What Falls Out of You When You Bump Into People on the Water?

[evangler]

A tackle shop owner in West Monroe, Louisiana used to tell me all the time that he could tell me what lure Bill Dance was fishing on TV that morning without ever having watched the show.

Apparently, if the show went off at 11:30, there would be a rush of folks sometime after lunch that were looking to buy whatever bait Bill Dance was just crushing the bass with on TV that morning.

Outdoor media has a strong influence over what people fish and where people fish. That’s why some local anglers don’t like seeing a story about their home waters featured in a fishing magazine or on their local outdoor hunting and fishing shows.

They just know that there is going to be rush of folks lined up to fish the spots covered in the story or on the program come next weekend.

Take a fellow I knew in West Monroe when I lived up there in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He won just about every summer tournament on Lake D’Arbonne in Farmerville, Louisiana, and only a few people knew how he was catching bass.

As a guest on a local fishing show one weekend, this angler not only revealed that he was catching his bass on a Norman DD22 deep-diving crankbait, he inadvertently revealed exactly where he was fishing as the landmarks shown on the show were unmistakable.

Guess what happened the very next tournament this guy fished? That’s right, he couldn’t fish his holes because of all the boats that were lined up casting DD22 crankbaits in the same spots that people had seen on TV.

Would you call him stupid? A moron? An idiot for showing everybody how and where he was catching all those big bass?

Sometimes these names are used to label anybody that fishes a spot just because it was featured in a fishing report or a feature article in a local fishing magazine, especially if they just happen to be fishing a favorite spot of the angler hurling the insults their way.

Yes, a lot of work goes in to finding special spots that hold fish.

Yes, keeping these spots secret means you can have the fish all to yourself.

Yes, revealing these spots means you’re going to be fishing in a crowd.

But how do you react when you show up to your favorite fishing spot and find several boats already there working over “YOUR” fish on “YOUR” spot?

Do you use it as an opportunity to condemn, or do you use it as an opportunity to grow?

Read the rest at http://evangler.com/2010/05/03/opportunity-to-grow/