Fishing Doesn't Suck: Getting Ready

In this video, Chad Hoover shares his insights about one of his favorite parts of the kayak fishing experience and the part that doesn’t get talked about that often.

As I get ready for this fishing trip, I want to share with you one of my favorite times of the day and that's in the morning. By and large, by the time you guys see me, I'm already past one of my favorite parts of fishing. That's getting your tackle boxes ready in the morning and double-checking to make sure that you have everything in each little box that you decided. Which ones are you going to put in the front, which ones are you going to put in the back? Did you grab the right colors? Did you grab enough? Could you squeeze one more lure into the box that you plan on throwing? Do you have two of everything?

All of those things about getting ready are part of what makes this so special to me.

This part of the day is that time when you're re-tying a lure and you're getting excited about whether or not the fish are gonna hit that particular presentation or that color, and what adjustments you’re gonna have to make. Are you gonna have a new personal best that day? Are you gonna catch a new species, are you gonna meet a new friend? These are all part of what makes this thing called fishing so special to me and why I do it whether it's 35 degrees or 105 degrees.

It's why we still get excited by the jingle of these little trinkets and it's why we still double-check our knots and leaders and have all these gadgets attached to our PFD and make modifications to our kayak and all in anticipation of one of the simplest things that a human being can experience and that's a connection with a wild thing. That's what makes fishing so special to me.

What I love about fishing is when you make that connection, that's just the beginning. That nanosecond between when you set the hook and you get a response back that you have no idea how big that fish is or what you caught. I wanted to share that with you because this is what gets me out here when most sane people are sitting on the couch and saying it's too cold to go fishing. When most sane people don't even load up the boat or their rods are put away for the winter, or the middle of the summer. Or they take up golf or whatever.

You know I've said this for a number of years, I don't understand what people who don't fish do so it's these quiet times where it's only the jingle of a spinnerbait blade or whatever a loon call is called or the whistle of a wood duck taken off before daylight. Or the honk of a goose that you disturbed nesting on the bank. It's just all those little things that we often overlook that make up the big thing that we call fishing. That's also by and large why kayak fishing is my primary choice for how I fish because it just deepens that connection. It brings you down lower to the water literally and figuratively. It makes you part of the elements and it makes you vulnerable. And there's just something special about that level of connection and that level of vulnerability. As we make these final preparations to head out to the water today you know I thought of something as we're starting to get back to our normal, or back to our new normal – You're never too young and you're never too old, it's never too hot and it's never too cold to do the thing you truly love.

And it's not always measured by the success of what you do when you get out there, it's measured by just getting out there.So the next time you think it's not worth the effort, you don't want to set the alarm that early, you don't want to get out there, just remember that the quiet, the still, the connection is the thing that you'll be glad that you did. It's way better than hitting the snooze button it's way better than sleeping in and then right after this part comes the best part and that's when you're out there on the water when the world comes alive

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