Steven Wright said, "There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot." I was always just standing on the shore (or in a boat) with a rod in my hand, like an idiot. So, yeah, fishing isn't going to do it for me. Ultimate frisbee is pretty good, though...
Go Fishing
31–40 of 101 posts
Re: Go Fishing
#32Used to fish a lot in my teens and twenties. I liken it a lot to golf in that its a great waste-the-day activity that can be enjoyed alone or with friends.
Fast-forward several years and I don't fish much now. Last Fall I took two of my kids up to Central Oregon to camp for a week and watch the solar eclipse. I had never taken them fishing as I figured they'd hate it in this age of instant gratification mobile devices. Nonetheless I decided to drive to Walmart, buy some gear and spend half a day fishing in the river.
We did. They loved it, proclaiming "Dad this is so fun. Why have you never taken us fishing before?!"
We didn't even catch anything.
Re: Go Fishing
#33Any recommendation for fishing around the Bay Area? I read that the water's quality of nearby lakes and rivers is pretty low.
Re: Go Fishing
#34It seems based on this thread that lots of HN people expect tastes (in activities or in foods) to be universal? They're not! Everyone in my family loves fishing; I can tolerate it if I'm spending time with them or if there is boating involved. Yet I'm perfectly happy sitting for hours in the cold woods waiting for a deer to wander into range. It doesn't mean that I'm right or wrong or my brother is right or wrong or…
In general, I agree with you, but there are degrees of morality. I hope most would agree that someone who's tastes include hunting endangered animals should not be accommodated. Likewise, if you were to go fishing in someone's koi pond or go hunting for a buffalo that someone was raising on their land, you'd also be rightfully punished.
So it stands to reason that all of these "tastes" exist on a spectrum from morally repugnant to the Buddhist practice of refusing to kill anything. And while we all draw our own line on that spectrum between what we consider acceptable and unacceptable, society will also draw that line and consider some of those activities to be illegal.
Re: Go Fishing
#35It seems based on this thread that lots of HN people expect tastes (in activities or in foods) to be universal? They're not! Everyone in my family loves fishing; I can tolerate it if I'm spending time with them or if there is boating involved. Yet I'm perfectly happy sitting for hours in the cold woods waiting for a deer to wander into range. It doesn't mean that I'm right or wrong or my brother is right or wrong or…
In general, I agree with you, but there are degrees of morality. I hope most would agree that someone who's tastes include hunting endangered animals should not be accommodated. Likewise, if you were to go fishing in someone's koi pond or go hunting for a buffalo that someone was raising on their land, you'd also be rightfully punished. So it stands to reason that all of these "tastes" exist on a spectrum from morall…
There's room for people whose tastes include hunting endangered species too! https://www-m.cnn.com/2015/05/21/opinions/rhino-hunt-is-cons...
Re: Go Fishing
#36My favorite part about fishing is that it has nothing to do with catching fish. As a catch-and-release fly fisherman, the entire point of the exercise is in matching the hatch, tying a perfect fly, perfecting your cast, having the perfect presentation, and finding the exact right riffle. At that point, actually hooking a fish is just a side effect of what you are already doing.
Re: Go Fishing
#37> One thing that keeps many people from fishing is the simple fact that they have never done it. Indeed, I think it is probably the only reason, apart from vegetarianism. (If you do not eat meat or otherwise object to taking the lives of gill-bearing aquatic craniates, there is always catch-and-release.) Fishing is one of the cruelest things I can imagine doing to an animal. The closest way I can put it to a human is…
I grew up fishing in a family that loves fishing, boating, and being near the water in general. I fished prolifically every day after school in a small stream a few kilometers from my house until I was 13 years old. I quit when one day I went out by myself (like I usually did) and within a few minutes I caught a pike. My first. I landed it to remove the hook from its mouth and that's when it wriggled violently in my hands, piercing my right hand thumb in the fleshy bit with the hook that was still attached to its mouth.
At first, the hook wasn't too deep into my flesh, but the pike kept wriggling, and within seconds it came out the other side of my thumb, right through the thumbnail. I don't think I've ever felt such pain at that age. I was bleeding all over the grass, crying and panicking with this slowly dying fish attached to my hand. Reluctantly, but knowing I had to do so, I found a dagger in my tackle box and cut off the fish's head. It didn't go well and the creature died a horrible death as I cut its head off with my weak left hand, trying to ignore the pain in my right. But it was finally dead.
My hand started hurting a lot. So much, in fact, that I couldn't pack up my things and ride my bike back home, so I sat down hoping that someone would come by to help me out. The pike's head still dangled from my thumb. Eventually a kid about my own age saw me (crying my eyes out) and his mother drove me home. A few hours later, I was in the doctor's office and with some local anesthetic, he cut the barbed part of the hook off and slid the rest of it out the way it entered. He thought the whole situation was kind of funny.
The kid's mom who had driven me back home had wrapped up the pike in a newspaper and given it to my parents who promptly threw it in the garbage since it was covered in my blood and badly mangled from my botched up knife work.
I didn't fish again until two years ago (I was 32) when I thought I'd try it again for old times' sake. I caught a fish pretty early on. It was a tiny little bass with this enormous hook of my lure poking through its upper lip. I felt like crap. If this creature felt the way that I must have felt, I couldn't continue fishing. I sold my gear on Craigslist for cheap just to get it out the house and said goodbye to it forever.
Re: Go Fishing
#38I grew up fishing, skateboarding, surfing, wakeboarding, playing baseball, playing in bands and generally getting into trouble as a younger man. I still surf and skate and wakeboard from time to time and I'm generally amazed at how friendly, welcoming and uncompetitive anglers are. I very rarely encounter any "get off my wave" type attitudes, it's mostly people asking how it's going or telling me what bait is and isn…
Lure fishing "cast and retrieve" as opposed to waiting is very common and not at all just a bass thing fyi. Maybe it has something to do with the particular species here in mid east coast Australia but fishing stores have tons of space dedicated to lures.
I remember fishing as a kid, my dad would be bait fishing while I lure fished because bait was super boring.
Re: Go Fishing
#39It's kind of boring. Fine for a diversion to get away from a desk, I can't imagine it as a lifestyle though.
There are no boring activities, only boring people.
Re: Go Fishing
#40"If it were easy, it'd be called 'catching'"
- Papa, and every grandfather, ever.