The joys of fishing 🎣

The joys of fishing

Nobody on here talks about fishing, so I'm going to.

There's nothing like getting to the water before sunrise. Fog sitting on the lake, coffee in a thermos, and nobody around but a heron that looks annoyed you showed up. You cast out and everything gets quiet in a way it never does anywhere else.

Things I love about it:

• The waiting. You'd think it would be boring. It isn't. It's the one time you're allowed to do nothing and call it a hobby.
• The tug. You've been zoning out for forty minutes, and then the line twitches and suddenly your heart is racing over a fish the size of a TV remote.
• The stories. Every fish that got away was at least two feet long. Those are the rules.
• It's cheap. A rod, some worms, a license, and you're set. You don't need a $40k bass boat (but I won't stop you).
• Catch and release. Letting a fish go and watching it swim off is weirdly satisfying.

Even the bad days are good. Skunked, sunburned, line tangled in a tree, and you still drive home feeling better than when you left.

So who here fishes? Lake, river, pier, ice? What's your biggest catch, or your best "one that got away" story? Bonus points for pictures 🎣