Not sure I go fishing to catch fish anymore.
I get responses like this in return.
Makes complete sense to me. Reminds me of the time we were at Les Arends and I was standing there feeling out fish.Bob wrote:Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. – Henry David Thoreau
I have come to hate this quote. It epitomizes so much of the poor thinking or interpretation in fishing.
The word fishing and fish can be changed to “drinking/drink,” gambling/money, work/success, womanizing/women, taking drugs/getting high. The thing we are after is peace, calm, serenity, fulfillment, attainment, etc. We use fishing, drinking, drugs, women, work, gambling, etc., to achieve whatever state of mind or being we are after. Fishing isn’t the subject in that observation, it is the means to an end.
BUT, it is the SUCCESS we have while doing a thing, that gets us to the goal of fulfillment, attainment.
No one goes gambling to lose.
No one goes to work to not make money.
No one chases women without the hope of success.
No one takes drugs unless they know they are going to get high.
And No one goes fishing without the hope or desire of catching some fish.
If a person does anything without the desire for or expectation of success – then they are simply marking time or daydreaming.
When you go fishing along a creek, but aren’t fishing, you really went to explore the creek. The rod is ancillary.
When guys go fishing and catch no fish, and say “well, it was nice being out" or "I wasn’t really after fish anyway", this is true – they really weren’t fishing, nor trying too, they were engaged in something else: walking, sight-seeing, relaxing, breathing.
But, if they come off the river after not catching fish, and they aren’t happy about it, then they were fishing, but failed. And, then saying, “it was nice to be out” is a lame excuse to allow one to feel better about failing at the appointed task: fishing.
The Thoreau statement is meant to be a western-philosophy take on Zen. But it isn’t. Zen teaches to be in the moment, pay attention to the now, focus intently on the thing you are doing: looking at a sunset, breathing, fishing.
I tell people at my presentations: If you are going fishing, go fishing. Fish with a the purpose of catching fish, not being out.
Did the Zen thing make sense? Focus on one thing at a time, and ultimately, serenity, calm, peace, enlightenment comes from success (aka) doing a thing well.
Oh, he picked it up.
Nope dropped it.
Oh, picked it up again.
Then eventually I would set the hook. I have pictures you took of the resulting fish and I’m always amazed at the look on my face. About as peaceful as it gets.
Actually, go to this link on my site and watch the pictures cycle through. These are the shots you took that day.
http://wadauwant.com/fishing_and_outdoors/gs_home.html
That’s how I treat every outing now. It’s all exploring, catching a fish helps cement the details of the day. But if it doesn’t happen, that’s why I take more pictures of my surroundings now. I seem to catch more fish when I’m not paying attention to the fishing, but the feel of the fishing while I’m off looking at or preoccupied with something else I find interesting, whether real or in my head.
If that makes any sense.
I am one with the fish, I become the fish . . . oooohhhhhhhmmmmmmm
I go out exploring now. When I go out “fishing” I tend to come home disappointed. Carrying around a rod while exploring is less creepy to those that come across me. Otherwise I’m just an old guy lurking in the woods sometimes just off of bike paths.
The conversation went on for awhile like they usually do, off onto tangents that sometimes don't come back to where they started. And nobody cares. Then he ended one with a sentence that I completely agree with:Bob wrote:This lurking about the woods is unacceptable in this day and age. So, wandering about with a rod and reel in hand is a wonderful age-old technique used by public masturbators, flashers and molesters everywhere. Used to be one could carry a gun and say they were hunting. Not anymore.
And, please, after age 50, the creepiness factor just latches onto men period. Until we age to the point that it looks impossible to be a rapist or murderer, women and kids think we are creepy.
Stopped by the crap plant while out wandering and ran into Ed K. Nice meeting you out there.Bob wrote:So much piss poor bullshit passes for fishing wisdom, it sometimes makes me stroke out.
I have other pictures of these trees dating back 6 or 7 years. I'll be disappointed if the fall some day. The creek was looking a little beat up from the flooding in March, but no where near as bad as Big Rock. This one pretty much runs through a limestone canyon, so there is only so much damage that can get done. But then, I didn't go too far upstream. Maybe next time.
That's a 15 inch smallie out of a creek, about 200 feet in from the mouth. For those that care about that type of thing.
I tried to get out to a point that has a nice cut and sits in the sun all day. There is only one way to get there. I spooked a goose off it's nest. I've noticed the geese haven't been flying around, which usually means they are starting the nesting process. This proves my point.
It started honking, almost like screaming, at me as it jumped off it's nest. Then the other one showed up and started doing the same. The one that was on the nest would keep going down to the nest and touch the eggs, like it was counting them. I gave up on the idea of getting to the point. No way I was going up against a couple of big pissed off geese.
Things are blooming. The whole point of this shot, and what I thought I got, was the foreground in focus and the background out of focus. Still looks good to me.
The sun was coming in behind these flowers so intently it was next to impossible to get a decent exposure. The petals look almost white from the intense sun light back light.
And then, we got this. Luckily it was short lived.
