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Fishing Enjoyment (really?)
mockeymind
Veteran
HI everyone, We are on our way to a camping trip tomorrow and normally we include fishing. Not that we take to fish to eat- but to just catch it and release it (because we rather eat veggies and fruits - not a vegan though) I suddenly thought that it isn't right because fishing for leisure cause harm to the fish. And once caught even you put back into the water, it is impossible not to cause harm to the fish mouth. My question is - is leisure fishing bad for a practicing buddhist? I already received a lot of laughs. But I can't just help myself thinking of the 1st precept and the idea of non-harming. Thanks.
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Comments
It is Buddhist practice to notice how you respond. I can't justify torturing and terrifying a fish, no matter how good they taste fried. I grew up fishing, so it's a huge change. I don't refrain from it like I refrain from speeding in my car, it's not like following a rule about Buddhist practice. I think this is a result of Buddhist practice that makes sense out of the first precept. It's more than a 'rule', it's a conviction.
In my opinion, it's a pointless exercise which puts an unnecessary stress onto another living creature. I don't know how 'sentient' fish are... I do know that all this nonsense about goldfish having a 3-second attention span is inaccurate and quite contrary to the truth.
Fish have evolved over millions of years and they are the only creature we still hunt in large and in some cases, extreme and exaggerated numbers, as it relies on its own instinctive and natural skills to evade capture...
If you can leave them be, and not hunt them purely and simply for your own sport, I'd personally recommend that as a better option than bringing a creature out of it's normal element, ripping a hook from its mouth, leaving a wound that has the potential to become infected, thereby limiting its ability to feed and heal, but ultimately, I guess it's your decision.
I can't bear the idea of having "fun" over harming of beings- not just right. I may just bring a board games.
Or a pair of good-quality binoculars.... or a large glass jar.... fill the jar with the water, haul some weed out of the water, put it in the jar and see the different creatures which inhabit the watery habitat. Try to identify them using a good nature book...
(I recommend the good binoculars, by the way... I have a pair, and one of my favourite things to do is moon-gazing. Just incredible to see all the craters and 'seas'.....)
Fishing with a camera is a far harder sport. Are you only causing animals distress without the courtesy of eating them?
Here is a rainbow trout I recently 'caught' on camera without eating.
I would say most definitely a bad practice. I prefer snorkeling! You get to see the fish close up without causing them any harm.
I have never understood how hurting and killing animals of any kind could be relaxing. It's horrible.
Yeah, binoculars are a great way of exploring the natural world. As for fishing, I reckon a fish would find it very stressful to have a huge hook embedded in it's mouth then be yanked out of the water and left gasping. If somebody really needs it as a food source, maybe, but fishing as a "sport" just seems perverse to me.
Every breath I take is a breath another might desperately need... and there is nothing I can do about it except acknowledge it. I may be all wrong, but to me, the precepts are not there either as hard-and-fast prohibitions or as statements of an attainable perfection. but rather as a means of underlining the responsibilities anyone might acknowledge in this life.
Shouldering the responsibility is the point. The notion that anyone might actually "do no harm" is whistling past the graveyard.
I think the general consensus of opinion regarding 'recreational fishing' is uh-huh...
When it gets hot, we sometimes go to some small local rivers for swimming to cool off.
We have found that if we just float downstream with snorkeling gear or swimming goggles, not moving and allowing just the current to move us, the local fish treat us like floating logs and swim amongst us for protection.
It's a bit of a trip.
I used to hunt and fish, back in my younger days. I still would, if it was that or go hungry. Sometime in my life, I just no longer found pleasure in even catch and release because to me the challenge was no longer worth the pain I was causing the fish.
But I still took my grandson fishing even though and admired his catch and congratulated him on his pictures of the deer he got with a bow last year. Just because I don't do it, I don't place moral judgments on other people.
Hurting animals just for sport is not something I can excuse.
What are they seeking protection from? Anything that could bite you?
Interesting tidbit, perhaps: There is a valley of waterfalls, some very small, others larger, in Thailand where the Japanese used to take POWs to have the small fish nibble gangrenous flesh (at least that's the story). When I was wading there, sure enough, the fish, which were quite small and no teeth that I could feel, did sort of nibble on my feet. Weird.
We had a fad, a craze here in the UK, a few years back, for that very thing, @vinlyn ... however, due to much-exaggerated health scares, they're not as much of a popular novelty now... when my family lived in France, we would go swimming in the river that ran right outside our property, in the summer months, and the shoals of baby fish would gather and do the same there.... my daughters used to like to 'rest' the flats of their hands right on the water's surface, and watch all the little ones come up and nibble their hands....
The pleasure generally doesn't come in catching the fish. The pleasure comes in the time outdoors (on shore or in a boat) and time spent with family and friends. It's another way we distract ourselves, assuming we need something to DO in order to enjoy those things. Not true. You can enjoy the same things just by riding in the boat, or sitting on the dock/rock/shore and visiting with your friends. Plus then you notice so much more when you aren't distracted by fishing.
Also remember it is not just the fish you catch that are harmed. It is the bait you use as well (if you use live bait, of course). Having a hook put through your body and drug through the water repeatedly doesn't seem pleasant either.
I fish. Not often, but I do, for food. I'm not a vegetarian (though I have greatly increased the meals I eat that are not meat) and I will tell any person every day of the week that I'd rather be the sole person responsible for bringing my meat to my plate than to lay that responsibility on someone else (usually many someones) via buying farmed fish from the store.
It would be mostly birds out here. Eagles and such.
If you catch something nice, take it, prepare and eat it, and the problem will be gone, or at least greatly reduced.
I just don't get fishing. As well as being cruel it's extremely boring! (isn't it??)
I am still haunted by a couple of things I did in my teens to animals. Where I grew up it is illegal to throw European Carp back in the river as they're a pest and cause lots of issues. After catching one, instead of killing it quickly and humanely, I beat it to death against a tree! It took some time to die.
In 1987 there was a huge mouse plague in Australia. I remember catching mice, dipping them in petrol and lighting them up! They would squeal, run about ten metres then sizzle and die........
What was I thinking?
Yeah I used to be an avid fisherman, always catch and release unless we ate them.
I also used to hunt in South Africa.
You live and you learn my friend, you are not who you were. At all. No sense dwelling on memories.
Some people love fishing, it's just a lifestyle for them. Judging is only going to affect the one judging them
I think that interest in life and death, the curiosity is pretty normal (if not horrific when we look back). As a little kid I used to rescue worms from the road after it rained, but I used to flood ant piles and burn ants with a magnifying glass. I still go fishing, and I quite enjoy it. All the more so if we don't catch any fish, lol. My dad and I actually have an underwater camera we put down just to look at all the cool stuff in the lake, and usually forget to fish much!
For those who like the act of hunting, of seeking something out and finding it, I suggest metal detecting. It largely meets the part of you that is seeking, and in the end you hurt no one, and often find some pretty cool stuff. Or, over time, enough spare change to buy your kid a car in 10 years, LOL.
You reminded me of a call for a sympathetic ear I responded to many years ago. The house was in chaos with children running through the house playing and fighting. The radio was playing so loud that I had difficulty hearing her while she was talking with me and she fiddled with the dial incessantly, trying to find a channel she liked. When she was finally "satisfied" with the channel, she gave it all of ten seconds before she jumped up to turn the television on as well...and start looking for a good channel to watch, while listening to the radio, dodging charging pachyderms kids, while having an in depth conversation about how to deal with the significant drama in her life.
It's easy to all the things she was distracted with and wonder how she could do everything at once. Being there and experiencing the boat ride, while taking in one's ever changing surroundings, and being present with your friends... who's got time for fishing?
You'd be surprised at how many people will put up with a lot of misery in order to catch a fish. Rain and wind, big waves and sea sickness. And they hand over a thousand bucks for the chance. Or, if they own their boat, they might have many tens of thousands invested.
Out here, hunting and fishing are not something to do to while away a few hours. Folks take it pretty seriously.
I know quite a few hunters. They put a great deal of effort into hunting. Mostly for the meat, which I have no problem with.
What I don't get is that most of them want to shoot any wolf they see, even baiting them. I could understand if they were even a nuisance like bears can be, but I've only seen a handful of wolves in my time while I've seen countless deer. It goes beyond harvesting food for the family, to trying to control the environment to make hunting more convenient.
Sport fishing can be wasteful as well, when people catch and release fish until they get the one they want to keep. Catch and release fishing is encouraged by the industry and by government even though its destructive.
We commercial fishermen have been regulated and monitored away from discarding fish. We operate a whole lot cleaner than we used to, though there are still some problems.
If you don't eat meat, maybe you shouldn't fish? Personally, I've spent enough time commercial fishing to not enjoy recreational catch and release fishing much. Catch and keep I'm ok with. I will be taking my 13 year old son out for a quick deer hunt this afternoon as soon as he gets off the school bus. I will say as I get older I am less and less interested in killing animals. My son on the other hand, has an inner caveman that needs to be satisfied...
No, he doesn't.
What on earth makes you think that as you become less inclined to kill an animal, his interest should increase?
Sorry; I find that extremely unskilful - not to say, deplorable.
My son has been asking me to take him out. He is free to make his own decisions. I'd rather he shoot a deer and decide for himself it's not for him. If he enjoys it, that's on him. It's not my choice to make for him. If some one wants to eat meat they should be willing to get their hands bloody. I think my approach is more skillful than you give it credit.
We allow our kids to make the same decisions. They know my beliefs (we are not vegetarian however) but I do not expect them to live my beliefs. I hunted for a long time and I'd rather they go with someone who knows what they are doing and how to teach them properly rather than going alone or with someone less knowledgeable or safe (like friends). I grew up being forced to participate in my parents beliefs and I refuse to do that to my kids no matter how important my beliefs are to me. My oldest deer hunted a couple years, and got nothing. The other 2 are uninterested.
I totally respect those who choose to bring their food to their table on their own. Much more than I respect myself for buying it at the store though that is what life requires right now. I would rather hunt and bear that responsibility myself.
@karasti, thanks for the parental support. Here in backwater Maine. In the good old US of A hunting is a socially acceptable thing to do. Even the most diehard lefties around here do it. @federica, my son wants to hunt, as do most of his peers. Just because my feelings about hunting and killing have changed over the years doesn't mean that I'm going to inflict my beliefs on my children any more than forcing them to go to church like I was as a child. It's my job to expose him in as much of a morally responsibly way as I can. Basically animals go in the freezer, not on the wall...maybe a parenting thread is in order?
You will never convince me that adjusting a child's moral compass by letting them actually kill something else and then (hopefully) learning that it's not a wise choice, is in any way a constructive avenue to follow.
If a child were to tell you they're intent on buying a souped-up modified racer car, and go wheelie-spinning along the avenue with all the other kids, I suspect you wouldn't be so happy to let him go find his own way, if it meant he might kill someone with the car.
Sometimes, teaching kids a moral lesson means giving them advice from our own standpoint.
Kids expect guidance and boundaries.
So he wants to hunt, because his peers do? Well there's logic for you....
And if his peers think it's a good idea to go shooting off in places where it's not so wise to have a gun you still think 'exposing him morally responsibly' is your job?
By all means start a thread.
But do not ever expect me to be convinced that killing creatures simply because we happen to believe it's our (hunting) right to kill and eat them, is acceptable.
When I killed my first buck at 14 I had to pay respect to the animal. "Silent prayers of thanks"
I had to eat some of it's liver (raw)
And then cover my face in it's blood until sunset.
It's a South African tradition to becoming a man (blooded) also teaches respect for animals you kill.
I don't hunt anymore and couldn't do it again.
If my boy wanted to hunt I wouldn't stop him either, I would explain where I started to where I am now.
And explain why I don't hunt but I agree that choice should ultimately be his.
Our permission is not required.
In the hell realms and the government policies many of us live under, tacit approval of man hunting/warfare keeps us and Hollywood safe ... or does it?
Be Kind to the Fish, ignorant, hunted, haunted and demonised ...
I think you may have a basic misunderstanding about rural life.
We do have a right to hunt and fish to feed ourselves. At least here in Canada we do, within specific guidelines of course. Quite acceptable.
Hunting and fishing is the wisest choice in some communities.
Hunting is not a moral issue for anyone who doesn't consider it to be one.
Even deciding not to kill out of compassion, or to protect your karma, doesn't make it a moral issue.
Carried out responsibly hunting and fishing are sustainable and not harmful to the environment.
_I used to enjoy fishing. I ate some of the fish I caught. I don't go fishing anymore. I think its terribly cruel to put a hook through a hook through a fish's mouth.
If you are just doing it for fun, then it's causing unnecessary suffering. If I had no other sources of food , yes I will catch and eat fish.
Our actions has consequences. We should have compassion for fish and other animals.
Especially if you believe in the law of karma.
_> @mockeymind said:
Since this is a buddhist forum, I will just add that Buddha said that the consequences of killing animals is you will suffer poor health and have a short life. Of course, Buddha could be wrong.
I doubt if Buddha said that. Seeing clearly, it's obvious that farmers and fishermen and hunters live long healthy lives like any other. Can't you see that in your experience? Perhaps you don't live in an area where you are exposed to this type of person.
I still don't see any logic in killing another creature in order to be able to profit from its loss of life at our hands, just so that we have the apparent higher right to survive.
I cannot believe anyone here lives so rurally that they cannot avail themselves of perfect alternatives. If you have the internet, you can put a grocery order through, and sustain livelihoods that way.
I certainly DON'T have a 'basic misunderstanding of rural life' (very patronising). My Italian family lives in extremely rural areas in Italy, but they raise their own stock, and grow their own produce.
There is also so much literature in abundance of how to live a rural, vegetarian lifestyle.
Sure, everyone has a choice.
My choice is to not kill, simply because I think I have a right to do so in order to fill my belly.
When I'm stranded on a desert island or in a wilderness of savagery and unchartered territory, I'll be sure to contact you for some pointers though.
I'm not convinced either. What's coming across to me is a relish for hunting and fishing and an unwillingness to give it up a lifestyle, or at least the sense of entitlement to a particular lifestyle. Possibly it's a cultural thing tied to gun ownership.
As far as I know Buddha did teach that killing animals is bad karma ie illness and short life. All 3 Buddhist tradition agree about this. You can of course disagree with Buddha.
so, I dont know where you learn your buddhism from.
Soldiers, samurai, hunters and demons can all practice Dharma ...
There is hope for us fish eaters yet ...
Sure, but unless you're just an armchair Buddhist, practice implies acting in a more skillful way, not just hanging onto old habits because you're attached to them. A samurai who converts to Buddhism but still hacks off the heads of peasants when grumpy is probably missing the point.
Life is certainly precious in Buddhism - there is the first precept and also Right Intention and Right Livelihood as path factors. And there is supposedly a strong focus on compassion in the Mahayana.
Killing animals unnecessarily or hunting them for "pleasure" is clearly unskillful and ignorant. Convoluted rationalisations are more transparent than people realise.
Spinynorman, are you suggesting that killing animals can be a skillful action?
Unless you are talking about killing an animal for food when starving or to save someone 's life, killing is an unskillful action. Even then, it is still unskillful, only difference is, it is sophie's choice. your good intention may lessen the weight of the bad karma, but killing is never skillful in my humble opinion. which i believe is consistent with what buddha taught because we are taught to have compassion for all sentient beings.
Very few people kill animals because they have to. Most people kill animals because they think it is justifiable esp in societies where they can walk into a supermarket to buy what they need.
If you are too poor to afford what is sold in the supermarket, then I can fully understand your decision to kill fish/animals for food.
I agree. But a lot of people like eating meat and don't seem too bothered how it gets on their plate.
Wasn't that the case for the Buddha Sakyamuni himself?
No it wasn't, they had the 3-fold rule.
The bottom line here is that our actions always have consequences.
He didn't bother what he got on his plate, as he was a beggar, and he died after eating pork meat, so he wasn't vegetarian.
I have no idea what you mean by 3-fold rule. Should that be somehow obvious to me?