Gone Fishing

Its a stressful world. Busy busy busy. Even when I’m working from Home there is still a ton of stress inducing things that need to be unwound from. Sometimes you’ve just gotta take time out.

I went fishing. It’s an old cliche I know. An oldie but a goodie, a time honoured recipe for relaxation, or so they say.

I’m actually not very good at fishing…

In fact if I actually caught a fish it would probably be a minor inconvenience that would get in the way of the Zen of fishing. If a fish were to be wriggling on the end of my hook then that would be more stress.

Then there’s the whole unhooking and killing of the poor thing. Not relaxing. Not to mention the ‘getting snagged’ in the rocks thing.

I got my hook snagged twice in two casts. I stayed calm. I stayed patient. But not relaxed. I went somewhere else instead; a nice sensible jetty where snags are few.

Smelly Squid

On the Jetty I baited my hook with some smelly old squid, cast in my line, and waited…and waited…and waited…and then…nibble nibble nibble… TUG!

Instantly I forgot about everything else and my whole world was just nibbles and tugs. Will the fish bite? Won’t the fish bite? When will it ever bite? That’s when the zen of fishing kicked in, and I finally relaxed.

I didn’t catch a fish that day, but I know that the fish are down there. They are probably nice and fat due to the leisurely meal they had at may expense. “I’m coming back soon to catch you little fish, but don’t actually let me catch you”. That would spoil the whole zen thing.