Why do you go?

Ric Elwin · Jan 3, 2005

I watched Countryfile yesterday which had a fairly balanced special on the forthcoming ban on hunting with dogs. My girlfriend watched this with me, our opposing views on this broadened out and eventually went on to Angling. She asked me: why do you go fishing, what do you get out of it?

I've given this lots of thought but it's a difficult question to answer! Certainly, I enjoy being outside, but I wouldn't be happy fishing in a swimming pool, so it's more than that. I also enjoy seeing nature at work but I can do that without going fishing.

My best guess is that it's a mixture of the above 2 suggestions but with a third, stronger force in play i.e. an instinct to hunt.

Can anyone give me their own version of this, help me perhaps give her a better answer?

Thanks.

paul williams 2 · Jan 3, 2005

Why should you have to explain yourself? ask her to explain herself!
I have met more non angling world wreckers than i have ever met in the angling world! if people like Hitler, Amin, Pal pot, etc etc had taken up angling i'm sure world history would be rewritten!

Ric Elwin · Jan 3, 2005

Fair point Paul! I wasn't asked in a way that I had to justify myself, she was genuinely interested in why...

Baz · Jan 3, 2005

I once read in a book called (The Diary of a Victorian Poacher) That it was in every Englishmans blood to hunt, and I will do so until the day I die.
I think that sums a lot of it up. Trying to outwit nature. I honestly believe what the angler must do is to fit in with his surroundings and not dominate them.

Andy "the Dog" Nellist · Jan 3, 2005

If I was asked the same question I would reply:

"No one in my family fished yet from my earliest memories I was always a fisherman. The reason I fish is that I am a fisherman"

Ric Elwin · Jan 3, 2005

Baz, so it's being the hunter but in a subtle way?

By the way you may have guessed: she is anti-hunting (but not obsessively) I'm pro-

Andy "the Dog" Nellist · Jan 3, 2005

I just told my girlfiend that and she replied:

"Don't we know it !"

lol

Baz · Jan 3, 2005

Yep,
we are hunters when you think about it, the difference being we seek to preserve and not kill as anglers. And that includes the surrounding countryside.

NottmDon · Jan 3, 2005

Being the only angler in a family consisting of four brothers and a father (who is scared of maggots!) I can only say thank god my son took up angling off his own bat before he asked me to show him how to go about it properly. I could never explain why I took up angling at the age of nine. I saw the river, I loved it, I saw old guys catching fish and I wanted to do the same. I found I enjoyed catching and releasing my quarry and I wanted to learn more about them and so it goes on. I didnt honestly appreciate the nature thing until I was in m y late teens. I used to cacth rabbits with my lurcher, kept ferrets and had a kestrel and yet I was an inner city boy. With angling theres always something to learn and discover but I dont know why I took to it. All I can say is its a release from the hum drum, regimented existence so many people settle for. I feel at ease with the natural surroundings, I marvel at natures wonders and I suppose one only succeeds by the amount of effort one puts into it. I could say I go angling because "its there" ( as do those who climb mountains, all respect to them btw) but as Jasper Carrot once said "so is an elephants arse!

Ron Troversial Clay · Jan 3, 2005

For me it has always been the fascination with water, the fascination with what lives in it and an obsession to catch that which lives in it..

The old hunting instinct as well I suppose.

I have always had an extreme desire to hunt.

Baz · Jan 3, 2005

Going back about 15 years, I took one of my lads fishing on a river while we were on holliday, just so he could have a dabble for a chub. What happened was he caught a trout.
We got back to the caravan which we were stopping in, and I cleaned and cooked the trout for him.
He wouldn't eat any of this trout, so I asked him what the matter was.
He said that he was just thinking that this fish was swimming about free two hours ago, but now it was dead.
How could I take those thoughts away from a ten year old boy?
It actually tought me something that day.

Wolfman Woody · Jan 3, 2005

You ask a church goer why do they go to church? They'll probably say to feel at peace and to understand their being here and what, perhaps, is in the life hereafter.

For me it is the same, in a sense. Fishing is my religion or more an excuse to be with and to understand nature. To relate to it and be in harmony with it and catching fish is a bonus.

A good bonus too because I love fish, but they don't live in our world. I can't live in their world so I catch one and drag it from the mysterious depths to take a quick admiring look and then return it to whence it came (sounds a bit poetic that!)

Yes, I love fish. I am mystified by them and admire them. I also have them in the livign room, in the garden pond and in the freezer too. Well, they are nice to eat as well.

Paul Hicks · Jan 4, 2005

I first fished at nine years old when I was on holiday in Cornwall. The bloke who ran the B&B showed me a handline for catching fish out of rock pools and that was it. The whole idea of pulling fish out from the mysterious depths and getting a good look at them thrilled me witless and still does. It must be partly the hunting instinct but on the other hand I also feel affectionate towards the fish and always wanted to see them swim away unharmed. Incidentally there's nothing wrong with feeling affectionate towards fish, its not as if they are sheep.

Ron Troversial Clay · Jan 4, 2005

Angling is the only hunting sport where we can satisy all those deep rooted hunting instincts without the need to kill our quarry.

Many of us do need to parade our trophies however, just like the hunting bands did of old and just in the same way some shooters do today.

The camera does this for us. It has replaced the glass case very effectively.

I once spoke to a golfer who got a hole-in-one. He spoke for weeks about his hole-in-one until one day I told him it was a pity he couldn,t get it stuffed!!

Ron Troversial Clay · Jan 4, 2005

On occasions it is also nice to kill the odd fish for the table as in trout fishing or sea angling. Do you know that a trout you have caught and killed youself tastes far better than one you have bought.

To bring home the odd fish for the table is really getting back to our hunting roots.

Big Rik · Jan 4, 2005

it's probably the hardest question an angler has ever tried to answer.

I know I am unable to answer it.

I think that things like the aesthetics, the solitude, the nature and the scenery all come about after or because we go fishing, I don't think it's the real reason, it's more a bi-product.

I can't say why I go, but I sure as hell feel deprived if I don't get out enough.

GrahamM · Jan 4, 2005

My reasons for fishing have evolved over the years.

At one time it was to catch something for the pot.

Another time to just prove I could outwit the fish.

To do a job for a magazine or newspaper, or to increase my trophies and trophy shots (the worst excuse for fishing but a period which most angling writers have gone through and which some never grow out of).

A fascination for water.

An excuse to be out with my mates.

To enjoy the countryside and wildlife and often the solitude.

And finally, the one reason that threads through all the other reasons: it's always been the thing I've most wanted to do.

Bob Hornegold · Jan 4, 2005

If I was the question ?

I could tell you its the call of nature, an empathy with natural surroundings, live long search for the biggest fish.

But in honesty its to get away from Her In Doors, to get a few hours peace and quite.

Bob

Blunderer · Jan 4, 2005

I think you are born an angler.
No one taught me, noone encouraged me, I saw nothing which made me want to fish.
I just did. I can still remember my mate saying he had a fishing rod. I was more excited than Christmas when we went for the first time.
The hook got stuck in my jumper on the way there and we never even cast. But I was still not discouraged.

I agree, it is an innate hunting instinct.

Ron Troversial Clay · Jan 4, 2005

It is the hunting instinct with out a shadow of a doubt.

Just watch the faces of our Graham or Matt looking out on the water. For a time, all those old instincts come to the for. You can see it in their expressions. The focussing and narrowing of the eyes when a bite materialises is just the same emotion as our forefathers felt as their fingers tightened on the bowstring or gripped the spear as a deer came into view.

I felt the same tingling thrill the day I shot my first Impala ram. You get it all correctly, the stalking, the crosshairs on the shoulder of the animal and you squeeze off the shot. The satisfying "thwack" as the bullet hits home and the animal is killed cleanly is just the same thrill you get when the net closes over the fish after a successful scrap.

But in fishing you can release that fish and say to it, and the gods of nature, thanks for giving me the most marvellous experience a man can feel in his life.

A hunt successfully completed.

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