Fish Where No One Else is Fishing

Back when I was in college, I had made some bad choices my first semester. So moved back home for a bit. Because of that, the funding got cut off. At the time I thought it was terrible, but honestly it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. It taught me responsibility, work ethic, and how to survive on Friendly Market hot dogs and expired condiments.

So there I was working a job during the day and taking some classes trying to crawl my way back from bad choices. During that season my parents had a trailer at South Holston Lake, and I got absolutely infected with the fishing bug.

Now naturally, once a man catches the fishing bug, common sense leaves his body. I decided I needed a bass boat. Problem was I only had about five hundred dollars saved up. In my nineteen-year-old brain, five hundred dollars was apparently enough money to buy a tournament rig, a truck, and maybe a small island. Who needs food, lodging and gas. Makes perfect sense.

So I grabbed one of those old Trading Post papers and started looking through ads. Those ads were wild.

“Nice boat. Leaks a little.”

“Truck runs good downhill.”

“Will trade for Rooster.”

Then I saw it. “16 ft Crosby sled. Elevated decks. Trolling motor. Live wells. 35 HP outboard. $600.” Now if you know anything about Trading Post math, six hundred really means five hundred if you show up with cash and confidence.

So I called the guy and drove over one Friday evening. We walked around behind his house and there she sat. My dream boat or what my dad would later call…“The S.S. Titanic.”

Listen carefully. This thing was less of a boat and more of a floating yard sale.

The trailer didn’t fit the boat at all. I’m pretty sure the wheels had previously belonged to a wheelbarrow at a coal mine.

The “elevated decks” were homemade plywood covered in green indoor-outdoor carpet that looked exactly like something your grandma had on her porch beside a ceramic frog.

The steering system was made with pulleys and plastic clothesline wire.

The dashboard was a piece of spray painted plexiglass held on with drywall screws.

And the rear navigation light…It was a piece of PVC pipe with the top of a baby bottle caulked on top for waterproofing. Somewhere a Appalachian engineer was winning awards.

Then there was the motor.

A 35 horsepower Chrysler with a shaft so long it looked like it belonged on a shrimp boat in the Gulf of Mexico. That thing would never let the boat plane out. But the owner had fixed that problem by attaching mining belt rubber to the back like some homemade whale tail contraption.

At nineteen years old though, I didn’t care.It floated. It started. It moved forward most of the time and all I had was $500.

Sold.

And honestly, over time that ugly old boat became one of the best things I ever owned. It wasn’t pretty, but it was faithful. Kind of like some church folks I know. That old boat always started.

Always ran and never had any problems. I caught piles of fish out of that thing.

One of my buddies had a dad with a beautiful Ranger bass boat, shiny and fancy and fast. But before long we figured out we could fish all day in my ugly boat on less than five gallons of gas. Sometimes ugly and dependable beats shiny and expensive. (Belinda says the same thing about me.)

Now that buddy of mine was a serious fisherman. His dad had taught him a lot and he started fishing when he could walk. One spring day when the dogwoods were blooming and the fish were biting, we went out fishing together. We started with my favorite bait: live minnows. But eventually he wanted to throw jerk baits.

Now here’s where we were different.

He was slinging those expensive five dollar lures (probably $20 now) right up into the edge of brush piles and fallen trees like money grew on oak limbs. Meanwhile I was throwing safely out in open water because I couldn’t afford to donate a lure to the lake.

I finally asked him, “Buddy, ain’t you afraid you’re gonna lose one of those baits?”

He looked back and said one of those things: “If you wanna catch fish nobody else is catching, you gotta fish where nobody else is fishing.”

That gave me a new look and so 8 seconds later I hung the only five dollar jerk bait I owned and donated it permanently to South Holston Lake. I went right back to throwing large tuffy minnows like a financially responsible Christian.

But that statement stayed with me all these years. “If you wanna catch fish nobody else is catching, you gotta fish where nobody else is fishing.”

You know, that’s exactly what Jesus called us to do spiritually.

Jesus said: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations…” Matthew 28:19

And in Acts 1:8, Jesus told the disciples: “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”

Now Jerusalem was comfortable.

Judea was familiar.

But Samaria? Jews didn’t like going there. It was uncomfortable. Awkward. Different. Jesus was telling them to quit fishing the safe banks.

Sometimes we get too comfortable fishing in the same spots spiritually.

Same people.

Same routines.

Same church circles.

Same safe conversations.

We’ll witness where it’s comfortable. Talk about Jesus where nobody will reject us. Invite people who already halfway believe.

But the Gospel was never meant to stay in safe water.

Jesus went to tax collectors, sinners, Samaritans, lepers, and broken people everybody else avoided.

Why? Because there are fish in deep water.

Sometimes reaching people costs us comfort, reputation, and it costs convenience.

But souls matter more than our comfort zones. I think a lot of Christians are like I was with that five dollar lure. We spend so much time trying not to lose anything that we never risk enough to catch anything.

We hold back.

Play safe.

Stay shallow.

Meanwhile Jesus is saying: “Launch out into the deep…” Luke 5:4

You can’t reach new people doing only what feels comfortable. So maybe today the Lord is nudging some of us to fish a little differently. Talk to that coworker. Invite that neighbor.

Visit that person everyone else overlooks. Go where nobody else is going.

And remember this: God has always used unlikely vessels.

Sometimes He uses polished speedboats and sometimes He uses an ugly old homemade Crosby sled with a baby bottle light on the back.

So don’t get too comfortable fishing the same safe spots. Launch out a little deeper.

Throw the Gospel where others are afraid to cast.

Because if you wanna catch fish nobody else is catching…you gotta fish where nobody else is fishing.