Nature Series – Fishing

Books that contain all manner of world records like Guinness, Harp, Beamish and Murphy’s all state unequivocally that fishing, in all its mind-numbing forms, is the most boring activity in the history of the universe. It is more boring than waiting for a star to die, writing a doctoral thesis on the diphthongs of sub-Saharan African tribes, or talking to a woman.

The first thing you have to do is go to the local live bait and insurance shop and purchase “night crawlers”. Why are they called that? Presumably they only move at night. Let me inform the laymen out there that these things are simply worms and they can move in daylight. They move slow like a fisherman who has gotten a double dose of heat stroke from the dying star in the sky and the indirect UV rays that are bouncing into his face off the corrugated metal skiff he's floating on, which incidentally has thousands of species of insect living in it at all times, many of which fly and sting unsuspecting sloths (fisherman) while they waste away their lives staring at a curly, nylon string and a colorful ball bouncing in the water for hours. In fishing, watching the bobber is the acme of excitement. Some will say it's catching a fish but lets face it most people don’t catch fish unless you call those little silver babies that float in the water like a flaccid penis in a filled bathtub, fish. 

Now get your pole greased up and you’re ready to dive right in. Oh wait this isn’t an article on porn. Apologies.

So get your engine revved up, grab your rudder and pull in a direction. Oh wait…again not an article on porn. Sorry.

Assuming you were able to get it in the water and get on without capsizing, your skiff is now sailing the high lakes looking for the best spots. Gas and oil release into the water from your rusty engine, which helps kill the fish you aren’t going to catch. Irony. Some use a boat with oars. This requires actual muscle movement and a level of activity that doesn’t really mesh with the cardinal rule of fishing, which is to do absolutely nothing for enormous amounts of time.

You’ve found the perfect spot. Now move your rod around. Oops….sorry.

Occasionally, you will reel in the line. I assume this is done so your heart wont continue to beat so slowly that you go into a Buddhist trance. It could also be to try to trick the fish into thinking the worm is alive, which it very well may be, even though you’ve impaled it on a non-sterilized hook (like a medieval torturer does to a starving peasant that dared to steal a piece of stale bread from the kitchen of the High Sheriff) and probably drowned it by casting it into the water. Needless to say, angling wont work either and you will then have to cast out again which expends a ton of energy for a fisherman due to their decreased heart rate, heat stroke, constant insect attacks and epic boredom.

If it rains you can avoid the heat stroke but you will have to wear yellow, oilskin outfits that look cool on a commercial fisherman but look really stupid on you. Rain is pretty boring but combine rain with fishing and you have a recipe for disaster. Who says you can’t die of boredom?

I’m not going to go on. You should be sufficiently bored even contemplating fishing. This is a stupid activity. Unless you’re starving on a deserted island, living off the land like the uni-bomber, or are trying to avoid talking to a woman, fishing is utterly and certifiably pointless. Don’t do it. Don’t let others do it. Friends don’t let friends fish.

 

Disencouragement.com  

Moby Dick 

Nature Series – The Woods

Apparently, there are people who enjoy walking around aimlessly in the woods. Maybe these people feel disconnected from nature. Maybe they feel the urge to see the king’s deer. They’ve heard about them. They may have even eaten one of them on occasion. But to actually see one or put a bullet in one; that is ecstasy.

Do you feel disconnected from nature? Concrete is also nature. I know it doesn’t really seem like it is but trust me it is. Nature made concrete for feeble, out-of-shape, easily infected, soft and pasty skinned beings like you. Use it! Why walk in mud, risk being infected by poisonous vegetation, animal waste or blood-sucking insects with pincers designed specifically to pierce your weak, not-ready-for-the-forest flesh? I like walking as much as the next biped but walking in the forest is unnecessary, dangerous and ultimately an act of trespass. Let’s face it; the forest is for animals incapable of abstract thought and not for us. Now I am aware that many humans are also incapable of abstract thought but I am generalizing here to make a point. You have no business being in a forest as a human unless you are going to rape it by cutting down its trees to make packaging for products you don’t need, kill its animals to feed your carnivorous blood-thirsty craving for a venison burger or burning it to make way for strip malls and cookie-cutter, box like aluminum sided housing that you can sell for exorbitant prices to unsuspecting capitalists that actually believe that they now “own” a home.

There’s a reason people used to live only 30 years back in the dark ages. It’s because they lived in the forest and died quickly because even then humans could not withstand infected meat, the elements, disease-carrying insects or rabid creatures out for their blood. Even then they needed concrete and mass deforestation techniques. They didn’t have them but you do. Take advantage of the extra 40 or 50 years progress has afforded you.

 If you like disease carrying ticks, mosquitoes, animal feces, twisted ankles, bird noises, bone-chilling dampness, rodents, coyotes, wolves, country bumpkins firing guns indiscriminately, poison ivy, poison mushrooms, dead diseased birds, rotting, smelly animal carcasses or mud the forest is the place for you.

Do you really want this thing on your body?

I suggest you find a nice concrete walk in your local park or preserve making sure the trees and all the critters that inhabit them are a safe distance from your weak constitution.

Disencouragement.com 

Forest Ranger