Music on the water

I like the sounds of the woods, the wind, the water etc.
So that's enough for me.
Especially the sounds of walking down a trail in winter headed for the water, as the sounds of the river get louder as I get closer in the early morning.
Besides, most people have taste for sour shit when it comes to music....
🤣😅🤣
 
I don't listen to music out in the wilds, but I sure appreciate those that do using something that I don't have to participate in. I have the hearing aids that will play sound from my phone. I use them when puttering in my shop. When I run a saw or some other loud equipment, I wear headphones over them and I can hear the music or podcast just fine.
Outside, it's the birds and stuff that I like. Oh yeah, and the cougar sneaking up from behind, HaHa.
 
Speaking of rings behind you. How many of you have had an osprey nab a fish in your blind spot while out on the water. Fishing a hexagenia hatch on one of the local lakes, I had that happen maybe ten feet behind my tube. I nearly had to paddle to shore to change my drawers.
 
nwbobber said:
Speaking of rings behind you. How many of you have had an osprey nab a fish in your blind spot while out on the water. Fishing a hexagenia hatch on one of the local lakes, I had that happen maybe ten feet behind my tube. I nearly had to paddle to shore to change my drawers.
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Is it as bad as the pre-dawn beaver slap?
 
nwbobber said:
About the same. I nearly capsized my canoe on a beaver once.
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I was fishing in Montana and a beaver slapped his tail 5' behind me. It was so loud it thought someone was shooting at me.
 
My wife and I went stealth camping kinda late one evening in the Oregon coast range one night. Got some hammocks slung in the trees after dark. Later we thought we were under attack. There was a family of them not 50' from where we set up, unbeknownst to us.
They calmed down after a while, and I got to spend the morning watching them go about their business, seemingly unperturbed.
 
IMO you have plenty of time to listen to music on the way there, on your commute (or at home if you work from home like I do) on airplanes, etc.
Your time fishing is much less and therefore more precious. And the fishing experience includes hearing the bugs, birds, fish and other animals. The wind and rain. Or snow!

I guess there are lots of places that you can catch fish where you're more likely to hear cars, trucks, trains, lawn mowers or weed whackers than bugs and fish. So I guess it depends on where you fish.
And how will you hear the hot fisherman say "a #14 brown micro leech" to his buddy if you have music in your ears? 😁
 
6-7 years ago I drove out east to fish a lake and camp for the weekend. I left on a Thursday morning and totally forgot that it was Memorial Day weekend. Had the lake to myself but there were a few campers. After fishing all day I went back to my campsite and two trucks full of rowdy 21 year old dudes from Monroe pull up. They were bummed that I was camping in their party spot and told me how they had an additional 40 friends joining that weekend. They asked me if I liked beer and if I wanted to party with them. They seemed like good dudes after talking with them for a bit so what the hell, why not. Proceeded to have a blast with them and drank more than my weight in Natty Ice or whatever it was. They had a portable speaker loudly blasting a mix of pop rap and pop country. It was pretty terrible and I felt bad for the neighboring campers. It was a good time though. Other than that one time, I don’t like music while fishing.
 
I love listening to music in the drift boat with a quality Bluetooth speaker. Fishing, rowing, talking shit and laughing with your buddies with the right soundtrack on a summer day is absolutely legit. It’s not something I always have done but I love it now. Can’t be too loud that you can’t talk over it. I’ve done earbuds with music a handful of times over the years and it’s not for me generally. Swinging flies is about the only time I’d consider it if the mood strikes.
 
My advice is to keep yer eyes open and yer mouth shut.
Many places I fish have rattle snakes and I want to hear their warning sounds.
I want to hear the birds sing and the frogs and fish splash.
But I also want you to feel free to listen to what ever you want in the ears on yer own head
 
The Mourning Bride, a poem by William Congreve, 1697:

Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast,
To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.
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There are times when classical works like Moonlight Sonata match the rhythms of the passing water or the timely rise forms of hungry trout. I can hear the music in my mind but don't play it until I am in my truck headed home. I doubt that Congreve had a symphony orchestra playing stream side in mind.
 
While I've never fished the Priest Lake Thorofare (2 mile narrow waterway that connects the larger southern lake to the Upper Priest) we've paddled it many times over the past 45 years. It's a placid quiet place (no wake zone) that has no development much beyond its opening to the big lake, and it's common to see all sorts of wildlife from quiet human powered watercraft.

It's also quite common during the height of summer to have to endure the continual blast of incredibly loud music from big ski boats and pontoon boats partying their way to the Upper Priest Lake (also a no wake completely undeveloped waterbody).

I've no idea why people go to pristine places and choose to temporarily obliterate their opportunity to enjoy the natural ambience...but they do...and they're the same people who routinely choose to disregard the no wake regulations (put in place to reduce bank erosion and to protect waterfowl nesting habitat).

It is, however, deeply satisfying to watch Idaho's well-equipped marine patrol (which heavily patrols that area) issue costly citations to such assholes....as well as occasional seizures of personal water craft (which tend to be the very worst offenders of both the no wake zone, boating safety, and BWI regs).

I guess assholes always gonna asshole.
 
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Music while fishing, never. I like to hear the sounds around me. Music while racing through the mountains on a motorcycle, sure. It's loud anyway plus I can take calls and get things done while underway hands free. Fly fishing is the quiet sport and an escape from life's noise and sounds.
 
Dustin Chromers said:
Music while fishing, never. I like to hear the sounds around me. Music while racing through the mountains on a motorcycle, sure. It's loud anyway plus I can take calls and get things done while underway hands free. Fly fishing is the quiet sport and an escape from life's noise and sounds.
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“No life, my honest Scholar, no life so happy and so pleasant as the life of a well governed Angler; for when the lawyer is swallowed up with business, and the statesman is preventing or contriving plots, then we sit on cowslip banks, hear the birds sing, and possess ourselves in as much quietness as these silent silver streams, which we now see glide so quietly by us.”​

--Izaak Walton, 1653
 
krusty said:
While I've never fished the Priest Lake Thorofare (2 mile narrow waterway that connects the larger southern lake to the Upper Priest) we've paddled it many times over the past 45 years. It's a placid quiet place (no wake zone) that has no development much beyond its opening to the big lake, and it's common to see all sorts of wildlife from quiet human powered watercraft.

It's also quite common during the height of summer to have to endure the continual blast of incredibly loud music from big ski boats and pontoon boats partying their way to the Upper Priest Lake (also a no wake completely undeveloped waterbody).

I've no idea why people go to pristine places and choose to temporarily obliterate their opportunity to enjoy the natural ambience...but they do...and they're the same people who routinely choose to disregard the no wake regulations (put in place to reduce bank erosion and to protect waterfowl nesting habitat).

It is, however, deeply satisfying to watch Idaho's well-equipped marine patrol (which heavily patrols that area) issue costly citations to such assholes....as well as occasional seizures of personal water craft (which tend to be the very worst offenders of both the no wake zone, boating safety, and BWI regs).

I guess assholes always gonna asshole.
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I’ve noticed that type of crowd also tends to increase the amount of litter in an area. I wish I had a dollar for every full and empty beer can I’ve found over the years of fishing in places folks like to party while on the water.
SF
 
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