Fisherman or Angler?
“Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”
No, this is not a blog about the famous Biblical truth.
I want to address the question of fisherman vs. angler? See
how you match up?
A fisherman “figures it out”. He embarks on a journey to
figure out how to catch fish. For most fisherman, the journey begins the day
before and often times, weeks out. As Ted Williams, ya that Ted Williams, the
Hall of Fame baseball player who was also an accomplished fisherman, once said
something to the extent of, “ often times the biggest fish are caught the night
before”.
For example, fly fishing for trout in a New England stream
or wild Western River requires some knowledge and experience the latter of
which is absolutely necessary to actually becoming successful at the fly
fishing endeavor. Outside the obvious needs like transportation, rod, reel,
waders etc. the fisherman must learn to read the water to determine the highest probability of where
a fish will be and then to study the water to determine where to cast in order
to drift his fly naturally by where a fish most likely will be. Of course, all
of this is after choosing the right fly, or in many cases the correct version
of that fly and appropriate size as well as the size of the tippet at the end
of the leader. All of this and more goes into the fishing experience.
Angling on the other hand, is what you do after you hook the
fish. A good fly fishing angler will choose both where to cast from, so as to
give himself the best chance to naturally present the fly to the fish, and also
where he will position himself in the river to then fight and release the fish
once it is hooked so as not to disrupt the pool the put the other fish “down”
where they will become inactive. That angler thinks of the other fisherman and
his potential to catch more fish from the same pool as well as his probability
of landing the fish he is actually casting too all before making his initial
cast.
On the saltwater, often times it takes 2-3 people working
together on a boat to find, hook, and land a fish. Boat preparation takes time
and effort. Rod and reels must be prepared including the testing and setting of
the drag well ahead of time before the boat even leaves the dock. When a big
game fish is hooked, the angle and boat captain will communicate and the boat
is used to help reel in the fish. Then of course, a third person is usually
needed to net or gaff the fish. This teamwork is fishing. The guy on the rod
and reel is the angler.
These days, in our ego driven hey, “look at me and like me on
Facebook and pass my picture and love it on Instagram” immediate gratification
world, often times people rush to get to the point of that picture so much that
they miss the opportunity to fish. They angle. And the two are not the same. I
once read a quote that “only a surfer knows the feeling”….well the same can be
said here, only a fisherman knows the feeling. The feeling of figuring it out
and catching that fish. Hiring a guide who is on the water 300 days a year, who
rigs your rod, baits your hook, and tells you where to cast, or even hooks the
fish, then lets you reel it in, isn’t fishing. Yes, you are still angling,
although it can be argued that a valuable part of the angling equations is
missed when you do not actually hook the fish yourself, but none the less you
are angling to some extent if you fight and land that fish. Now take your
picture and pass it around the world and make sure to leave the part out about
how the guide hooked it for you!
