Fishing is a sport!!! That is a contentious viewpoint I am ready to march to the top of a hill and die defending with all the vigour and tenacity I can muster.
When I first tell people I love fishing, the very first thing they usually say is, “ooohhh, you go fishing” with a belittling tone of resentment. Each time this happens, I cannot help but think, “they have this delusional idea of what fishing is!”.
When you are a keen angler, fisho’s do not simply set their rod in place, pull out a deck chair, and sit down taking in the sights as they sink a cold one. Us avid fisho’s take things a bit more serious and put in a lot more effort to find feeding fish. Be it wading the flats in search of a monster, hiking through dense scrub and rainforest in pursuit of tangling with a giant, exploring rivers by boat or kayak, clambering over and down headlands and rock platforms to gain access to untouched water, casting large poppers and stick baits for ocean dwelling pelagics, or sending it wide in your boat in an attempt to fill the freezer. To me, each style of fishing falls under the umbrella of “sport”.
You can try to prove me wrong all you would like, but for entertainment purposes, I will put my best argument forward to prove fishing is a national sport, not merely a hobby or pastime.
"Fishing is a sport!!! That is a contentious viewpoint I am ready to march to the top of a hill and die defending with all the vigour and tenacity I can muster."
What Is A Sport?
For the sake of putting my best argument forward, it would be beneficial to define the term “sport”. Cricket, tennis, soccer, rugby league, golf, swimming – you get the gist. We all know what falls under the typical banner of what a ‘sport’ is. Usually, sport involves an activity requiring physical exertion or skill to compete on an individual or team basis for ‘entertainment’ purposes.
"Sport involves an activity requiring physical exertion or skill to compete on an individual or team basis for ‘entertainment’ purposes."
Argument Number 1:
This first point is perhaps a low blow and is more comedic than the other arguments I will put forward, but ……
Have you heard of Raygun? The infamous B-Girl who made it all the way to the Olympics where she represented Australia as a break dancer and danced like a kangaroo. Well, if that catastrophe can be called a ‘sport’, then things are really looking up for fishing being recognised as a national sport. Let me tell you, catching fish of a high calibre requires a lot more skill than it does to hop on two feet impersonating our iconic native wildlife.
Argument Number 2:
Fishing might have originated as a means to put food on the table to survive, but it has evolved so much since those archaic times. With catch and release fishing being more the ‘norm’ these days, more fish than ever are caught just for the sport of it. These days, not every angler is merely trying to catch a fish for a feed – they are doing it purely for the challenge, fun, or the competition of it. With more fisho’s enjoying fishing than ever, the fish have undoubtedly become harder to catch due to angling pressure and so they require a bit more skill to fool into eating our lures.
Increasing your fishing skill certainly improves your capture rates. That is why increasing your skill when it comes to fishing is so important. Be it, casting on a dime to put your lure right where it needs to be, having a sound knowledge of knots and rigs to adapt to differing fishing styles, being able to interpret sonar readings on your fish finder, having a knowledge of fish patterns and behaviours, or a knowledge of what prey items certain species are predating upon so you can match the hatch. Learning and evolving as an angler will see your skillset increase and in turn it will see you land more fish. Fishing is a sport which requires you to learn, improve, and evolve as an angler. Learning new techniques or improving your fishing knowledge all improves your overall skill as an angler.
"Increasing your fishing skill certainly improves your capture rates. That is why increasing your skill when it comes to fishing is so important."
Fishing requires skill and anyone that has chased a new species of fish they are unfamiliar with will know that sometimes there can be a huge skill-curve barrier between ‘newbies’ and those fisherman that have the species worked out, which is due to those experienced anglers having put in the hard yards to increase their skill base. Increasing your angling skill is something that will always keep me interested in our sport of fishing because there is always something new to learn or a new species to test your skills against.
Now is the time I want you to touch back on my definition of what a sport is – that’s right, it is an activity requiring skill. So, my point in a nutshell is – FISHING TAKES SKILL! Despite what many think, fishing is not a game of luck or chance. By increasing your skill-level, you undoubtedly increase your catch rate and the quality of your captures. The saying goes, ten percent of the anglers catch ninety percent of the fish for a reason.
Argument Number 3:
A sport usually has some form of ‘score keeping’ involved so a winner can be chosen. Fishing does not have winners or losers, unless you are in the tournament scene (we will get to that later), but what it does have, is a unique system of keeping tabs on your fishing progress. That system is by measuring or weighing your catch and then keeping a ‘personal best’ for each individual species of fish caught. Call this our ‘fishing score card’ if you must, but it is a simple and effective way to keep score against other anglers, or to have something to strive towards improving upon.
For that reason, fishing has already developed its own way to make fishing competitive against other anglers and against yourself. Anyone that has ever gone fishing with their mates will know what it is like to brag about your personal best fish, and to see if your personal best is bigger than your mates’ personal best. Keeping records of your personal best captures is one simple way to turn any day out on the water into a sport against those you are fishing with. For those who fish solo, chasing trophy personal best fish is a great way to track your success in the sport.
So, argument three in simple terms is – fishing has a way of score keeping and so it already has its own ‘competition’ aspect.
"So, argument three in simple terms is – fishing has a way of score keeping and so it already has its own ‘competition’ aspect."
Argument Number 4:
My definition of ‘sport’ required an aspect of competition on an individual or team basis. Well guess what, fishing also has that. There are so many fishing competitions here in Australia. Just to name a few, there is the Australian Bass Tournament (ABT), The Daiwa Bream Series, The Berkley Urunga Estuary Sport Fishing Flathead Tournament, the Pirtek Fishing Challenge, and the Lake Mulwala Cod Classic. All these competitions offer a winning format which is standard in the sporting world – first place, second place, and third place. The winners in these competitions get a prize and so with a prize on offer, there must be a way to measure your skills and success. Measuring your skills and success is done by weighing or measuring a combined bag limit of fish.
With so many fishing competitions run in Australia, I would argue there are many anglers here in Australia that already take fishing seriously as a ‘sport’ even though it is not recognised as a national sport. Fishing has every aspect that makes other sports entertaining to play and watch, and with so many people already running successful competitions, I urge you to ask yourself, “why isn't fishing a sport?”. I personally would one day love to see fishing make its way into the Olympics – after all, it has all the elements to be an entertaining competition.
"I urge you to ask yourself, “why isn't fishing a sport?”".
Argument Number 5:
As I mentioned earlier, a lot of people out there in the non-fishing scene believe most anglers take a relaxed approach to trying to catch fish. That is a viewpoint that could not be further from the truth. Fishing requires a certain fitness level and anyone that fishes enough will tell you that it can be exhausting. Very clearly then, fishing must require some form of physical exertion and fall within the definition of a ‘sport’.
To catch fish and quality fish at that, there is usually a bit of risk and adventure involved. Sometimes even, you will need to be good at other activities which fall into their own ‘sports’ category. For example, anyone that has chased Murray Cod or Australian Bass out of a kayak will have a story about how they should have portaged around a particular set of rapids, but instead, they decided to take on the white water rapid and they lived to regret it. Those same fisho’s will also tell you they learned a lot about white water rafting in the progress and that they took more of a risk than any leisurely white-water rafting sportsman because a typical kayak fisho has anywhere from $500 to $2,000 worth of fishing rods, reels, and gear on them. If you capsize, that is one hell of a financial risk. You can call it high stakes kayaking, but I just call it “the sport of fishing”.
"To catch fish and quality fish at that, there is usually a bit of risk and adventure involved. Sometimes even, you will need to be good at other activities which fall into their own ‘sports’ category."
Fishing also involves serious outdoorsmanship at times. Hiking into remote locations can be risky, especially here in Australia where we are home to 21 of the 25 most venomous snakes in the world. Hiking into remote locations requires a lot of preparation and a level of fitness and physical exertion that not everyone is capable of. Most of the fisho’s I know will push themselves to their absolute physical breaking points all in the pursuit of catching a fish. It is common to kayak downriver 10km or to hike 10-20km in the pursuit of catching a fish. If that isn’t physical exertion and entertainment, I don’t know what is.
Fishing out in the great outdoors has one other major benefit. That benefit being that it is great for your mental health like so many other sports are. Fishing, just like any other sport, requires physical exertion which releases dopamine into the bloodstream which has a positive effect on your mental health. For me, nothing sees a boost to my mental health more than spending a day out in nature enjoying everything fishing has to offer. I am sure I am not the only one who sees an improvement to their mental health after a day’s fishing.
Summing Up:
Fishing has all the required elements to fall under the definition of what we call a ‘sport’ here in Australia. Fishing requires skill, it requires physical exertion, our fishing success can be measured, it is entertaining, and it boosts your mental health. So why then isn’t fishing recognised as a national sport? I do not know the answer to that, but I know for damn sure that I sit on the “fishing is a sport” side of that argument.
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