Streams through the Mind

July 26, 2006

Rocky Van Hoose

IFA Competitor

 

            The thoughts that stream through your mind as you wait for the tournament director to release the boats on the morning of the big day are most interesting—if you think about it. There is, of course, the final mental check of the day’s strategy, sometimes followed by a discussion with your partner in hushed tones. It is kind of like calling the sequence of plays in a football huddle at the outset of a two minute drill: you sense the need to reiterate a lot of previously well thought-out and thoroughly discussed information—and you don’t want the opposition to hear you.

The absurdity in this thinking is that every other team has already fixed its plans and is not the least bit interested in your strategizing at this point in time. After all nobody approaches the starting line without a good idea of where they are going and what they’re going to do when they get there. So why would one really care what Team Fred Flintstone may be discussing at this point in time?

Along with rehearsing your strategery, there is the inevitable systematic review and subsequent critique of your fellow competitors’ boats, rods and reels, specialized equipment like power-poles and casting platforms, and, of course, clothing.

Now guys might not want to confess that clothing matters to them, but those sponsors’ names and logos attached to lapels and bandanas sure do catch your eye and get you to thinking. The display can be intimidating, especially if your team competes with little in the way of sponsorship and your boat does not have any fancy artwork adorning her flanks. You feel as out of place as an unwrapped package under the Christmas tree. It can work on your mind if you let it.

Perhaps the most common mental exercise at this moment, however, concerns careful observation of the expressions and peculiar mannerisms of your enemy warriors. After much analysis of many water wars, it appears all combatants fall into one of three classes: flingers, dingers or dead ringers.

Now the flingers are those raw recruits about to engage in their first competitive skirmishes. They are easily identified—despite their best efforts at camouflage—by their endless, unnecessary tweaking of equipment, frequent testing of kill-switches and marine radios, and those nervous one-liners fired at calculated intervals.

“Did you bring enough dynamite for a full day of fishing?”

“Do you suppose they’d let us test our emergency flares now?

“I wonder if Gulp would taste better with Tabasco Sauce?

Flingers can be rather entertaining while the dingers provoke other emotions. Tournament after tournament they appear like carnival groupies. Maybe they are driven by a craving for fellowship with other combatants or some deep-rooted instinct to go to war. Whatever the reason, one wonders what goes through their minds during these minutes and how much longer their wives will allow them to chase this expensive dream.

Then there are those guys admired and emulated by all—the dead ringers. These are the grizzled veterans of many successful campaigns who are once again lining up on the field of battle to pit their reputations and considerable skills against all comers. It is this small congregation who pose the real threat to both fish and fellow fishermen.

You can spot their crumpled, slouched bodies seated behind well-worn center consoles, their bowed heads and folded arms making them resemble the elder deacons who occupy the front rows of small country churches eternally engaged in some deep spiritual struggle for the souls of mankind. In all probability, they are just sleeping off last night’s broccoli casserole while wondering if Mr. Bowels will allow them a twelve hour sabbatical from regular routines.

Suddenly all fragmented streams of thought merge into one mighty river of concentration as one by one tiny fishing boats form a line and file out of the turning basin. The director has announced the start of the tournament.