Bass Fishing and Persistence
Last week, Chris Manley and I shot video footage in Vermont. We fished 6 different lakes, battled windy weather, thunderstorms, black flies, fluctuating water temperatures and flooding that has rampaged through that state this spring.
Overall, it was a wonderful week! I have been taught that expectations are pre-meditated resentments. I went up there "hoping" to have hit the prime pre-spwan bite when the big girls first move up and we run into 50 bass days every day. What we found was falling water temperatures early in the week. We also found 2 and 3 footers on the larger lakes. And we found moody smallmouth.
Perserverence is so key in all walks of life. How many times I have quit doing something before the going even gets tough......."It's just gonna be so hard catching those bass.", or "Why bother, maybe we should just cancel the trip and go home early.". Then when the underwater camera unlocked from the boom and splashed into the lake, quitting was "what we should have done"!
Focusing on positive thoughts is much more fruitful than rehearsing the negative ones. One morning, we arrived at a lake and when I looked at the temp gauge, it read 47 degrees in the water! "What?" It's spring. Ice left this lake 2 weeks prior to our arrival. No sign of smallmouth shallower than 12 feet, which means I have to go find them. This lake has a maximum depth of 170 feet! That's a reason to quit right there. My maps really came in handy and I'm glad I had them! I missed my first 3 smallies, and all were brutes. Has anyone really ever missed a small bass before? The fourth hook-up on my jerkbait was another monster smallie. I landed this one and she weighed close to 6 pounds! Missed another on the very next cast......then nothing for 4 hours.
Pics taken from video footage. What a bass! As I drifted through the memories of all those fish I missed, and the thoughts that I'm just not very good at what I do, I kept hearing, "What a smallie....close to 6 pounds!" These positive thoughts and other stuff I had been taught along the way helped me to a point mid-week where I was ready to persist. Kind of sad that I'd even utter those words, since I am fishing in one of the most beautiful spots in the US! doesn't seem like much to persist through......really.
We got enough footage for at least 2, if not 3 episodes. Many of the bass were brutes, over 4 pounds and 7 were over 4.5 pounds. I wanted to get a trophy smallie episode shot, and we did! I wanted to get a show locating off-shore humps, and we did! And nobody died in any thunderstorms! We persisted, not through poor weather, tough fishing and black flies. We persisted through the doubts and the lies.
Good fishin!
Blaine
Overall, it was a wonderful week! I have been taught that expectations are pre-meditated resentments. I went up there "hoping" to have hit the prime pre-spwan bite when the big girls first move up and we run into 50 bass days every day. What we found was falling water temperatures early in the week. We also found 2 and 3 footers on the larger lakes. And we found moody smallmouth.
Perserverence is so key in all walks of life. How many times I have quit doing something before the going even gets tough......."It's just gonna be so hard catching those bass.", or "Why bother, maybe we should just cancel the trip and go home early.". Then when the underwater camera unlocked from the boom and splashed into the lake, quitting was "what we should have done"!
Focusing on positive thoughts is much more fruitful than rehearsing the negative ones. One morning, we arrived at a lake and when I looked at the temp gauge, it read 47 degrees in the water! "What?" It's spring. Ice left this lake 2 weeks prior to our arrival. No sign of smallmouth shallower than 12 feet, which means I have to go find them. This lake has a maximum depth of 170 feet! That's a reason to quit right there. My maps really came in handy and I'm glad I had them! I missed my first 3 smallies, and all were brutes. Has anyone really ever missed a small bass before? The fourth hook-up on my jerkbait was another monster smallie. I landed this one and she weighed close to 6 pounds! Missed another on the very next cast......then nothing for 4 hours.
Pics taken from video footage. What a bass! As I drifted through the memories of all those fish I missed, and the thoughts that I'm just not very good at what I do, I kept hearing, "What a smallie....close to 6 pounds!" These positive thoughts and other stuff I had been taught along the way helped me to a point mid-week where I was ready to persist. Kind of sad that I'd even utter those words, since I am fishing in one of the most beautiful spots in the US! doesn't seem like much to persist through......really.
We got enough footage for at least 2, if not 3 episodes. Many of the bass were brutes, over 4 pounds and 7 were over 4.5 pounds. I wanted to get a trophy smallie episode shot, and we did! I wanted to get a show locating off-shore humps, and we did! And nobody died in any thunderstorms! We persisted, not through poor weather, tough fishing and black flies. We persisted through the doubts and the lies.
Good fishin!
Blaine
Posted by Blaine Mengel at 6/1/2011 11:10 AM 
Categories: Bass Fishing
Tags: Vermont Bass fishing Backwoods Angler TV smallmouth bass fishing jerkbait fishing persistence
Categories: Bass Fishing
Tags: Vermont Bass fishing Backwoods Angler TV smallmouth bass fishing jerkbait fishing persistence
What an inspiring story. I see a book on Life Lessons Learned While Fishing. Persistence and learning to focus on the positive are two life lessons right there that the world needs to hear. And it's great how you've combined them. Learning to throw back the negative and reel in the positive takes tremendous persistence--ahh, but the brutes we can catch--our dreams, helping others, BEING ALIVE while we're alive. That's good stuff--a nice day's fishin'. Thank you for sharing and being an inspiration in my life. Cheers.
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