AS SEEN IN THE SPRING 2004 ISSUE

I have a problem…I am an addict!  What is my addiction, the thing I need to function, the fix that returns me to my sanity?  I’ll tell you—fishing.  The one thing in my life that I cannot live without is fishing.  I don’t know how or when I got my first tastes of this seductive sport, and it doesn’t matter.  I was hooked.  It doesn’t make a difference whether I’m out fishing on the ocean, in a stream, or on a lake the solitary high is mine.  Some experts say that most addicts crave this solitary high and don’t care what is happening around them.  They are only content when they are involved with their sickness.  I agree because I am the happiest person in the world when I am fishing.
 

You might ask, “how might someone be addicted to fishing?”  I’ll tell you.  When planning a fishing trip, I can’t help but to dream and fantasize about the fish I’m going to catch.  As the trip nears, I find reasons to go fishing.  I start to suffer from obsessive-compulsive behavior, a psychiatric disorder in which uncontrollable thoughts often lead to ritualistic acts.  This disorder helps feed my addiction.  I’ll start to make excuses for not doing chores or going to work so I can take pre-fishing fishing trips.  These little fishing excursions mess up my daily schedule causing me to neglect everything.  But, I justify the behavior by saying, “I have to practice my bait rigging and trolling techniques, or my hook setting ability.”  Both are untrue.  The fact is I need to satisfy my addiction.  I am an addict and will go to any measure to satisfy my need and justify my behavior.

I’m addicted to the fishing boats and fishing equipment.  The boats with their sleek, sexy lines draw me to them like a bee to honey.  The boats are enticing me to climb aboard, and I’m powerless to resist their calls.  The rods with their reels filled with line, glistening in the sun, always remind me that they are what stand between the fish and me.  Unfortunately, to fish costs serious money, which I don’t always have.  I’m talking close to several hundred dollars for ones day’s expenses, including fuel, bait and tackle.  So, like an addict, I find ways to afford to go out fishing.  Since I’m a licensed captain, I’ll run someone else’s boat, or I’ll work as a mate, working the fishing lines, rigging the baits or cleaning the decks.  These methods to go fishing gauge the true measure of my addiction, and I look at how far I will go to get a particular fix.  It also determines to what extent fishing dominates my life, values, and judges how much control as an addict I have over the need to fish.  We all know how far a narcotic addict will go to get a fix from a drug, I will go through the similar measures, but in my case the drug is fishing, and the issue is how far I will go to get a fishing fix.  It doesn’t matter what I do to go fishing as long as it is legal.  I need to fish.

I’m tantalized by the unknown part of fishing which intrigues me.  Such as when my lines are put into the ocean and I start to fish, I don’t know what I’m going to catch.  I don’t know whether it will be a three-pound fish or a one thousand-pound Marlin that will come crashing out of the deep and attack my trolled baits.

When I do hook into a fish, I get a “high” knowing that there is only a thin line between the fish and me.  I also get stimulated knowing the fish is fighting to survive using every trick it knows, like jumping out of the water or wrapping the line around its body to rid himself of the hook.  There is nothing more spectacular as a billfish tail walking across the ocean’s surface, or a three hundred-pound Mako Shark cartwheeling fifteen feet into the air only to enter the water again nose first.  Then there is the ultimate gladiator of the deep, the Sword Fish who can come up to the surface thrashing only to dive back down deep screaming several hundred yard of line off your reel in the blink of an eye.  While the battle between the fish and I can last from minutes to hours, there I am tasting the glory of the victory over the beast.  By using my knowledge of fishing to predict when to reel in the line or when to back off of the drag and let the finned creature have its way ensures the battle will go my way.  I know that as the minutes tick by the chance of me landing the fish decrease proportionately.  Then, all of a sudden the massive beast is at the boat and this time the victory is mine!

I know this about addicts “we seek easy thrills and excitement and don’t seem to get much satisfaction from ordinary experiences.”  These thrills and unpredictable outcomes hold me captive and help feed my addiction to fishing.

I know some of you are saying that it is cruel to fish, and how could I get a thrill by an animal struggling to survive.  Well, I guess that you people have never felt the strain of a large Tuna stripping line from reel, causing it to smoke.  You have never seen a Mako Shark jump 15 feet out of the water, or a billfish come up into your spread of trolled baits.  Once you have experienced these things, you might become addicted, like I have, to the sport. 

I don’t kill every fish I catch.  I keep only enough fish for the table and release the rest.  By practicing catch and release, I will ensure the future survival of the fishing stock, which provides me with the fix (the high) I need in order to function.

Fishing for me is an addiction, and it can be destructive if I allow it to be.  I do try to control my addiction.  I try to be the master of my addiction, but fishing wins.  I blow off my responsibilities and friends.  My good friends tolerate me standing them up.  My family members aren’t as understanding when it comes to changing plans because the wind died down, or it’s direction changed and I can get out fishing that day, or night.  They are aware of my uncontrollable need to fish.  My friends joke that if I was dead and at my viewing someone said, “The Tuna are in,” I would be the first one out the door.  Am I an addict or what?

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