That's My Story

“Tap Double Click & Scroll – Information Overload”

Originally Published the Week of Aug. 16, 2016 in Western Outdoor News

As a little kid in Hawaii, a cacophony of wild roosters started my day.  I would climb out the upstairs window and shimmy down the drainpipe. In the semi-darkness a slivered sunrise peeked over the ocean a mile away down the hill.

A barefoot run across the wet grass to the neighbor kid’s place next door. Step over a lazy dog or two. Stand on the trash cans tippy-toe and knock on the glass. He would climb out the window too.

We weren’t sneaking out…per se. We just knew going out the window was better than waking up the whole house and incurring the wrath of family members.

We’d grab our “tackle” and off we’d walk to another fishing adventure. Daily. Same routine. Two brown-skinned island versions of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer.

Tackle consisted of a bamboo “pole.” No reel. Our line was called “string.” Sometimes it really was just that… string. Sometimes, we had a few yards of the real stuff we called “suji” that was highly treasured.

One or two hooks. A piece of stinky shrimp or two for bait. Some cold fried spam and rice for lunch wrapped in wax paper carried in a threadbare makeshift rice bag over the shoulder. No shoes. No shirts. No worries.

And that was it. It worked.  All the time.  Didn’t know any better. Didn’t care. We had fun.

Fast forward. Many years. Many fishing trips. In a galaxy far far away. Today. Living in Baja running a fishing operation.

On the internet. I am researching. Tap. Tap. Scan. Click. Delete. Tap. Click.

Every week, I get questions about fishing tackle, tactics and gear.

“What’s the best rig for wahoo?”

“Do you think green line will work best for inshore fishing or should I use clear?”

What do you think of …?

“Everyone is talking about this new bait that guarantees a bite. Is it true?”

Many of the e-mails are politely prefaced with, “I hate to bother you but…”

Or, “I have a dumb question to ask…”

Listen, from many years fishing and making a living at it, I know a thing-or-two. I know what I know. But, I’m always learning. I don’t know everything.

But, if I don’t know something, I like to look it up so I can sound half-way knowledgeable when I respond to these questions.

So, I usually hit the internet. It’s a long way from a bamboo fishing rod with “string.”

It’s a curse, I tell ya. Or a blessing. It’s another of those things that cuts both ways.

I sometimes feel like this “information super highway” is more like a fire hydrant you just can’t shut off. Tap. Tap. Click. Tap. Scroll. Delete.

There’s just TOO MUCH INFORMATION!

 

Eliptical gearing

Hyper-speed

Tournament Carbon

Hangnail Point (my favorite!)

Selectable Power

Helical Cut

Cold Forged

Prism Flash

Flex Nylon

Say What? Where does one start? Where does it end? How does one make a decision? If I’m confused, I can imagine poor Mr. Jones who goes fishing maybe once or twice a year.

It’s impossible to sift through it. But we bumble and stumble and make our call and our “informed” decisions.

Back in “young kid days,” Mr. Haraguchi’s tackle store was part warehouse, part tractor shop and part dry goods store. Old Mr. Haraguchi could fix your “Frigidaire” or sharpen your garden hoe or adjust Auntie’s Lani’s Singer sewing machine.

Mr. Harguchi’s store used to be painted pink at one time, I think. Maybe back when the missionaries first landed. Or Captain Cook. It was a long time ago.

Exposed weather-scoured concrete blocks peeked through what was left of the paint job. Like someone had taken steel wool to the walls.

A patchwork of rusty tin roof pretended to protect the interior from the island sun and tropical showers. It was next to an expansive sugar cane field and a gravel utility road to nowhere on the edge of our small plantation town.

Inside. Nothing fancy. No displays. No signs. No neon. I don’t remember if it even had lights. It was always dim. Like your favorite uncle’s old garage. I remember subdued sunlight struggling through a greasy back window showing the ever-present red Hawaiian dust.

It had ancient glass display counters here and there. No aisles to speak of. More like haphazard “islands” of merchandise. Jars of odds and ends. Boxes and crates in no particular rhyme or reason.

If you needed something, you asked him. He’d put on his wire glasses and shuffle to find things of which only he knew the location. His old rubber Japanese slippers rasping along the concrete floor here. Then there. Ah…here they are.

Hooks came out’ve a yellowed-box. Right next to the penny nails. Fishing lead was fingered out’ve a foggy-glassed apothecary jar. It was there next to another jar of hard black licorice.

See it? It’s on the dusty scratched-glass counter with kitchen knives and FOUR-in-ONE oil as well as boxes of cellophane-wrapped Japanese candies and preserved plum seeds.

If you asked for something and he didn’t have it, he would just tell you that you didn’t need it. Or just say, “You don’t need it.” Cut you off mid-sentence.

What about…? You don’t need it.

Do you have..? You don’t need that either.

He was patient enough to also tell us little fellas why we didn’t need it. Keep it simple. And that was that. Old Mr. Haraguchi was always right.

Go catch fish, kids. I’m busy. Aloha.

A bit like Mr. Miyagi from the Karate Kid movies. Or Cain from the old Kung Fu series. Move along, little Grasshopper. Grand master of word economy.

He’d take our nickels and pennies carefully counted out and cha-ching them into the ancient tarnished cash register. Then scuffle away to whatever he was tinkering with in the back room.

I could use Mr. Haraguchi hovering over my shoulder today. Click. Scroll. Tap. Double tap. I surf the web muddling through technology,

No, you don’t need that. You don’t need that either. He would probably tell me that I also don’t need the internet. Ouch. Harsh!

But, I never forgot that he told me to keep it simple. And so when I answer tackle questions, I try to tell folks to keep it simple too. I try to do the same if I get confused or carried away by the onslaught of information.

Note to self.

Don’t get too confused by the marketing. It always boils down to simple things and simple rules. Fish gotta eat. Big fish eat small fish. Big fish…big bait. Make the fish eat what is on your hook and you will catch the fish.

Mr. Haraguchi was always right, Grasshopper. Click. Scroll. Tap. Close laptop. Go fish.

That’s my story!

Jonathan

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Jonathan Roldan has been writing the Baja Column in Western Outdoor News since 2004.  Along with his wife and fishing buddy, Jilly, they own and run the Tailhunter International Fishing Fleet in La Paz, Baja, Mexico  www.tailhunter-international.com.  They also run their Tailhunter Restaurant Bar on the famous La Paz malecon waterfront.  If you’d like to contact him directly, his e-mail is riplipboy@tailhunter-international.com  or drop by the restaurant to say hi!

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