When I think back on my earliest years fishing, it almost feels chaotic.
I’d tie on a lure, cast it out, wait a few seconds, feel nothing — and immediately change it. New lure. New cast. Same result. Over and over again.
Eventually, I’d reach the same conclusion every time:
There are no fish in this body of water.
Of course, that wasn’t true. But it felt true in the moment, because it was the only explanation I had that made the frustration make sense.
At the time, I didn’t realize what was actually happening.
I wasn’t failing.
I was learning — just without realizing that learning can be quiet, repetitive, and uncomfortable.
Back then, every empty cast felt like feedback. I just didn’t know how to read it yet. So I treated silence as evidence instead of information.
That pattern followed me for a long time.
I believed progress was supposed to feel obvious. That if something was working, I’d know right away. And if it wasn’t, the water itself must be the problem.
Looking back now, that belief carried more weight than any bad lure choice ever did.
When I Stopped Expecting Learning to Feel Productive
The change didn’t happen all at once.
It took years — and I mean that literally.
Not years where I suddenly knew everything. I’m still learning now. That part never went away. What changed was how I related to the quiet stretches.
At some point, something would click. Not in a dramatic way. Just a small realization that held up the next time I went out. I’d apply it again. Maybe get a little confirmation. Then, without forcing it, I’d notice it worked better in certain water. Certain current. Certain conditions.
Nothing about that process was fast.
But I stopped treating the hard days as proof that I was doing something wrong.
I let myself evolve inside them.
Instead of reacting to every empty cast, I stayed long enough to notice patterns forming. I stopped rushing to replace one idea with another before it had time to teach me anything.
The frustration didn’t disappear — but it stopped being heavy. It stopped demanding an answer immediately.
That’s when I realized something important.
The early years weren’t wasted.
They weren’t failures.
They were repetitions that hadn’t revealed themselves yet.
Once I stopped interpreting silence as a verdict, learning became lighter. Slower. More honest.
And the water didn’t need to change for that to happen.