I could have marked the rock hump with GPS, or even a simple bleach-bottle buoy. But this was a family vacation to the Wisconsin Northwoods, not a fishing trip, and my kit was bare-bones: an 8-weight rod, a box of bugs, a couple spools of leader material. When I spotted the pair of outsized smallmouth—I was poking around under a high midday sun in the aluminum rowboat that came with our cottage—I had to go Old School to be sure I’d find my way back when the lake glassed off that evening.

You’ve likely heard of Ockham’s (or Occam’s if you prefer Latin) Razor, a problem-solving proverb bandied about by many pseudo-philosophers as the principle that says the simplest answer is usually the correct answer.