Bob

Batz

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August 11, 2008

Fishing: It’s Not What It Used to Be

When did Americans become so darned lazy?

Think about it. We are the same people who carved the greatest nation on the face of this earth out of forests and what-have-you.

We hunted our dinners, built crude houses and worked the land from sunup to sundown. We survived snow, ice, storms, drought and Regis Philbin.

But alas, we are now a nation of people who expect things will be done for them, not by them.

That brings us to this marvelous age when toilets flush themselves, water gushes from sinks with the mere move of a hand and lights come on and go off with the simple opening of a door.

I’ve even heard a rumor there’s a new car on the market that parallel parks itself.

The problem with all this is, as our world has changed, so have the ways we have fun. It used to be all you needed to enjoy the wonderful sport of fishing was a bamboo pole with hook, line and sinker attached and an empty soup can of worms.

But not any more because these days most so-called fishermen wouldn’t be caught dead on a lake without a $45,000 boat, six tackle boxes, rods and reels with five-figure price tags and all sorts of other fancy gadgets designed to tell them exactly where the fish are, thus removing much of the mystery of the grand old sport.

When I take to a lake or stream with fishing pole in hand, it’s common for me to go 11 hours without so much as a nibble.

You’ll notice in the above sentence I wrote “with fishing pole in hand,” which means when I go fishing I take along one pole instead of 20 or 30 like most modern-day anglers do.

Oh, sure, I watch those TV shows about fishing. You know the shows I mean.

I’m talking about those programs where the star of the show is such a talented angler he catches a 63-pound bass while he’s in the restroom of the store where he has gone to expand his already enormous assortment of lures, lines, reels and other fishing gear.

I always thought luck played a major role in whether you caught fish or came home empty-handed. But apparently I was wrong when you consider how technical the once-innocent sport has become.

The other day I was watching one of those fishing shows on the tube and I saw a commercial for a new state-of-the-art (their words, not mine) electronic gizmo that reportedly is designed to find fish fast by showing the angler what fish are in the water under his or her boat.

The trouble is, the price of this particular electronic angling aid is $2,799.

My first house didn’t cost that much.

Contact Bob at bbatz@woh.rr.com.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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