# Wanted: brilliant idea for a hobby that replaces angling/fishing. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 30, 2014, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-brilliant-idea-for-a-hobby-that-replaces-angling-fishing/687374 "2014-04-30T16:59:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-brilliant-idea-for-a-hobby-that-replaces-angling-fishing/687374/81 "2014-05-03T00:43:57Z")
> [@Maastricht](#): > > I’m afraid most suggestions are way to sporty and active. A guy who likes to look at the water meditatively won’t get the same soothing from doing something like shroom hunting, birding or photography. > > I just realized that a reasonable alternative might be what you people in the US have in your parks. Little tables especially meant for games of chess or checkers or whatever. We don’t have those, but we could introduce them as a way to offer an alternative to angling. > > A guy can go outside in the park, sit at one of those tables, and wait patiently untill some opponent sits in front of him. If no opponent comes, he can still sit and meditate. If an opponent comes, they can chitchat, or play in the same amicable silence two anglers have when theyr’re sitting thirty yards away from one another. not. And he can play a game and find sport in that. > > Anyway, the guy can sit outside in the fresh air in peace and quiet and look at people and flowers and no-one will think he’s a pervert for sitting there with no clear goal. It is even a socially acceptable and charming thing to do. > > Or the guy could just watch other people play a game of chess in the park. Same social function. > > But I still need to find something with the same social function such men can do in nature. Yeah, you don’t understand fishing. It’s not nearly as passive an activity as you seem to think it is. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-brilliant-idea-for-a-hobby-that-replaces-angling-fishing/687374/82 "2014-05-03T00:54:21Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > On the scale of improvements to society, this falls somewhere below eliminating tabloid news, convincing people to use turn signals consistently, and educating the public on the correct way to sharpen kitchen knives. > > Stranger No, those are actually worthwhile pursuits. The OP’s proposal is pointless, ill advised, and founded on ignorance. I especially like the part where she accuses fisherman of having no common sense. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2014, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-brilliant-idea-for-a-hobby-that-replaces-angling-fishing/687374/83 "2014-05-03T01:00:57Z")
NO one has suggested the tv/comic scene of a guy sitting at home, holding a fishing rod, with the line dipped into a bucket of water. ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2014, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-brilliant-idea-for-a-hobby-that-replaces-angling-fishing/687374/84 "2014-05-04T12:09:02Z")
Although this thread has largely been superseded by the hunting / fishing one which has started in “Great Debates” – can’t resist citing something which I just happened upon in the course of re-reading Lois McMaster Bujold’s _Memory_, in her Miles Vorkosigan science-fantasy series. In the setting of the series – a hi-tech society spread over many planets, far in the future – “The need for sticking hooks into wriggling unhappy live things had been technologically relieved by the invention of little protein cubes…guaranteed to attract fish in droves, or shoals, or whatever.” The implication being that the angler puts one of these on the end of his line (no hook); lowers it in; and the fish are so beguiled by the delicious protein cube that they latch onto it and don’t let go, even when they’re pulled out of the water. Any possibility, I wonder, of developing something like this at the present day? (Regrettably, in the book, the guys out fishing don’t manage to get anything with rod and line as above; losing patience, they adapt a highly advanced handgun-equivalent which they have with them, to perform their technology’s equivalent of fish-dynamiting – but then they aren’t regular hobby anglers, and have gone fishing just on a one-off whim.) ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2014, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-brilliant-idea-for-a-hobby-that-replaces-angling-fishing/687374/85 "2014-05-04T22:41:24Z")
It’s not available to many, but I like gold panning. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2014, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-brilliant-idea-for-a-hobby-that-replaces-angling-fishing/687374/86 "2014-05-04T23:14:25Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > It’s not available to many, but I like gold panning. [Diamond hunting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crater_of_Diamonds_State_Park) is pretty cool too, but you need to live in Arkansas, which is a huge tradeoff. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-brilliant-idea-for-a-hobby-that-replaces-angling-fishing/687374.md?page=4)