Authors of angling texts have written about the pleasures of fishing with friends for centuries. According to them, fishing, away from the distractions of daily life, facilitates and intimacy between friends. Likewise, being with good friends enriches the fishing experience itself. This led Isaac Walton to proclaim in 1653 that a fishing “companion that is cheerful, and free from swearing and scurrilous discourse, is worth gold.”[1]
I’m fortunate to have a good number of friends with whom I greatly enjoy fishing (though we do not do so “free from swearing,” as Walton would have us do). I hope that my young daughter will grow to be one of my fishing companions. Perhaps she will not be as passionate about the sport as her father is, but I trust that she will enjoy it and the time it will allow her to spend with her father and with the quiet, natural world. She certainly takes after her father in one respect, so far; she enjoys playing with her tackle.
[1] Isaac Walton and Charles Cotton. The Compleat Angler, or, The Contemplative Man’s Recreation (New York: Modern Library, 1998).
The Literary Fly Fisher 
September 1, 2010 at 7:57 PM |
Found your site by chance.Every nice, so much better than the volume of mindless dribble out there
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September 1, 2010 at 9:09 PM |
Thanks, Jeff. I just read through some of your stuff. I think we’re agreed on a lot of things, and now I know where to go for BC info.
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