"It's the Bobber"

July 25, 2006 By: Marshall Cutchin

Children teach us that the most simple and abundant pleasures of fishing can come from reinventing a basic skill, like jigging. I’m reminded of this all the time when I hear someone’s story of a brand new fly or a secret fishing spot. But with kids, there’s no worry over authorship, no whispering or vows of secrecy. It doesn’t matter if they are relearning something practiced thousands of years ago or sharing something they just figured out that morning.
C.J. Chivers describes a summer tale of perch fishing in southern Finland and the magic of falling under fishing’s spell. “In fishing terms, Mick is teaching himself to jig. Granted, yellow perch are not the most game of game fish, and jigging — a form of tricking fish that can be traced to prehistory — is not exactly Mick’s invention, although he thinks so. But important things are happening here, which can give a life part of its shape.” In The New York Times.