By Cory Allen
Angling as we know it today is probably one of the most complex and utterly incomprehensibly confusing pastimes a human being can choose to undertake. Not only does it encompass a plethora of different styles, techniques, tactics, and target species, but the arenas upon which we wage our wars encompass literally 70 percent of the planet we share with our quarry.
I almost pity the fool that comes into fishing at this point in time, bombarded with the future war that is commercialism and overbearing marketing campaigns can literally be a sensory overload and lead to the neophyte being pulled 7 ways at once, each denomination offering its own promises of splendor and riches. This includes kayak fishing, fly fishing, bass fishing, musky fishing and more. Let’s cut the chatter. Dial out the static. Get down to the nut cutting. Angling: The same general rules apply no matter where you fish, how you fish, or what fish you are pursuing, to quote the late great E.L. Buck Perry, the father of our art, “A fish is a fish is a fish, no matter where it swims.”
Cryptically poetic in its simplicity, this statement utterly perplexed me in the earlier days of my development as an angler. Coming from a man who targeted largemouth bass more than any other species his entire life and career span, the prospect of seeing this fit into the greater whole of angling made little to no sense to my adolescent brain. Yet I knew there had to be some buried nugget of wisdom, perhaps connected to a greater wealth vein of knowledge, within this single phrase.
As I got older, made more mistakes, recognized in fact that they were mistakes, and adapted as best I could accordingly, slowly I began to realize the utter genius in this; the synchronicity implied within this singular truth. All fish, literally, fresh or salt, predator or prey, not only did, but HAD to abide by the same general rules for their world to exist.
I would spend long hours not just fishing, but watching, observing, learning and assimilating what I would see into workable theories. Theories that by my own admittance I have neither the credential nor the right to necessarily share at this point, nevertheless, I feel the one thing that makes them valid enough for me to voice is that they transcend any one angler’s individual experience. But I’ve seen them duplicate themselves time and time again in the greater whole of angling.
Let me take a step back so I make sure we don’t leave anyone in the tour group here. Buck Perry’s theories on fish behavior, proven fact by his success through spoonplugging were relegated to an antiquated reliquary of dilapidated knowledge considered outdated by today’s XBOX generation of electronically driven fishermen. For our technological advances, we’ve all but forgotten that the fundamental elements that govern the quarry we seek to interact with have not essentially changed, aside from the slight adaptations of self preservation. While this often mimics what we would perceive to be “learning” or creative consumption, nothing could be further from the truth. While this seems a bit anal retentive on the semantics, something I’m rather notorious for, this difference in mindset can lead to an entirely different set of understandings and thus potential results over the life span of an angler’s learning curve.
Along with his theory that “a fish is a fish is a fish,” Mr. Perry took that a step further. Now that we’ve established that in essence for the clock work of the aquatic world to remain in synchronization and thus working, it absolutely must abide by the same rules no matter where the water in located, with only subtle differences in species to accommodate each of their roles in the ecosystem. So, the problem therein lies…that we are intruders into this mechanic already in motion. In essence, we are the viruses within the programming. Virus in today’s society has a negative connotation, more derived from the computer age than the microbiological definition, but they both have the same general role. A virus is an element outside the normal working parameters of a system that alters it beyond its usual status, be it negative or positive in end.
Of all the organisms that exist on this planet, the human alone stands as the singular entity that seems destined to be a perpetual virus, for the fate of good or ill, no matter where we go. In some instances, our intelligence and will lets us enhance the environment around us for the betterment of both our society and the natural order of things. All too often, though, we are either intentionally or inadvertently destructive to the environment and thus ourselves. On this grand a scale, we can see not just how influential we truly are, but also just how much power of manipulation we have in the natural realm whether we like it or not.
In essence, angling is nothing more than a low impact version of us imposing this ability in a means to seek an enriching interaction with a world we really can only perceive through imagination, a world literally through the looking glass. No gravity, an environment that literally combats the presence of light. The world of water truly is a different dimension from our own, which is why knowing the codes for hacking into the system of this programming is essential no matter what species, what water, or what tactic you choose to employ. The same general rules will allow you to function better as a virus of aquatic interaction.
Buck Perry basically outlined it as such: If you control your depth, speed, size, color, and action on and around the features that fish use in their daily and seasonal migrations, no matter what the conditions, you will “catch fish” – i.e. trigger an interaction. I don’t even feel worthy of saying this, but in my own limited interactions I’ve seen many reasons to believe that in that descending order of control importance, that action [lateral line stimulus] falls either right behind size, or is a somewhat corollary factor to size. In my opinion color has to take a far last to any other factor, including that of sound and scent, which of course, do play complementary roles at times, but I do not feel it necessarily will dictate complete success or failure with most species, especially freshwater.
Let’s think about this. Nature is programming. If it weren’t, it wouldn’t still exist. It has a set system it must abide by without insubordination or otherwise it would have ceased to exist a long time ago. There can’t be dissension within the ranks of the natural realm or it would fall apart, much as humanity displays in rare form.
So now that we’ve established there is a set order to the existence of the aquatic world, how do we insert ourselves into this through the controls? And what is the purpose of this anyway? I hear so many people say “make the fish eat.” While this seems benign, I’ve thought about this statement a lot. Call me crazy… believe me I get it alot…but I don’t think fish are ever actually “eating” anything. Lock me up, and throw away the key. But think about it.
Fish attack and kill other members of their ecosystems for sustenance. But is this a conscious decision? You show me a picture of a Big Mac, and hell yeah, I’m in the truck headed for the nearest golden arches for that extra 800 calories I don’t need, but ate because I was influence to eat. Have I ever been tricked into eating a plastic hamburger? Millions upon millions of fish per year are triggered by anglers to simulate a response that only exists in nature otherwise. I’m still a young buck but I can’t say that I’ve seen a natural feeding behavior of a musky a handful of times, but seen hundreds upon hundreds of simulated feeding responses triggered by myself and other anglers. Does this not beg the question, if a fish at any time can be triggered to strike an artificial insemination into their environment, even a “live bait” presentation that never truly accurately mimics the “real thing” because of the prosthetics we must attach to suit our desires of hooking…do they truly ever have a “comprehension” of what is real and what is not? Or are we simply inserting ourselves into an already working system and becoming apart of it through our creativity and will?
When you think of angling in this means, even during your times of failure or learning, you’re never a defeated opponent. The fish has never won. He’s not even in the fight to begin with! He’s simply doing exactly what he would be doing with or without your presence and has absolutely no working comprehension of what you are or your will towards him. He’s just reacting to a different set of stimulus given to him by his environment or your viral influence upon it.
From this perspective, it not only opens up your level of creativity as an angler, but also lets you see the correlation between any catch by any angler ever made, intentional or accidental and see that the fish’s role in that interaction was never an accidental. It was programming that got hacked within a singular moment where the controls of that angler synchronized with the environment’s dictations upon the animal’s programming at that instant.
For instance in 1988, Ken O’Brien caught a 65 lb musky the Moon River, a tributary of Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay, on a crawler harness walleye fishing. Apparently the musky missed the memo. How many musky anglers looked at this situation as providence and said “Wow, there must be something in the programming of even a beast such as that that sometimes demands a presentation with those sets of controls to trigger a simulated response.” Not many. Most if not all said it was caught by accident. I’ve said it many times, and hopefully will get to prove it over the course of my life; I’d sure as hell like to have a 65 lb musky accident. Of course, that’s a big tongue in cheek, and this isn’t relegated to musky fishing. There is no such thing as musky fishing to a musky. As soon as any foreign element enters the aquatic arena, it is on stage at the Russian ballet, and is a part of the dance whether it likes it or not.
While mimicry of nature is often an effective means of stimulating interaction, consider this: Not too many crappie are found inside the stomachs of sampled musky, yet I’ve never met a crappie fisherman that doesn’t have the tale of a giant musky grabbing a crappie off the hook. Hell, the first one I ever saw was in such an instance. What’s the deal here? Because of their programming a big predator like a musky is quickly wired to not attack and eat things with dorsal spines. It’s called self preservation.
In this instance, it isn’t until something behaving naturally begins to behave unnaturally, injured or hooked, that it stimulates a response to strike from a predator. Even though their natural programming seems to be to avoid such prey items that are difficult to swallow, this can be overridden by as specific set of controls. The observation of this fact opens up key elements into how we can duplicate these lines and hack into the same system.
Fishing isn’t a test of wills. It’s a rubik cube of ever changing sides and colors. The fish is merely a bit player beset by the elements that governs his existence… light, temperature, etc… the fish isn’t our opponent. The programming is our adversary. Tapping into and hacking into the given sequences that our dictating the actions of the ecosystem in any given moment is how we ultimately derive the enjoyment we seek from angling, whether we’ve known it to be that or not. Now that you better understand, don’t ever consider a day on the water without success of defeat at the fish’s hands. The fish was completely unaware of your actions. You may have never even crossed paths as he’s a bit player, a pawn. Just use the information you gained to better hone your skills and tools of interaction below the surface. You’re not an animal, you’re a human being. You’re the virus, and as such, you’re a bio-hacker whether you realize it or not.
Cory Allen, 27, of Cookeville, Tennessee is the founder and lead guide of Stone’s Throw Adventures. Allen’s team of guides fish the waters throughout Tennessee and Kentucky, guiding on a year-round basis, and offer their clients a wide variety of boat and wading trips for all species of gamefish. http://www.stonesthrowadventures.com/
