By The Bank Fisher

Back in my high school and college days my buddy and I would often head out fishing in various modes, mostly for bass. “Sophisticated” and “knowledgeable” would be poor adjectives to describe our attempts. Special knots, you say? Well you just tie your line like your shoelaces right? – no sweat. Line poundages, you say? Doesn’t matter, all the line looks the same to me. Fishing rod action, you say? A fishing pole is a fishing pole – I liked the idea of a big tonking pole, so I went out to Walmart and bought one.

Of course, even disregarding 95% of fishing strategy in gear selection and technique we still caught fish. Even some pretty nice fish. There was the huge crappie I pulled out of a pond near my buddy’s home. Then there were the ginormous pan fish we were catching at night out of a quarry lake. And I’ll never forget when we rented a boat and a huge bass went after my buddy’s line when he was using a hula-popper (I suspect he was secretly a far more sophisticated a fisherman than me).

So in a way, I can’t really knock the fisherman who doesn’t bother to learn the purpose of all the little subtleties of gear and technique. I had a blast during those nascent years of fishing.

I also think in the back of my mind I was aware that there was some deeper purpose to the diverse panoply of tackle that existed, like there was some minor benefit to using one type of line or lure over another. Minor was the key word to my mind I believe. Subconsciously my reasoning was that any advantage to being more precise about what tackle and technique to uses would be minor at best and what I’ve been doing seemed to work, so why bother for minor gain? It just wasn’t worth the mental energy.

I was what I’ll call a “wrecking ball fisherman” - a fisherman lacking any precision at all about what he is doing. Such a fisherman can still enjoy the hobby immensely, so there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a wrecking ball fisherman.

Of course, I was totally wrong about the advantages of being more precise being always minor. Fishing, like so many other things in life, is a numbers game. Every cast is a craps shoot. Will there be fish near enough to your rig? Will your presentation be just right to trigger a strike? Will you be able to set the hook if a fish indeed strikes? And will your line hold post hook setting? The reason there is so much diversity of gear and technique is essentially to increase the odds in your favor so you can catch more fish. If every decision to increase precision increases your odds by say 3% on any given cast then I would have been correct for a single improvement as providing merely a minor advantage. But, you can make many, many changes to your lure selection, rig selection, technique, etc. that can double your success or more. The 3% number is bogus and the improvement in odds from a given change can be massive. The better the odds the more fish you catch. The more fish you catch the more enjoyable and engaging the experience of fishing (up to a point).

So why shouldn’t you be a wrecking ball fisherman? Well first, if catching more fish would add to the experience of fishing, then learning more subtleties of fishing should help in that regard. The second reason is that the subtleties speak to a mind game about fishing that is enjoyable in its own right. There is challenge and the opportunity to succeed through your own intelligence and skill. It really becomes more of a sport when you pay attention to the subtleties. I think I missed out on some of the sport during my wrecking ball days. On the other hand I could see the challenge and sport of fishing taking away from the relaxing aspects of fishing.

So in conclusion this rambling line of reasoning has revealed that there are several facets of enjoyment that one derives from fishing, from the simple pleasure of being outside, to the joy of reeling in a fish, to the sense of accomplishment and success at significantly improving one’s catch through skill and knowledge. So to each his own and keep rocking on all you wrecking ball fisherman out there.