Fishing from shore at a local hole, a 30-something guy came plodding down the hill to fish a ways down from me. Along with the customary tacklebox and poles, in hand, he was wearing some other gadgets: a video camera on the bill of his cap and one around his chest in the center of a big black “X,” the camera strap, against his white t-shirt. Stuff bouncing and hanging everywhere, he looked like Tin Cup in the mobile home trying to shake-off his newly acquired shanks virus.
Cup smiled and waved cordially, making sure to give me plenty of space and respect. Cool dude. Taking it all in, I tried not to stare, not to laugh, too. I guess that’s what they’re doing today, I muttered under my breath. I knew of this new personal videoing stuff because I had seen it used on social media. But seeing it in real life, in live action.
Well, it was a new experience.
I know I love bass fishing just for simple bass fishing’s sake. Fifty-three years in, I have always known I had a passion for it; nobody gets that amped up for something they don’t truly love. But it was here, for this incident, that I finally understood what that meant.
First, bass fishing is exciting. For me that means the unpredictability and perpetual adversity, which intrigue and inspire me. Locating fish is time-consuming. Then getting them to bite isn’t guaranteed. Patterning them is an ever-threatening here today gone tomorrow proposition. Inexplicable lockjaw is a real problem, too. I catch a 25-pound bag one day and, without a single variable changing at all, I get smoked the next. Not a single strike.
It’s maddening. But awesome!
Simply, the sport isn’t easy. For this, it either sucks you in or runs you off, one of the two. There is a third option: people just languish in bass fishing mediocrity all their lives. And even when you excel at it, the sport still kicks your ass. Skunked with 25-years experience: So, you’re good at this, are you?
Well, I thought so.
And then, while your ass is all swole-up at the dock, someone else rolls in with a giant string. You make the mistake of asking, “How’d you do?”
Throwing the Coleman cooler lid open: Look at this’un here!
Monster. In fact, several monsters appear in short order. Makes your swole ass throb even harder.
The angler’s name is Booger, you learn. He’s a local, in a beat-up, leaking Jon Boat with a 1970’s Minn Kota trolling motor, the boat’s only propulsion. “How’d you boys do?” He asks, grinning, noticing the competitive discomfort.
“Uh, not too good. Caught us on an off day.”
An off day, you say. Right. Booger sure didn’t have an off day.
And that’s the sport. And I think it’s fantastic! Beyond doubt, I know I can find and catch bass any time of the year and anywhere. But I’m also comfortable with the reality Booger here is going to rack-and-stack’em when I stink up the joint. Just as I am going to rack-and-stack when Booger stinks it up. It’s all part of the game. You hunt, peck, observe, think, adjust, change locations and tactics. All in pursuit of the most productive area(s) and method(s) in which and with which to catch bass. And when you figure it all out and it works. Well, it’s pretty satisfying.
Just ask Booger. He is frying fish all week, and onion rings.
And here’s the thing. The game as it is and the satisfying result? This is enough for me, which Tin Cup and all his adorning video equipment helped me to realize. I don’t need all that stuff, don’t need a video record of all my fishing adventures and successes, to be a fulfilled angler. It is enough for me to do the work of bass fishing in solitude and without further distraction, which is what I think all this personal video stuff is, a distraction. If somebody else wants to video me, fine. Just, stay out of my way. And don’t talk a lot. I’m focusing, and thinking. How many times have you heard someone say, “Hey, Jim. Your cork’s gone?” Then saw chatty Jim race to his pole, give a wild jerk, and nothing be on the other end?
Well, that’s what happens in bass fishing when you aren’t focusing and thinking.
Frankly, I don’t like the result, which is why don’t like a lot of talking. Bass fishing is hard enough. Rather, consistently successful bass fishing is hard enough. Anybody can catch a bass. Those who can do it consistently, they don’t jack around. The industry wants people to be excited about the sport and want to sell it like it is super fun. Well, it is fun. But being really good at it is hard—mentally, emotionally, and even physically hard, requiring a lot of focus and thinking and distraction-free labor. Demanding and hard doesn’t sell so well, but it is the reality nonetheless. Focused and thinking, anglers must be in the game constantly, every cast. Not jabbering away, their finger in their butts and minds down in Arkansas.
As far as I’m concerned, worrying if hat- and chest-mounted cameras are well-positioned and aligned with the fishing action is tantamount to talking. And if you’re wearing these video units, that’s probably what you are doing: a lot of talking, to all your 12 “followers” on social media. Plus, these units would annoy me—the weight of the camera on the flimsy bill of my cap, flopping around every time I cast or jerk. The camera in the middle of my chest, always hitting it with the butt of my rod. It getting in the way and constantly constricting my shoulders. I don’t need another thing to think about, to bother me. If your attention is divided, you aren’t focused.
I am perfectly content to fish and create memories and have those experiences in my own head. I catch a nice fish and get a quick pic with my phone, sure. But then it is right back to business. Because that is what consistently successful bass fishing demands.
I looked down the shore at Cup and he was standing all erect and precise, making sure his buzzbait was tracking in video frame. He made another cast and his hat camera flopped. He reached up to adjust his cap and reset the camera, trying to reel at the same time. Satisfied, he then lowered his arms and stuck his chest out, remembering he had the other camera to account for. Then he fussed with that one, too, while still trying to reel. I was hoping one would blow-up on his buzzbait because I wanted a ringside seat to what was sure to be blooper gold. Then again, it might have all worked out. I don’t know.
Me? Well, I love bass fishing just for simple bass fishing’s sake. That’s enough for me.
Fish With Confidence!
©JMW 11/2026
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