Why I Love Fishing
By: Randy Boileau

Around my work and my neighborhood (and of course, my home), I’ve developed a reputation as someone who’s gonzo crazy about fishing. Maybe it’s all the fishing paraphernalia and kitsch stuff I keep around me. Or maybe it’s because that’s what I naturally slip into when I’m looking to make conversation. I think it’s more interesting than the weather. Or maybe it’s because I spend so much of my free time fishing.

Whatever…I do have that reputation. With the reputation comes some responsibility. By that I mean the responsibility to answer somewhat convincingly the question "Why do you like fishing so much?"

It’s an important question, and one that deserves a better answer than the trite "well, it gets me outdoors," or cliched "it’s the only way I get any peace and quiet."

Sure, those are important elements of fishing. They are a big part of the reason we do it. But there’s more to it than that, things that any real fisherman knows intuitively, and that any non-fisherman is always going to struggle to understand.

A big part of it is the mental down-time that comes with fishing. I don’t mean you put your brain to sleep; any fisherman will tell you that if you’re not thinking about what you’re doing, you probably aren’t catching many. But there is one similarity with sleep. Fishing takes all of the stuff about work and bills, worries and responsibilities, and pushes it right out of my brain.

There’s just no room for it in there when I’m fishing. I’m concentrating on handling my boat, setting my lines, maintaining speed, watching the weather, selecting baits and all of the other dozen or so things I need to pay attention to. Fishing, more than anything else, takes me out of one world and places me fully in another, even if it’s just for a couple of hours. And it’s a real world, unlike trying to lose myself in a book or movie. It’s all around me, and it demands my attention.

The kind of fishing I like best is big-water trolling for salmon and steelhead. It’s hard work running multiple lines, especially if there are any seas running to toss me around a little bit. So no matter what kind of day I had at work today, or whatever I might be facing tomorrow, when I’m fishing my mind is locked down on right here, right now.

There’s a lot to be said for that.

The other big part of fishing, at least for me, is the enormous sense of potential that I feel every time I leave the dock. I may have been skunked my last three or four times out, but when I throw off the dock lines and gun the boat out toward the open water, I don’t believe for one second that I’m going to get skunked. Anything’s possible; today could be the day I put five trophies in the boat, back-to-back, all within an hour. Or the day when my partner and I are fighting doubles, or triples, and laughing our heads off at the pure exhilaration of it.

We live in a cynical age, and the idea of wide-open possibilities can be a hard one to buy if you make your living by walking into a factory or an office cubicle every day. The chance to feel unfettered optimism is something of great value, at least to me, and I get to feel it every time I put a rod in my hands.

It’s been like that for me since I was ten or eleven years old, and it hasn’t diminished at all. How many pieces of our spirits to we get to have, that remain unchanged and intact from the time we are children? Not many, I’d have to say. So when I get one like this I consider it priceless and I hold on to it for all I’m worth.

Then, there’s the basic thrill of winning a contest. We all love to win at something, at anything! From spelling bee’s to spittin’ contests, from chili cook-offs to bathtub races up the local creek, we’ll find endless ways of earning bragging rights.

Why? Because winning feels so damn good. The old Wide World of Sports television program used to always open with the phrase about "the thrill of victory," and I always thought that was one of most accurate phrases used on TV. Because there are many things we think are thrilling, or that we want to provide us with a thrill, but few things actually do. Winning at something is one of them.

When a big king salmon slams my lure and heads the other way, if I don’t know anything else, I know I’m in for a contest. With the drag singing and the line burning off the reel, I don’t know how it’s going to come out. But my skill and a fair amount of luck are going to determine whether or not that fish is going to end up in the net. Skill and luck, the main ingredients of any contest.

If I win, that big boy does slide into the net for a brief stop on its way to my cooler. If there’s someone else in the boat, there might be high-fives, especially if it’s the first fish of the day—the one that drives the skunk out of the box. It’s as good as a touchdown, a home run, or getting on the green in two shots. It’s winning, and it’s as good as it gets.

Those are the things I tell people when they ask me why I like fishing so much. If you’re not a fisherman, I hope that helps clear it up for you. If you are, I’ll just give you a wink because I know it’s nothing you haven’t already felt yourself on many, many fishing days.

RMB