Fishing: are you into it?

[Ferris]

On a whim I bought a fishing rod. I have access to a large lake, and spent this afternoon on the shore in a comfy chair sinking red ales and trying to understand how fishing rods work.

Well, last cast of the day I caught a largemouth bass, about 2-3lbs and it was great. I am hooked. I threw it back (my wife wouldn't let me keep it as she "doesn't trust freshwater") although next time I'll clobber it and fry it up for tea.

Are you a fisher? Do you do fishing? What's the best fish you've ever caught? All this (and more) should go in this thread.

[Dex Sawash]

Casting and reeling; fucking amazing

Fucking with worms or touching a fish; no thanks

[phes]

Used to absolutely love fishing all through my childhood. Think I'd feel happier these days sea fishing when you're actually gonna eat the thing. Fuckin with the little fellas for pure bants on social media just doesn't doesn't seem like cricket   

[Jittlebags]

Used to fish the North Wales lakes in my teens. Back then you could use floats and maggots and that, so you'd get a good brown trout every now and again. I think rivers and lakes are fly only these days, with spinning only during flood conditions. Think live bait is a no as well.

Now just do the occasional summer seashore fishing trip, feathering for mackerel. Although that's bloody hard work when you get older. Quite like to get into winter fishing for cod and whiting, with a couple of rods on a rest and one of them tents.

I should have a go at fly fishing again. There are a couple of lakes near me that hire the roads quite cheaply for a few hours.

[Roxy Robinson]

Went fly fishing in the Borders maybe a dozen times. It's an amazing part of the world, incredibly focused and peaceful experience, basically two people on a beat so you have a mile of river to the two of you. Casting is a wonderfully satisfying practice with a stratospheric skill ceiling. Unfurling thirty feet of line with an almost silent, smooth cast and seeing the fly land delicately in the fastest, narrowest upstream is such a profoundly resolving sensation. After I got over the initial squeamishness of animal cruelty, I got quite good at it and caught a few 12-16lb salmon and some beautiful sea trout. It was incredibly exciting to get a pull and to wrestle with the creature, learning when to let it go and when to bring it in, keeping the rod high and the line just tight enough. Landing the fish felt very euphoric.

Then one day, I just thought this is fucking appalling and I haven't done it since. I ate the first I ever caught but put everything else back. I don't know how I ever did it, utterly barbaric. Leave them alone to swim and enjoy their life.

[poo]

Basically just hassling and torturing animals for fun.

[jobotic]

Whenever I watch Bob and Paul in the wonderful countryside they fish in I think my God I wish I was there but not fishing, birdwatching.

[poo]

Yeah leave the cunting things alone FFS. God isn't it enough just to be in nature. It should be.

[Jittlebags]

Basically just hassling and torturing animals for fun.

Catching dinner I thought.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

.

[poo]

I'm OK if it's for food.

[shoulders]

If you gave me a fishing rod I could hit any fish you liked with it.

[Ferris]

I used massive bait so the only stuff I'd catch would be massive, though I'd catch fewer fish. I also fish in a lake that is mostly full of invasive species (pike, pickerel, largemouth bass) so if I caught anything it'd be hardy enough to survive me taking the hook out and I might have to give it the lights out treatment anyway cos it's invasive.

I reckon I'm gonna get bang into all this.

[hamfist]

*edit sorry, I read this as fisting

pls ignore what I posted

[Ferris]

Basically just hassling and torturing animals for fun.

Yeah but it's a good laff?

[TrenterPercenter]

you should try your hand at monkey harpooning

[Butchers Blind]

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll arse about on a riverbank for a day.

[Buelligan]

Fished as a kid.  Caught a sea trout off a small little cliff on Loch Linnhe.  But then I realised what I was doing.  Those beautiful free things, who would want to harm them?

On Paxos they used to fish for swallows off the cliffs at Eremitis but those people were proper hungry.  No excuse for us.  None. 

[BlodwynPig]

Bass bashing in the benthos.

Get in bin, small gods

[PlanktonSideburns]

Exactly as bad as those monkey torturing lads, and if you think eating them gets you off the hook, try eating a monkey after dragging it by its gob see where that gets you

Magine if we felt better about serial killers if they ate the victims after, - at least they're not chucking the bodies down a well when they're done like some cunts

I'm only joking who gives a fuck

[touchingcloth]

My brother got into fishing when we were in school. I said great and asked what rod I should get if I wanted to try it out myself, he said a Troutmaster 3000 or whatever and that, by the way, I also needed to go to the Post Office to get a permit.

A permit? Fuck that. They never include that in the trite knowledge-beats-stuff soundbites. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and, subject to local permit law he will NO FUCKING WAY

End of fishing experience.

[BlodwynPig]

Exactly as bad as those monkey torturing lads, and if you think eating them gets you off the hook, try eating a monkey after dragging it by its gob see where that gets you

Magine if we felt better about serial killers if they ate the victims after, - at least they're not chucking the bodies down a well when they're done like some cunts

I'm only joking who gives a fuck

Ask yourself this, when a bison smashes you into Stockton Rush paste, should we shrug or mourn the loss of valuable life in out delicate ecosystem?

[Buelligan]

Heheh and not even smashing you by accident or a warped reciprocity for evil deeds or threat.  No.  Simply because you were living, quietly, happily, near that buggering bison and you were hungry and the bison thought it'd be a laugh.

[Kankurette]

No. I haven't got the patience. I've been fishing, my ex-stepdad was into it, but never caught anything.

[earl_sleek]

Fish are all billionaires, so fuck 'em.

[Buelligan]

I'd like to bring back town centre fishing.  Tie something appropriately desirable at the end of a length of strong fine high voltage cable.  Switch on the current whenever it's touched.

All the old fellows were into it back in the day.  Almost traditional.

[BlodwynPig]

The rare crimson gilled snark. See it glitter in the crystal clear stream. Such beauty, evolutionary brilliance. Watch i horror as it is torn from its home by metal on a reel. Confusion in its eyes when confronted by two gurning alternative comedians, inanely gibbering and brapping their pollution into the atmosphere.

It perishes.

A man on a forum says "who the fuck cares"

That man is destroyed by a bison in 2024

[madhair60]

fish are cunts, they've pissed me off specifically, but i still wouldn't throw a hook at them. i'll throw the book at them, sure - and indeed have. unfortunately i lost my case Stuart Gipp vs Fish and am now a lot of my monthly income just goes straight in a river.

[Buelligan]

Shit, you mean.

[All Surrogate]

One of my happiest childhood memories is a sunny afternoon fishing with my dad while on holiday on the Norfolk coast. We rarely spent that much time together (looking back, we were simultaneously too different and too similar), so it was special. There's a photo somewhere of us, with me holding a sizeable fish I had caught (bream, I think), with my dad's help.

I don't think I've fished since, and it's unlikely I will again - too messy - but I guess it's good to have people interested in the health of the rivers, if for no other reason than good fishing. I sometimes see people fishing in Walsall canal - I've no idea what they catch, and I'm not eager to taste the fish. That said, the canal does get dragonflies in the summer, so it may not be that bad - not sure how discerning dragonfly larvae are when it comes to tadpoles and water quality.