Am I/Was I Too High Tech?
by Mark McManaway

As I came up to the point I put the boat in neutral and paused to reflect and re-evaluate. I now sat there with a several thousand dollar boat and multiple dollars worth of electronics, rods, reels, boat, etc...just to catch a fish. I wondered if I had become so high tech that maybe I'd lost what inspired me in the first place. My love for the outdoors and the connection to the fish.

I remembered the feeling I had, the excitement that would build up when my Uncle Wayne was going to take me to his tank to fish in Mississippi. How I couldn't wait to get up at 5:am to go to the pond with my Ugly Stick and my Mitchell 301 open faced reel. I remembered the time I was probably 12 and I put that stick bait right in the middle of those lily pads and all I saw was a swirl...the fight was on for the biggest bass I had ever hooked and I remembered how I had dropped my rod at the boat and put slack in the line and as I lifted she dove and the line snapped...I learned a valuable lesson that day.

Yes, here I sat wondering if I'd become so high tech that I forgot what truly got me to this point and if I'd lost the feeling that was so important in the sport I had taken up and gone so far with. Hmmm. How far I've come from the ponds.

I fished for awhile and reflected. I thought about how the guide customers that I have taken out would have to tell me it was time to go because their wives/girlfriends expected them home an hour ago and we were still on the lake. I thought about how I liked to stick the bass as much as they did. Never out fishing them of course, but enjoying it just as much as they did. I thought about how it now has become the hunt. Myself against the fish. This is what drives me to go again and again.

Oh well, guess I still have the feeling after all.

Mark McManaway
Local Anglers Guide Service
Fishing w/you is my motivation (214) 207-8276
Marks Web Site Local Anglers

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