The Thrill of the New

For years, I was jealous of my wife Hanna, not only because she seemingly caught big fish effortlessly, but because she had so many new ways left to catch them. She didn’t catch her first bass until she was in her mid-30s and didn’t leave the east coast to fish until she was over 40. On our first trip to Lake El Salto in 2009, she made fun of me because while I changed from one oddball lure to the next, she just hopped, dragged, and deadsticked a lizard and caught just as many bass as anyone else in our group.

After that, every time she tried a lure or technique at my suggestion – whether it was a frog, a Carolina Rig, a Chatterbait or something else – it was a completely new experience. I still remember exactly where she caught her first mat-flipping fish, a 5 pounder that came with 10 pounds of grass. I recall her first swim jig fish, too, and the first one she caught on a Plopper. For us grizzled old-timers, those thrills are mostly past. It’s hard to find something new to try, so we have to live vicariously through others or find new uses for old tools.

But even for Hanna, it has become harder to find a new bite.

That’s why I was thrilled on our most recent trip to El Salto, her 20^th or so: She caught her first Alabama Rig fish; she caught her first fish on the Burrito swimbait; and she caught a pile of them on the Yamatanuki. Three “news” in one trip is a pretty big deal for anyone. It’s a big part of why I’ve gravitated to saltwater in recent years, where just about everything from the species to the techniques to the terminology is like speaking a foreign language.

But the Yamatanuki gives us all that chance to be reborn. Granted, a stubby soft plastic isn’t new, nor is Texas rigging, nor are weightless worms – but we’re all learning in real time how this lure can be put to its best use. It’s even made me put down the comfort blanket known as the Senko a bit. I know there are guys out there fishing the same spots with the same lures that they employed back in 1989, but for me it’s the thrill of the new more than anything else that makes fishing fun.