The Learning Curve

I’d like to think that I can claim to be a life-long learner.  I’ve taken a hiatus or two, but otherwise I’ve always been pretty busy at functioning at a generally acceptably high level, reading worthwhile stuff, collecting skills, increasing self-awareness, and seeking general self-improvement.  Without doubt, many of these efforts have probably been misdirected, and in some cases, fruitless.  But I’m no slacker, and my utility to friends, family and society has probably increased over the years.   Along the way I’ve accumulated a diverse array of experiences and memories, some of which might even make me occasionally helpful or interesting to others.  

One of the great things about fishing is that it offers unlimited potential for improvement.  Whether it’s new waters, new habitats, new species of fish, more fish, bigger fish, new tactics and tackle,  or competing in tournaments, there’s always a broad horizon of opportunities and challenges to take on.

Most of the discretionary part of my youth was spent acquiring the knowledge, skills and tackle to become a competent bass fisherman.  Those pursuits took me into my thirties, but I reached a point where, given the amount of time I had available for the pursuit, I wasn’t getting much better at it.  I kind of knew what to expect from any given bass outing, and one season was pretty much seeming like the last.  I wasn’t exactly bored with my fishing efforts (I do love bass fishing), but I have to admit that golf held a strange attraction for me at the time.

Unlike my teenaged Rhode Island, West Michigan has diverse, quality fishing opportunities.  I'd always enjoyed my occassional walleye, brown trout and shore-bound pier/river salmon excursions that spiced up my fishing, but it wasn’t until I mounted a single down-rigger on Mrs. Paul and tried my hand at Lake Michigan salmon fishing that my passion for fishing re-ignited.  I’m willing to bet that the salmon fishing in August of 1995 was worthy of “Best Ever” status, because week after week, despite limited tackle and knowledge, I was getting enough action and enjoying enough success on the lake to think about little else (in terms of recreational pursuits.)  Fishing mostly by myself, and pretty much blind (without a GPS, speed indicator, temperature probe, or even a depth sounder capable of reaching the bottom), I encountered good numbers of fish of impressive size.  And these fish pulled drag!

I don't think I was obsessed, but most other types of fishing fell off to the wayside over the next few years.  More and more time and money got spent on the pursuit of Great Lakes Trolling Excellence.  I added many new presentation options to my repertoire, and I soon out-grew Mrs. Paul.  Along came Numenon, with more space, new electronics and longer range.  With all these new toys, tips and tricks at my disposal, plus the fact that I continued to learn from just about every trip, if not every fish, I was motivated enough to equate "Fishing" with "Great Lakes Trolling".

At about the same time, I was able to seasonally access and learn a viable striped bass fishery.  These quickly taught me that many of my freshwater skills and tactics weren't quite up to snuff.  Combined, I was now catching (and expecting) more, larger, stronger, meaner fish with a variety of tactics.  Instead of knowing what to expect, there were constant surprises and choices to be made.  Fishing had become something beyond the act itself; there was endless balancing, exploration, learning and application; it was more than the simple sum of skills, tackle and time.  Fishing had become much more than a past time, it was an avid pursuit, it was now a true avocation.

I was exposed to an early theory in ecological studies that became known as the “Optimal Foraging Theorem.”  (Before I go any further, let me apologize to any of my former professors or ecological cohorts for any miss-statement I might make here.)  Optimal Foraging basically stated that, in heterogeneous environments with varying resource availability, an individual spending only enough time gathering food in place so as to exceed the average foraging success rate would ultimately come out ahead.  The individual could sample different environments, get a sense of rates of return, and focus only in those areas of good (i.e., better than average) returns.  The benefit is in staying “ahead of the curve” and therefore assuring better than average performance.  All cannot be above average all of the time, but there’s nothing to say that we can't be smart about our choices.  

Science!  It takes time to have initial success, but then you learn quickly.  But don't stick  with the same tactics, because your returns will diminish!

And so for many of the last few years, I’ve focused my efforts on the best available quality bite at a given time.  This has been my version of my Optimal Fishing Theorem, and by fishing for the "hot" species at the "right" time, I can stay with above-average opportunities all year round.  My fishing always at least has a chance of being above average.

Another ecological concept in my approach to fishing is sustaining a maximum return for my efforts.  As we master an activity, our rate of improvement diminishes; by constantly trying new species and tactics, I may have missed out on overall mastery of one approach; but I'm constantly learning new applications and being exposed to new experiences.  No more Same Old/Same Old, but rather each trip has the potential for offering something new.

Science!

And now there’s musky fishing.  I can’t really claim that these efforts are in any logical way, optimizing my chances of success.  But I will say that I've recently learned more and taken greater/quicker  strides towards competency than in other fishing effoerts.  So I’ll hang on to the steepest part of my Learning Curve (Return vs. Effort) as hard as I can.  Simple calculus indicates that this is where the fruits of my efforts are “optimum”.

I’m not really sure what my relationship with Rates of Return says about me.   After all, ”When the going gets tough, the Tough get going,” and it kind of seems like I’m more interested in improvement that in actual total performance.  Given recent political interest in metrics, and my sincere belief that this is a dangerous and misleading lesson when applied to school performance, future opportunity, etc., I'm not really proud to say I'd rather enjoy improving as opposed to being awesome.  But I am enjoying this most recent ascent of The Learning Curve.  Thinking back on my recent musky exploits, it simply makes me smile.

Smile!  Numenon's first legal, targeted muskellunge.