Now, I’m just on vacation here in Mexico, Vallarta. This isn’t a fishing vacation, although I’m fishing… nearly every day, for a couple hours while my daughter naps. I’ve been having some luck, but today… nadda… zero… zilch. I hooked one fish, decent fish. Got a glimpse of it in the dirty water of the river mouth (rained here yesterday). The rest of the time I stook there, walked up and down a bit, cast… cast… cast… just not a frigging thing.
Oh, it happens, I know. I just don’t much like it when it does. When I’m trout fishing, if I get skunked, it generally puts me in sour mood. Not today though… this isn’t trout fishing, this isn’t my home water and I’m new enough to saltwater fishing that if I get skunked, it is all OK.
Back in high school and college I LOVED basketball. I could have magical games and I could go cold. I’d get so upset when I had a bad game I’d get depressed. Started playing soccer… it wasn’t my game, so I could give myself permission to have a bad game. Maybe that’s why I like bonefishing and saltwater fishing… I can give myself permission to have a bad day on the water.
- If you liked the story above, check out these stories below
- To Strip or Not to Strip (1.000)
- Happy Holidays Island (ya know... gotta be PC) (1.000)
- Providenciales Fly Fishing (self guided) Video (1.000)
Tags: flyfishing, the skunk
Hi Bjorn,
I love reading your blog.
I couldn’t help thinking about following quote when I read your latest post:
“… a bad day on the water is better than a good day at the office”
Btw, Im at the office now 🙂
-Lars
Dude, don’t feel the least bit bad about getting skunked. Hell, if fly fishing were easy, what would be the point? Really? I know I’m only part way through posting my long journey to my first bonefish, so I won’t spoil the surprise, but it was a long ass time. Looong.
Nowadays I don’t mind the least having an “unproductive day” on the water. (Would you listen to that: “unproductive”: like a leisure activity should be about producing something!) Fishing is about being there, right out there on the edge of things — like you are right now — and something as trifling as a lack of fish on the line can’t change that.
Hell, some of my best days (or nights) on the water ended with the same number of fish landed as if I’d been fishing from my easy chair in my living room.
Tight lines out there… or at the very least, tight loops.
Very true… very true. The other good quote is about the best part about fly fishing being that fish live in such beautiful places.
That’s the thing… I actually don’t feel bad about getting skunked… happened both yesterday and the day before. Sucked, but, ya know… that’s fishing. When I’m trout fishing I find myself fishing the places I’m pretty sure I’m going to have success. Kind of limiting, really, but when I don’t get out much, it means I need to maxamize opportunities. This… saltwater… it’s different. I really have no reason to expext any success… I’m still new… still don’t understand the fish yet, where they are going to be when, what the tides will do, what a day of rain will do… I get to relax and just learn, observe, see what works, what doesn’t. It is a good bit of data when it doesn’t work.
Today was a better day… some tight loops and lots and lots of bent rods. It was a great day, right up to the point I realized one of the locals had walked off with my other rod… the fishing was still good, but my desire to do violence to others suddenly spiked.