www.markholder.org

To go fishing is the chance to wash one’s soul with pure air, with the rush of the brook, or with the shimmer of sun on blue water. It brings meekness and inspiration from the decency of nature, charity toward tackle-makers, patience toward fish, a mockery of profits and egos, a quieting of hate, a rejoicing that you do not have to decide a darned thing until next week. And it is discipline in the equality of men — for all men are equal before fish.  - Herbert Hoover

Fly fishing was a sport invented by mosquitoes  with humans as the bait. - P.J. O’Rourke

After a decades-long absence, I started fishing again a few years ago. Having a young son means teaching valuable skills for later use, and what is more valuable than a method of food gathering, especially when that method is equally fun, exciting, and relaxing, often all at the same time? The Deep South offers a great variety of fish species to angle for, from hand-size pan fish to monster catfish weighing in the hundreds of pounds. The pond I fish from at the local park is home to bluegill, small and large mouth bass, black and white crappie, carp and catfish, making representative of the most common local species in one pond. However, there is another bass species I've caught there, in a place it doesn't really belong. The species is the red eye bass, or rock bass. Not my catch, not my photo. Holding a fish in this manner is likely to break its jaw; don't do it The smallest member of the bass family, the red eye (my preferred name for it; why must Southerners have

You did not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for food, he thought. You killed for pride and because you are a fisherman. You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more?  - Ernest Hemingway, "The Old Man And The Sea"