Zen and the Art of Salmon Fishing

Years ago, I was introduced to Salmon fishing by a guy named Fred Herb. For some reason, we drifted apart. No arguments, no problems, just responsibilities. Fred owned his own company making custom furniture, and I was busy trying to build our business in MI, and we just never seemed to connect.

Fred was an outdoors man. Nothing made him happier than being around nature. Fishing for Salmon was one of his specialties, and boy was he good at it. He had all the right lures (black and gold lightning lures were a favorite of his), knew all the right places, what the best time and temperatures were, etc. We usually limited out, but when we caught our limit, or if the Salmon were not hitting, he would switch tactics and go after Lakers (Lake trout, not basketball players).

One day sticks out in my memory. We got in to Onekema on Lake Michigan, the night before we planned to go out. There was a pretty strong storm that night, but by the time we were ready to go out, the storm was over. The aftermath of the storm was not. I had never seen waves that big on a lake before. A forty foot boat was trying to leave the cove where it was docked and where we launched my little 20 foot fishing boat.. The waves were so big they were crashing over the deck of the cabin cruiser threatening to swamp it. Since we had a small enough boat to "ride the waves", we decided to give it a go. We headed straight into the waves, and other than some minor seasickness we had no problem getting out.

We set the first downrigger, and before we could set the second we had a fish on. The whole morning was like that, we kept getting two fish on at the same time. While that sounds fun, with huge waves and no one to drive the boat, we got more than a little wet when the boat took a wave from the side. We caught our limit in less than 3 hours (big King Salmon too, not a fish less than 9 pounds), and it was non stop fun. We could not wait for the next day. The next day Lake Michigan was like glass. I never saw Lake Michigan flat before. You could have water skied on it. Miles out and the lake was still calmer than I had ever seen. We did not catch a single fish. The fish finder said they were down there, we just could not get them to bite.

When you are a Dale Carnegie Instructor, you always look for analogies, and this is my only fishing analogy. Life can be a lot like that fishing trip. When you take your problems head on (like we took the waves) they are not so hard to handle. It is only when you try to "side step" them or get distracted by other issues that they tend to swamp you and threaten to capsize you. Secondly, when life is throwing a lot of waves at you, it's usually throwing a lot of fish your way as well. The challenge is to catch the fish without getting swamped by the waves, and boy does it make life exciting. And finally when all is calm and there are no waves to keep you on your toes, life can be boring as hell.

We need waves in our lives. I saw a poster once that said "life is a daring adventure or it is nothing". I'm not sure I agree. I would change it to "life is a daring adventure or it is boring". Don't be afraid of the waves, take them head on. Don't try to side step them, they only get bigger, and for heaven's sake look at all the fish getting thrown your way!

As usual just my opinion, and Fred Herb would agree.