I'm new to fishing and it feels overwhelming. How do I cope?

Everything is new right now, and the water does not wait for you to catch up. Of course it overwhelms you. You are learning a trade that people spend lifetimes mastering, and you are doing it against wind, cold, and a sea that does not care that you are new. Feeling swamped is not weakness. It is the honest weight of a hard beginning. The way through is not to master the whole ocean at once. It is to master one thing at a time. Pick a single task, tying a knot, reading the tide, handling one line, and do it until your hands know it without your mind. Skill stacks. What overwhelms you now will one day be automatic. Before your next trip, choose one skill to focus on and let the rest be rough. You are not behind. You are early. Every hand that reads these waters started exactly where you are standing now.