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A life on the water is an everyday thing. When we’re not fishing, we’re thinking about it. We’re preparing for it. We’re learning about it. I text with friends almost daily about river conditions and hatches. I drive beside the river just to see it — even though that route takes a few extra minutes.
We’ve all seen die hard anglers living their life on the water — and then it just goes away. Rising and fading interests are part of human nature. But we’ve also met plenty of anglers who lament the fact that their waders have been gathering dust for two years.
Burnout starts with the small things — sleeping in instead of getting out early, or skipping the evening spinner fall in favor of an earlier dinner. And then, almost without realizing it, you’ve missed a whole season because you made excuses about low water or crowded streams.
I think burnout is involuntary. It creeps up and surprises people, but I don’t think it has to. Fishing gets old because it becomes average, because some of the mystery or exploration is gone — maybe it becomes predictable. But all of that can be changed with a few intentional decisions, too.
My good friends Bill Dell, Trevor Smith, Josh Darling, Austin Dando and Matt Grobe are here with me to talk about . . . burnout.
Resources
READ: Troutbitten | All the Things
READ: Troutbitten | How to Stay in the Game for a Lifetime
PODCAST: Troutbitten | Fishing Buddies S5, Ep12
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Season 19 continues next week. So look for that in your Troutbitten podcast feed.
Fish hard, friends.
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Enjoy the day.
Domenick Swentosky
T R O U T B I T T E N
domenick@troutbitten.com
Dom – loved the introspective nature of this episode. Surprised tying wasn’t mentioned as a way to avoid drifting away from the sport. As life gets busier and time on the water less frequent, nights over the vise after the little guy goes to sleep keep me connected to the sport and dreaming of the next blanket hatch.
Hope all is well.
Great point, Mike.
Great episode. I agree with all the public water comments. Backcountry Hunters and Anglers is another organization committed to holding onto public lands regardless of political bent. Listened today from MI while cutting the grass, 10 days out from leaving for MT, and after fishing a couple of days in PA last week on a family trip back East (Valley Creek upstream of Valley Forge NP). At first I was skeptical: who burns out from fishing? Then I thought, is it burnout or lack of life balance that stops folks from heading out? But then I recalled getting burned out from fishing steelhead in MI. Fished a lot on the Pere Marquette in the mid-1990’s until the early 2000s. Then stopped cold. Same reasons mentioned in the podcast: too many folks fishing and the lack of any semblance of solitude. If you found a spot to fish, there were anglers up and downstream from you and no where to go. Wasn’t worth the effort and time away when kids came along in the early 2000s. Life got in the way with dual careers and 2 kids. When I retired in 2019 I vowed to fish as much as possible. Covid hit but still made the 1.5 hr drives to the classic MI gold medal streams: AuSable, Manistee, South Branch of the AuSable. Then hit the same obstacle as the PM: too many guys in the spots I wanted to fish. Then I rediscovered a small stream 45 minutes away that had naturally reproducing browns, public water, and solitude. I picked up the ultralight spinning rod again, relearned how to accurately cast it, read the water, wade stealthily, and found the mojo again. For me it’s the overall experience outdoors, local trout water, and not competing for water. And (re)learning small stream fishing amongst the tag alders and logjams. And I’ve tied up some of your mono rigs and have started taking the flyrod along and have incorporated that into the mix. Lots to learn and problems to solve. Thanks again for your hard work in putting these podcasts together. I’ll be catching up on the ones I’ve missed on the 2 day drive to MT!