My favorite hobby from the early 1990s through the late aughts was fishing. Through my college years, I used to go out on the powerboat with my family and fish for smallmouth bass (and the occasional walleye) on Lake Ontario. When I moved to New Jersey, I would go out with my friend Dave and later had my own rowboat on the Muscoot Reservoir. When I moved back to New York, after Austin was born, I had plans to continue to fish, and there is an inflatable boat in my crawl space, still in the box. I was going to get a small electric motor for it and fish the local ponds and waterways … it never happened.
. . . .
For each of the last 6 years, the children have participated in the fishing derby at the open house at taekwondo. No – fishing and taekwondo have little in common (aside from the level of patience to be successful in either), but this what happens every year. There is an open class for the community at 1000, then a fishing derby at the pond on the grounds of the facility at 1130, followed by a bicycle race at 1330. There are prizes available throughout, and both Austin and Victoria look forward to the event every spring.
On Friday, Victoria approached Keith with a thought:
Daddy?
Yes, sweetie …
I think it is cruel that we kill worms just so that we can have fun catching fish.
Why?
Because. They aren’t doing anything wrong, and they probably want to live as much as we do, but we cut them and stick them with our hooks and that can’t be nice.
I can’t argue with that logic. So what could we do instead of being cruel to worms?
We could use plastic lures like you have in your tackle box.
I suppose we could, but - unfortunately – you don’t how to cast yet and the shore will be too crowded for us to cast a lot, like we would need to do with lures.
Oh. Okay.
Hey – can I ask you a question?
Uh huh.
If it is cruel to kill worms to just have fun fishing, is it also cruel to hurt fish when we stick them with our hooks, or kill them when they (accidentally) swallow our hooks … again, just so that we can have fun fishing?
I guess so.
Does that thought impact your plans about participating in the fishing derby tomorrow?
No. I still want to win a trophy.
