Why do we fish ?

[HarveysMinnow]

Perhaps the age-old question, but the answers have changed somewhat in the past 50 to 75 years. Before that, most fishermen fished for food, a very practical reason and one my father embraced. Fishing for any other reason was a major waste of time to him. The early days of sport fishing were the domain of the very wealthy. Only after WWII did the average Joe have the extra leisure time and the spending money to enjoy fishing just for the sake of fishing.

So why DO we spend so much of our time and resources seeking to hook and land fish? The obvious short answer is “because we enjoy it”. The more detailed reasons are probably as numerous and varied as the members of this forum. For me, it is the anticipation, the suspence, and the expectation that on my very next cast, something is going to take my bait. It may be my largest Bass ever or it may be hardly more than a minnow. Either way, the pleasure of pulling a fish of some kind out of the water is always there.

And even if nothing is biting, I know of no better way to relax and enjoy the natural beauty of the world. Breathing the clean air on a lake at dawn is always a plus for me. Just sitting on the bank of a stream or lake, enjoying the sights and sounds in and around the water can be thoroughly fulfilling. On a really nice day, it does not really matter whether I catch loads of fish. It is being close to the beauty of nature that is most important. And on such a day, even if I catch nothing, I can still sit and daydream about the one that got away.

So, how ‘bout it, guys…why do you fish ?

.

[keithdog]

I'd have to say I pretty much fish for the same reasons you do, with the addition of one thing. I like the challenge fishing offers. The hunt, and the challenge of knowing how to produce some strikes. And when that strike comes, ohhhhh baby, it's work the effort!

[Ebbetsguy]

I started fishing, for snappers, mackerel and blowfish, off the shores of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn in the very early 60's. My dad, who was an Italian Immigrant, owned an Italian Butcher Shop and a part of a Pizza Place with a couple of uncles. He worked 6 and 1/2 days a week! He started to send Mom and us kids up to GREENWOOD LAKE NY/NJ Border, for the summers, to a bungalow colony full of NY Italians called CONTI'S. My dad got me my first tackle box with a pocket knife, I proceeded to carve my initials into a neighbors tree/My dad made me go over and confess it was me and told me I had to cut the neighbors grass (hand powered mower) for the rest of the summer. The neighbor owned a boat livery on the lake, buy the old 17 bridge, from which he had see me spend hours catching bluegills, sunnys, perch and the occasional pickerel.
His name was Brickner, he told me he did not want to interfere with my dad, but felt it was a bit severe. He told me if I would come by on Mondays to clean out the boats and primitive live wells, he would toss me a dozen minnows and take me out bass fishing.
So we go a few times with the minnows, he is using an old 3 ounce pyramid sinker and a rope, with color stripes on it to see the depth, when he brought up weeds, and it was deep enough, he said we fish here, I was getting an early lesson to stay away from the shore!
Anyway he is killing them on minnows, I am feeding fish. He ties on a #9Black and Silver original floating Rapala. AND MY FIRST BASS all 10 inches of him is on and I get hooked.

Now I have been fishing a lot of years, I lived in New Orleans for a time, and I sank into the desperate life of a 27 year active addiction, the last 6 years of that addiction there was no time for fishing, and then I wound up homeless.

Any ways a guy I used to get loaded with comes to the park where I am living and takes me to a 12 step meeting and i continue to go for 30 days and I GET MY FIRST CLEAN DAY!!!! I got clean in May, so a group of the older guys, who were retired would fish between meetings, they gave me a rod and reel and took with them every day, no more Blow Fish, as the water was too dirty, but they kept me busy between meetings and fed me, got me some clothing and most of all we would fish and they would teach me how to stay clean.

When I made my 90 days they took me to my boyhood lake; Greenwood and 6 of us went bass fishing, I cried that day and when they handed me a calendar it was pointed out I had made over 200 meetings in 90 days and fishing had a lot to do with it

So now here I am 18 years and two months later, still clean and still fishing. I live in rural PA now, soon to move back to my beloved Brooklyn. I have given a rod and reel to at least one guy getting out of jail or just getting clean, yearly since I got clean.
Now , so many have stayed clean, that several of us were doing this yearly, and we would get a big campout for 6 guys a year to get set up. We give them some basic spinning equipment, a few lures, have a couple of campfire meetings and host them and their 12 step sponsors to a weekend of fishing, and for many it has turned into a good ,clean passion

We formed into a Club last year SERENITY BASSERS, whose main Mission is to honor the fellas who helped me get and stay clean , by equipping 6 guys a year.

I love bass fishing, never grew up from it IT IS THE ULTIMATE ANTI JOB!!!!!!
I went on some big lakes: Fork in TX. George and Champlain here, but in the end, even though we caught fish I prefer small bodies of water, with my 12 tinny and MinKota TM, period.

I catch some fish, have great company and do not like competition at all. We participate in no competitions and are affiliated with no one, and i am grateful for all of this.

[WTL]

All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.


















OK, ok, thats not the reason. I just like quoting Moby Dick. But I do fish in pursuit of the same unknowable leviathan that swims and tormented Ahab, only mine is real and is a bass and did not offend me. But there is something attractive about not knowing just what is down there, under the water exists another world, and it to me is the pinnacle of skill to be able to transverse the barrier between the land and the sea, and succeed in a battle weighted in favor of the fish by virtue of the fact that it is their element you are impinging on.

[Ebbetsguy]

WTL : I was waiting for you to pull a golf ball out the the beasts blow hole, ala Castanza on Seinfeld

[bassinbob]

WTL you are so eloquent. I also enjoy impinging. Although I feel a deep down passion that stirs my soul. The feeling when the sun rises and the mist is dancing on the water. Not knowing if the next cast will enable me to do battle with a moby dick. Or to share in the colloquy with fellow enthusiasts of a day spent pursuing our prize.

[walkeraviator]

Ebbets, that is an incredible story. Its good to hear you passing on the very thing that saved your life to others. Its attitudes like that that remind me why this country is still the greatest in the world. I raise this beer to you man...

I fish because it relaxes me. Just like being at 1,000 feet over crystal blue water in a cessna with the window popped open. There are just things that soothe my soul. Like a beer, a bratwurst, or Stevie Rays version of Little Wing.

And the biggest reason i fish, is because my Dad is my best friend, and this is a way for just the two of us to get away and enjoy eachothers company...

[Ebbetsguy]

Quote from Walkeraviator:

I raise this beer to you man...
I am feelin you, somehow thats just not right, I just finished cleanning the maxwell house out of my key board, this is the begining of a beautiful friendship as Sam Spade once said, I am off to work, thanks for a great laugh with my morning coffee
Dominick

[HarveysMinnow]

Originally Posted by Ebbetsguy

... I catch some fish, have great company and do not like competition at all. We participate in no competitions and are affiliated with no one, and i am grateful for all of this.

WOW Ebbetsguy! That is a remarkable story, and one which I greatly appreciate you sharing.

Your mention of not liking competition is something I restrained myself from commenting on, because I wanted to see it there were any similar sentiments out there. When I'm fishing, my only competition is the fish on the other end of my line. I have nothing against tournament fishing or those who pursue it; I just don't have any interest in it. That is a totally different realm from the one I live in.

.

[Ebbetsguy]

Hey Harvey: As a club we do not compete because the club was formed for a mission. There are members and friends who do fish tournaments, on a personal level it is not for me. I like no phones, no deadlines, no competing with others, Just me and the fish, and a lot of the times the fish win, What's up with that?

[Bubba_Bruiser]

Because my wife thinks it is improper to have relations with other women in my free time.

[Abbeysdad]

Well, I don't golf, bowl, or chase women - what's left is fishing!

Seriously, In my youth, my dad and I went fishing a lot. I enjoyed it even though dad didn't have a lot of patience for a kid that got bored if they weren't biting. He was also pretty unhappy when he thought I tried to set the hook to soon. His tune changed a bit as I got older and left him to fish upstream a ways. I'd come back with several fish and his only response was "so that's what they look like".

So nowadays, admittedly I haven't been much of a threat to fish around here and I've been strictly catch and release.
I enjoy the peaceful, relaxation and the quest for the big fish. I enjoy the excitement of 'the bite' and the 'hook set - fish on'.
At times, line wet or not, I very much enjoy the soothing bob of the float as reality is put on hold for awhile.

Oh yea, I stopped fishing for a long, long time. It was Abbey that got me fishing again when her friend Josh was always bragging about fishing with his grandpa - she asked if we could to go fishing and that got me going again. How does that song go..."I see who I wanna be through my daughters eyes".

[walkeraviator]

Originally Posted by Ebbetsguy

Quote from Walkeraviator:

I raise this beer to you man...
I am feelin you, somehow thats just not right, I just finished cleanning the maxwell house out of my key board, this is the begining of a beautiful friendship as Sam Spade once said, I am off to work, thanks for a great laugh with my morning coffee
Dominick

im glad you took it with a laugh as that is how it was intended. After i posted it i second guessed whether or not it was appropriate... but i am glad you got a chuckle

[Jim80]

Originally Posted by Bubba_Bruiser

Because my wife thinks it is improper to have relations with other women in my free time.

+1

For me a few years back my oldest son wanted to start fishing . At the time I hadn't fished in about 10 to 15 years and even then I was from the cast a line out and wait for something to happen school . So I took the boys out a few times and we started going for bass and well here I am now . Finding this site was most likely one of the biggest helps in getting on track and learning to catch better fish and being able to teach the kids to consistently catch fish and for that I am grateful . Mostly these days fishing is a family affair between my sons and I and even my wife has been starting to go toss in my dad getting in to going and It has been a blast. I often find myself wondering if I started fishing like this earlier in life would I have avoided some of my downfalls .


Ebbetsguy like you I had a drug problem right out of high school and wore out my welcome with my folks pretty quickly and then did the same with all my friends ending in me being homeless and living in a shelter. I think the only thing that saved me at that time was finding out my then girlfriend was pregnant with our first son which got me to do an about face the day I found out , it was the last time I ever touched a drug that I wasn't told to take by a doctor and was really the turning point in my life. So mostly for me I guess fishing is just being able to spend time with my family and friends along with the pursuit of the unknown. But mostly it just lets me enjoy my kids and hopefully be giving them something we can share for the rest of our life's .


Jim

[Ebbetsguy]

Hey Jim, PM if you ever want to talk, God Bless you

[Rebbasser]

Why? We fish for fishing! If you don't understand that, well, you might be in the wrong place

Years back I watched a movie about a guy that went to Hawaii to live the surfing lifestyle-can't tell you the name, but there was one thing in it that stuck with me. The guy befriended a surf shop owner who taught him how to surf. He called himself a "soul surfer", meaning he surfed not for praise or accolades but simply for the joy of it, and not just riding the waves-all of it from preparing to go out to taking care of his gear when he was through.

Ever since then I have thought of myself as a "soul fisherman", meaning the whole thing from fighting off (usually unsuccessfully) the bait monkey to getting my gear ready for the next trip. I'm not a guy who fishes. I'm a fisherman, specifically a bass fisherman. It is ingrained in every fiber of my being-it is who/what I am. Sure, I don't make my living at it, but then I don't want to. It is my escape-just ask my wife.

What I read here tells me you all, and I mean ALL, are the same way. It is not what we do. It is who we are. You know exactly what I mean when I say:

"You don't fish for fish, you fish for fishing!!!!!!"

'nuff said