I’m not talking about the consumption of animals here, to be clear. What I’m talking about is spending days and a bunch of money planning to kill something, doing the killing, and skinning/eviscerating what was killed, and often displaying the stuffed corpse. Hunters and fishers refuse to admit they’re obsessed with taking pleasure in killing something.
Miss me with the “tradition” stuff, it’s just peer pressure from the dead and a fallacious argument. Don’t tell me it’s to eat, like I said, I’m not talking about the consumption here, so please prove to me you are literate by not bringing up that point. And don’t tell me you’re respectful to the animals you kill; I don’t believe the planning, stalking, and killing is a good way to show respect.
My personal opinion on fishing as a pastime is funny. The idea of sitting by the lake for a few hours with friends and beers sounds like good fun, but as soon as you add that I’ll also be waiting for a fish to strike, it suddenly sounds dreadfully boring to me. I just hate waiting on things.
Pro tip from someone who is frequently invited fishing: just be blatant about it lol.
At one point, I started showing up with just a cooler of beer. First time, they were like "where’s all your gear?"and I was like “I don’t like fishing, and I don’t need the pretense”. They fished, and I just got drunk in the boat, hung out, and occasionally acted as photographer when one of them got a good catch.
How about you put on some waders, hike to the woods, walk into the river, and fly fish?
Fly fishing is constant action because even casting is fun. Also, you don’t ever let the fly just sit there doing nothing for anything more than 30 seconds. So at most you’re waiting for 30 seconds. During those 30 seconds, as your fly floats down the river, you might get the amazing chance to see a fish swim up and gobble it down right off the top of the river. Nothing more satisfying then fish taking a dry fly. It’s true angling, fooling the quarry, using it’s own instincts against it.
And even if you are just not catching any fish, you can always stand there and watch the bugs so you can hone in on what the fish are eating. Because they are in there, and they never stop eating.