How to Avoid Fishing Burnout

By the time you read this, I should either be off the coast of a small town in Baja reeling in new species, or else back on shore eating tacos and drinking a Pacifico. I’ve caught a lot of different fish, and I’ve been to Mexico before, but I’ve never caught striped marlin or wahoo and I’ve never been to Baja. I’ve been waiting all year for this trip to happen. 

It’s not that I haven’t had some great days on the water – near and far – throughout 2025, but nothing fires me up like a new experience on the water. They can be daunting,

navigating new terrain, tackle and terminology, but I find that they keep me invested in the sport. I try to add at least one significantly new experience every year. Next year I already have two lined up, Argentinean golden dorado and a multi-species trip to Bolivia, and hope to have many more domestically.

I understand that not everyone can go or wants to go on these types of trips, but I bet there’s something that you haven’t tried within a couple of hours of your house – a different fishery, different species, or a new way to approach a familiar place. If you always go to a certain lake from March through May, check it out in November and December. If you always beat the bank, spend a day exclusively offshore.

Of course, in the short term, this can be frustrating. If you leave your comfort zone you’re going to have some tough days. There’s often a heavy-duty learning curve. Even after five trips to Panama to chase tuna and five to Guatemala in search of sailfish, I still don’t know much about the tackle. Of course, I counter this by only going to places where I expect the fishing to be exceptional. But not knowing is part of the fun. Most of you are running out of “firsts” in bass fishing – first jig fish, first bed fish, first Carolina Rig fish and so on. On different playing fields, you reopen the floodgates. 

In a way, I envy the people who have a single focus, like the guys around here who fish a couple of Potomac River tournaments a week for months and years on end. They’re generally happy with that arrangement, and the cost and effort levels are comparatively low. At the same time, I’m sure that at some point it becomes a matter of going through the motions. We all got into fishing because we loved the thrill of the hunt and the thrill of the strike. When those thrills become routinized, you end up in danger of forgetting what makes the sport so great. In my experience, the further afield you go, the more you appreciate what you have at home.