My topic for the Capstone project is fishing and my main inquiry question is, “How have spinning fishing reels evolved and what do the best ones currently on the market have in common?” I chose this topic because fishing is my passion and I have been doing it since I was four years old.
I first started fishing on our family boat which we kept in the Long Island Sound where the only thing I really caught was snapper and an occasional clam. Eventually, we bought a house on the New Jersey shore where our backyard is the Barnegat Bay. It was at the beach house where I really got into fishing. In our backyard, we have a dock that we would do crabbing, fishing, swimming, and boating. Of all those activities I liked fishing the best.
The first rod that I bought at the beach house was a kids’ thumb caster. As I got older, I bought nicer gear and tried all different types of reels of different makes and models. For example, I have drop reels that we used on the boat to fish for fluke, spinning reels, and bait casters for snapper and striped bass off the dock and kayak. I learned that there are different spinning reels as well, some for smaller fish, some for bigger fish, and some for fishing off the beach. I got so into fishing, I researched different brands and fishing techniques all the time. All of these things combined were helpful in choosing my main inquiry question.
The hardest part about picking my inquiry question was narrowing down to a subtopic of fishing. Some of the topics that I initially considered were boats, kayaks, and commercial versus recreational fishing. After speaking with Ms. Edwards I ended up on the evolution of spinning reels because it was a narrower topic to research.
Going through this process I am learning that I am very good at researching things that I like. I spend a lot of time on my computer reading articles and watching videos. What is challenging for me is organizing my thoughts and expanding on them to support my research. I hope to continue to improve as I go through this process.