(Originally published May/June 2015)
By Capt. Tred Barta
In our high-tech world, the greatest fatality is the loss of tradition. Might I say, these traditional skills often work better than the latest fad or just the accepted norm of the way things are done.
An example is the simple art of wilderness orienteering or navigating with a compass and map. What about navigating on the high seas with compass or sexton. These art-essential disciplines are almost gone.
Many men and women don’t know how to change their own oil in a vehicle. Many people can’t start a fire with a flint and have no concept how to varnish or paint a custom boat. Our society has become that of an immediate gratification. Everything seems to be earned and bought with a credit card and not with labor and sweat.
Hey everyone, would you call this progress with today’s technology? Maybe and maybe not. This is a very interesting question because without today’s technology I would not be alive and many others as well.
Back in the mid-1970s and early 1980s we used to tune two Loran signals and get our approximate position, if it worked. Compass, tide, and speed took us to the eastern canyons from Shinnecock to Atlantis, Hydrographers, and Oceanographers. We often missed Shinnecock by 20-30 miles on our return from a four-day overnight trip.
Back in the day nobody used offshore lures except cedar plugs and the occasional skirt over a mullet or ballyhoo. We trolled dead bait only and heard about the success of lures for marlin in faraway places like Hawaii and St. Thomas, Virgin Islands.
By the way, bigeye tuna don’t read fishing magazines or follow the trends in technology so I guarantee you one
