What is it?
Situational awareness is sometimes described as a three part process. The first is a perception of the environment in space and time, with your place in it, including awareness of all of the elements within the limits of your perception. The second is about building knowledge of how the elements within your purview may interact and change as parts of a larger process. The third progression is about acquiring the ability to predict next steps and outcomes based on your knowledge of the “system” or processes (above) working together.
In fishing, situational awareness identifies elements in the fishing environment like rocky structures, reefs, shoals, and islands along with vegetative communities and other features that are attractive to fish. Secondly, anglers with good situation awareness skills have learned how habitat features interact to attract and hold different kinds of fish. Over time, observant anglers learn how to predict the likelihood of encountering fish in these locations as they gradually become more capable anglers.
How can anglers use it?
Experienced anglers know the value of focus in fishing and the effort required to concentrate on the tasks needed to interpret a steady flow of new information from the fishing environment. Situational awareness is easily lost through distraction and on those hot, summer days when focus gives way to day-dreams and less onerous preoccupations. The brain is notoriously lazy and also influenced by a mind that is only partly under your control.
Situational awareness in military or strategic applications ultimately seeks ways to predict how an opponent will act in a given or pending situation. The same applies to fishing. The three-step progression of situational awareness gives anglers insights into fish preferences and how fish make biting decisions.
While understanding the adversarial mind is an obvious advantage in practicing the art of war, sports, games of strategy like chess and other competitive ventures, it is equally essential to know yourself in fishing. Anglers make decisions constantly, profoundly impacting their fishing outcomes. These decisions are influenced in a positive sense by learning and practice. But decisions are also beset by internal uncertainties, old habits, and firmly-held beliefs. Every human brings internal strengths and barriers to the fishing game. Situational awareness encourages anglers to look inwardly as well as externally for new ways to enhance their fishing opportunities and outcomes.
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