I love fishing - the patient skill of luring the fish, the gentle relaxation of waiting all day for a fish to bite.

But I'm not in the least bit happy about actually catching the fish. Call me a wuss if you like, but I'm very squeamish about this [N.B. anyone actually calling me a wuss will find their annotation summarily deleted: this idea is about being kinder and gentler]. Even if I throw the fish back, it's had a hook ripped into and out of its mouth, with the strong possibility of infection, and been through the trauma of being landed and manhandled.

So, enter the fishcam. A float, looking like a sunken twig or a piece of seaweed, weighted to the appropriate depth. Hidden in the float is a videocam, relaying pictures back through the fiberoptic fishing line. Trailing from the float is the bait or lure, hookless and fully edible, designed to slip off the line once taken.

Cast regularly from a fishing rod and reel, there is no other difference from regular fishing. You can even use chum. But now, when you're back at the bar bragging about the ones that got away, you have the video to prove it.
-- DrCurry, Jul 30 2005

The evolution of virtual fishing games http://www.virtualp...fishing/fishing.htm
Man, the things you can find on the internet... [half, Aug 02 2005]

Fishcam? http://www.harborfr...af?Itemnumber=91309
$99.99 [half, Aug 04 2005]

wu...
-- po, Jul 30 2005


Or get someone to fish for you, and film them doing it.

Or perhaps have a computer simulation telling you about how many fish you should logically have caught, given the variables.

Or just have a picnic next to a river.
-- dbmag9, Jul 30 2005


I dunno, [DrC] I know some fisherman who swear that a large part of the 'art' of fishing is in the 'catching' and 'landing' of the fish.
You seem to want to sit on a river bank reading/drinking/looking at the river. You could always do that without the sub-aqua rigging.
-- gnomethang, Jul 30 2005


I dunno. I went fishing once and caught a fishy, it was very exciting in a primitive kind of way but I did feel a bit barbaric. I suppose if my next meal depended on it...

to fish or not to fish? aye there's the grub.
-- po, Jul 30 2005


Also known as Feeding Fish, combined with Fish Photography.

I like this the same way I like the idea of hunting with a camera instead of a gun, but it misses being as good an equivalent activity as fishing without the landing part. Not that it has to be, and in fact cannot be, if we don't want to disturb the fish in any way, which is a laudable desire, whatever the reason.

But, now and then, I've got nothing against landing, manhadling, killing, and eating a nice big trout.
-- oxen crossing, Aug 02 2005


There are lots of simulated fishing games about. I believe one even has a reel style UI.
-- half, Aug 02 2005


//I believe one even has a reel style UI.

half, Aug 02 2005 //<
Oooof!. That came as a physical blow to the stomach!. Good work!.
-- gnomethang, Aug 02 2005


Common thought says that fish don't have any physical feeling, so they don't know what is happening to them until the moment of decapitaion. But multiple studies measuring brainwaves show that fish do in fact have feeling. So, when you hook a fish and reel it in, it is in extremely excruciating, unimaginable pain. So, I use only a hook and bait that my desired fish can get onto, and when I pull it in, I remove my hook, then it's head.
-- Gryph, Aug 04 2005


Serial killers tourture small animals when they're young, yet any good man has hooked a fish, better ones have made filets, and they never kill humans. I'm just saying, we're wired to kill fish without freaking out over it.

I love throwing the small ones back. I give new leases on life!
-- daseva, Aug 04 2005


Love fishing but not killing: [+]. Love eating the fish afterwards [-].
-- wagster, Aug 04 2005


You ought to try spearfishing.
-- normzone, Mar 19 2006



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