By Mike Huber
This year I decided to expand my hobbies while traveling across the United States by motorcycle. I enjoyed camping and riding but felt with the long summer days I needed something to do once I arrived in camp (other than drink beer around a beautiful campfire, which will still happen no matter how many hobbies I take up). Fishing seemed to be a perfect way to spend early evenings once my campsite was set up. I was going to become a successful motorcycle fisherman.
OK, well the successful part ended rather quickly. I started off just crushing it and catching fish almost every time I went camping. I was fishing lakes around Arizona and thought that once I was in California it would only improve. It didn’t. In fact, I didn’t catch a single fish from July to the end of August. In my own defense, I was fishing rivers where most were fly fishing and not using lures or worms. But still, to be skunked day after day for a few months was demoralizing, especially one day when fishing in Lassen National Park. There was a couple next to me, literally right next to me, using the exact same power bait and reeling in bass after bass. As soon as he landed a fish his wife would clean and cook them on the spot. Meanwhile, I wasn’t even getting a bite. I may have cried that night in my tent a little (or a lot). I kept a positive outlook, as I was just starting my trip and had so many states to visit that my luck would surely turn around.
My luck did not turn around. It got to where the fish were mocking me jumping all around my lures. Even when I changed from power bait to spinners to gummy worms every 30 minutes or so, it just wasn’t happening. This is where my friend said to me “That’s why they call it fishing, not catching.” Ugh. I clearly need better friends.
As my travels (and my fishing drought) continued, I camped and fished in 14 states without a bite (AZ, CA, OR, WA, ID, MN, PA, NY, VT, NH, ME, NJ, VA and MD). Talk about a drought. This was awful. I think what made it worse was my BMW GS1200 was so loaded down that I had the pole visible on the bike held by ROK Straps which invited people to come up and talk with me about my fishing success and comment “oh, you will definitely catch something here…I’ve never been skunked there.” Well, I didn’t and I was skunked. Repeatedly.
On November 1st my BMW was stolen. The steering column was cracked open like a lobster and it was pushed into an alley where the thieves pried open my panniers and took only a few items. One of them happened to be my trusty $40 Walmart collapsible fishing pole. This was the ultimate insult to wrap up an unsuccessful fishing year.
Not being one to give up, the first thing I bought after the BMW was recovered was another fishing pole. Over the winter months my plans are to start watching YouTube videos and reading how to improve my chances on the waters I travel along next spring throughout this great country. 2024 is my year to catch fish!
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