Why I Fish Alone...

"I drink alone, yeah,
with nobody else.
I drink alone, yeah,
with nobody else.
Yeah, you know when I drink alone, I prefer to be by myself."
- George Thorogood

On the whole, I usually fish alone. That is part of the lure (no pun intended) of the angling sport: Just you, the water and hopefully a fish. I've spent many days and even more nights alone on a beach in the middle of nowhere. If I even saw the neck light of another angler all night it was a crowd.

There is definately something soothing about being on the water by yourself. Communing with nature. It touches something in my soul. Maybe something genetic, as we all came from the oceans way back when.

There is also the thrill of being by yourself and catching a big fish. It's more your own. No one else advised you what to use, where to fish, how to fish etc. You did it all on your own.


But, more realistically, I tend to fish alone more and more these days for less soul-full reasons and more selfish ones.

First, I put in a LOT of time and effort to find the spots I fish. "Free time" is become a very rare and precious commodity to me more and more. I don't know where the time is going but I have less and less of it as life progresses. Wish I could have bottled it from back in my youth for use now. Oh well... But the point is I put in a lot of time to find the spots and learn when and how to fish them. Call me selfish but I don't freely share that any more these days. Every anglers has burned a spot. It's the nature of the sport. But if I show someone a spot I expect reciprocation. I expect them to show me a spot too. Yes, tit-for-tat. But that doesn't happen nearly as much as it should. I have a few friends who so rarely get out that if I do take them some place new (to them) it's more like charity so I don't mind. But there are others who claim to be such great fishermen yet give me nothing in return. That isn't right.

Second reason is schedules. It's tough to get people together what with family, work, personal stuff etc.

Third, there are places and types of fishing that I want to do that don't seem to interest others. That's OK by itself. But I'm not going to forgo my desires because no one else shares them.

Fourth, and this was a bitter pill to learn, some people who talk a good game are really blow hards in the end. When I was young I know many guys who would talk constantly of their great trips to Montauk, Florida, Mexico, the Bahamas or Caribean etc. They would talk of the lodges they go to, the people they knew who would get them free stays, free boats, inside local information and all that. I couldn't go. I had school and work and not a lot of money. When I finally got old enough and established enough to be able to have the time to take and finances to afford these trips - suddenly these "great" fisherman came up with all kinds of excuses why they couldn't go. It wasn't until years later I finally realized that I had called thier bluff.

So now I mostly fish a lone because it's on my schedule, my likes, and my pleasure.

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