I got invited to go fishing with some coworkers and had to say no. It's kind of a shame since I don't have any friends and it was a chance to do something social, plus the area they wanted to go is chill and out in the woods. But I've never been comfortable with fishing. It's a big part of where I grew up. Lots of people don't even eat the fish. They toss the poor things back in the water.

Maybe I could still go but just hang out on the shore.

  • Dingdangdog [he/him,comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    Used to fish for food as a kid and into teens and I'm pretty numb to it.

    Catch and release, even when done properly, is a bit on the edge for me though. It's not needed and when enough people do it, which there are, it fucks up food chains.

    When I'm catching to eat, which is how I learned to fish, I'd kill them pretty much immediately by destroying their brain. They don't have thick skulls, since gravity isn't an issue, so one good whack in the right spot ends them quickly.

    Might looks brutal though, there's blood for sure and sometimes they'll flop for awhile even without a head.

    All this said, fish are basically a nervous system. Their brains are super basic and aren't exactly capable of pain, fear, and emotional trauma in the way we feel it.

    I get the natural reaction to empathize and anthropomorphize everything as a caring human being, but fish are really fucking dumb and are damned to a cruel fate because the food chain of the ocean is fucking horrifying.

          • Dingdangdog [he/him,comrade/them]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Like I said, I killed them to eat when I was younger. I lived on a boat, that was how we ate.

            You have no idea what you're talking about so don't insult me and tell me how I feel.

              • Dingdangdog [he/him,comrade/them]
                ·
                3 years ago

                Vegans and not respecting non-traditional lifestyles name a more iconic duo.

                I like veganism and the moral philosophy around it and am actively adding the concepts/actions to my life, but holy shit some vegans really piss me off.

            • bengarrisonismyuncle [she/her]
              ·
              edit-2
              3 years ago

              Your feelings do not matter, you are killing animals for fun.

              Do you currently live stranded on a boat?

              You do not love fish, you love killing and eating fish. Very distinct.

          • Dingdangdog [he/him,comrade/them]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Furthermore I spent most of my life as a young adult attempting to get a degree in marine biology in an effort to help life in the ocean.

            That didn't work out because of money, but honestly go fuck yourself when you tell me what I care about.

            • bengarrisonismyuncle [she/her]
              ·
              3 years ago

              Why would it matter how you spent your time learning?

              You kill animals for fun. Clearly your education had no impact on your capacity to do animal abuse.

                • bengarrisonismyuncle [she/her]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  When you can't defend your own behavior, so you start hiding behind indigenous people. (Who actually are justified in hunting to survive.)

                  You don't live on a boat now, you still fish for fun, but when someone points out that killing wild animals is mutually exclusive with loving them, you lose your shit.

                  Consider this convo disengaged. Have a nice day :vegan-liberation-rad:

                  • Dingdangdog [he/him,comrade/them]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    fucking judging me for being poor when I was a kid. holy shit and we're just letting this kind of stuff be on the website huh? OK real cool

                  • Dingdangdog [he/him,comrade/them]
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    3 years ago

                    This fucking whole community is full of you parasites. Pretending like you have any semblance of radical in you yet not even attempting to fucking understand people who aren't as well off.

                    Good fucking luck with your "leftism" you fucking hypocrite.

                  • Dingdangdog [he/him,comrade/them]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    IMPOVERISHED! Do you know what that means???

                    Of course not, you're some shitty fucking kid with no life experience judging people who have lived differently than you. Congrats on the money you got from your family and the ability to choose your diet growing up.

                    I didn't fucking have that you absolute nerd.

                  • Dingdangdog [he/him,comrade/them]
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    3 years ago

                    I don't even fucking fish anymore. what the fuck even is this comment. just so much judgement and assumptions about me. This is some of the most toxic shit I've seen on a forum in general, much less here.

                  • Dingdangdog [he/him,comrade/them]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    oh that's right. you targeted me the other day too. were you just waiting for this or what? you have all these conclusions about me ready here, when I've said and done none of these things.

    • ButtBidet [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      You just need to Google "fish feel pain" to see that the science is against you on this issue.

      Edit: it's cool if you're past this time in your life. Fuck knows I've had enough bullshit in my past that I'm not proud of.

      • Dingdangdog [he/him,comrade/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        It's not. They are able to learn, yes so are a lot of things, but the type of pain and fear that humans have is not really there.

        Either way I'm done with this. I recounted my experience sustenance fishing as a kid and said that fishing for sport was bad. I still got called an animal abuser, so kindly fuck off.

        edit: I'm being a dick here from the other comment chain. This is fine and worth noting, it's also why I don't like catch and release.

        • ButtBidet [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Sorry. See my edit. I was literally typing it when you responded.

          • Dingdangdog [he/him,comrade/them]
            ·
            edit-2
            3 years ago

            It's all good, you made a good point and I bit your head off.

            I'm aware of the studies about fish reacting to negative stimulus and learning about them. It's a bit different, but yeah, it's one of the reasons I'm saying sport fishing is bad

            • ButtBidet [he/him]
              ·
              3 years ago

              It's cool. I think struggle sessions do shit to our brains. We're in pounce mode. And no one wants to be told off.

              • Dingdangdog [he/him,comrade/them]
                ·
                3 years ago

                Yeah I logged off for a bit and just got on to check on it a few minutes ago lol, saw your thing and thought it was a continuation and showed my ass. my bad comrade

  • Lerios [hy/hym]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Maybe I could still go but just hang out on the shore.

    hell yeah, because at the end of the day he wasn't inviting you with the purpose of actually catching fish, he was inviting you to chill. depending on how chud he is, you could maybe just say you're vegetarian but you'd still be happy to come along? thats what i've done, and then i just take my sketchbook and chill on the lakeside. the vibe is the same.

      • bengarrisonismyuncle [she/her]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Reading this I thought you were vegan, the whole idea of fishing is just unnecessary cruelty like dairy farming or egg farming.

        Bait any other animal to bite a hook and then fuck with it for ten minutes, just to release it and you'd be arrested.

  • kristina [she/her]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    i enjoyed fishing as a kid mostly just to eat the fish

    i spear fished a couple times too, that was fun

    though we werent exactly rich so it was more just to supplement our diets cheaply. we had a pretty big garden too. instead of fertilizer (too expensive sometimes) we'd grind up leftovers and bones and throw them out into the dirt. sucks that you cant use human poop for fertilizer smh

    • discontinuuity [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      sucks that you cant use human poop for fertilizer smh

      You can if you pasteurize compost it

      • kristina [she/her]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        imagine wanting to pasteurize your own poop no thanks lmfao

        ill let some government agency figure that shit out (literally)

        • discontinuuity [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          I should've said compost rather than pasteurize, although a compost pile or waste treatment plant can get hot enough to kill most harmful pathogens. Still, processed sewage shouldn't be used for food crops, especially for vegetables or fruits that will be eaten raw.

          https://modernfarmer.com/2014/07/stink-human-poop-fertilizer/

  • coeliacmccarthy [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    I don't think fishing on the whole is extraordinarily cruel. For human cruelty it's extremely ordinary.

    Letting fish slowly asphyxiate to death sucks though, it's true. However there are methods to quickly euthanize caught fish (see: Iki Jime).

    As far as catch-and-release goes, I actually don't think that's very cruel. With a few exceptions (like manta rays) fish brains are incredibly small and shitty and I do not believe that any psychological trauma a fish experiences from being hooked and released is comparable to that of humans or many other tetrapod vertebrates.

  • Ram_The_Manparts [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    Fishing is great fun, and yes, that includes catch and release fishing.

    I'm more and more getting the impression that this site is full of shut-in city kids who've never even seen a tree irl.

    Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that, but jesus fuck. Good luck building a communist movement by telling people that doing anything other than eating beans and shitposting on twitter in your concrete-box apartement is a deadly sin.

      • Ram_The_Manparts [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        I'm so crippled by social anxiety that I can barely make it to the grocery store without having a massive panic attack even on a good day. I can't keep a job for more than a year, I'm a fucking alcoholic, and I'm alienated from my own family. Going fishing on the local lake or the fjord is one of the few things that keeps me alive. But sure, I'm really fucking ableist.

        Way to completely miss the point.

  • RandyLahey [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    ive always felt like actually catching anything is pretty much beside the point for most people who do it, like its a pretext for chilling out in beautiful places by the water with friends and maybe beers and having just enough of an "activity" that nobody feels they need to fill the awkward silences. and i guess the cruelty to animals part is key mostly to make it macho and no homo (been listening to the great citations needed episode about the relationship between dominating animals and fragile masculinity in western culture recently)

    ive never fished (except when i was a kid) because of the cruelty but i definitely see where a large part of the appeal of the activity as a whole comes from, if you could remove the actual fish from the equation

    edit: could you just go along and "forget" to put bait on your hook? they probably wouldnt notice

        • ImSoOCD [they/them]
          ·
          edit-2
          3 years ago

          nag

          Edit: It’s n a g g. Gonna guess that’s to catch variations on the n word with the i censored

    • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      and i guess the cruelty to animals part is key mostly to make it macho and no homo

      I fished a lot as a kid and it has its own weird visceral thrill despite being mostly boring

      Progression of increasingly excited Vince McMahons:

      When you see the bobber move

      When it's definitely a fish biting

      When it's definitely a BIG fish biting

      When you pull on the rod and feel the weight of the fish

  • Owl [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Catch and release is torturing fish for fun.

    If you're gonna eat the fish (and you immediately sever its neck or whatever instead of letting it asphyxiate), I don't really have a problem with it. Better fate than being slowly dissolved in another fish's stomach acids.

    • inshallah2 [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Catch and release is torturing fish for fun.

      Very bad Rachel Maddow joke

      When Rachel Maddow goes fishing - she does catch and release.

      Punchline

      RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA

    • bengarrisonismyuncle [she/her]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Catching and eating the fish is also just for fun, unless you live in a situation where you are sustenance hunting.

      People choosing not to eat food that isn't fish, just so they can go out and kill an animal is cruelty. More so than catch and release, which is also cruelty.

  • BruceWillis [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Just go and drink beer. Fishing is boring as hell and sucks. Just hang out and drink. That’s all it’s an excuse to do for most people.

  • btbt [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    It’s also just astronomically boring

  • Abraxiel
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    Fish don't have a lot of brain, so I don't feel that bad. But I can't eat fish and don't really enjoy causing even that minuscule level of suffering for no reason to throw them back. But I don't give people shit for it.

    Love to sit on a little boat on a lake though. Hundred percent healing activity.