{"id":27198,"date":"2009-09-24T15:30:58","date_gmt":"2009-09-24T15:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/gregladen\/2009\/09\/24\/the-art-of-not-looking-like-a\/"},"modified":"2009-09-24T15:30:58","modified_gmt":"2009-09-24T15:30:58","slug":"the-art-of-not-looking-like-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/24\/the-art-of-not-looking-like-a\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of Not Looking Like a Fool (A fish story)"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I am in the mood to fish, and I’m at the lake<\/a>, I pay special attention to the water.<\/p>\n


\nI notice things moving or splashing. I notice the behavior of the terns, the herons, the bald eagles, the loons, and the mergansers. Those fish eating birds are watching the fish and have a better view than I do, and more incentive as well. But mostly I watch the surface of the water.<\/p>\n

And here is what I’ve learned: Most of the time you can’t see below the surface, out any distance from the shore. You can’t tell what is going on at<\/em> the surface because waves, or ripples caused by a light breeze, obscure any fish-spoor that may be present. When the surface is flat you can see things, but it is hard to tell the difference between a few quick moving insects and some minnows or blue gills feeding on the surface. And when something breaks the surface, it is very difficult to tell if you are seeing a small fish clear the water in a splash or the tail or head of a large fish sticking for a fleeting moment from above the surface.<\/p>\n

Every now and then a whopping big fish … and it is the whopping big fish<\/a> that I’m after, of course … clears the surface and leaves no ambiguity about its presence.<\/p>\n

When it comes to thinking what might be there, I consider the possibility that there are big fish cruising around beneath the surface, or laying in ambush at one point or another, and I use these surface indicators to guide my thinking, but I know this is highly unreliable. If I’m going to go fishing, I might well cast the lure somewhere. When it comes to saying<\/em> to someone else what I think is there, I usually keep my mouth shut. Every now and then I’ll say “Oh, I saw a big fish jump three times just over there, I think I’ll see what I can do” and head over there with my gear and a top lure. Sometimes I catch a fish when I do that, sometimes not. Or, very rarely, I’ll say “I believe the Northerns are feeding on the perch by the dock. Get the camera if you want a picture of a Northern” and I’ll go over there, and cast once<\/a>, and BAM I’ll have the fish on the line and if I land it we get the picture. That happened, like, once, in four years. The rest of the time I keep my mouth shut about what I think is going on beneath the surface because I can’t really tell and if I blurt out statements about the fish based on the vaguest of half-investigated suspicions or poorly formed thoughts, I’ll be thought a fool.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I am in the mood to fish, and I’m at the lake, I pay special attention to the water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[206],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5fhV1-74G","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27198"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27198\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregladen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}