Competition breeds excellence

swimmy

swimmy

An honest tune with a lingering lead
By nature, I'm an extremely competitive person. Sure there is stoke in winning but like most competitive folks, I absolutely hate losing. I'm not sure if I was born with it or something I developed over time. I attribute most of my success in life to not being the smartest or most talented but I'm absolutely driven and refuse to be mediocre.

What is interesting though is I'm not competitive with fishing. Sure I love catching them but if my buddy is having a better day than me, it bothers me none. Actually I'm almost more stoked when they get a good one. It is the damndest thing.

Are you a competitive person? Do you bring that into your fishing?

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I don't know that I'm "competitive" but I am a bit of a perfectionist, I want to do things right, and if I don't get it right, I'll do it again until I do. I skied and sailed competitively in my youth and I certainly hated losing more than I enjoyed winning, so I guess that did make me "competitive"; however, I really don't participate in "competitive" endeavors any more, the need to beat others is no longer in me. Now when I do things, I do them for the sheer joy, and the satisfaction of doing it right.

Gotta admit though, love to catch fish on the fly when the spin and bobber folks are coming up empty, so maybe I'm not that pure after all ;).

Cheers
 
Canuck from Kansas said:
I don't know that I'm "competitive" but I am a bit of a perfectionist, I want to do things right, and if I don't get it right, I'll do it again until I do. I skied and sailed competitively in my youth and I certainly hated losing more than I enjoyed winning, so I guess that did make me "competitive"; however, I really don't participate in "competitive" endeavors any more, the need to beat others is no longer in me. Now when I do things, I do them for the sheer joy, and the satisfaction of doing it right.
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I'm don't think I look at is so much as I need to beat others. It is not personal. But rather when I win, it validates that I'm doing the right things. If that makes sense.

Nick Saban is great at framing this. It doesn't really matter who I'm competing against. It is all about doing everything to put myself in a position to be successful.

I love this kind of talk.
 
When I fish alone I NEED to catch one fish. I hate getting skunked. When I fish with others, I also need to catch one fish, but beyond that I like to see my friends have success. If I am catching fish and one knuckle head is casting in to the bushes every 5 seconds, and the other is struggling with his noodle rod in the Montana wind ...well I bust balls.
 
Hem said:
When I fish alone I NEED to catch one fish. I hate getting skunked. When I fish with others, I also need to catch one fish, but beyond that I like to see my friends have success. If I am catching fish and one knuckle head is casting in to the bushes every 5 seconds, and the other is struggling with his noodle rod in the Montana wind ...well I bust balls.
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My man
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swimmy said:
By nature, I'm an extremely competitive person. Sure there is stoke in winning but like most competitive folks, I absolutely hate losing. I'm not sure if I was born with it or something I developed over time. I attribute most of my success in life to not being the smartest or most talented but I'm absolutely driven and refuse to be mediocre.

What is interesting though is I'm not competitive with fishing. Sure I love catching them but if my buddy is having a better day than me, it bothers me none. Actually I'm almost more stoked when they get a good one. It is the damndest thing.

Are you a competitive person? Do you bring that into your fishing?

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It’s been said that there are 3 stages to a fisherman’s life. The first stage is when you want to catch the most fish. The second is when you want to catch the biggest, and the third stage is when you want to get the hardest to catch.

I believe there are actually 4 stages to a fisherman‘s life, and the 4th stage is when you want to help others catch fish.

In life, as in fishing, it’s not so much how many or how much we accomplish for ourselves, or whether we have bested others by which we‘ll be remembered, as it will be in how much we have contributed to others’ success.

Using that competitive drive to take others fishing, to help them catch fish, and “getting stoked when they get a good one” is living in that 4th stage of a fisherman’s life, and it’s often the most satisfying stage of all.
 
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Dillon said:
I have fished with some people who appear to be very competitive, but they won’t admit it…
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I have a couple friends that get "short" when others are catching fish and they aren't.

Maybe it is a self-confidence thing?
 
For the rarity of the fish I pursue it normally takes on a team effort to find and catch one. It's like the boat can now raise the flag. If everyone gets one we barely know what to do. I mean should we keep fishing? Are we going to die? Is this heaven? Are we dead already? No we're alive, my buddy called and said it's crowded down lower. If this was heaven there would only be a couple other anglers.
 
I used to be competitive. and It made me absolutely miserable and destroyed my body (skateboarder and snowboarder).

These days, I'm not least bit competitive. I could care less. UNLESS, someone is being a dick. And it's not that I want them to lose, its that I just want them to slip and go for a swim in the drink.
 
I'm generally not a competitive person. I just don't really care about winning, I care about having fun. Maybe it comes from (or is the cause of) having so many varied interests that I'm never really "great" at any of them. So the friends I do them with are always likely going to be better than I am. But they aren't going to out "fun" me (#ALWAYSCOMPETE).

EDIT: I don't know if I did a good job with that "competing" joke. I just like having fun.

That said, catching fish is almost always more fun than not catching fish. So I'm not above being a little bummed if I get skunked. I don't need to catch the most or the biggest or beat my buddy, I just like to have some success.
 
Let your game do the talkin’…
All else is just hot air.

Competition is good for the soul; so is doing what ya do to the best of your abilities.

In this world, there is always someone that can and will do it better…and we all get replaced eventually.

The best is when you pass it on to the next generation.

I get more satisfaction, giving my patterns away and watchin’ someone have great success on it. I’ve sat back streamside under a shade tree, enjoying the biggest grins on another’s face.
 
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I've had fishing trips and fishing friendships ruined over others' need to be competitive vs just enjoying our time together on the water. So this is one aspect of my life that competitiveness has no place in. An example from not too long ago was getting an invite with a friend on his drift boat for winter steelhead with another one of his buddies. We all had a fun day floating, not finding fish. Then at the last spot, his buddy hooks and lands a really nice hen. His statement when we row to the launch to take out was "Man, all that work for one fish. Just glad I was the one who got it!"

For me, that's just a shitty attitude to have, and one that really rubbed me the wrong way. Despite chatting with him up to that point about getting back out together, I decided he wasn't someone I wanted to fish with again just based on that statement.

When I go fishing, I like doing everything I can to help those who go with me be successful, even if that means setting my own rod down. While I enjoy catching a lot of fish, I actually feel like a bit of a failure at the end of the day if I massively out-fish the others with me and did nothing to help them have the same success.

And while I am not competitive by nature, I have conceded that I do need some level of competitive motivation to meet my fitness goals. So while I don't get obnoxiously competitive in that arena, I do allow myself to at least compare my progress and abilities to others to give myself personal goals.
 
swimmy said:
By nature, I'm an extremely competitive person. Sure there is stoke in winning but like most competitive folks, I absolutely hate losing. I'm not sure if I was born with it or something I developed over time. I attribute most of my success in life to not being the smartest or most talented but I'm absolutely driven and refuse to be mediocre.

What is interesting though is I'm not competitive with fishing. Sure I love catching them but if my buddy is having a better day than me, it bothers me none. Actually I'm almost more stoked when they get a good one. It is the damndest thing.

Are you a competitive person? Do you bring that into your fishing?

DSC_2925(1).jpg
Click to expand...

I am competitive, but I love seeing other people succeed. Not competitive with fly fishing, but with bass fishing I can be and I lose my frustration with with my failure not the winners success..
 
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Another good example I can think of in this regard is fishing with one of my best friends who lives down in the South East USA. Very different fishing culture in that part of the country to say the least. We've fished together a lot in a lot of different fisheries and settings. He's also a pretty serious inshore saltwater tournament angler. But one experience that really stands out is the one time we went fishing for largemouth bass on one of his local waters. We fished out of kayaks and each kinda did our own thing while staying close by each other.

An hour or so in the day, I'm up to about 10 good size bass, and him only 2. He started getting very irritated and literally had his day ruined because he got out-fished. I'm talking, going from being a jolly, happy-go-lucky guy to downright unpleasant and nasty. I couldn't even say a word to him without him snapping back like I shit in his cheerios that morning. Needless to say, I won't be fishing with him in that type of setting again, and it really took me a long time to shake that experience and see him as one of my good friends again.
 
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