Why I Hate Fishing

Fishing.  No other word dregs of the type of hatred that word does.  It’s the most boring, mundane exercise that I’ve ever participated in.  I would honestly rather be taped down to a chair, staring directly at a wall, starving, with an itch I can’t reach for hours than spend any time fishing.

Which sucks, because Lisa apparently loves to fish....  Yay!

Recently, we had a friend come up to visit, who loves to fish as well.  And with multiple poles laying around, guess who got to go man one?  Me!  Yay!



I can’t say that I had a bad childhood in the slightest, just and odd one.  But parts of it made me realize there are certain things that ended up scaring me enough to make me a better parent for my step-daughter.  One of the most important rules is a simple rule, don’t force anyone to do something they don’t want to do....

I remember it at first, the want to go.  Fact is, my parents enjoyed it.  They showed me the skill in it.  I used to spend hours practicing using the rod and reel in our driveway.  I got good at it.  I could land the lure, bobber, or whatever I wanted anywhere I wanted.  We’d go out and Dad would tell me to place it perfectly between two trees.  One throw and my bobber was floating perfectly between two trees.

The mundane part comes in...when you wait....  Hours waiting, watching intently for the bobber to bob in a certain way, or to feel a tug on the line that meant something happen.  Seriously, its like measuring the speed of grass growing, or waiting for that instant that paint is actually dry.

I think the worst part happened when I was in the boat, fishing, and my parents were hoping I’d catch at least SOMETHING.  I knew what was coming if I did.  They’d make a big deal about it.  Of course, this was after several fishing outings, and honestly, I in no way wanted to be there.  But finally I caught one.  Little bass.  I remember the instructions on how to reel it in it being told to me as I did it.  Like I didn’t know how.  You just reel it in....

Got it into the boat, and the celebration happened.  I turned to them and said, “Great, now can we go?”  It was never said, but I always felt that my attitude was the reason those fishing trips were unenjoyable for everyone else.

One of the things that gets me, is how people treat hunting and fishing like a ‘sport.’  They put all these self imposed rules to make it ‘interesting.’  You could serious program robots to fish and hunt and get FAR better results than people do with their rules....  Monkeys could do it easier....

It makes me want to scream.

I could even understand it if you needed to do it for food, but you don’t.  It costs more to actually go fishing than it does to go buy fish that’s already caught.  Deer meat is nice and all, but is it really worth all the trouble?

In the end, I can understand the point of it.  If you are camping, its food that you can get while you’re out there.  In the apocalypse, those that have these skills will probably survive quite well.  But honestly....

If I’m going to enjoy nature, which is what some people call their little excursions, I’m not going to destroy any part of it.  I’m a photographer and part of me wants to live by an old quote, “Take only Photographs, leave only footprints.”

In the end, I just don’t like it, and I never will.  If I had to eat, I know I could do it, but I’m not going to worry about that until I need to.  The best part is, my parents really did nothing wrong, they wanted me to like it a bit too much, but everyone has their own likes and dislikes besides everything else.

I’m just glad I have a wife that understands that I can’t do it.  I can’t fish, nor will I.  She got to see the pain in my eyes, the desperation to get away, all those memories that haunted me for days afterwards.  Its like a trauma....  And she helped me through it as best she could.  She’s an amazing person, my wife.  And I’m more than lucky to have her.  Especially since she can go fish while I go take pictures and we’ll have something to eat later.