Improving Your Fishing Mojo


My understanding of "mojo" is a bit vague but i do know it's an essence, a feeling, of luck, either good or bad; and, this mojo may be embodied in "something." Mojo might be found in a particular fishing lure, a lure in a hard to find or no longer available color for instance. It's kept as a luck piece, to be used rarely but always to be toted in the tackle box. In other words, that lure has "mojo."

I was firmly convinced that I had good mojo in a mesh fishing vest. I really liked the vest as it had numerous pockets and rings to hang do-dads and it was cool in the summer heat. The vest was a wearable tackle box and I caught a fair number of fish while wearing it. Then, saltwater corroded the zippered pockets, the sun baked the material to a point of brittleness and I noticed a distinct decline in the numbers of fish brought alongside my kayak.

I knew something had gone wrong with the vest's mojo one afternoon when I walked into a fast food shop up in Edgewater, Florida. I'd spent the morning chasing spooky redfish and gave it up to chase a hamburger and still wore the vest. The young lady behind the counter looked at me, called her manager and he advised me they didn't feed vagrants.

I decided not to consult with various fishing friends since there's no such thing as a secret with them. And, I knew good and well, the moment they learned of my worries, the word that "Stubb's lost his mojo...!" would be hooted and yelled all over east central Florida. There's only so much a man can stand, you know, and my fellow fishermen are not known for sympathy and understanding. I had to get a fix on this mojo as it was beginning to depress me.

Sitting at the kitchen table one morning and staring at the now bad mojo vest, and not having the major dollars to replace it with the same brand, it came to me that a homemade fishing neck lanyard would do as well. But, this couldn't just be any old lanyard .. it would have to have some good, powerful stuff in it’s materials for new mojo.

I paid a visit to a downtown Sanford shop called Junk n’ Stuff owned by a grizzled Rastafarian. I figured he might have some hexed beads to string on to my lanyard. He stirred around and came up with some, sure enough, and proclaimed: Dese be jade, mon. Very pow’ful. They looked suspiciously like glass but I took them and also some beads he said were made out of lignumvitae wood. I rushed home, strung them up on a length of fly line, attached three brass swivels, and tied the loose ends up. My lanyard looked good; it looked like the mojo I needed.

But, I wasn’t sure and before I tried it I needed a second opinion. I happen to work with a petite young cutie who is a Miskito Indian from Honduras. She is a computer whiz, sometimes will practice a little jungle medicine, and has a desk drawer full of strange medicines. So, I carried the lanyard in and asked her:

"Whattaya think? I got some mojo here?"

"Hmmmm." She checked it out. "You blow some smoke over it?"

"Yup. Two whole cigars worth."

"I like these brass thingy’s. They feel pow’ful."

"Those’re swivels. It’s the beads ‘sposed to have the mojo in this thing."

"Well, it will bring you many fish but it needs a little bag of ‘positives’ attached."

"Positives?"

"You dumb gringo; yes, ‘positives.’ Here."

And she handed me a leather pouch about the size of a dime.

"Tie them to that green bead there."

"That’s jade," I said.

"Sure it is."

The next Saturday I had my mojo around my neck with a rusted Orvis line clipper, Seki City pocket knife and Fiskar kid’s scissors (for the Power Pro line) attached. The weather was right, winds were down, the water clear and here and there I spotted a distant redfish tail. The kayak was gliding perfectly over thick grass and sandy potholes; I could feel the positives multiplying harmoniously and radiating right to the rod in my hand.

I caught a nice bunch of reds and trout that day and took pictures of several by using a delay timer on the camera. I stopped by the Fly Fisherman shop in Titusville, pictures in hand, to crow some in friend Mudfoot’s presence. He’d been through a fish drought lately and was grumpy.

"What’s that bead thing you’re wearin’?" he asked.

"New mojo, my man. Worked too."

"Where’d you get it?" Mudfoot asked in kind of whiney tone.

"Ol’ man I know make’s’em for $40 over in Sanford."

"Yeah? He make me one?"

"I doubt it," I said. "He only does it for friends. But I’ll sell you this one."

There’s honor amongst fishing friends, but not much. .........(NEXT: "Stubb's Rules..") or "Home"