Fishing Reel Sound Free
Fish Fever – Battling Sight Fishing Induced Adrenaline
In Oregon we have a few spring teaser days every February where the temperature spikes to a balmy 58 degrees and while the respite from the cold is nice, it usually causes the trees to believe it’s time to start the annual springtime pollen festival. As an allergy sufferer, this is one party I could do without. This beautiful Saturday morning my sinuses are full of two-year-old Elmers and my head feels like I found the worm in the bottom of last night’s bottle. For the record, my Friday night festivities included skim milk and a couple of brownies before bed – so I am sure it’s spring fever, not the aftermath from any close encounter with Senor Cuervo.
Some fevers are bad – the results of tiny nasties like pollen or viruses. Some fevers are self induced and somewhat desirable – the results of an overload of adrenaline caused by putting myself in position to succeed in my quest for fish or game. You have probably heard of “buck fever”. Symptoms include elevated heart rate, shallow breathing, twitching appendages, and an inability to aim your bow or rifle when a deer is in within your range. Today I want to tell you about “Fish Fever”.
SIGHT FISHING – THE CAUSE OF FISH FEVER
If you consider fishing an excercise in relaxation, this might not make any sense whatsoever. When you are trolling in the open water with a frosty beverage in your hand and you are waiting for the rod to bend so you can jump up and grab it, that moment can be very exciting, but it happens so fast that the symptoms of fish fever often have no chance to influence your outcome in any meaningful way. For some people, this is great. But I like to hunt for my fish. When sight fishing, my adrenaline starts pumping the moment I make visual contact with the fish or the movement of the water that suggests a fish is near. This visual contact may happen minutes before I am in range to cast, so the ‘moment of truth’ is much bigger. I will often see a school of tarpon rolling on the glassy water three hundred yards or farther away from the boat. My guide is silently poling to put me in position and this can take a while. But my heart continues to race as I inch toward the target. This is what I love about sight fishing – the extension of the moment.
OH WHAT A TANGLED WEB – THE EFFECTS OF FISH FEVER
So the boat is finally in range and you begin your cast. Flyfishers will notice that while practice casts sailed eighty feet and landed perfectly, your muscles now feel like they belong to someone else. For some reason you are in a mad rush. Your feet are doing the cha-cha while your arms are in full Macarena – line between legs, catching on buttons…and now it takes everything you have to put a fifty foot cast within a twenty foot circle of your target. Conventional anglers will notice that their jig or plug has landed thirty feet past the target in the mangrove limbs, or they forgot to flip the bail. “Hello Center for Disease Control? Yeah, I think we have had an outbreak of ‘fish fever’!”
CHILL – THE CURE FOR FISH FEVER
First let me say, we don’t want to actually cure this disease. Whether we admit it or not, anyone who practices sight fishing is likely a bit of an adrenaline junkie. And the adrenaline comes from the disease. So what we want to do is keep the disease but reduce the symptoms which cause the disease to negatively influence our success. The most important medicine is ICE. When an NBA star sinks a buzzer-beater or calmly sinks two free-throws with no time left on the clock, they say he had ‘icewater in his veins’. Somehow, those who are able to perform flawlessly in pressure-packed, adrenaline pumping situations, have been able to CHILL themselves to reduce the heat of the fever.
EASY SAY – HARD DO
Chill you say? For most of us, this poses problems. Even really experienced anglers have trouble battling the effects of an overload of adrenaline. It’s what makes this game so exciting and rewarding and fulfilling. If it was easy, it would be much less appealing and way less fun. Here are the techniques that I use to calm my nerves when that moment is upon me.
ROUTINE – Before I arrive at a fishing destination I make sure I have the proper gear and it is in proper working order. My line is cleaned from the last time I fished and my reel has been checked to make sure the drag is properly set. When I get on the bow of the boat I cast about eighty feet of line out and I strip the line back in at my feet in loose coils. This puts the line that will go out first on my cast at the top of the pile. If you just strip out enough line from the reel and leave it on the platform, you will have trouble with the line shooting out when you go to make that all-important first cast. I also leave about twenty feet of line and leader out the end of my rod tip and I HOLD THE FLY IN MY LEFT HAND (lefties, hold the fly in your right hand). I am now ready to make my cast. When the fish is in range, I let go of the fly and roll cast the line that is already out past my rod tip plus a few feet. I make a couple of false casts shooting line out on the back cast as well as the forward cast and I let it fly. These are the parts of the game I can control – the rest is up to the fish.
BREATHE – It may sound silly, but deep breaths put oxygen in your blood and helps keep your heart rate down and your muscles working properly. It is easy to forget to breathe when your body has adrenaline pumping through it.
REMEMBER THAT THIS IS A GAME – Although it’s not nearly as relaxing as horseshoes or Candy Land, fishing is still a game. And games are fun. The worst possible scenario is you don’t catch this fish. So what? You’ll get another chance. So lighten your mental load, smile, and enjoy the moment.
Contact Dale – rodandreeladventures@gmail.com
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About the Author
Dale Williams has traveled and fished the world since 1985. His business, Rod and Reel Adventures is a worldwide fishing travel agency. They offer objective information that helps travelers make well informed decisions. Follow him on Twitter @traveltofish. Read his blogs at travelandfishtheworld.blogspot.com, or check out the Rod and Reel website at www.rodreeladventures.com.
Matthew Good – Omissions Of The Omen
