Quote:
Originally Posted by ila
I'm not the right person to go fishing with. I no longer go to catch fish. I just go now to spend some quiet time and hope I don't catch a fish.
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Aaahhh Sesame, I'm afraid ila's sentiments nearly mirror my own. Once upon a time I enjoyed fishing. My grandfather has a 22 acre piece of property which includes a 5 acre pond. I used to love to stand on the dock/shore and cast out a line...That or go out on the row boat and paddle to the far shore and cast a line in some shady nook of the water. Once-upon-a-time I could be persuaded that fishing was a valuable reward to a day of hardwork. When I was but a youth, my grandfather promised to take me fishing after we picked some okra.
MANY hours, and MANY gallons later, we finally got to fishing. I don't know how many acres of okra we picked (it was an adjoining farmer's piece of property), but if you know anything of picking okra, it's almost like handling fiberglass insulation. The plant has many fine hairs which get into the skin, and it really itches. I was cutting okra without the benefit of gloves, etc. Nevermind, okra remains one of my favorite vegetables to this day, but that memory forever scarred my idea of what it takes to harvest it, LOL. It sort of tainted the fishing afterwards...
At any rate, so goes the story, that I used to be able to cast out a line and reel in a pretty fat bass. My childhood also consisted of fishing by the seashore, and many hours were spent crabbing off a pier. There's no telling how many hundreds of pounds of crab I pulled in back in the day. In a given day we would pull at least a hundred crabs...
Good times. But my conversion to a vegetarian ethic forever swayed my view on fishing. Personally, I don't think that I can afford the karmatic consequence of fishing, given my own indulgent history. The last time I remember fishing, I was casting nothing but a hook...I didn't care to use a worm for bait, and my sincere intention was to not catch anything (though I hear some species of fish will bite at a shiny hook). At any rate, I do enjoy the serenity and peace of fishing, but the egos that accompany a "big catch" can best be left at shore. There is nothing in THAT for me today...