“Last year I went fishing with Salvador Dali. He was using a dotted line. He caught every other fish.”
Steven Wright, Comedian
Advantages & Disadvantages of Fishing
Fishing can be quite a lot of fun. You can go fishing alone or take your family and friends with you.
Either way, you can have a great time going on a fishing trip.
Although fishing trips have many other additional advantages, there are also some problems related to them.
In this article, the pros and cons of fishing are examined.
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Contents
Advantages of Going Fishing
- Fishing can be relaxing
- Better connection to nature
- You can disconnect from your stressful daily life
- You can catch your meal
- Fishing is in our genes
- You can learn a lot about our environment
- Fun family trip
- Good to educate your children
- Fishing can improve your overall health
- Regulations for fishing in order to protect fish stocks
- You can socialize with other fishermen
- Fishing can help you lose weight
- Fishing can improve your overall fitness level
- Good measure against mental issues
- May strengthen your immune system
- Good for your soul
Fishing can be relaxing
One major advantage of fishing is that it can be quite relaxing. Imagine you go fishing at a nice lake, in the middle of the forest, with a look at the mountains surrounding you.
This imagination alone may even relax you a little bit, now think about really experience this in person.
If you go fishing at a quiet spot in the middle of nature, you will be able to relax much better compared to spending your weekends at home, especially if you live in a crowded and noisy city.
Better connection to nature
By going fishing, you can also get a better connection to nature.
It is sad, but many people have completely lost their connection to nature since they moved to big cities and work in office jobs for long hours.
They often rather prefer to spend their weekends in their garden or going out for drinks instead of making a nice fishing trip and exploring the natural environment around them.
Hence, if you are one of those persons who also lost his or her connection to nature, it is your chance to get this connection back.
You will soon notice that your overall quality of life will improve since you are also likely much more balanced in your emotional state.
You can disconnect from your stressful daily life
In general, in our nowadays society, many people are quite stressed from their daily lives since they work in demanding jobs for long hours and also have many private things that they have to handle somehow.
Therefore, many people suffer from excessive stress levels, which can translate into serious health issues in the long run.
Consequently, it is crucial that we reduce our stress levels as much as possible in order to stay healthy.
One measure to do so is to go fishing.
Through a nice fishing trip, you will be able to unplug from your stressful daily life.
If you want to reduce your stress levels even more, you can also just switch off your smartphone.
By doing so, you will not be able to receive messages or calls anymore, which may give you a great feeling of freedom while you are fishing in the middle of nature.
You can catch your meal
Another benefit of fishing is that you can catch your meal for the evening by yourself.
This may be quite exciting.
We usually buy our food in the grocery store.
However, we often have no idea where those foods actually come from and how they have been harvested and processed.
Yet, if you go fishing, you will catch your fish with your own fishing pole, which may give you a great feeling since you know you get the freshest fish ever.
Therefore, by going fishing and catching your own meal, you can be sure that you will eat quite high-quality fish and do not have to rely on food companies anymore (at least if you are successful in catching fish 😉).
Fishing is in our genes
Fishing is one of those activities which is deeply ingrained in everyone of us in our DNA.
Our ancestors already engaged in fishing many thousands of years ago in order to assure their food supply.
Since our ancestors did so, many of us have this inner feeling of satisfaction when we go fishing or hunting or for other natural activities our ancestors relied on.
This shows us that genes are powerful and our natural instincts lead us back to the roots someday.
Therefore, fishing can also be regarded to be a core activity in the history of mankind and we can be proud to continue this nice tradition.
You can learn a lot about our environment
Fishing also helps us to learn a lot about our environment itself.
Since you are in a natural environment, you will be able to learn not only about the behavior of fishes, but also about the behaviors of all kinds of animals and birds surrounding you.
By observing those fascinating animals, you will get a much better feeling on how nature works and this can not only be beneficial for fishing, but also for all parts of your daily life since you might be able to recognize natural patterns in a much more sophisticated manner.
Fun family trip
Fishing can also be a lot of fun when you have kids.
Many of our children in our nowadays society will no longer have the chance to go fishing or to do other nature activities since their parents will not provide them with this opportunity.
However, it is on you to make this possible for your kids.
Even though your kids might be rather skeptical about fishing first, they often love it once they tried it.
Hence, by going fishing with your kids, you can provide them with a unique natural experience.
Good to educate your children
Going on a fishing trip is not only plenty of fun, it is also quite helpful to educate your kids about our nature and why it is so important to protect it at any cost.
For instance, if you go fishing, make sure that you leave no trace by collecting all your garbage and bringing it back home with you.
By doing so, your kids will notice that they should really care about our environment and they will also be more likely to behave more environmentally-friendly in their daily life back home.
Fishing can improve your overall health
Since you can breathe quite a lot of fresh air and can spend your day in the middle of nature, chances are that your overall health level will also significantly improve over time due to fishing.
Our body and our brain are not two separate systems, they are connected and if you are able to free your mind, the chances for physical health issues also decrease significantly.
Thus, if your health is important for you, you should definitely try fishing since it can be a quite healthy hobby.
Regulations for fishing in order to protect fish stocks
In many regions of our planet, there are also quite strict regulations in place when it comes to fishing.
This may seem rather annoying for you at the first glance since you likely do not want to deal with those regulations.
However, those regulations should actually be regarded to be a good thing since they prevent people to exploit our fish stocks in order to make fishing sustainable.
You can socialize with other fishermen
Even though fishing is a rather quiet activity and you will usually not meet too many other people, you might still meet other fishermen from time to time and may be able to socialize with them.
Over time, you may be able to find really good friends and you may also go fishing together.
Hence, fishing can also give you the opportunity to chat with other fishermen about your attitude towards life and to make new friendships.
Fishing can help you lose weight
Fishing is not only a fun activity, it can also be considered to be a sport.
Since it involves plenty of physical activity, fishing may also be a good hobby if you suffer from obesity and plan to lose weight.
If you really want to go for the maximum physical activity regarding fishing, you should go for fly fishing since it is the most demanding kind of fishing from a physical activity perspective and it can also be quite exhausting.
Therefore, through a fishing trip, you can not only enjoy your day in the middle of nature, you can also lose some weight.
Fishing can improve your overall fitness level
Also from an overall fitness perspective, fishing can be considered to be much better compared just spending your weekends in your garden at home and lying in the sun.
There is a certain kind of physical activity involved in fishing and your body will thank you for that since improvements in the overall fitness levels will also imply that you will have more power in several other tasks in your daily life.
Good measure against mental issues
In nowadays society, many people suffer from serious mental problems.
We all face an enormous information overload in our daily lives and many of us are not able to deal with this excessive information properly.
Therefore, mental problems like depression increase dramatically in numbers and we need appropriate measures to deal with these mental issues.
If you are one of those people who are quite stressed and overwhelmed with your daily life and hence suffer from mental problems, you should definitely consider fishing as a hobby since you will be able to reduce your stress levels and also unplug from the information overload for a certain period of time.
In turn, your chances to overcome your mental issues might increase.
Of course, fishing should only be a supplementary measure. You should still consult a doctor to help you to cure your mental problems.
May strengthen your immune system
By going for a fishing trip, you may also be able to strengthen your immune system.
If you go fishing in the middle of nature, you will be able to breathe fresh air and the physical activity that is related to fishing will further improve the state of your immune system.
In turn, it will be less likely for you to suffer from diseases since your body will be better able to defend against certain bacteria.
Thus, if you want to stay healthy on a consistent basis, fishing may be the right hobby for you.
Good for your soul
Since fishing is deeply ingrained in our genes and connects us with nature, it can also be considered to be pretty good for our soul.
Our spirit and our body are closely connected and if your spirit is in a poor state, chances are that your body will suffer as well.
Therefore, though fishing, you can benefit your soul and your body will also thank you for that in the long run.
Disadvantages of a Fishing Trip
- Overfishing
- Endangered species
- Incorrect fishing methods
- Littering
- Some people claim that fishing is cruel
- Fishes may get injured during the catching process
- Fishing may pose some dangers
- Excessive chumming of fish may lead to eutrophication
- Fishing can be expensive
- Water pollution
Overfishing
From the previous argumentation, we can see that there are many advantages to fishing.
Yet, there are also some issues related to it.
One problem of fishing is that it might lead to overfishing.
This is especially true for regions of our planet where there are rather lax fishing laws and nobody actually controls fishermen and how much they catch.
Thus, even though the number of fishes that are caught by private people is quite low compared to the number of fishes that are caught in commercial fishing, overfishing from private persons may still add up and become a problem in the long run.
Endangered species
Some fishes are also quite low in population and if fishermen do not care about protecting those species, those fish species might become endangered or even extinct.
Thus, if you go fishing, make sure to have proper knowledge about all the fishes that are low in population so that you can protect them.
In case you catch them accidentally, you can also release those fishes back into the water so that they can reproduce and grow in population over time.
Incorrect fishing methods
Some people also use fishing methods that can be quite harmful to fishes.
In some cases, bait and hooks are used that can significantly hurt fishes and those fishing methods might not allow fishers to put fishes back into the lake or the river since they are have already been hurt too much.
Thus, if questionable fishing methods are used, chances are that fishes also decline in population over time.
Littering
Another big downside of fishing is the related littering problem.
Even though the majority of fishermen will take their waste back home with them, a small number of fishermen will just dispose of their trash in the middle of nature.
In turn, natural environments become polluted over time and forests may look like garbage dumps in the long run.
Thus, if you go fishing, make sure not to leave any trace and take all of your trash back home in order to sustain a beautiful natural environment for the next person who goes fishing at your spot.
Some people claim that fishing is cruel
Since fishes will fight for a certain period of time until they get tired and the fisherman can take them out of the water, opponents of fishing also often claim that fishing is cruel and that we should refrain from this hobby.
However, it is not proven yet that fishes even feel pain at all.
In fact, many studies have shown that fishes are actually not able to feel pain at all.
Yet, this is a rather controversial topic and it may be indeed questionable whether fishing in this manner may be ethically acceptable or not.
Fishes may get injured during the catching process
During the catching process, it can also happen that fishes get injured.
For instance, if those fishes are not hooked perfectly, the hook my slip and may hurt other parts of their body instead of just their mouth.
This is especially bad if you have hooked an endangered fish that you want to release back into nature but you are not able to do so since those injuries are too severe.
Fishing may pose some dangers
Even though fishing can be considered to be rather safe, there might also be some dangers related to it.
For instance, if you go fishing from a boat and the boat overturns due to storms and heavy waves, you might be in serious trouble, especially if you are quite far away from the waterside.
Thus, if you go fishing and use a boat, make sure to bring lifejackets with you.
Those jackets may be able to save your life in case of emergency!
Excessive chumming of fish may lead to eutrophication
In order to attract fishes to the fishing spot, many people also try to chum fish and put some fish bait right into the water.
However, this technique can lead to excessive amounts of nutrients in the water, which in turn promotes eutrophication.
In the long run, the lake may be covered with algae and fishing might no longer be possible since fishes may die off due to a lack of oxygen.
Therefore, when you go fishing, try to refrain from chumming since it is quite bad for our water bodies.
Fishing can be expensive
Fishing is also not a cheap hobby.
You need many different fishing poles and you also need to buy several sorts of bait.
This can add up to serious amounts of money in the long run and you have to decide by yourself whether you want to spend those amounts of money on your hobby or not.
Water pollution
Finally, another issue with fishing is that it can contribute to serious water pollution.
For instance, from time to time, your fishing line will get stuck and you might have to cut it and let it go.
However, this also implies that over time, significant amounts of plastic waste will gather in our water bodies, which can take many years or even decades to decompose.
Top 10 Fishing Pros & Cons – Summary List
| Fishing Pros | Fishing Cons |
|---|---|
| Can be relaxing | Fishing can be expensive |
| Fishing as fun leisure activity | Overfishing is a problem |
| Fishing can be educating for your kids | Some fishermen have insufficient knowledge |
| Nice nature experience | Littering |
| You can catch your own meal | Water pollution |
| Back to the roots | Questionable from an ethical perspective |
| May help to treat mental issues | May imply some dangers |
| Good measure against stress | Eutrophication |
| You can lose weight | Respect for nature is sometimes missing |
| Good for your soul | Endangerment of species |
Should You Go Fishing?
From the previous analysis, it becomes clear that fishing has many advantages and can be a great hobby in order to reconnect with nature.
However, there are also some downsides related to fishing.
Thus, if you decide to go for a fishing trip, make sure to leave no trace and to behave as eco-friendly as possible in order to protect our water bodies and our nature from any kind of pollution.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing
https://www.britannica.com/topic/fishing-recreation
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/topics/fishing/?q=&page=1&per_page=25
About the author
My name is Andreas and my mission is to educate people of all ages about our environmental problems and how everyone can make a contribution to mitigate these issues.
As I went to university and got my Master’s degree in Economics, I did plenty of research in the field of Development Economics.
After finishing university, I traveled around the world. From this time on, I wanted to make a contribution to ensure a livable future for the next generations in every part of our beautiful planet.
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