What Can a Fishing Club Do For You?
There are many possible answers to that question. Enhancing your skills, exploring new waters with experienced friends to guide you, sharing your talents with others, enjoying the company of like-minded persons and competing for prizes/recognition are just a few of the benefits on my list. Of course, a lot depends on what you’re willing to do to become part of the group.
If you expect someone to take you by the hand and fuss over you, checking every little while to see that you’re having fun, you probably won’t get much out of the experience. That doesn’t mean that you should expect to be ignored either but if you act like a wallflower and don’t make an effort to fit in, don’t expect people to go out of their way to get to know what a great person you are. Be a bit forward, a bit gregarious. Smile and shake people’s hands when you meet them. A good first impression goes a long way toward gaining respect and admiration.
Let people know what kind of fishing you’re interested in. Chances are good that there’s at least one other club member with similar interests. Members sometimes sharpen skills that they already have by sharing ideas with others who approach the same problem using a different technique. In fact, people who are more interested in learning than in “preaching” a subject usually have the most fun (and are usually the best liked).
When I joined the Oswegoland Fishin’ Fools in 2001, I wanted people to “want me” in their club. I knew that the club was new and didn’t have a web site so . . . in order to make myself a valued member, I learned how to build a web site, built a small one for the purpose of demonstrating it’s value to the members and ‘viola, I became the 1st “webmaster” of www.FishinFools.org.
Since then, I’ve made some wonderful friends, improved my fishing (and web-building) skills, experienced new places and types of fishing and shared my knowledge with others. I’ve learned to fish plastics in dense cover, how to tie flies and cast a fly rod. I’ve fished for King Salmon in tributaries of lake Michigan, Muskie in Northern Wisconsin and Stripers in Southern Illinois. I’ve shown new friends my method for smoke-cooking fish and game and helped kids learn to cast a spinning reel; there’s not much that’s more gratifying than seeing the wide-eyed smile of a kid with his/her first fish.
Of course, you must continue striving to “add value” to your membership by contributing and improving your skills and nurturing other members. Maybe you make your own lures, can analyze a body of water and determine the most likely approach to fishing it, or are great at planning group outings. Every club needs people with special skills.
It’s every member’s responsibility to promote the club in order for it to grow. There’s an old saying, “When you’re green you grow. When you’re ripe you rot!” It’s true. When people stop putting forth the effort required to maintain a relationship, it eventually withers and dies. To paraphrase President John F. Kennedy, “Ask not what your fishing club can do for you. Ask what you can do for your fishing club.” When you find the answer to that question, you’ll find yourself having more fun and feeling more fulfilled as a valued member of your fishing club.
