Wading Through Life

One of the most confusing, frustrating, and overwhelming things about getting into fishing is just the amount of information and opinions out there. If you are just starting out and don't have someone to show you the ropes, you quickly find that you are bombarded by articles, videos, and posts telling you what lures to use in what seasons, when things are happening (i.e. bass spawns), what rigs work best, etc. I went through all of this. I would spend my weekdays reading up on what rigs or lures to use, buy them or set them up on my rods, and when the weekend hit I would go out and find myself getting frustrated because some guy online said that this is what works. One of my methodologies in everything that I do is if something is too tedious or too much of a pain to do one way, there has to be an easier, better way to do it. With fishing, it's supposed to be both fun and relaxing. Nobody wants to spend two to three hours on a beautiful day sitting in nature cursing because the...

How's the saying go? "Fishing is easy, it's the catching that's hard!" I'm not ashamed to admit that the last few outings I've been skunked. I haven't held a bass since early October, and that was when my father and I took the boat out for the first time. We spent a good 4-5 hours out on Wallum Lake, learning as we went about how different things on the boat worked and figuring out what was comfortable. All we managed to catch that day was a smallmouth on a dropshot rig with a nose-hooked 5" Senko. I've been convinced for the last couple of weeks that the irregular seasonal temperatures are to blame, along with our inexperience in using our sonar and picking good fishing spots from a boat. However, I keep thinking back to my fishing experiences in Lake George in the heat of the summer, when everyone says fishing is tough, and how fortunate I was to catch so many that week on so few outings. Taking my daughter to gymnastics today, zoning out to...

My dad planted this idea in my head that I should write a book with all of the fishing knowledge I've been accumulating over the last year or so, but what I decided to do instead is to combine that with what I've been trying to get out of social media but had little success - a place where I can put my thoughts and share my experiences without feeling judged or disheartened if I don't get a response. A proverbial bucket to just dump what's going on in my head for the sake of getting it out of my head without having to talk my wife's ear off at the end of the day.  I'm not going to treat this like a college essay so there may be some rambling here and there. Anyways... This year has been a great year for me. My dad and I started fishing, and we even got a boat about a month ago. My daughter is almost 3 years old and is way too damn smart for her own good. We had a great family vacation on the Cape, got closer with my parents, and learned who our real friends are ...