Public Perception of Fishing

[Captain Obvious]

I get this kinda crap from my two brothers all the time

I've tried every argument in the book, the only thing I can get them to admit is that fish is a sport.

For some reasons they look at people who fish as being back country people who will never be able to operate in the real world, like we are  mountain men who just got out of the woods and don't know how to screw in a light bulb.

Makes me mad sometimes > > >

[senile1]

I don't remember the last time someone put me down for fishing, and I live in one of the most urbanized sections of the countrythe Northeastand work at an Ivy League school.

Stereotyping has been around since humans first formed groups, and it's going to be around forever. It cuts both ways: we do it to the "elitists" and professors about whom we don't know squat, and they do it to anglers and hunters. This is not a good thing. I am as comfortable around professors as I am around outdoorsmen because I've always believed it's important to move in different worlds, to get to know people who are different from you and to try to understand how they got that way. Talk to someone about his (or her) passion, no matter what it is, and you get a lot closer to learning what makes that person tickand you might even learn something about yourself. People who surround themselves with people who are just like them are missing out on a lot.

I agree with this but it doesn't apply to my situation. I'm a network engineer just like these guys and we all have similar knowledge. We do the same work, as stated in the post that started the thread. I just happen to be a fisherman which they find to be odd.

BTW, these are my immediate colleagues in the engineering group.  There are other people at work who have no biases toward anglers.  

[bilgerat]

I could give two hoots what the public thinks of fishing.

In some ways, I'm glad it's not a wildly popular craze. Fishing maintains my sanity. I cherish my time my time on the water away from the modern world. My wife thinks I'm a mountain man anyway LOL, I take it as a compliment.

I don't get people who spend entire weekends watching sports on TV, but I don't look down on them for it.

Just my observation, I may well be wrong, but those younger guys and their attitudes towards fishing and hunting, that's what they've been taught growing up. Maybe not so much in the South, where there seems to be a strong hunting and fishing culture, but definitely here in the urbanized northeast.

[Fishing Rhino]

Never had a single negative remark about fishing.

It could be due in part that I am in coastal New England, which has a rich history of commercial and recreational fishing.  

Fishing and farming are an integral part of the history of Westport, MA.

I also enjoy golf, and have had several folks comment that they look at it as a waste of time.  Appropriately I tell them, different strokes for different folks.

My enjoyment of any pasttime is not dependent in any way upon the approval of others.

[DINK WHISPERER]

I absolutely hate when this happens! I have been made fun of for spending thousands on fishing gear from guys who spend thousands on drugs each year! But i'm the crazy one, go figure. : Heck, i have even seen the shirts with the hill billy fishing and lettering on them as well. My mom tells me, "why do you put so much effort into catching fish if you don't even eat them". Bottom line is, people who don't fish and don't like it will never understand it.

[Mottfia]

Being in Alabama I've always thought that people have had more of an outdoors side to em and yea most guys that I know fishing is more than just luck. But the women honestly have no clue. lol I've been in college now for 4 years and when I'm meeting new people I make a point to bring up something about fishing or camping...

...

...

...and thats the silence I generally get from that ladies  :-/

Its actually hilarious when they give you that look and you know that their next words are gonna be "I like to fish" or "I've been once"

but don't let that little bit throw you off cause you should see them same ladies start batting those eyes when I tell em a few of my stories about our favorite sport.  ;D 8-)

Mottfia

[VABasser]

Being in Alabama I've always thought that people have had more of an outdoors side to em and yea most guys that I know fishing is more than just luck. But the women honestly have no clue. lol I've been in college now for 4 years and when I'm meeting new people I make a point to bring up something about fishing or camping...

...

...

...and thats the silence I generally get from that ladies :-/

Its actually hilarious when they give you that look and you know that their next words are gonna be "I like to fish" or "I've been once"

but don't let that little bit throw you off cause you should see them same ladies start batting those eyes when I tell em a few of my stories about our favorite sport. ;D 8-)

Mottfia

Haha, funny you bring up the ladies.  Reading this thread that's what came to mind, along with many of the things others have mentioned such as the 'sit in a boat or on the shore, watch a bobber float up and down and hope something comes along' stereotype.  They just dont get it.  I'm in my second year at college and I've lost count of the number of chicks that have asked to go fishin with me.  Maybe I talk it up real nice or maybe its the guide (me  ) thats drawing them to it haha.  My philosophy is that anyone who goes out on the water and experiences what we do, sunrises, sunsets, bass destroying topwater, fighting a nice fish, etc is going to appreciate fishing.  Now, they might not get as crazy about it as many of us on the forums, but I think they'll be craving more.    

[princecraft papa]

I think perception is everything,if you tell them stories about drinkingall day & farting around with your buddy, they will think of fishing as a redneck passtime

on the other hand if you talk about how great sunrise looks on a lake, or the look on your childs face whn he/she caught their first fish

paople will think of you as hobbyist with a love for nature.

it is all perseption.....take it from me, a proud Canadian who could'nt know anything about fishing becouse I'm burried in snow all year!lol

[Catt]

Down here in Cajun Country if you don't love Hunting, Fishing, & Football we naturally assume you have a serious mental problem or you're a Yankee or both.

[Paul Roberts]

I think perception is everything,if you tell them stories about drinkingall day & farting around with your buddy, they will think of fishing as a redneck passtime

on the other hand if you talk about how great sunrise looks on a lake, or the look on your childs face whn he/she caught their first fish

paople will think of you as hobbyist with a love for nature.

Good post!

As to women fishing I've found my wife would rather be in the garden or reading a book on shore, and best chatting with a friend (which could be me except..."Sorry honey, there's a sunken hump out there I just found and clouds are due in any time now, and ...". )

It's the serious part, the planning and execution stuff, she really doesn't get, and I thrive on.

"And then throw them back?? :" she'll say.

Oh yes...before we were married...she wanted to go fishing with me anytime. But, I guess I did crazy things too then. Hormones have a way of re-arranging your priorities.

[towmotor]

People's perceptions and relationships with nature really interest me. A chunk of my educational background is in natural resources management, and I've been involved professionally and privately for a lot of my adult life.

I always thought anglers were an important bridge and spent a bunch of years developing and running angling education programs. I've also traveled some and always with an eye and mind for how different cultures relate to nature.

In short, the world is modernizing (and becoming way more expensive to participate in) and values have shifted away from an interest and understanding of natural processes.

It's become a common perception, and prejudice, amongst urbanizing (modernizing) cultures that things perceived as less "modern" are somehow less "sophisticated" and therefore banal. And it's sweeping the world of course. I've seen it in slightly different forms in SE Asia (China in particular), Native American communities (do I follow The Way, or a Waypoint??), in Europeans, and certainly in our own culture.

In our culture, and related European cultures, I see this prejudice as a stupid assumption, and in some cases it's just plain bigotry -especially around consumptive uses like fishing and hunting, where the inexperienced and detached confuse their own emotions with reality. But is reality human culturally based, or nature based? These have separated it appears, a process that began long ago.

It's apparent to me more and more that people need other people more than they need "nature" in their lives. When the social norm has no experience with something, that something will fall beyond understanding.

To me, a nature lover, that's darn scary. Most of my traipsing grounds I enjoyed when I was young are long paved over, and being coursed by mini-vans full of Gameboys. There are kids that can look at a deer for the first time and actually shrug and go back to their toy. What kind of advocacy for nature are we developing, or maintaining?

We are generations late in many cases. Adults have grown up in this and too often this is what their nature study looks like:

I recently went to an in-field seminar for teachers on accessing public land for nature study. The leader had everyone stay on the path (never go off-trail she advised). She gave a beaver ecology lesson that avoided actually visiting the beaver pond on the property (to avoid disturbing the beavers). She told us that there were lots of interesting creatures under a rotted piece of bark she pointed to, but couldn't turn over because, it was akin to ripping the roof off of your own home. We left having never had an actual real experience with nature, with the firm message that it simply wasn't accessible to us.

If I brought a class of kids to that place with those constraints and message, they'd need to be medicated. And those kids simply won't become advocates of something that isn't theirs. They're more likely to become the people you work with, who make jokes about how backward you are.

Now that is a downright awesome post, and one that I think explains plenty about the bias toward fishing and many outdoor/nature activities. I used to get confused looks about mountain biking after I explained that I was riding some of the more technical trails in the NorthEast Corridor. They always assumed mtb'ing was rolling, smooth paths or rails-to-trails systems. Nope, I'd be out in the "woods", maybe see a half-dozen others in a four hour day. Beautiful. But if they have no interest "it's stupid", to paraphrase. Regarding fishing, it was actually some of my co-workers who got me back into it after a long hiatus.  Now I've continued the cycle by getting my son and nephew (and some of his friends) fishing.

[gatorblazer]

Do I face negativity and assumptions when I fish?  Yes, but thats whats happens when you have a camo boat in an urban area.  It doesnt bother me.  Thats what clubs are for, to get you in a group of people who share your passion and are willing to teach/learn from each other.  

[SirSnookalot]

On a lighter note I always get beach walkers or swimmers asking me about fishing.  One morning last year at about 4:30 on Delray Beach 2 young ladies approached me from behind to ask me about what I was catching.  As I turned around to engage them in conversation I noticed NO BIKINIS, hehe, after a short chat they disappeared into the waves for an early morning swim and left me with an ear to ear grin.

[nboucher]

Gives new meaning to catch and release . . .  

[bilgerat]

As I turned around to engage them in conversation I noticed NO BIKINIS, hehe, after a short chat they disappeared into the waves for an early morning swim and left me with an ear to ear grin.

Yeah, it's always a good idea to have an extra rod when your fishin'....