Learn, Grow, Teach: How To Become A Complete Angler

I have fished nearly all my life. Daddy made sure as soon as I was functional I was fishable. There is a picture of me as a tiny tot fishing on the Chesapeake Bay wearing a puffy orange PFD wrapped around my body.

You can’t see in the photo the rod is tied to the boat. On a previous trip, a fish took a fishing rod from me. Dad figured I’d float if I got pulled over, but fishing rods sink.

Hook Your Kids On Their First Time Fishing

Learn, Grow, Teach: How to Become a Complete Angler

As an Army brat, I lived all over the world. That means I fished all over the world. I remember streams in Germany, lakes in Texas and creeks in Colorado. Each place holds fishing memories.

When we moved to Alabama, Dad and I split our time between Lake Eufaula and the Gulf of Mexico. Our last move, after he retired, was right on the edge of the Chattahoochee River. We quickly learned large hydro-driven rivers are a breed of their own.

Meeting a Mentor

The year we moved to Phenix City, I was old enough to get a summer job working for handyman Richard Atkins. Atkins was the perfect boss. We’d fish every morning. If the redbreasts the locals called chinquapins, but we called chinkypins, weren’t biting, we’d go to work. If they were biting, we’d work after fishing.

While this wasn’t the best way to teach work ethic, I learned a lot about river fishing. Nearly 40 years later, I still use those lessons.

The younger generation finds it hard to believe, but before the Internet and YouTube, mentoring was the best way to learn fishing skills. Between Richard and my dad, I learned how to chase just about every fish in the Southeast.

Learning Together

When I was old enough, I got a pickup truck and a beater johnboat with serious safety issues. The boat had more holes than a sieve and only a few brave souls would fish with me.

The survivors became my brothers. The kind of brothers who laugh when I slip in the mud and then check to see if I’m okay. These guys question the truth behind my fish stories and then drop everything to go on a wild goose chase. In the leaky death trap, childhood companions became my lifelong friends.

Once I left the safety of my mentors’ wings, I joined a class of friends in the school of hard knocks. Testing the boundaries, making mistakes, celebrating victories and lamenting defeat, I got a degree in what does not kill you makes you stronger.

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Paying It Forward

Looking back on how much I have learned from other anglers, I want to pass it to the next angler. On social media, it doesn’t take long to find someone asking a question. I try my best to answer and I have a library of tip videos on my YouTube channel Chris Funk the Feral One. Sometimes I invite a new angler to join the local plastic navy.

Last summer I paddled with a father and son, Matt and Edison Sawyer, who are new to kayaking. We worked on paddle strokes and built confidence in a kayak. It was a great day of instruction disguised as a fun trip on the water.

How To Get A New Angler To Love Kayak Fishing

The next meeting we chased spotted bass. When a spot slammed Edison’s Rooster Tail he got a real sleigh ride. As Edison landed his first fish out of a kayak, Matt and I cheered out loud. Both new anglers are hooked for life.

Memories are the best return on the investment in someone else’s life. But I learn the largest lesson watching new anglers take on the sport and seeing my lifelong love from a new perspective.

To become a complete angler, I need three types of people: mentors I learn from, friends to learn with and new anglers to teach. These people keep me building skills, passing them on, and creating fish stories and memories along the way.

The obsession begins. | Feature photo: Courtesy Chris Funk