Attempting Razor Sharp Consciousness

Some of the most important things a bass fisherman ever learns cannot be found on a map, tied onto a hook, or bought in a tackle store.

They happen inside the mind.

Bass fishing can take a man to many different levels of awareness. Even a weekend angler, or someone who only bass fishes from time to time, can develop a close relationship with bass, with nature, and with the world around him. But for the serious bass fisherman, and especially for the tournament angler, those levels of awareness can go much deeper.

Tournament fishing, in particular, has a way of pushing awareness to another level. At times, it has carried me in and out of what many call “the zone.” I am still learning to recognize exactly when I enter it, when I leave it, and perhaps most importantly, how to stay there longer.

That is the real challenge.

Once a fisherman can stay “in the flow,” or stay in “the zone,” it seems that almost anything becomes possible. There are many ways to define awareness, and no two anglers will likely describe it exactly the same way. But for the purpose of this discussion, I think of awareness as the ability to become so comfortable with your surroundings that your mind can take over completely, with no distractions, and allow you to fish in the zone.

Think about that for a moment: fishing without distractions.

I am not talking about fishing fast, fishing hard, thinking hard, or trying harder. In many ways, those things can become distractions of their own. The zone is something different. It is quieter than that. Cleaner than that. It is a state where the clutter falls away and your actions seem to come from somewhere deeper than conscious effort.

To me, being “in the flow” is an even more advanced stage than simply being “in the zone.” It is a deeper connection with the natural rhythm around you, one that becomes present in nearly every move you make. It is being completely aware of your surroundings and at the same time feeling that you are part of them.

That is a powerful thing.

When a man is truly in the flow, he no longer feels like an outsider in the environment, even if he is standing on a $20,000 bass boat loaded with graphite rods, electronics, and outboard horsepower. That unnatural feeling disappears. If your mind can get fully into the flow, then your body, your boat, your tackle, and everything around you begin to feel connected to the larger movement of nature itself.

You stop forcing things.

You begin responding to them.

My own experiences of being in the zone have been few, and usually they only last long enough to catch a fish or two. Earlier this year, though, I had one tournament day where I felt I stayed there for nearly two hours. That is the longest stretch I have ever consciously recognized being in that kind of state. For me, it was a glimpse of something deeper than pattern fishing or lure selection.

Fishermen with true mental mastery, men like Rick Clunn, have experienced entire days in that state. Clunn has referred to it as “touching perfection,” and that may be about as good a description as any. In his continuing education course, Angler’s Quest, there are many articles that explore awareness and related topics in depth. For anglers who want to study these ideas further, it is an excellent source of instruction. This column is not meant to be a course of study, only a window into the idea.

Still, it is an idea worth thinking about.

Being in the zone goes far beyond simply catching fish or figuring out a productive pattern. It has to do with instincts, inner signals, and the willingness to listen to them instead of brushing them aside. It means reacting to those subtle messages rather than ignoring them. That is a major part of what I am talking about here.

Intuition plays a big role in all of this.

Intuition is not really an idea so much as it is a feeling. It is that moment when you feel compelled to make one particular cast to one exact spot, with no clear explanation except the sense that a giant bass is there, and then you catch it. Every serious bass fisherman has probably had something like that happen at one time or another. The question is whether he recognized it for what it was.

The goal is to quiet the conscious distractions and allow those deeper feelings and intuitions to flow naturally into your actions. That is not easy. In fact, it may be one of the hardest things in bass fishing to achieve. But when a man learns to trust that feeling, to recognize it, and then act on it, strange things begin to happen.

That is when the impossible starts looking possible.

A gut feeling is more than a passing notion. When you learn to recognize it, respect it, and use it, you may find yourself fishing at a level you did not know you had. That is where awareness begins to sharpen. That is where confidence takes on another meaning. And that is where bass fishing becomes something much larger than just another day on the water.

We all spend plenty of time trying to sharpen hooks, tune reels, and pick the right lure. But the sharpest edge a fisherman can ever develop may be the one inside his own mind.

That is the edge worth chasing.