Feel The Bite
By Lawrence Gunther Euteneier / Feel the Bite!

Fishing is largely about ones ability to, “feel the bite”. Whether with or without sight the nature of this sport cares not. I think that’s why I like it so much. I enjoyed fishing as a child, but as I grew and my sight faded away, fishing is one thing I could always count on to do well.

To what degree my fishing success can be contributed to practice, improvements in fishing tackle and tactics, or that I’m far less likely to be distracted, is difficult to say. Sight fishing is obviously my weakness, but if you have ever listened to a Bass explode on a frog after sun down, you will agree with scientists who claim noises in the dark are five times more exciting.

Fishing also has added appeal in that the predator/pray roles are temporarily reversed. The moment a fish bites its role as predator switches and it becomes the pray. It’s this sudden role reversal that makes fishing so exciting. Almost never knowing when a fish will bite, and to then have the right timing and reaction to effectively trigger this role reversal is the challenge. Getting the hooked fish to the boat and released without either losing the fish or causing it harm often seems more stressful than anything else. It really is the moment a fish strikes that generates maximum thrill.

Articles I write under the “Feel the Bite” banner are intended to give you greater insight to decode what you’re feeling through your sense of touch. To iterate this sense to go beyond, “it felt different”. In short, to advance our collective ability to communicate accurately about what was felt just before hooking up that trophy fish.

Over the next number of months Ontario Fishing Network will run a series of articles in which I explore the seven different senses fish have, and how each can be exploited to catch more fish. Not a biology textbook, but anecdotes that will hopefully give you the fisher a greater appreciation of why fish bite in different ways. I’ll connect the ways fish use their many different senses, and offer explanations of how these translate into different tactile sensations telegraphed through ones line and rod to the hand. Rest easy, as the only “feelings” that will be discussed are those belonging to fish.
.

Ontario Ice Fishing