Many Of Us Are Losing The Real Meaning Of It All

The Real Costs Of The Tournament Fishing Mentality

When I was growing up tournament fishing was very different than it is today or at the very least my perception of it was different. There was a joy in the hearts of most I watched fish in such events all the way back from local club derbies to the Bassmaster Classics on the James River in the late 1980’s.

Nowadays competition level fishing for paychecks doesn't seem to be delivering much joy anymore at least for most.

Chad Hoover, a prominent founder of the kayak Bass fishing movement in America is known to have said….

“I have never not known fishing!”

I think many is us can relate to that statement.

But the kind of fishing environment we once all knew has been lost.

When I walk down to the river at first light, I don’t come with a stopwatch, or a scoreboard, or a prize purse in mind. I come with open hands, a beating heart, and the hope that nature will teach me something new. The river does not care who I am or what I’ve achieved. It does not hand out trophies. It gives no glory but the sound of water over stone, the cry of a kingfisher, the flick of a bronze back breaking the current.

In these moments, I remember why fishing has always been more than a sport. It is a language of patience, of observation, of humility. To stand in a river and cast is to join a rhythm older than we can measure—a rhythm written in the cycles of mayflies, the migrations of minnows, the timeless patience of the Smallmouth holding steady in an eddy seam.

I can envision the indigenous peoples that fished my waters for thousands of years before my own ancestors reached the shores of our nation living in harmony with the river. Many of the place names along the Patawomeck my native river remain the names of such peoples long pushed away by the sickness of greed and thirst for land and power.

And yet, too often today, I see fishing turned into nothing more than just a contest. Numbers. Weights. Lengths. Payouts. The chase for fame on a stage built by sponsors and dollar signs. Grown men searching for acceptance in this world through a rod and reel and feeling compelled to compete not only for catches but for likes and clicks for social media followings. Men feeling the need to show off fish as if somehow catching a big fish defines a man or illuminates a man’s soul while others the need to tear down others. Instead, what most find is a hollow, empty abyss and the reality that the fish is a far bigger soul than the man holding it up with hopes of being celebrated.

Competition certainly may have its place, but it steals the quiet. It drowns out the lessons. When a bass becomes nothing more than five pounds of leverage toward a paycheck, we lose sight of the miracle it truly is—a creature sculpted by the currents, built for survival, and worthy of our respect whether it is six inches or twenty.

The true reward of fishing is not in outdoing another angler—it is in outgrowing yourself. It is in learning to be still when the river is still, to listen when the forest speaks, to feel your soul grow lighter with every cast that arcs against a sunrise sky. Out here, you don’t win or lose. You discover. You learn who you are without the noise. You remember that every riffle and every bend carries its own cathedral, and you stand in it as both student and guest.

The river teaches peace. The river teaches balance. If we can accept those lessons, we will come to cherish the fish not as a trophy, but as a neighbor; not as a payday, but as a teacher. And in that moment—when you kneel to release a Smallmouth back into the current, and watch it vanish into the depths with a flick of strength—you will know you’ve found what no competition can ever offer: belonging.

I myself have at times lost sight of these things. Time continues on. We can’t ever stop the passage of time. We can only work to ensure we value the time we have on the river before that shall pass as well….