What Are You Packing On Your Next Fishing Expedition?

One fine spring day Jeff takes his two young sons, Billy and Timmy, fishing. It's trout season, a nice warm day, so they pack a lunch, a couple rod & reels, some power bait, bobbers, hooks, the whole nine yards, and spend a fine day on the lake. As a bonus, they bring home a cooler full of fresh rainbow trout.

It was a memorable day in both boys childhoods, and they'll both remember it as the day dad taught them to fish. Not an uncommon story. I'm sure something like that has happened to all of us. But the story doesn't end there.

Years later, the two decide to take another fishing excursion. They're grown men now. Dad's long gone. Billy goes about planning, using everythnig he learned from dad. Timmy, independently of Billy, does the same. The two plan to meet on the docks of the charter boat on the following Saturday morning.

In the meantime, Billy uses his dad's lessons. He checks the weather conditions, the tide report, even goes on line to see what the charter boats are bringing in. He invests in some new equipment, the heavy duty rods and gear he'll need to bring in blue marlin, which are biting. Spends a lot of time talking to the old salts about what bait to use, the best techniques - he watched his father to plan and prepare thoroughly for their trout fishing expedition years before and knows to leave as little to chance as possible, and to bring the right equipment for the right job.

That long-awaited Saturday arrives and Billy's first to the docks, anxiously waiting for his brother Timmy to arrive. He spends his time checking his gear, and talking to the local fisherman for last minute tips and advice. Finally, Timmy pulls up with a big smile on his face and everything he needs for the excursion, too. Afterall, his dad taught him how to fish. Which is why he's got that same rod & reel that worked so well on the lake all those years earlier, a few jars of powerbait, some hooks and bobbers, and he even packed a lunch.

It occurs to me that most of us think we're learning how to do things, but we're only learning how to imitade a system. Regardless of the circumstances, regardless of the weapons and resources at our disposal, we just try to do the same thing the same way over and over again. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't , but that's our expertise. We plug in the system we learned and see what happens. Only a few of us get the big picture - and learn to step back, analyze the situation, and see why what we did worked in the first place, which is where we get the real expertise to figure out how to succeed in any situation, or at least improve our chances.

So what are you packing on your next fishing expedition?

(I'm no fisherman and wouldn't be surprised if the terminology and techniques I described in this blog are way off base. But then again, it's not really about fishing, is it?)