BY MIKE STEVENS
Great news guys!
After over a century –if not centuries— fishermen will no longer engage in misleading angler-tomfoolery including but not limited to suggesting their fish was bigger than it actually was or deploying shady tactics in order to make them look bigger in photos.
It’s all coming to an end now.
But how? It’s such a signature trait of anglers so ingrained in human culture that it’s reflected in cartoons, on greeting cards, dumb T-shirts your aunt got you for Christmas, etc. What’s going to put an end to this destructive spreading of harmful misinformation here in the 2020s?
Because here in modern times, we have self-deputized whistle blowers patrolling the Internet (most prominently on Facebook, the Interweb’s septic tank) and calling out these acts of domestic terrorism one “long arm” at a time, and one can only assume that all the violators will be scoured from digital earth sooner than later.
Recently, a freelance fishy writer (if you read publications in the “free” rack at San Diego-area car washes, in grocery stores and in front of 7-Elevens, you’ll find his report between the plastic surgery ads and the cannabis dispensary coupons) flamed an angler for propagating “bulls—t” and being dishonest by doing the ol’ long-arm trick in fish photos while showing how much of a good time he and his friends the water.
This being about the tenth time I noticed this activity, I started jumping in the comments and posting various images of someone weeping whenever I saw it, to which he responded by recounting some time Western Outdoor News wronged him for not printing a story he sent in a decade or two before I even got here.
I know I am not in a position to question these front-line heroes doing the Lord’s work, but if I was, I might ask…
How is your life affected by what someone says about a fish they caught, or how they hold a fish for a photo?
Do you actually think someone is going to stop doing it because some stranger called them out in the bowels of social media?
Are you somehow competing with random anglers on the Internet? Is that why you fish?
If you were in a bar, and a group of anglers were huddled up around a table with some beers, showing each other fishing pictures and telling stories, would you roll up, look for offenders and say “Nice long-arm dude, way to make that trout look as big as your torso!” or “look how fat your fingers are!” and “hold it a little closer to the camera, why don’t you?”
How do you think that group is going to react? Who is the nerd in that situation? And what do you think the likelihood is that you walk out of that place on your own two feet? Funny how that kind of thing is cool on the Internet, but it would be straight-up dorky in the real world.
The protective force field of a keyboard-and-monitor is a hell of a thing!
Some of the oldest cave drawings ever discovered depicted hunting and fishing. How early man fudged the size of their trophy mammoth’s tusks or topwater-caught prehistoric fish remains a mystery, but between then and now, outdoorsmen have flexed their exaggeration biceps in telling the story, showing the photos (long-arm or not) or just holding their hands “he was thisssss biggggg” apart.
The one thing in common between caveman hunters, modern anglers and every outdoorsman in between, is even when they are long-arming fish photos, giving themselves a few more estimated pounds or comparing a trout’s length to a Major League Baseball bat, they are all doing it for the same reason: they are stoked about the time they spent on the water or in the field.
Some of us are able to fish and hunt and have a great time doing it, despite those crimes against humanity. But for those who can’t and are offended and have decided to live a life policing this injustice, I’m personally looking forward to the the Hallmark Channel documentary detailing your heroics.
