It's early morning.  There is a slight chill in the air that is just crisp enough to make you wish you had an extra layer.  The sun is still low in the sky, its rays have barely illuminated the surface of the river as a mist hangs above the water gently swirling along like the leaves in the riffles.  You close your eyes, take a deep breath, embrace the quiet around you, the serenity you feel is almost tangible.  That peaceful moment where you have truly escaped into nature’s arms, and exist in a different world where time slips by in unaccounted for intervals and all your worries float downstream and become a task for a different day.

A small riffle catches your eye.  You notice a color change in the water and small disturbances along the surface.  Maybe a potential flash of color here and there.  This is the spot.  This is the moment you analyze your options, note the color of the sky, the water, match the hatch, determine which item in your arsenal is going to turn a calm day on the water into something magical.

You send your line, bring it back, send your line and bring it back. You have entered a flow state where your attention to the activity at hand is paramount. Aiming with minute precision for that riffle and color change with the patience of a cat stalking a mouse.  You send your line again and wait letting it drift ever so slightly down river.  Gasp! Suddenly! WHABLAM!!! There’s an eruption on the surface of the river!  Water is flying like glitter in the sunlight but you can’t see what has unknowingly fallen prey to your prowess!  The line is spooling off your reel at an alarming rate.  The end of your rod noses closer to the water then … it goes slack.  NO!  There’s a soul crushing possibility it spit the hook! Then like a 1980’s slow motion movie montage, you see the biggest, baddest bull trout you’ve ever seen in your life levitate out of the water.  Yes! The fight is on!  It's you against this gilled goliath in its natural habitat and you just hope that your leader holds under the massive head shakes that you can feel from your nose to your toes.  Inch by inch you get this beauty close enough that you are able to scoop and score, and lay eyes on your formidable opponent.  With adrenaline coursing through your veins you look to the sky and let ring your cry of victory! The fish hath no match for the hatch!  The events of this day will be passed on to future generations, sung about in operas and read about in history books with the fish becoming exponentially larger every time.

Have you noticed there are people who are incredibly passionate about fishing?  They’re ‘FIN-atics’ if you will, often investing time, energy, weekends and money into a mere hobby.  But why?  What’s the appeal?

Each time you cast a line, you are conducting and learning from a tiny science experiment.  You are predicting whether or not you’re going to catch a fish.  Most of the time you get skunked so why keep going back for that one last cast?  One word:  Dopamine, and this has been scientifically proven by Wolfram Schultz. The anticipation of the reward is as powerful as the reward itself and as you sit and wait for a reward your brain is releasing a steady flow of dopamine. Fishing is one of the few activities that releases a steady stream of dopamine.

Every time you fish your brain is wiring what’s called a reward prediction error.  So when you consistently cast and the river responds with ‘no you may not have a fish right now, try your luck again’, and unexpectedly you land a gilled goliath of record book (ok maybe just your record book) proportions, your experiment is rewarded with a different outcome.  It’s a surprise!  Reality has differed from the expected outcome and it feels FIN-tastic (see what I did there?). It’s changed the algorithm of cast, reel, repeat.

Go out and fish, conduct tiny science experiments and enjoy the anticipation of the reward as much as the reward itself. Fish on!

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