Why do you fish?

golfish wrote:Its the kids, man....seeing a kid catch his\her first fish is the best of the best.

yep..

Zzzzz... FISH ON!!

Hey guys,
I must apologize for not being involved with this post more but I ran into a combination of business and personal involvements that have kept me offline for the last few days.
But, I am so pleased and impressed with the responses I found here today.
As I said in my initial post, this question came up on set recently while I was working. It initially started with a remark about hunting (which I do not do) and I, at first stayed out of the discourse. But it soon spread to fishing at which point I could not remain silent.
To put it shortly, I was saddened and at a certain point disgusted at the ignorance and short sightedness that I came up against, especially from those who not only had little or no experience with fishing, but as well, little or no outdoor experiences. The very idea of fishing (or hunting) is so abhorrent to some that they cannot even broach the subject rationally. Very sad and a bit alarming.
In the end I am quite sure that I will not be further employed by the particular producer who became involved, late in the conversation, ( she is a card carrying PETA member) and I am more worried now than ever about the future of our sport here in California. These people are at the core of the media effort to influence the public regarding extremist environmentalism and anti-sportsman activities. They are irrational and completely closed minded. I did my best to educate and inform but they will have none of it. A sad state of affairs.
My only remark and conclusion to this episode is that I am more than ever convinced that we as sportsman, (fisherman or hunters) need to be vocal, rational, and intelligent in our dialog and do our very best to put forth the best possible image of our sport(s).

Again, I am quite pleased and proud of the responses I read here today. You guys' represent the best of what we are and can be.

bodfish

PS, Docrunner, I think this is by far the most important point and way for us to expand our influence... Take a kid fishing!! (this was also the most distasteful point to my adversaries, they thought teaching a child to hunt or fish was immoral!!)

Hmmmm,....

Here's the silver lining..

The thing about extreme views is that they are, by definition, extreme. And the beauty is that usually, the extremist has no clue that they are so far out on the bell curve. They think they are the norm, the true North, of the world. The rest of us, that live in the bulk of the bell curve population see them clearly as nutjobs.. and usually do not give them much attention. Sadly, their kookiness makes for entertaining news stories.. so we see them in the media more. I don't know many people that have anything but disgust for PETA.. and they really have no clue as to how environmentally-minded and conservation-minded most anglers are.

ps.. thanks for the point about kids fishing. Feel free to share this whole thread of thoughtful comments, and my "stoked-kids-on-fish" videos with the nutjobs at your work .. and then tell them to F-off. (sorry, I tried to keep it classy)

Keep the faith!
-Jay

Vagabond wrote:I started fishing just to get outdoors more and find a hobby that didn't cost too much... boy did I have that last part figured wrong since I seem to over kill all my hobbies. But for me the best part of fishing is never knowing what is on the end of that line pulling on it wether it be the size of the fish or even what species it might be. I am not really a gambling man so fishing for me is the closest I get.

Well said B...I knew I likes you for a reason [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]