I’ve always believed that fishing is less about catching fish and more about convincing yourself you’re an outdoorsy person. My latest adventure involved a drone, a suspiciously friendly whale, and enough ugly stik manufacturer products to open a small专卖店.
It all began when my online shopping spiraled out of control. I’d somehow acquired every rod from the ugly stik light action spinning rod to the beefy ugly stik stand up rod - because you never know when you'll need to stand up to a marlin, or at least look like you could.
My collection included the sleek ugly stik inshore select spinning fishing rod for those "I'm a serious fisherman" moments, and the ugly stik saltwater spinning rod for when I wanted to feel like a deep-sea adventurer from the comfort of the shore. I even had the ugly stik surf spinning rod specifically for looking dramatic against crashing waves.
The real stars were my striped bass specialists: the ugly stik striper rod medium light and its sibling the ugly stik striper rod spinning. I paired them with the ugly stik trout combo because variety is the spice of fishing failure. For good measure, I'd added the ugly stik ultralight for those times I want to catch minnows but pretend I'm fly fishing.
The day of the great expedition arrived. I packed my ugly stik multi tool (which has seventeen functions I'll never use), my ugly stik pro ice (despite it being 80 degrees), and even my classic ugly stik red and white because nostalgia beats effectiveness every time.
I started with the ugly stik medium action rod, then switched to the ugly stik medium light spinning rod when nothing was biting. I tried the ugly stik tiger elite casting fishing rod with its fancy name, then the ugly stik tiger elite jig spinning rod because if one tiger rod is good, two must be better. I even attempted some ugly stik tiger jigging with my ugly stik tiger medium rod, though I'm pretty sure I was just scaring the fish.
That's when the magic happened. Or rather, the mammal. A curious whale decided my ugly stik sea rod looked like a potential playmate. My drone, which was supposed to be capturing my fishing prowess, instead filmed me having a panic attack while a forty-ton mammal investigated my ugly stik surf spinning rod.
For twenty glorious minutes, I was the unwilling star of a marine mammal interaction video. The whale seemed particularly interested in my ugly stik striper rod spinning, though whether it was admiring the craftsmanship or laughing at my technique, I'll never know.
I didn't catch any fish that day. But I did learn several valuable lessons:
Whales have no appreciation for premium ugly stik manufacturer products
The ugly stik multi tool is useless against curious cetaceans
Sometimes the best fishing stories involve exactly zero fish
So if you're ever feeling down about your fishing skills, just remember: somewhere out there, a guy with an ugly stik light action spinning rod is being upstaged by a whale. And that guy will probably be me again next weekend.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go edit this drone footage into something that doesn't look like a marine wildlife documentary about human incompetence.