On the Hook: Fishing should be for fun

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been inundated with notices of competitive fishing events. They miss nothing!

There are backwater events, offshore kingfish events, billfish events homeported on the other coast and even competition events for kids. And it goes on, au nauseaum.

I’ll take a stand here and now. Fishing should be for fun. Gut wrenching competition belongs in the hockey rink or the grid iron and other sport venues but not in the wonderous arena of nature in the marine environment.

Over three centuries ago, Sir Isaac Walton, spoke of fishing with a consecrated reverence. Ol’ Isaak made a great point of how the capture of the piscatorial prey was indeed secondary to the sheer enjoyment of the surrounding nature and the mental stimulation of the angler. He wrote elegantly about us, using our immense human intellectual capacity, trying to outwit a creature with a brain no larger than a peanut, and more often than not coming up on the short end of the stick.

Measuring winning or losing on a fishing excursion, be it an immense organized extravaganza or a simple half day trip with the family has no place. You take from fishing what fills your personal emotional creel and enjoy it. Nothing more!

But sometimes you face examples to the contraire. That brings to mind a negatively memorable trip we had a couple of years back that spelled out the issue quite well. I can still remember the particulars: Family from Fort Myers; Mom and Dad and two young adult sons. Like to refer to them as Cain and Able because of their dissimilarities but their real monikers were Keith and Roger.

When Roger came aboard that morning, every part of him was in perpetual motion, but mainly his mouth.

“Watta we gonna catch? Can you get me into some super big stuff? What’s the record for snook in these parts?”

Roger was a competitor extraordinaire. Every thought was about his catch and himself.

Keith had a flip side personality. He was calm and laid back; never asked a question and had a perpetual smile as watched the sea birds and wild dolphin frolic around the boat.

Today was a backwater trip and we worked the inside cuts and crevices for the first hour or so with but small success. A couple of barely respectable snapper and a trout was our total take.

We moved into some more inviting redfish territory as we entered our second hour. Roger got a chance to display his quite accomplished skill. His overhand casts were literally perfect and he could hit a dime at 25 feet. His offerings were consistently in the field of a possible strike.

It was on one of those deft casts that he had a mega hit, yelped and proceeded to fight a big redfish right to net. Measured out, he had hooked and landed a nice 26-inch redfish.

It really was a skillful event though later dimmed by his boasting and self-energized bravado. He surely anointed himself as the “best” for the day.

Now, in those days, there was an annual fishing competition sponsored by the Miami Herald known as “The Met Fishing Tournament”.

The Met gave published recognition to the biggest catches on the lightest tackle per species along with certificates et al.Roger wanted to enter his big redfish on 8-pound test line. I agreed to accommodate, if they’d like, but it was a pacification at best.

All we heard from then on was a replay of his 26-inch redfish, monotonously that is, until the final hour of the trip.

We were working the edges of Capri Pass, in the most unlikely of spots. Without warning, Keith has a huge srike that took line and headed north.

We excitedly pulled our anchor and followed our escapee. With Keith on the reel, it was an amazingly calm event. In a position in the front of the boat, Keith reeled as we rapidly closed the distance.

When we were up close, the big fish surfaced and then headed back inshore heading for the mangrove cover, the fish was a humongous redfish.

Roger was going ballistic but Keith stayed absolutely cool and worked the big redfish into the waiting net.Have you ever seen a 35-inch redfish? It honestly looks like someone stopped at the service station and used the air pump to blow this fish up. Enormous!

As we swung it aboard, Roger was hyper: “That fish can win the Met Tournament. You’ll be Number One. Let’ fill out a form and take a picture.”

Keith was calm and quietly said, “No, just release the fish. It was the absolute thrill of a lifetime. Let him go.”

We unhooked the big redfish without incident and he surged with a slap of this tail as he headed home.There was no possible encore to that encounter and we ended our trip with a lesson learned and portrayed.

Fishing is for fun. Let it fill your emotional creel and then move on!

Capt. Bill Walsh owns an established Marco Island charter fishing business and holds a current U.S. Coast Guard license. Send comments or questions to dawnpatrolcharters@compuserve.com.