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   Gone Fishing by Joe St Clair
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Gone Fishing

 elementary
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It’s an old cliché that there's nothing better than going fishing to get over a bad day. The note 'gone fishing' pinned to the door says it all. It says you have left your cares and worries behind for a while and are free to enjoy peace and calm at a lake or riverside. If you have never gone fishing, it is hard to understand the attraction. For many, fishing is a rather lonely pastime - especially when it is cold or raining. The reality though is that fishing is the most popular sport in the world. Amazingly, there are more fishermen worldwide than there are players of football, rugby and cricket combined!

For thousands of people all over the world, fishing is a way of life rather than a sport or leisure activity. Recreational fishing or ‘fishing for fun’ varies enormously, depending on the location. In many parts of the world, the joy of fishing is to head out into the wilderness to fish in splendid isolation far from any other people.

Elsewhere, fishing is all about sharing a river or lake with many other users. In this situation, there are many rules and regulations about how to share access to the water safely – and fishing requires a license or permit. This approach stops overfishing and helps protect the water for wildlife, as well as for people. Most fishermen use a rod with a line, weight and hook of some kind. From this comes the English expression: to swallow something ‘hook, line and sinker’, which means you accept something you should be wary of without thought or question or you ‘bought it all’ and were completely fooled. Fishing with a rod, line and weight is called ‘angling’. Angling also describes the way in which people can throw out words or questions in the hope of finding out information that others may try to keep hidden. Fishing, it seems, has much to tell us about life!

Anglers usually catch fish for the fun of it and not as food to eat. Anglers usually put the fish back unharmed into the water. This is called ‘catch and release’ fishing. Most of the fish in this category are not all that good to eat. By contrast, ‘game fishing’ is all about catching tasty fish like trout or salmon that are a real treat to eat!

 

 

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Glossary

Cliché (n)
a phrase that is used so often it is no longer original.

 

Wilderness (n)
an area of land where people do not live or grow crops.
  Last Updated ( Wednesday, 07 April 2010 17:03 )