Important reminders

Each year, dip netting season brings an important part of me back to life.

This tradition, that doesn’t seem quite as popular with other folks as I recall it being in my childhood, is one of the first true signs of spring. It means longer, warmer days are coming which, in turn, means more time fishing, hunting, birding, or simply being outdoors. Sure, I do all of those activities in the winter months, but it’s just not the same when you are consistently at odds with the elements.

Nothing seems to relieve my stress or beat back my cabin fever (or possible seasonal depression, I’m working with a therapist on that) quite like standing on a dark bridge with reason to be full of anticipation of both what the night itself and the coming days may hold.

Hope is an incredibly important and powerful part of a healthy mindset. This is part of the reason I hold this seemingly mundane tradition of dropping a net into a river and occasionally pulling the rope so close to my heart. It gives me reminders of important perspectives that help me in my outdoors pursuits and life in general.

My last couple of trips in particular were full of these gentle mental nudges that forced me to recall things I’ve learned and value.

A few weeks ago, I went on a solo trip to my go-to spot for white suckers. Typically, I don’t love dip netting on my own but, a couple of my buddies had plans come up last-minute and I didn’t want to miss out on, what appeared to be, the most ideal conditions we had seen or was going to see in some time.

This spot has produced all of my most productive nights. I have copious notes on it in my outdoors journal, so I knew where I needed to be and when I needed to be there. On most nights, one side of the bridge far out produces the other and two specific spots on that side trump all else, we’re talking a few square feet in each instance. Over time, I have learned these details really matter. More than once, I have outproduced someone I was touching shoulders with by a 10- or 20-1 margin. To truly get the best out of this spot, you need to be precise. A few inches make can make a huge difference.

When I pulled up, I was pleased to find I was the first to arrive. This meant I could implement my plan as I saw fit. I quickly got my net situated in one of the money spots on the “good” side of the bridge. It was about an hour before the peak time but, the fish often offer up hints pretty quickly. Relatively steadily pulling up a couple fish here and there early on is typically a good indicator that you’re in for a fun evening. Besides, the point of my early arrival was to have control over where I was set up. To that end, I succeeded.

Forty-five-minutes-worth of empty nets was not the start I envisioned. Though it wasn’t necessarily cause for alarm, I knew I was going to have a decision to make. I knew for certain there were some fish upriver, I had caught them earlier in the week. I was banking the bulk of the run was occurring where I currently stood, but I was yet to see evidence of that.

I basically had two choices: pack up and move to where I knew the fish were, in hopes of making it there by prime time or trust my gut and ride it out. I chose to stay. That proved to be the last good strategic decision I made that night.

You see, deciding to stay was only part of the choice I made. I also opted to move my net to the other side of the bridge, hoping to find signs of life I could work off of.

Darkness started to set in. This is when action usually starts in earnest. But I still had nothing to show for my efforts. After a few more fruitless pulls, a truck pulled in on the other side of the bridge, the one I previously occupied. Out came a middle-aged man and, what I assumed to be, his son. They grabbed a pair of nets out of the truck bed and set up shop in the two holes I had tested earlier in the evening.

We struck up a conversation, starting with the swapping of intel typical of conversations when fishermen cross paths. The man told me this was his first trip of the season and said he was only hoping for 15-20 suckers to turn into fish patties. He didn’t care to clean any more than that because he had to work the following day.

As I adjusted the positioning of my net, I heard splashing from across the road. “Got one?”, I asked, already knowing the answer. “Two!”, came the reply.

The younger of the two went to his net and pulled. He had a pair of his own. “Hey, at least they’re here. I was starting to wonder,” I hollered in-between passing vehicles.

Within minutes, they were up to double-digits. At one point, they pulled five up in a single net.

After a while, I mercifully got one of my own. I walked it across the bridge and put it in their bucket. It was the only fish I caught that night. They, on the other hand, got their 20 in under an hour in a spot I originally had.

The lessons here? Be patient and trust your information. Past events don’t always predict future outcomes, but they can be a pretty good starting point. My impatience cost me and it shouldn’t have. I knew better.

But that wasn’t the only thing I was reminded of that night. After all, not everything in life is a competition. I take pride in not getting out-fished often, but it does happen and that’s OK.

Throughout the prior hour, I had a great conversation with the older man across from me. It was nearly constant and it was nice to have company. His story, at least as it pertained to dip netting, was a lot like mine. He grew up dip netting with his dad on this very river and this was one of the first outdoors activities they shared together. We shot the breeze about trout fishing, swapped wild game recipes, and just naturally carried on during the entirety of their stay. All we really knew about each other at the onset was the assumption that we must, at the very least, have dip netting in common seeing as we were both on the same bridge partaking in it.

After the pair left, I recalled a saying that my salmon/trout guide often goes back to,”I try to make friends on the river. Making enemies doesn’t do you much good.”

In an increasingly polarized world, I think that is just as true off the river as it is on it. We have more in common than we think and connecting with people, even total strangers, doesn’t require as much of an overlap in beliefs as we often assume.

My final reminder came on my most recent outing.

It was a gorgeous spring evening for late April, temperatures solidly in the 50s and the sun shining. I was itching for fresh air, so I decided to bring my wife and my two-year-old son out with me. The logistics that come with the addition of a toddler limited my options for spots. I was not optimistic the action would be any good where we were going, but I figured it was worth a try. With weather this nice, going is always better than not going. Plus, as my dad famously says, “you can’t catch ’em from the couch.”

With everyone unpacked, I lowered our nets into the river. The water was shallower than I had expected and there were no obvious signs of life. This dampened my expectations even further.

But, as I pulled a net for the first time, everything changed.

My tugs were greeted with far more resistance than I was used to. That was quickly followed by splashing so loud that it echoed. I looked down to see a net absolutely packed with white suckers. So many, in fact, they were in layers and some on the top layer were using ones on the bottom as leverage to escape the net, even as it was out of the water.

I frantically called my wife over, in utter disbelief. I needed an extra set of hands. All told, there were twelve fish in that 5×5 net, the most I had ever collected in a single pull.

Once the fish were lowered back down, I pulled the other net. It had a similar story to tell. This one had ten in it. In just two pulls, I had over 20. This pace carried on for the next half-hour. At one point, there were so many fish in one of the nets that it collapsed. I caught over 100 in my first 18 pulls.

I called my dad and asked him to drop everything to get in on some of the hottest dip netting action I had ever seen. Unfortunately, things died down shortly after his arrival. But he did get to see some pulls of six or seven fish at a time. We ended the night with 124 fish, my high total for the year. All from a spot I had little hope for. Frankly, I showed up believing it would be a stretch to catch enough fish to keep my son engaged for any significant period of time.

Driving home that night with a big smile on my face, I was reminded of, perhaps, the most important lesson. One that we are taught from an early age: you never know unless you try.