I've had a tough time staying on fishing boards. I left a favorite (BR) because the owner told me I was intimidating members who feared to post behind me. What a shame. I write the way I think and am not smart enough to change that. That's like being unwelcome in a science classroom because of always standing and having the right answers to questions while most other answers are a little off or incomplete. Rather than attempt to change my ways I unsubscribed as soon as I read that owner's PM. Never looked back, but had a lot of "friends" there liking my input. The trouble I had in BM started when I defended harvesting of some bass, opposing C&R as a logical, science-based general practice everywhere. I paid a price for standing with biology instead of emotion.
But here so far I don't recall any serious opposition to ideas or unconstructive criticism. As on other boards there will always be some youngsters coming on with a few months of experience challenging us old timers who've already screened out what doesn't work well. We don’t have the decades of youth ahead, so tend to squeeze out all the quality we can. I have a favorite saying for face to face encounters like that. I let them ramble on until they run out of talk. "Is that all you have to say? If they say "Yes" in some form, I close with "Then I'm smarter than you are since I know all you know and still know what I knew." Sometimes that wakes a guy up. It’s just a guy thing, like driving in a strange city lost but refusing to ask directions. Although I don’t hesitate to help when asked, I’ll let an out-of-towner drive by my house 500 times probably looking for Michele street where it seems nobody can get there from anywhere else because one end of it looks like a driveway.
Another of my problems is long posts like this one. I’m not much of a one-line communicator, wanting to speak my peace in one place then move on. Sometimes I suppose that gags some folks trying to absorb what a lifetime of fishing has resulted in for me. All too often a “serious” discussion gets broken up with comics and lots of unrelated dialog, another reason for wanting to spit it out all at once to keep it together. In the past many times I’ve answered like a sonar question, my answer back on page one, followed by discussion about asteroids destroying earth, and on page 9 the same question shows back up. Sometimes it irritates folks for me to answer “Please read page one”. Kinda embarrassing?
Tom, others, and myself do have a lot of stuff not brought up yet. How can you detail a lifetime of learning? For me I’ve sort of retreated to a post and run mode, mostly camping out where folks are really serious about learning at a time they can’t actually fish, until ice-out. I go where there’s a demand for actual fishing talk.
I’ve written a lot of board articles, some getting a “Thanks for the article” from an owner or moderator, but no discussion or follow-up whatsoever, so I cut way back on those. Without feedback to show interest it’s a little hard to put that kind of time into something. Communicating like that is like sending notes over the sea in a bottle. It’s more satisfying to engage in a more “live” discussion. I don’t know what the answers will be. I do realize some members are reading and appreciating everything. Because we know that we keep on through the deafening silence.
Jim
