How to Say "Gone Fishing"
If you fish, you've always got a reason to be outdoors. You can take a lunch and picnic as you fish. You can camp near a lake. You can hike or take a canoe or boat to a fishing spot. Many people build their vacations around fishing, I do! And be sure to take your family or your friends along, for there is no more sociable activity. Look at the picture above - just imagine the fun and stories this family will have for the rest of their lives!
Fishing gets you involved with nature. There's neat stuff to pick at and play with along the bank and in the water. Hawks and eagles soar overhead, turtles bask, and frogs hop. You'll see polliwogs, crayfish, killdeer and, of course, those shiny, wriggling fish that you lure from the deep.
Over 91.3 million American’s go fishing. Some of them fish for sport or relaxation; others fish only for food. But the majority of anglers reap all the benefits of fishing. They spend quality time on the water and then return home to a satisfying meal of sizzled or grilled fish that they have caught themselves.
More people would like to fish. I get countless requests for information from urban folks, rural folks, single mothers, single dads and busy executives. I hear from people who are about to retire or who have already retired and want to do something that is inexpensive and fun with their grandkids. Lots of people want to fish, but the problem is they don't know how.
To hear fishing professional or an experienced angler talk about structure, patterning, down-rigging, flipping, planer boards, crankbaits, jerkbaits and jigs, you would conclude that fishing is an incredibly complex pastime.
It doesn't have to be. One of the joys of fishing is that it can be fun and productive at any skill level. You can complicate the sport with jargon and sophisticated equipment - and you may want this as you keep getting better at fishing - but the whole sport can be pared down to some basic equipment and techniques.
How to Say "Gone Fishing" will show you the basics of fishing. It would take many volumes to introduce you to all the species of fish, all the methods and all the lures, and with so much information at once you would be overwhelmed.
Instead, in the membership section, I want to be your guide for your first few fishing trips. Let me take you hand-in hand - like your uncle, parent or grandparent - to the water and patiently teach you how to catch some fish. I know that once you start fishing, you'll quickly learn to love the sport.
Fishing…How it has Become Our Greatest Sport
Americans who went fishing in early Colonial times were confirmed believers in the old Indian adage, "The best way to catch fish is to catch fish." Needing fish for food, they didn't care how they got them. Scoop net, seine, jack light, fish trap, hook and line - they used whatever method was most likely to produce the biggest catch in the least time.
But some of them, now and then, would wander off to the nearest stream, cut and trim a sapling, tie a fish-line to its tip, bait the hook with a worm or a maggot, and fish more for the fun of it than for what they caught. They were our first sport fishermen.
Their number increased rapidly as the settlements grew and the stark struggle for survival let up a bit; and long before Paul Revere took his midnight ride - fishing had become the most widely popular of American outdoor pastimes.
It's still the favorite, by the way.
Spectator sports (ball games, racing, and so on) draw huge crowds, but most of the onlookers are repeaters who are counted over and again in the attendance records. In contrast, add to the nearly 91 million fresh-water license holders the millions who don't need licenses to wet a line – children under 18, women in many states and senior citizen generally - and you have an estimated 100 million participants, who spend around 10 billion dollars a year on their sport. Only hunting can ever approach that record!
But to get back to the early days:
