Buck Fever Footnote

[Geenomad]

In the article I linked to several different approaches to reducing the negative effects of "state anxiety" are described. Basically, you can try to reduce the amount of anxiety experienced by "acclimatisation" - getting better at feeling more comfortable through exposure to and thus management of the source of the stress/anxiety.

The other approach is to try interventions which block the effects of anxiety and thus reduce its negative effects on how our attention is directed/occupied. Deep breathing, for example, can release some of the tension and is one of the pre- performance routines that work for various people to various extents in differing scenarios.

It is indeed interesting. Also interesting is that trial and error experience to find what works might produce useful results without any recourse to science. Science then picks over the established possibilities and tries to come up with what works better by using more "scientific" experiments and then proposing theories which explain the more accurately measured results.

Cheers
Mark

[Morsie]

I have a good mate, long retired, but who has had a lifelong association with military special forces at a very high level. He's a CI and we talk about this a lot - how to stay focused and cool under pressure, especially in a test situation. He has done a lot of inquiry and spoken to some really key people about how these guys keep calm in very high pressure situations - real life and death stuff, not just fishing. It turns out to be pretty simple really, they rehearse until they can't get it wrong and they rehearse all the things that can go wrong until they have their responses right. I have always called it having "ice in your veins" and I don't mean drugs, but to be able to completely keep your cool. I simply focus on the structure of the cast that is required. I like to teach that the loop we make is the message delivery system, the fly is just the message, if you don't make the loop we aren't going to get the message to the fish. "Don't practise until you get it right, practise until you can't get it wrong".

[John Waters]

It is a very interesting topic, that skill of being able to focus solely upon an outcome. Some of us focus on what can go wrong and that opens the door to sub-optimal outcomes. The best exponents I have seen in casting are Frode Semb and Steve Rajeff, both of whom exhibit that concentration on a desired outcome, blocking out all extraneous input. They both have great confidence in their technique so that they do not have to focus on any aspect of process. I asked John Bertrand what he was thinking about when he was behind the US yacht during that deciding America Cup yacht race, I was expecting him to respond with things like wind, the other yacht, his yacht or crew’s performance etc etc etc. His response was that he was purely focused on the elapsed time in the race. He knew he would overtake it, it was just a question of when. No thought of process, technique or any other aspect of the race, just when he would win. Not unlike casting in a casting event that gives you 3 minutes to deliver the winning cast or, having a finite number of casts to hit a target in an accreditation test, is it not? Success must become a matter of when, not if.

We all practice the substance, but do we practice the requirement?

John

[Paul Arden]

Here in the jungle of Malaysia there is a tree called Ketum. You boil the leaves for about an hour, drain and drink after chilled. It is extremely bitter and belongs to the coffee family. It is most definitely the answer to buck fever and has health benefits as well such as lowering blood pressure. They are not quite sure what to do with it legally in Malaysia so it is classified as a poison. In Thailand it’s a drug but here in Malaysia they are much more strict on drugs with the death penalty and so on. So “poison” is a much better option since about 80% of the men drink it (around here anyway!).

Given the fact that a leaf can alter your performance, and since it does this by taking away any anxiety, I think it would be reasonable to conclude that “buck fever” - like “Creep” - is all in the mind. In fact alcohol in small amounts does exactly the same.

Cheers, Paul

[James9118]

At the last BFCC competition day I cast the worst I ever have done since I started winning some events. I think I've mentioned (ok, I've been droning on about it for weeks) that I've given myself tennis elbow, although on the day the pain wasn't bad. However, I had a lot of anxiety about making it worse being as I was flying out for a saltwater trip the next day (which I'm still on - hello from the Bahamas ). I suspect that I completely, but unintentionally, changed my casting stroke to protect my elbow on the day and as a result performed dismally (beaten in the overall standings by Tracy).

James

[Paul Arden]

My grandfather used to tell a story. A man was offered a position in a play. He had only one line to say, “who shot that cannon?” During the play at one point a cannon would be fired and he would speak it. He practised for months and as he did so he got increasingly nervous. It was a big play, with many people watching and he wanted to get it right. He would practise his line daily and as he did do he got more and more tense. The day came and he was shaking. At the appropriate time the cannon was fired and immediately he startled and shouted “what the fuck was that?”

The first time I took a shot at a Tarpon I was in the boat with Gordy Hill. There must have been 100 tarpon over 100lbs coming past the boat. My knees were shaking and I nearly fell overboard. My first shot was a disaster. I got really pissed off with myself - and not for the first time did I say to myself “you’ve come all the way to do this Paul, just do it now and don’t fuck up”. I was fine after that.

It’s a mental game. I used to find big demonstrations really difficult. In particular I hated the microphone - listening to myself speak I absolutely had a problem with and it threw me many times. It’s taken a long time to fix that. The best thing you can do is be as prepared as possible and then get out there and do it. We all get nervous. Butterflies in the stomach can be either dread or positive excitement. It’s the same feeling but in the mind it’s quite different. Visualising yourself making a great speech or a perfect cast, can allow you to change dread for excitement. Every time I think about something with a dread feeling I change my thoughts to seeing myself perform perfectly. The butterflies will always be there - without them you won’t perform at your best.

The other solution is to live in a closet, to close yourself off from the world and not take chances. However if you put yourself out there, the very worst that can happen is you fuck up. It’s better to fuck up than spend your life in a closet. If we keep trying hard enough, then we learn to believe in ourselves - and then we can achieve absolutely anything we want.

Cheers, Paul

[Michal Duzynski]

My grandfather used to tell a story. A man was offered a position in a play. He had only one line to say, “who shot that cannon?” During the play at one point a cannon would be fired and he would speak it. He practised for months and as he did so he got increasingly nervous. It was a big play, with many people watching and he wanted to get it right. He would practise his line daily and as he did do he got more and more tense. The day came and he was shaking. At the appropriate time the cannon was fired and immediately he startled and shouted “what the fuck was that?”

The first time I took a shot at a Tarpon I was in the boat with Gordy Hill. There must have been 100 tarpon over 100lbs coming past the boat. My knees were shaking and I nearly fell overboard. My first shot was a disaster. I got really pissed off with myself - and not for the first time did I say to myself “you’ve come all the way to do this Paul, just do it now and don’t fuck up”. I was fine after that.


Cheers, Paul

That is GOLD, love it,
Its like me in Melbourne last year timer start- timer stop- off the platform please.
What, How, When, Why- I havent even start my,proper casting yet ha ha ha

Cheers
Mike

[Paul Arden]

I had to give myself a right good talking to last week as well while fishing with Stefan. It was slow and some days there were maybe three money shots. In a 13hr day that's hard going, especially when you have only one second to put the fucking fly in front of the fish. But the only reason I'm there is to put the fucking fly in front of the fish and when I put the fly in the wrong place after waiting (well it's not really waiting; it's hunting - stealth, seeking them out, getting into position etc - it's going hard for 13 hrs to get the shots), and after all of that, to put the fly in the wrong bloody place is absolutely unforgivable. You have to give yourself a right good talking to when you're doing that. I can't do that with clients - only myself really (and once to Ashly).

Cheers, Paul

[Morsie]

Stop being such a purist - stick on a sinking line and dredge the fuckers.

[Paul Arden]

Doesn’t work or at least hasn’t worked for me so far. The problem is they are sitting on the thermocline at the bottom at ~30ft. Currently 35ft on the east side and 50ft in the central basin. It’s a flooded jungle down there. Just getting the fly down to the thermocline is a problem because you have to go through submerged trees and branches. I’ve tried it a few times. One memorable time I fished an area I knew to have 10-15 big fish. After ten minutes of dredging not only had I not had a single take but every fish was surfacing spooked. You often only get one or two shots before the chain reaction spooks all the fish. On the other hand if you put the first shot in correctly then 90% eat. Even the lure boys take the surface risers. At those depths there is no light according to the fish farm divers.

However that doesn’t stop me trying. I have some lead core sinking lines that I will strengthen by inserting into hollow braid and whipping every half metre. But from what I’ve seen so far I think taking them off the top is by far the most effective option.

Cheers, Paul