5 WEIRD WAYS PEOPLE CATCH FISH
Author: The Meat Eater
Published: December 16, 2022
Some of these are actually pretty weird, but worth the read!
“When you really think about it, fishing is a lot like painting. Both are art forms with multiple disciplines and methods. While there are distinct disciplines, mediums can be mixed to create something new, like when fishing with live bait or lures on a fly rod. Both also require dedication and different skills to master. There are your basic paint-by-numbers fishing methods, like fishing for panfish with a worm and a bobber. Then there’s your more advanced still-life and landscape work, such as fishing for bass with lures and trolling for walleye. And then there are masterpieces that take years of devotion to the craft to master: swinging flies for winter steelhead or hunting the flats for permit, the Mona Lisa and Sistine Chapels of the fishing world.
Yet there are certain parts of the art world that don’t quite fit this mold. There are painting methods and styles out there that are quite frankly, bizarre. The funky, strange, abstract art realm where artists do things like hurling entire cans of house paint onto their work and then bellyflopping naked onto the canvas. This doesn’t necessarily line up with the conventional and is not really considered to be art by those who paint “normally.” Yet when you look into it, there are also a lot of fishing methods out there that go beyond the traditional hook and line we’re used to seeing. Fishing methods that most of the rest of the angling world considers just a little bit weird.
Blast Fishing
We’ve all seen the opening scene of Crocodile Dundee II (and if you haven’t you should because it’s a fantastic film), where Dundee casually chucks a stick of dynamite into New York Bay and blasts up a bunch of bluefish. He gets busted by the cops and when questioned he casually shrugs and says, “It’s these New York fish, Sarge. They weren’t taking bait.” While a humorous and seemingly ludicrous scene, this piece of cinematic magic is actually a real fishing technique called blast fishing.
As Crocodile Dundee found out, blast fishing is illegal in the United States but remains a popular fishing method in other parts of the world. Originating in Peru where extensive mining practices gave anglers plenty of access to dynamite and popularized in WWII by grenade and dynamite-wielding soldiers looking to feed their regiments, blast fishing works by tossing a large, weighted explosive into the water so that it explodes beneath the surface. The resulting explosion creates a concussive underwater shockwave which quite literally knocks out any fish within the blast radius, allowing the pyromaniac angler to pick the fish up when they float to the surface.”
The full article can be found here.
Photo Credit: Original Author
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