These are some activities that, because they are so far beyond the normal experience of the common man, they become a thrill just to read and hear about. Big game fishing is one such activity, and many of the world’s greatest authors have proven this time and again by using the sport as the basis for their stories. In some cases, this has produced immortal classics that will stand the test of time.
For instance, Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” is a novel that takes the thrill of fishing and draws an analogy to every man’s search for meaning in life. Grappling with such huge concepts, Melville tells the huge story of a demented sea captain and his single minded obsession with the whale who maimed him years earlier, Moby Dick.
Over the course of the novel, one learns a great deal about whaling and the kind of people who might take part in it. On the other hand, though, the real thrust of the novel is Ahab’s obsession and the depths to which it takes him and the rest of the crew. A nice reminder that life shouldn’t be squandered on a singular obsessive search, no matter the object.
Then, of course there’s Hemingway. A fisherman himself, Hemingway put all that he knew about the sport into his classic story, “The Old Man and the Sea”. Here, an old man has been down on his luck in fishing as of late and hasn’t caught a fish in more than a month. Both his livelihood and his life are at stake unless he can land something big.
Having not caught a fish for more than a month, Hemingway’s Old Man struggles not just for the sake of honor or his reputation as a fisherman, but rather for his life itself. There is a very real sense that the man will eventually die if he doesn’t succeed in his journey. Spanning many perilous days and nights, this story highlights the lengths to which humanity can, and sometimes must, go to find value.
Even the Bible chimes in with its own fishing story, and it too is a pretty good one. When the prophet Jonah hears the call of God, he attempts to shirk his duty by buying passage on a fishing vessel headed far away from his homeland. During the course of the voyage though, things do not go as planned.
Along the way, of course, the ship faces a host of obstacles and troubles, and soon the sailors realize that Jonah’s presence is responsible and they throw him overboard. Then, a fish turns the tables on the fishermen by swallowing Jonah whole, and he is condemned to spend the next great while in the belly of the beast, praying for mercy from the angry God he rebuked.
In the end, of course, just as Jonah is redeemed from the whale, so too does literature help to redeem big game fishing from its reputation as a purely relaxing or brutish sport. Instead, in the hands of capable authors, it becomes a thing of beauty, a grueling contest not just between man and nature, but between man and his own limitations.
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