Poling

Tom Mitzlaff of Mitzi Skiffs provides this very basic article on skiff poling (halfway down page). If you haven’t done it, you may think it’s about as hard as riding a bike for the first time. If you’ve been doing it forever, you start doing things that would’ve seemed impossible, on the order of extreme cyclists doing backflips off of ramps. This, of course, entirely changes your ideas of what a great skiff is (“How wet is it when you’re holding position in a 30-knot wind, rain and 2-3 foot sees?”, “Can I pole one-handed?”, and “How quickly can I turn and chase fish?”).
My favorite poling quote of all time came from Steve Huff. One day I saw him coming off a flat north of Key West after fishing had been particularly slow. He had just pushed across about 3 miles of flat and was headed off to do the same elsewhere. “Good day for poling,” I said. “You know how it is,” Steve replied. “Pole far enough and the fish will find you.”