Good News Bias!

The world is not really a terrible and dangerous place. Murderers, terrorists and thieves are not lurking around every corner waiting to pounce on you and do you harm. At any moment, most people on the Earth are not dealing with a flood, hurricane, tornado, wildfire or earthquake. Much of the world is benign, filled with people doing ordinary things just living their lives. Pretty boring, actually. Of course, that is not the impression one gets if you are a regular consumer of the news. It is hard for me to take my daily dose of world or national reports without concluding that indeed the world is a terrible and dangerous place with murderers, terrorists and thieves lurking around every corner waiting to pounce on me and do me harm. Typically, the news, whether obtained via TV, radio or internet, is depressing. Very depressing. It is well documented that those who consume a lot of news coverage are more likely to report high stress than those who consume less news. Ignorance apparently is bliss. News agencies are not lying. (Well, maybe some are.) They are just reporting factual events. It just that they have a “bad news bias”. News, by its very nature, reports anomalous events. The more dramatic, the better. As the old newspaper saying goes, “If it bleeds, it leads”. Media outlets need to get our attention and bad news does that. There is even an evolutionary basis for our predilection towards bad news. It was more important to know that the jungle contains poisonous snakes than to know it has pretty flowers, even though pretty flowers are much more numerous than snakes. We needed to be aware of the potential dangers.  News is important, but we need to realize that it does not present a representative cross-section of how the world is doing. It is showing us the worst things that are happening.  We need context and perspective to maintain our sanity. And often a stiff drink. 

I see an analogous issue with fishing reports. Almost all fishing reports I see show a definite bias. It is a “good news bias”. All I hear about is people catching fish. There are good reasons for this. Few anglers are willing to admit that they just spent the better part of a day, ostensibly to catch fish, and caught nothing. They surely won’t produce a Tic Toc video showing them sitting in the boat staring at the water. However, if they happen to do well, they will have the image of their limit of walleyes online in a heartbeat. Good news bias. Go to a local community’s fishing report. You will not read “Come to Baileys Harbor, the fishing really sucks this week”. What you will see are descriptions of successful anglers with their fantastic catches. Good new bias. Log on to a local guide’s website. It will not talk about the days when their customers caught few or no fish.  And we ALL have those days. You will see smiling faces of satisfied clients struggling to lift the huge fish they have just caught.  Good new bias. I admit, as a person who writes and discusses fishing a lot, I am guilty of good news bias. If I boated some nice salmon last night, I’ll be pulling out my phone to show pictures to everyone I see in town. If I got nothing, I’ll talk about the weather or the Packers. Anything but fishing. I pride myself on not lying about my fishing. I tell the truth, but there can be various ways to represent the truth. If asked how I did fishing, I might respond “Oh, I did OK.”, and let their imagination fill in the details. I would only admit to getting skunked if pressed. I might report, “I caught thirty bass last night, one was over five pounds”. I would fail to report that the other 29 barley hit the 10-inch mark. Good new bias. 

So what’s  the harm in bragging about your successful catches and ignoring those empty trips? Most people prefer hearing about a great trip to Ontario or seeing that lunker muskie being returned to the water. Nobody wants to hear an angler whine about not catching fish.  The problem comes if you don’t maintain the perspective that there is “good news bias” in these reports. They are not representative of the overall angler experience. You are only hearing from the very successful anglers who have had a good day. One might get the impression when hearing a local fishing report that EVEYONE is catching fish, except you. That can be discouraging. I know from experience that when I am struggling, I become convinced that I must be the only guy on the water not catching fish. This is usually confirmed when I get back to the marina and see guys at the cleaning station or hear the stories from the people who nailed ‘em. It can shake the confidence of even the most experienced angler. Of course, I seldom hear from the anglers who struggled as much as I did. They slink off the landing as quickly as they can, hoping not to be seen or asked, “How’d you do?”.  That’s what I do. 

So no, everybody else is not catching fish. I am not the world’s worst fisherman, even on those days when I can’t seem to even catch a goby. That’s just the vicissitudes and challenge of sport fishing.  It’s what draws us to the sport and drives me to curse a lot. 

I respect those anglers, particularly the mostly successful ones, who will readily admit that they come up empty at times. I seldom watch fishing shows on TV or videos from the internet. Most of them just show me how to catch fish on some great location with all the best equipment when the bite is hot. I know how to do that. Any angler can do that. I was at a muskie fishing seminar with legendary angler Joe Bucher many years ago. Joe is quite knowledgeable about fishing and has been very successful as a professional guide. He started out his talk by detailing the numerous occasions he was out on the water, working hard, trying everything he knew and failed. He had the confidence to admit the obvious. Catching fish can be very difficult and sometimes you don’t. That’s the challenge. Joe Bucher gained my instant and undying respect. From that point on, I learned a lot from Joe. 

The feature that draws me to fishing and makes me want to get out on the water whenever I can is that you never know what is going to happen. There is always the prospect of catching the biggest fish of your life. Or not. You might catch fish in such numbers that you lose count. Or not. Or you might catch something totally unexpected. Take an outing earlier this month, as an example.  Paul and I were trolling south of Baileys Harbor in about 15 FOW. We were targeting northerns but expected we might pick up some bass as well. After about 2 hours, one of the rods began to throb indicating a strike. I pulled the rod out of the holder and felt the pulsations of a fighting fish. Nothing big, probably a small pike or smallie. The fish offered a spirted battle, but I quickly got it to boat side. When Paul and I peered into the clear water we both we shocked. It was a salmonid. The only salmon we would have expected to find this shallow was a Fall run 4-Year-old Chinook. But this was a small fish, barely 2-feet long. Was it a wayward brown or steelhead? Once Paul scooped the fish up in the net and deposited it on the deck, we saw a silver, oddly shaped fish. Surely not a Chinook or Coho.  As I puzzled over the fishes’ identity, my mind flashed back to an experience I had several years ago observing spawning salmon in a clear stream near Seward, Alaska. I exclaimed to Paul, “I think that is a Pink Salmon!”. The fish had the distinctive humpback and hooked jaw of a spawning male. These salmon don’t grow to the size of Kings, but their prodigious runs on the Pacific coast are legendary and Pink Salmon are considered delicious table fair. However, Pink Salmon have never been planted in the Great Lakes. How did this one get here? Subsequent research discovered that some Pinks were mistakenly dumped into Lake Superior back in the mid-50’s. Apparently, a few tenacious individuals spawned effectively in nearby streams and a small population of Pinks established themselves in the Great Lakes. Some even cross-bred with Chinook Salmon producing hybrid “pinooks”.  Who knew? 

A routine, otherwise unsuccessful, fishing outing turned into an exciting first-time encounter for both Paul and me. I was made richer in knowledge and experience. That is what I love about fishing. 

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, Bruce