Little fish

A sense of reality really!

Tourist anglers may well have have certain preconceived notions and mental images of an angling destination before they ever visit. Expectations are one of the driving forces for the initial desire to visit any particular destination. If customer effort is high and those high expectations are met, high customer satisfaction is likely.

Adversely, an individual with high expectations who receives a low-value experience or an experience that doesn’t meet with his or her self perceived expectations as result of exaggerated media will likely report a low customer satisfaction, regardless of level of customer effort or indeed guide effort.

This high-value expectation, low-value product is known as the dissonance theory (Cardozo, 1965).

To reduce dissonance levels in visiting tourist anglers, it is important as a service provider to offer accurate realistic information to the visiting angling public so as to not create heightened expectations that are not likely to be met. This is often contrary information to that as portrayed by angling media.

‘It is important to remember that quality tourist experiences result from businesses that know their product, their customers, and their employees’ (Hayes, 1997). As a bass fishing guide I would also add that it is necessary to include an intimate local and wider knowledge of the coastal environment and the influences of current conditions on the fishing.

An unrealistic expectation in relation to angling returns for a fish as capricious as bass needs to be discussed at length with any potential customer. Yes a good guide may know some honey pots, yes a good guide should recognise a confluence of circumstances that can lead to exceptional fishing or indeed the reverse, and yes a good guide should work hard to push every possible opportunity as it happens.

But in reality a very good guide will also recognise that honey pots need to be managed very very carefully and are often the exception to ‘day to day’ fishing, a customers individual skill can only be matched to specific environments, conditions and a singular limit of physical input. Plus, and contrary to popular belief, Ireland is not localised it has a vast coastline that operates differently at different times and giant bass do not readily surrender and crawl up your line at the mere sight of a soft plastic!

Being realistically aware of the true nature of the fish and the fishing, getting a measured sense of what ‘could happen’ if I try hard and work at it, a ‘I cant do any more’ frame of mind is a good honest approach. Instead of trying to deal with the associated disappointments of unrealistic hyper expectation and so often its associated companions, accelerated unearned learning and supposed ease of accomplishment through the latest bass tackle fads, a much simpler and wider approach will lead to a far greater sense of achievement and personal reward.

Besides isn’t there something so much more satisfying about simply being out there, imagining rather than expecting? 

Dana Scully: 'Purple Rain'?
Fox Mulder: Great album. Deeply flawed movie.

Catalytic

		Clive Gammon  1929-2012 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I could never have known then what was going to happen. It was the start of it I guess, the Summer and Autumn of 2003. Three days in a car with Terry Thomas and Clive Gammon, bass fishing and driving around the southern coasts of Wexford, trying to capture the essence of something. For me it was listening to the stories of Wexford, the angling past remembered by Clive.

I remember standing at the coombe, at the race, casting half mackerel twenty yards into the cauldron, holding our bass rods into a late October evening. He said he had seen something similar somewhere in the US, where I cant remember, I felt very naive, very young.

We fished with John Devereaux on board Celtic Lady – free lining live sandeel over a reef, he smiled and held a fish and told me he had felt the sandeel panic as the bass approached to eat!

Catalysts.

The challenges and cycles continue

Sometimes I notice that if I'm ‘researching’ the jet stream phenomena I often come across statements from meteorologists that sound like the following

1. The Jet stream moves because of weather (e.g. warmth or cold somewhere) and or
2. The weather is like it is because of the Jet stream.

Both may be true to an extent but it needs to be clear, the jet stream IS weather so what we really have here is confusion on a description rather than cause.
The question is WHY are it ( the jet stream) and our associated weather behaving rather differently now than say from a decade ago? That’s not for me to say or conclude.

‘The weather pattern is so stuck in a rut that there's every chance that low pressure will dominate our weather for the rest of June and into the first half of July too - meaning more cool and at times wet weather - with a few fine warm days in-between.’

And it's all down to the position of the jet stream. A low lying jet stream is also connected to AMO see this post here on Striper bass decline
 
The risk here is that we incorrectly associate animal behaviour and rationalise exceptions into slots that ‘fit’ our derivations. Ants are flying early or badgers are blacker than white this year – and then we attach a weather pattern as either the cause or the displayed animal behaviour is an indication the end the world is approaching!

The jet stream is a fast moving zone of winds high up in the atmosphere, caused by the temperature contrast between cold air to the north, and warmer air to the south.
It's along this boundary, where warm and cold air constantly battle each other that most of our rain bearing weather systems form.

'The jet stream, for some time now, has been further south than normal - hence the inclement weather.

During 2007, 2008, 2009 the Jet Stream has been at an abnormally low latitude across the UK, lying closer to the English Channel, around 50°N rather than its more usual north of Scotland latitude of around 60°N. However, between 1979 and 2001, it has been found that the position of the jet stream has been moving northward at a rate of 2.01 kilometres (1.25 mi) per year across the Northern Hemisphere'

From my own observations based on fish returns and expectations you could draw some conclusions see here A challenging season, fish behaviour changes because of weather – this has been inherent in this blog for a long long time.

I do know this – when I started guiding in 2003 my ‘management’ of how the weather was communicated to customers at the beginning of the week along with the information pack and the detail etc., the summary went something like this – ‘Guys, looks like we will have a tough day on Tuesday and fishing will be difficult until Wednesday lunchtime’, (or something similar) at the moment I’m looking for a good day amongst several tough or impossible days!

Looking at this forecast it looks like its set to remain difficult for a while.

Bass fishing

What does the world tell you about the fish, even when you are nowhere near them?

It tells you different influences apply for different places..........the crane, the streetlight, the church.

The wind , the place, the wave.....

Bass fishing

A fish's survival depends on its ability to feed successfuly. Fish exploit instances and situations that give them the very best intake for a given amount of energy output.

Bass fishing

Fish are not smart they are instinctive. Bass anglers need to be smart to grasp that instinct.

Think, imagine, apply sensibly and creatively your own experiences and influences to your own fishing. No two anglers, situations or indeed locations are the same.

What's different for you is not always similar for me so why waste time refuting generalisations?

Bass fishing

		What do you want from your fishing? VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Consider too what your fishing might want from you.

Bass fishing

Ask yourself the questions, what am I doing here at this time and what brought me to this place?

If its a simple reason/s there's no complexity.

Bass fishing

The key to catching any fish prone to tidal and weather influences is finding them in the midst of those influences. Sometimes, just sometimes they're simply not there in any numbers or indeed at all.

Exceptional fishing happens, good and bad, early and late, big and small, a common part of frequent normality in a wild environment.

Bass fishing

Are you casting or are you fishing?

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