Muscle Memory!  ?

 

[detroit1]

Fire those dudes up Catt, i'm coming down to sit a spell...

[scaleface]

Fishing is my time . I pick the most comfortable days and on waters that should be producing . I'm out to relax and catch fish . 

[the reel ess]

I go hiking with my daughter when I just want to enjoy nature. Not that I don't enjoy nature when I go fishing. But it is fishing.

[Steveo-1969]

I need to fish regularly so I don't choke people. If I needed to catch regularly I'd be in prison.

 

So the catching is not as important as the fishing itself, but I truly believe I'm going to get bit on every cast and that's what makes it fun. I've been skunked the last two fishing trips and I'm disappointed but not upset. I'll catch one on my next cast. Or maybe the cast after that.....

[DitchPanda]

So I will say that when I go out i have the goal and usually the expectation of catching fishing. I have spent a lot of time,money and energy learning this craft and have gotten decent at it over the years so I always feel like I should be able to figure some out. But I have learned to be realistic and temper my expectations over the years. So I live up north where it is cold for a big chunk of the year plus I'm a bank angler and I fish pretty much all small public waters. Much of the year I'm happy with a fish or two, especially after ice out until the water temps and weather stabilize. Then there are times when we have had several 65 degree days and the water temp and color are looking right that I anticipate cracking on em. I agree with the above mentioned sentiment of still enjoying and getting something out of those tough days. Anytime on the water is worthwhile and can at least be a learning experience, just another tool in the box for later. Plus I also mentioned in another post that I am not afraid of the grind...in fact I embrace it...makes good days even better.

[BassNJake]

Days where I'm catching fish are days where past lessons have benefited.

Days not catching fish are lessons I still need to learn.

 

The more lessons I learn the more chances I have of being more successful

 

I've been involved with sports my whole life.

Fishing allows that competitive fire to continue to burn.

Now its just me VS the bass

Except I get to cheat and use a boat, sonar, rod, reel, food imitating lures ....

Sometimes I eat humble pie, sometimes they get a hook in the mouth

[Spankey]

When I’m out bass fishing it’s all business so to say. I’m out there to catch bass and don’t feel I’m just going through the motions. Good day or bad day I try to reason with how things went and how I went about it. I’m going to say it was fun one way or another but fun is probably not the right word I just don’t know what the right word is. 
 

I’m not the most religious guy in the world but my time on the water helps me connect with the man upstairs. Fishing helps me do that. On the boat or stream side for trouts. Hard to explain, it is what it is. 
 

Now when I take my grandsons out fishing  that a fun side. I don’t fish. I act like a guide service. Just try to put them on fish. Those boys love to fish worms, leaches, crickets, shiners, hellgrammites I’m getting them into soft plastics and crankbaits. But this is fun being with them. 

[Big Hands]

I tried fishing tournaments many years ago I do enjoy fishing competitively on the day(s) of the tournament, but I don't necessarily want to feel like I am pre-fishing for a tournament EVERY time I hit the water. And in order not to be just throwing my money at the ones that do pre-fish, pre-fish, pre-fish, I would also need to do the same.

 

I don't really want to feel like I am only fishing for bites and then shaking fish off or bending my hooks over so I don't actually hook a fish that I could have waited until the tournament to put in the boat.

 

I've known people that feel like they have to have something at stake or they're not enjoying fishing for all the other reasons one might enjoy it. I am serious about fishing as one should be when they spend a lot of time, money, and energy on something. But the reason I might approach it seriously might be any of a number of reasons. 

 

I might be going to test out some new tackle (although I'm not necessarily what I would call a "gearhead" - and that's a completely different subject). I might be going to spend time with a friend, just enjoying their company and goofing around. I might really be trying to catch a fish, or as many as possible, or targeting big fish. I might be going just to get away from the grind of everything else that competes for my attention. I am serious about each of those reasons, but those are the things that feed my soul at that particular time.

 

If my soul hasn't been fed in some way, that might bother me. However, sometimes the goal may change mid-trip.

 

Scroll down for the TL/DR version.

 

I had a day back in January when I wanted to check out a new swimbait rod. I had practiced with it one other time for about half an hour, so it wasn't actually the first time out with it. I rode my bike from in town up to the west ramp at Castaic to do some shore fishing. If you have been to Castaic's west ramp, you know that is a grind to get up the hill to the ramp. All I brought was the rod/reel and I had a $40 swimbait tied onto it with brand new line.

 

I locked up my bike at the lifeguard station and made my way down to the water (which was down about 40 vertical feet lower than normal) and took a short cast just get the line wet and make sure my reel settings were OK. On my second cast, I took a pretty good whack at it and of course the line blew up into a 'professional overrun'. I thought I could probably pick the bird nest out before my supposedly slow-sinking $40 swimbait hit the bottom and it wouldn't be that risky since it looked like a sandy bottom out in front of me anyway.

 

As soon as I mentioned that the only bait I brought with me was a $40 swimbait, YOU KNEW this wasn't going to end well for the swimbait, right? Turns out I was wrong about several things.

 

• I was wrong when I tried to spool as much line onto the new reel as I could because instead of winding it on the spool as it had been wound on at the tackle shop, which was flat across, it was now looking a little high in the middle. That caused the line to rub on the reel foot, which in turn caused the backlash.
• I was wrong when I though I could pick out the bird nest before the bait hit the bottom. I should have hand lined in the bait and took my time picking out the backlash. But hindsight is 20/20, right?
• I was wrong to think that just because the shoreline was for 75 feet to either side of me that it would be sandy for 100 feet in front of me.
• I was wrong to think that I would be able to get it out of any possible snag that might be lurking.

After finally picking out the bird nest, I wound down and the bait would not budge. There was a point that jutted out quite a ways to my left and I made my way out to the end of the point and was pulling form the side, and somewhat behind where I had cast. Still would not budge. I ended up breaking off the bait. . . . on my second cast of the day. And, now I get to the part that explains why I have bothered to tell this tale in a thread about fishing just for the heck of it.

 

So, I sat for a few minutes contemplating my comedy of errors (which wasn't really comedy until some time had passed), and then the guy next to me offers his condolences for my loss and we started chatting about nothing in particular, but just having a nice chat. And then I began taking the walk of shame to head home.

 

They had stocked trout the day before, so there were a number of people (light line fishermen) there fishing for them that had all witnessed me walking down with a big stout 8' rod and a big reel with one bait and saw me lose it on my second cast, LOL. But, each person that I passed offered some sort of condolences, if you will, and I spent a few minutes pleasantly chatting with each one of them. I even got to watch one person that been there all day without catching a fish, reel in a four pound catfish.

 

Eventually I made my way back to my bike and rode down to where I had parked in town, where I sat in my car for a few minutes to take in the events of that afternoon. As I thought about riding up that heinous hill only to lose the only bait I brought on my second cast and how I could have prevented losing it, I decided that I had a choice to make. I could choose how I decided to remember this day.

 

TL/DR Version: My goal when I set out was to try out some new gear (which I don't get all that often), and maybe hook a good fish that might be around snacking on the recently stocked trout. That part hadn't gone well AT ALL. A complete failure to be honest. But, I was still feeling good of being able to ride my bike on a pleasant January afternoon, about being able to go fishing just for the heck of it, and about the overall experience of having a succession of total strangers each offer words I am sure were meant to lessen the sting of what they had witnessed. They could have silently sat there and let me pass, and even laughed a little inside at me being a bonehead, but every one of them chose not to. 

 

My goal when I set out that day was to feed my soul, but I wanted it to be fed by trying out some new gear and possibly hooking a nice fish. That didn't happen, but at the end of the day, my soul was still nourished. Just not the way in which I had intended.

 

I am a 'soul fisherman'.

[Black Hawk Basser]

I rarely go fishing with a care free attitude about what/how many I catch.  I'm out there to put the hurt on the bass.  If I want to go to relax, I will toss out some cutbait for cats or something like that.

[CrankFate]

All my fishing is for the heck of it. When I fish, I’m constantly working the bait and moving around. I do anything I can to draw bites. I do not always catch fish, I do a lot of fishing without catching. I still don’t see how the pro bass fishermen always catch so many. But I do find that all of the biggest fish I have ever caught, of any species, was on a day where it was the only fish I caught or a bad day with only a few fish caught by anyone.

[Koz]

I enjoy relaxing in the outdoors and walking the banks. I also enjoy catching fish.

 

Those two things don't always happen on the same day.