Ok, so I get it, this is kind of a confusing title for a fishing related topic. However I feel this is very relevant for today’s world. Remember the first time you went fishing? Was it on a small farm pond on Massachusetts at the age of 4 years old like me? Or was it at your grandpa’s lake house somewhere in Michigan on a small body of water with an old Evinrude putting along pushing a half rusted ole tin boat while trolling spinners for lake perch? Or maybe you were fortunate enough to grow up in the Key’s and held on tight while your dad’s skiff winded through the mangroves as you felt fear and adrenaline all at the same time while seeing tarpon fleeing in front of your bow. Either way we all have something in common. We were brought into this sport by someone or something that drew us closer like a paperclip to a magnet.
What drew us closer to this sport was actually the entire experience – not just the catching of the fish. We just didn’t know it at the time. When we reeled in that first fish we thought it was all about that slimy, living, flopping, smelly thing with gills that we finally got to hold up and smile for a perfect picture. What we didn’t realize is, at the time, the entire experience played a bigger role than that one defining moment of catching a fish. Those early mornings with a sunrise so brilliant a picture wouldn’t do it justice. To that first time you smelled what a 2-stroke smells like. To the time you saw your first Osprey snatch a fish from the water, it all plays into why we love this sport so much. Not all experiences are good, I remember a charter that I took clients almost 80 miles off to the Northeast Canyons and after a botched NOAA forecast and a long harrowing ride back we all kissed the ground and vowed not to go fishing again even though we had a box full of yellowfin tuna. Well maybe that’s why I’m an inshore guide these days, but you get my point, I hope?
My point is this, with today’s technological advancements in our sport it’s easy to get lost in our gizmos and gadget’s than taking the time to relax and enjoy what nature has to offer. Heck I’m told there’s more computing power in my iPhone 7 than what NASA had used to launch the first mission to the moon.
A few years back a good buddy of mine, Mike Ryan from VT came down to Cape Cod and I had an open day. It was September so we decided to chase after some False Albacore on Vineyard Sound. Mike is a busy realtor and at the time I had a few other business interests aside from my guiding gig. We hit the launch at O’dark-thirty and decided to “unplug”, you know go off the “grid” in a way. We texted our wives and told them we would leave or cell phones in the truck. As we cleared the jetty I even decided to turn off the Humminbird Ion10. We went out and simply let nature tell us when and where to fish. Armed with only one rod each like the old days and a simple Hogy epoxy, jig we vowed “one rod-one lure.” I can tell you it was a great morning with many a fat albert landed. So it was only for a couple hours of fishing, but hey, we both felt like a kid yelling from the dock, “Dad, I got one!”
Capt. John Curry
capefishing.net
Jtcurry77@gmail.com
508-209-7741