Exaggeration Factor: One story = 10 feet

Fishing stories generally come with some level of exaggeration. No one likes to stretch a good fish yarn more than yours truly but I feel that a percentage of legitimacy is lost when you stretch things too much along the way. The art of telling a good story can only be made believable if it is met with honesty, the more honesty the better. Tweaking a few details here and there for various reasons may be acceptable or even prudent depending on the detail itself. Push the story too far and an angler could lose their “water-cred” which actually means quite a bit to even a shameless fish bragger like me. So how far can one push a single fish story before it can be considered complete hogwash. According to my research the answer is ten feet.

At first this may seem like too simple of answer but in most cases one story equals ten feet. What matters most is the quality of layers and overall construction of the story itself. If you tell only one story it is not as crucial I guess but if you tell many stories it is best to keep things as tried and true as possible. Keeping the entire story within a ten-foot margin helps establish just where we draw the line as a teller of the story. I will be the first to say that I have embellished a fish tale now and then. Hopefully I have stayed within the ten-foot range even after a few beers.

In par with my level of research on the subject, I will toss out some of my rules on exaggeration.

1. Be as accurate as possible in regards to size and weight of fish. Downplay the stats if there is any doubt.
2. Don’t highly exaggerate facts about wind, weather, water temps, etc unless people can obviously deduce the level of fiction being used.
3. Don’t try to pass of “false-facts” that can be easily verified. Not sure why people still do this but I still see it from time to time.
4. Humility is easier to swallow from a reader’s point of view. So it helps if you don’t come across sounding like some self-serving butt wad. Hopefully my shameless bragging is closer to a spoonful of self-humility than some of the rubbish on the Internet.
5. Doctoring photos leads to doubt. I am guilty of doing this myself in attempt to cover certain landmarks or features in the background. But I fully accept some viewers will notice and water-cred may be lost.

Maybe a bad example of a post will explain this a little better.

“Caught a huge rainbow trout on the tenkara rod the other day. This fish is eighteen inches and well over a pound or maybe even two. Thing fought like a brick @#$& house until I swam half a mile upstream to net the fish. Guess that makes me the best angler ever!”

(Above: In reality this is may be a twelve-inch fish at best and you guys know I don’t have a tenkara rod. Lying about swimming upstream half a mile definitely violates the 10-foot rule and Colorado has a lot of great anglers. Most of them are way better than me. True story.)

Good luck and good fishing

Day of Wind

The first hour wasn’t too bad. The wind was around 7mph with a few gusts here and there. I plink two buckets right off the bat. One was from dink city but the second was a respectable 13’er maybe 14’er bass, pound and a half in the weight section. Things were looking ok.

Then the gusts got gustier and everything from dogs and dumpsters was getting tossed in an easterly direction. One belly boater headed to shore right away. Another decided to hang out for a few minutes before tucking behind the large island structure he was within flipping distance to. Shortly after another tuber joined him. Just me and the tooner with the whole lake now. All I have to do is row through constant 50mph winds. At this moment common sense abandons me.

“My rowing skills are invincible.” The voice in my head reassures myself falling back on years and years of amateur rowing prowess. “I can do this!”

Push the oars down, swing them around fast plunging the paddles deep into the water. Grit my teeth, plant my feet and power down on the oars with all my body can give. Take a deep breath and repeat the cycle over again. Then again. Again. Again Again. The whole time I am looking at the shoreline structure fading further and further away. In an effort to buy some time I toss my puny 10lb anchor into some submerged trees structure left long ago. The rope drops and catches in the branchwork. This will be my respite.

“Wait!…the shoreline is still moving.” My voice mutters in confusion.

My eyes look into the water and see the tree structure moving at about 7 knots with a huge cloud of sediment behind. I was dragging the tree structure across the bottom like a rake.

“Oh no.” It was all I could say. Scrambling for the rope I pulled the weight off the tree and resumed a casual coasting speed of 15 or 20 knots.

At this point there was little left to do but pick a line and drift to the best place I could find which was pretty much the shoreline on the other side of the lake. Any shoreline would have been better than the one the wind was pushing me towards. Trees covered the entire shoreline with wind tossed branches everywhere.

“This will be perfect for landing an inflatable device.” Cracked my voice working the oars enough to save me from the submerged tree trunk, then the large branch I didn’t see until the last minute and completely missed the one spot that could have provided decent portage.

Sometimes it is very tough to describe a Day of Wind without sounding like a scaredy-cat or overly exaggerate. In this case I am only exaggerating slightly and that is very rare. Maybe a video will help support my case.



My name is Matt and I'm a fishaholic.