The Shokuryoshi Experiment
I remember plenty of times when I first started fishing with a tenkara rod when I was excited to get out fishing, and on the drive out to the spot, I would start to think about how excited I was to catch a fish. Sometimes it even got to the point where I would hype myself up a little too much, thinking I was going to land a bunch, only to be let down by the combination of low fish activity and the lack of knowledge as to how to try to entice a fish in different conditions..
One of the things I started to do last year was change my mindset about fishing. Instead of going into an outing with this idea in my head about how I was going to catch “X” amount of fish, or how I was going to get “great surface takes,” I started to approach the water with a more open mind, and less expectation.
Even though the metric I used to measure my success over the past few years has been the amount of fish landed in the amount of time I fished, the mindset wasn’t necessarily on how many fish I thought I would be able to catch. Instead, I started adopting the mentality of approaching the water with observations and the goal of being able to experiment and adapt to the conditions I experienced during any given session. In the end, I think this has offered better fishing experiences.
Something I started to notice was a sense of accomplishment leaving each session, and a certain appreciation for the unique situations faced. I felt I was able to look back on the session during my drive home and really think over my experience and what worked, what didn’t, what I could have done differently, and what I felt I could carry into the next outing and maybe even refine a bit.
Of course, not every session was an absolute success in terms of numbers. There was one day recorded where I came out with absolutely no fish brought to the net. A big, fat, zero! An old goose-egg on the journal entry. But, that’s not to say I didn’t learn from the experience. I felt that I had done everything to the best of my ability to try to garner strikes that day, and with some time to think afterward, I started to put together an idea of what I could have done differently. This ultimately led to me making some changes in my fly box, and with a little bit of my gear to be better prepared for a day where I may encounter similar conditions faced when I got skunked. In retrospect, getting skunked once really wasn’t bad, especially compared to some earlier years with multiple recorded outings that ended with zero fish.
There were a few days last year that only ended with a fish or two in the net. Those days also made me appreciate the catch, or catches, that I was able to land. For whatever reason, the fish weren’t too keen on what was being offered those days. Maybe it was the weather or water conditions. Maybe something like an animal or another angler had spooked them prior to my arrival. Whatever the reason was, I was still able to solve a piece of the puzzle and entice a few trout.
Now, I do realize that some of this success comes from experience. Over the years I have put together a list in my head of what works and what doesn’t work on my local waters. That’s just a baseline for fishing in my area. There are still plenty of factors that change day to day, and even hour to hour. Sometimes it can even be pool to pool. I think that regardless of previous experience, taking the time to observe and adapt - or experiment - has allowed me to put more fish in the net. That is one of my big takeaways from doing this experiment.
So, in the end, I think that having the right mindset when approaching the water can lead to better and more rewarding fishing. Having removed the idea of “I’m going to catch so many fish” and replaced it with the mindset that I am going to see what the water is like and try to figure out the puzzle has made fishing a better experience for myself.