Getting the Band Back Together
Posted by Pete Robbins on Sep 29th 2019
I fished local and regional tournaments for nearly 20 years, and I always thought it was the solitary nature of the sport that appealed to me. While I typically had a partner or another competitor in the boat with me, much of the work was done solo. Even when we were fishing it wasn’t a social hour and the heavy talkers quickly got a taste of either me ignoring them or – in extreme cases – a heavy dose of STFU. As a confirmed introvert, someone who’s happy to spend long hours in the boat by himself and recoils every time the phone rings, that was my idea of heaven.
Apparently, though, I’m not as much of a misanthrope as I’d thought.
While I don’t really miss the competition, and I certainly don’t miss standing in the rain for 8 hours on a body of water where just weighing a bare keeper vaults you over half the field, it turns out that I do miss the social aspect of tournament fishing – you know, the part that I believed I never liked in the first place.
I realized this in Manaus, Brazil, on the day before our group was set to depart into the jungle for wolf fish and payara and a few peacocks. We had a several hundred new hard baits in front of us, along with some extra-heavy split rings and both 4x and 6x hooks. Nine grown-ass men sat down in a hotel suite with split ring pliers and good attitudes and got to work. It wasn’t necessarily comfortable because Brazilian air-conditioning is weak sauce and we were a sweaty bunch, but a few Brahmas eased the pain.
The fishing was the highlight of the trip, but this day of semi-forced labor was remarkably fun. I’m not sure how much time it took, but it seemed to fly by in a minute as we got to know each other, told fish stories, and game-planned to catch new species. The closest analog I could think for was my experience at tournament venues, sitting in our boats in the parking lot and rigging up for the next day, or going out to dinner as a group after practice. The energy and the anticipation were very much the same. I don’t miss spending all of my spare time and vacation days fishing competitively, but clearly there are some things about stopping that need to be replaced.
