To fish or not to fish

My father likes to fish. These days he doesn’t do it with the same intensity but that deep feeling of struggling with the fish when it bites the bait and try in vain to escape will probably always exist. I never had the same feeling. For me it was mostly boring to fish or to see my dad meticulously preparing the fishing rod, the hook, and the bait, for only then throw the line in the water and wait for hours before a first bite. “I’m an angler and anglers have patience!” he proudly used to say after I got too bored and started to complain. He was, of course, referring to the practice of angling, that is, catching the fish with an angle or a hook which indeed can take hours if the sea decides not to be helpful.

Sometimes we went to open sea with my dad’s friend. He had a motor yacht with all kinds of weird and technological stuff to “enhance the experience of angling”: An equipment to measure the tension of the line, artificial lures of all sorts and colors, chairs attached to the yacht, designed to facilitate the fight with the fish, and electric fishing reels to reduce the work of pulling the rod. I never had any excitement for any of those things. Sure it was fun to fight with the fish but all the preparation and the wait weren’t worthy enough for me. I enjoyed going to open sea for the ride and to swim and to dive when we were near a coral reef.

But these boat trips were rare. Most of the times we were at beaches or platforms built along them to increase our reach of the sea. One day, after one week going to the same place without catching any fish, I lost the patience and asked my dad: “Why the hell do we keep coming to this place if we don’t get any fish anyway?!”. Of course, after this, I knew something had to happen. My dad had to say something but he didn’t. He patiently prepared everything in the same routine of the days before. And throwing the line, he waited and I couldn’t do anything but to wait with him.

I guess he really wanted to get at least one fish that day. He probably had a whole speech prepared for that. But we left the beach with empty hands again. And in the car he looked at me and said: “If you don’t try, how do you know you will succeed one day?” Then he started the engine but before leaving, looked at me again: “Besides, these are good moments to spend with you, my son...” I never again complained about fishing with my dad.

Next week: more about fishing techniques around the world.

PS: I know it has been more than 4 months since my last post. Sorry for that but at that time I had lost the control of my activities so I had to give up this blog. Now I’m back and I will try to keep this a weekly exercise for me.