The Fish Is Almost Beside the Point - A Fishing Essay

Yesterday, I went fishing.

It wasn't anything particularly special. I went to the river, brought my usual gear, found a place that looked promising and spent a few hours by the water. I didn't catch much, but strangely enough, I didn't really mind.

I've been thinking about that since I came home because, if catching fish was the only reason I went fishing, there are probably better places I could go. The rivers I usually fish don't have the kind of predators or fish populations that make every cast exciting, and there is no guarantee that something will take the bait. Sometimes you can spend hours moving from one spot to another, changing lures, casting again and again, and the river gives you absolutely nothing in return.

And yet, these are the places I choose to fish.

Maybe that's because, for me, fishing has never really been about catching fish. It is mostly about the waiting, the time spent beside the water and the simple feeling of being somewhere where I don't have anywhere else I need to be.

There is a strange simplicity to fishing that is difficult to find in much of modern life. You cast the line, watch the water, make a small adjustment and cast again, knowing that most of the time nothing is going to happen.

We aren't particularly good at waiting anymore. Almost everything around us has been designed to eliminate it. If we want to speak to someone, we send a message. If we want entertainment, there is always something to watch, and if we want to know something, we can find the answer in a few seconds. Even boredom has become something that can be solved almost immediately by reaching for a phone.

Fishing doesn't work like that.

The river doesn't care that you are getting impatient, that you have already been there for two hours or that you drove forty minutes to get there. You can make the perfect cast and get nothing, while a careless cast in the right place can sometimes produce the only fish of the afternoon.

There is no guarantee and no shortcut, which means that after a while you stop expecting something to happen every minute. You simply settle into the rhythm of casting, watching and waiting.

And I think there is something valuable in that.

One of the things I like most about being by the water is that the river doesn't care about anything that happens outside of it. It doesn't care about your job, your plans for next week, the email you forgot to answer or whether you had a good day or a terrible one. It simply keeps moving.

There is something refreshing about being somewhere that doesn't respond to you. We spend most of our lives surrounded by things that demand a reaction from us. Notifications appear, people ask questions, screens light up and there is always another message waiting to be answered.

The river asks for nothing. And in return you feel at peace with everything around you.

You can sit on the bank for an hour without accomplishing anything, and for once, that isn't a problem. There is no productivity to measure and no result to show at the end of the afternoon. There is only the water moving over the rocks, the trees moving in the wind and the occasional sound of something breaking the surface.

It is difficult to explain how valuable that can feel when you spend most of your time surrounded by noise.

There are obviously many different ways of fishing, and I understand the appeal of the more demanding and technical side of the hobby. Some people travel great distances looking for particular species, while others spend months preparing for a specific season or planning trips around the possibility of catching a truly impressive fish.

There is something satisfying about that approach. Choosing the right equipment, understanding the water, knowing where fish should be and figuring out how to make them bite can become a skill in itself.

But that isn't really what keeps me going back.

I could choose places where catching fish is more likely, or spend my time pursuing species that provide a more exciting fight. Instead, I keep returning to these rivers in central Portugal, close to home, even though I know that the fishing there can be relatively limited.

I do it mostly because I like being there.

I like walking along the river looking for a place to stop, sitting down and watching the water, and having the feeling that I am outdoors without having anywhere else I need to be. The fish is important, obviously, and when one finally takes the bait there is still that small rush that makes all the previous casts worthwhile.

But the fish is almost beside the point.

It gives the waiting a purpose, but it isn't necessarily what makes the waiting worthwhile.

There is a strange pressure today to make everything productive. Even our free time and hobbies can become another project. We exercise to improve ourselves, read to learn something, travel to collect experiences and sometimes even relax while listening to a podcast about how we could become better at relaxing.

There is always something to get from the next hour.

Fishing is one of the few things I do where I don't really need to get anything from it. I'm genuinely happy that I can spend three hours beside the river and come home with nothing: no achievement, no measurable improvement, no photograph worth posting and no particularly interesting story to tell.