Thinking Positive to Catch More Carp

Many carp fishermen are a little superstitious. Some have a favorite hat, shirt, socks, shoes, boots, rod, reel, line, bait or other gear that they are absolutely convinced increases the chances to catch carp. Sometimes it's easy to dismiss these superstitions as meaningless and ineffective, but maybe there's a lesson to be learned that will help us all catch more carp.

A few years ago author Rhonda Byrne wrote a phenomenally popular best selling book called The Secret. It's a positive thinking book along the lines of Anthony Robins, Norman Vincent Peale, Napoleon Hill many others. In fact, while at Greenfield Village today, I flipped through a book written in the mid-1800's that focused specifically on how to use positive thoughts to live a better life and be more successful.

There is a popular positive thinking guru who writes a blog and hosts webinars telling us that we all manifest vibrations that float through the universe and influence our lives positively or negatively by changing our spirituality and impacting our personal fate with these good or bad vibrations.

Elite athletes use mental imagery to see themselves jumping higher, running faster, throwing farther, and more accurately to achieve victory. Baseball, basketball, football, golf...you name it; it's prevalent in sports at all levels. These days it's even being taught in Little League by some of the more progressive and dare I say successful coaches.

Another train of thought is that such positive thinking is kind of hokey, that it doesn't really work because in the end only God can help guide us to success and we as individuals have little to no control over anything.

I'm not writing this to favor one theory over another, but I think there is something to be learned in this intellectual exercise that will help us all catch more carp.

During a fishing sessions yesterday an acquaintance of mine spoke about his ability to literally look at his fishing rod and "will" a fish to bite. We all kind of chuckled when he said it. I have to admit that I sometime "hope" that it's possible to will the fish to bite; and I spend a lot of time staring at my rods, but I can't point an instance where it's actually happened according to my "instructions". It usually happens at times when I least expect it.

For example, one day last year I fished for 4 hours after work without a bite. After I packed up all the equipment and 2 of 3 rods I caught a nice sized carp at the precise instant that I started to retrieve the 3 rod and leave. During a session last Saturday something very similar happened and I caught a very nice 23 pounder. Just last night, after a very difficult day on the banks, I was helping a friend who had a double run and two carps on the hook, and got a run on my own rod catching a nice catfish.

In my personal examples, I was completely relaxed and had already resigned myself to the possibility that I might leave without catching another fish. I wanted to catch a fish. I badly wanted a fish to bite, but ultimately I was o.k. if it didn't happen. I was Zen - as my wife sometimes calls it. The pressure was off. My negativity was released; and then positive things happened.

Many times while fishing I'll be reading the newspaper, surfing the internet on my phone, or talking to my wife and paying absolutely no attention to my rods; and then get a nice fish on the line(s) (or even 2 at the same time not long ago).

What are my conclusions?

• Sometimes we put too much pressure on ourselves to catch fish.
• It's easy to overthink things.
• When fishing is slow we overcompensate sometimes and stray from the normal things we do that have worked in the past.
• Mistakes cause more mistakes. Sometimes we might be better off packing up and going home vs. enduring more painful time on the bank.
• We generally catch more fish when we least expect it.

Examples:

• We often try so hard not to hit a well-known snag when casting that we cast directly to it.
• We often try so hard not to tangle our lines when fighting a fish and we tangle them anyway.
• We often try so hard to make the perfect bait and we add too many ingredients and actually do more harm than good.

My own goals:

• Put more fun back into fishing
• Enjoy time outdoors in the sunshine and good weather because winter's on the way
• Learn from mistakes; but don't dwell on them
• Enjoy the small fish equally as much as the large fish
• Enjoy the catfish equally as much as the common carp/small mouth buffalo