Needless to say, there is plenty of down-time when fishing. It's not non-stop action of reeling and reeling in fish. It's more like gee whiz I caught a fish.
This lack of steady action today in fishing makes me sit and think very much like an existentialist philosopher in the same vein as Albert Camus (The Stranger), Jean Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness) and Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot).
With so much education and nothing to do when the fish aren't biting, I either listen to my MP3 player, or sit in my beach chair and philosophize. Nature's internal clock, the waves, sets the mood and works rhytmically its ebb and flood, good-bye and hello, to the shoreline.
It's not all sitting and waiting, of course, I do end up chatting mostly with regulars or even with a stranger who stops to chat. As long as nonsense isn't spewed I'm willing to listen to almost anything. Nonetheless fishing on the surf is mostly about waiting. It does test one's patience.
Fishing I closely relate it to, however, Beckett's Nobel-prize winning play "Waiting for Godot." It's the story about two bums, Estragon and Vladimier, who wait for something good to happen. They wait and talk about how Godot will bring something good for them in the near future. Their wait however is in vain since Godot never shows up during the two bums ordeals of surviving life.
Fishing is similar. One waits for good things to happen. For the most part good things don't happen. Once in a while it does, but often it does not. If a fish is caught today most likely it will fall short of the keeper mark and it will be sent back into the waterway. The thrill of catching such a fish is the brief fight the fish puts on. Outside of that, it's a return. Not much fun when one spends the day returning fish, especially flukes (summer flounder) back into the water. Outside of the brief battle, unless it's a huge skate, the fun is quickly over.
Nonetheless, I know no one who goes fishing with the expectation of catching nothing. The whole idea of fishing is to dream about catching a fish, a big fish the better. That's what keeps recreational anglers going back to the surf or boat to fish is the dream of catching fish, maybe one day a huge fish to show off for family and friends.
Yet on the surf it's often only a dream to catch fish one could keep and eat. It's a dream like the ones experienced by the two characters in Beckett's play Waiting for Godot. It's a wishful use of the imagination of sitting there waiting, waiting, and waiting and catching nothing, at least nothing worthwhile to keep and eat.
The possibility of what may happen is what keeps me returning to the surf year after year, decade after decade with the hope of catching a fish worth of my frying pan. It does happen, don't get me wrong. I couple of years ago, I land two keeper size flukes. Last year, none, however, zippo, shut out of a meal causing me to rely on the canned tuna for me to get my protein.
It's the expectation that Beckett's characters have, and the expectation I have when I go fishing. The mind is a work of art, it's easy to convince oneself that one will catch a fish even before one drops a line. Yes, I believe, it's self-deception, a motivation to go fishing to believe one will catch a keeper, just like Beckett's two bums believe Godot will show up and take them out of their miseries. Some would call this form of thinking as self survival. Others as delusional. Just call me delusional because I do believe every time I drop a line in the surf, I will catch a fish to bring home and eat. It's what keeps me going back and back for years and years, and decades and decades the thought my luck will change on the next cast.
