John Bailey: The 10 reasons why we fish

I’ve even been asked to chair a seminar on the subject at one of the upcoming country shows so it remains a live issue, perhaps even more so than in the 50s and 60s when there was a rod in every garage and it was reckoned that one in every three males had fished at some time or another. So, with great trepidation, this is what I think.

1 Why do we do anything that isn’t connected intrinsically with survival? What could be more nonsensical, on one level, than golf or football? Simply pick up the ball and drop it in the hole or net if it means that much to you. Gardening? Simply enjoy the fields and woods instead of prettying up your rug-sized patch of land with fading flowers you can’t even eat. Fishing is no whit more absurd than much of what we do... and considerably less so than most of it.

2 Go back to the 40s even and necessity was a part of it. Our distant forefathers fished for food, pure and simple and so did our grandparents during and after the last war. I’ve fished a lot in the poorer parts of the world where this is still a consideration and I’ll tell you this - if there is a hungry family at home, my word, that doesn’t half make you a committed angler who doesn’t pack up if you feel a bit cold or wet. The best anglers I have ever witnessed were Eastern Europeans 25 years back who fished in large part to live.

3 Relaxation is an answer many give. You know the old saying - a bad day by the river is better than a good day in the office. There’s no doubt that a day with phones, emails and stress is good therapy and that’s why so many cancer charities focus on fishing as not a miracle cure, perhaps, but certainly a big help in combating this hateful disease.

4 Appreciating nature is a reason often cited and you can see why as we live ever more urban lives. I travel the length and breadth of the UK for my Mortimer and Whitehouse fishing gig and I am horrified how little real countryside we have left. And as we all know, much farmland is as wildlife bereft as a city car park. If we anglers can find a pocket of Britain where the lark sings, the kingfisher flashes and the barn owl floats at dusk, there’s not much wrong with that.

The glory of a barbel (Image: John Bailey)

5 For many of us, fishing stems from an obsession with fish. If you are a birder, then binoculars will let you into their feathered world to at least some extent. If you have a similar passion for scaled creatures, chances are that you have to catch them to admire them. True, a creature out of its environment isn’t the quite the same thing but it has always been a sound substitute. Even now, I’ll look at a barbel, say, and simply marvel, mouth open with gobsmacked delight and awe.

6 And fishing is a skill like any other sport - never call it a hobby. A delicious cast, a successful battle with a fish, these are physical accomplishments up there with the perfect half volley, the perfect putt, the moment your body finds its perfect rhythm. But the good thing is that you can fish like a wizard even into your 90s or beyond, if you have a smidgen of luck on your side.

7 Fishing can become a complete lifestyle sport. You take holidays where you can pack a rod and catch a fish before the family awakes. If you take a walk it is along a river where you might see a fish worth revisiting. You might spend winter nights tying flies, making floats or simply polishing the reels in your antique tackle collection. And then , of course, pop off to bed and read Compleat Angler before lights out.

8 The brotherhood of the angle is a big one, a term coined by Izaak Walton in Compleat Angler. But it’s true, I’ve been blessed with my fishing mates over the years, people I have come to regard like the siblings I never had. In fact, probably the most meaningful friendships I witness anywhere are forged when there is a fishing rod in the frame. I know fishing friends who have been like bookends 50 years and more.

9 Jeopardy is an element of fishing that has become ever more central during these years that we have made life ever more predictable and safe. I’ll keep commercials out of this, but when we talk wild fish, then the ball is always in their court where they always have the upper fin. Fishing not catching is the modern and trendy saying, but it is a true one. If you always succeeded, where on earth is the achievement in that?  It’s because we don’t know what we’ll catch that we go out again and again to catch it. Or not.

10 I was brought up to believe in God, but I don’t know now. But I do believe in a force of power and magnificence that is beyond my paltry understanding. Fishing has opened my eyes to a world of glory and complexity that always leaves me in awe. Many is the time I do commune with something when I am there, possibly alone, on the point of dusk or at the crack of another sensational, rip roaring dawn. “Thank you for the world so sweet” were the words from one of my childhood prayers and I think that every time I walk to the water.