Sure it’s only a fragment of angling data, but it still imparts a horrifying aspect to how far we’ve sunk over the last hundred years.

A recent examination of trawling records from the late 1800’s suggest that despite all the carbon fiber, nylon, sonar, radar, Twinkies, Playboy, the Internet, and on-ship HBO, the average commercial fisherman works 17 times harder to catch the same volume of fish, as his turn-of-the-century counterpart.

Seventeen, it’s a magic number …

Modern fly fishermen carry seventeen times the gear of them old guys, forcing most of us to give up the sport at 35 due to curvature of the spine. We carry potable water, toilet paper, energy bars, poly leaders, split shot, extra spool, extra lines, cell phone, pager, flotation vest, credit cards, bug spray, nippers, flask, stomach siphon, and reading glasses, and that’s only the first two pockets…

Anglers of yesteryear were lean and vigilant, bringing the water to mouth in cupped palm, carried a single rod and a can of Red Deer Fat to grease things to float, or left alone to sink.

We carry seventeen times more flies, in seventeen new phases of lifecycle. We spend our precious time wondering whether it was dun, spinner, emerger, cripple, or nymph – and them old guys only considered two kinds of bugs, those that were bothering them – and those that weren’t.

They had shiny, drab, and bright, and were correct 33% of the time. We’ve got floating, sinking, beadhead, lead free, barbless, and borrowed, then we have to determine insect stage – all as daylight ebbs.

They had horses that might trot 10 miles an hour, but only had 5 miles to the Pristine. We’ve got agile and sleek testimonials to modern engineering – capable of 200 mph in seven seconds, and while those speeds are useful, it takes four hours of bumper to bumper to get clear of our fellow man, then seven seconds to your next ticket.

They fished with rods that took seventeen times longer to make, constructed by rod companies whose lineage could be traced through 17 generations of loving craftsmen. Their rods were gossamer wands of indescribable beauty, with the temperament of women, and when put away damp or hastily – would warp and buckle in vengeance.

We’ve got rods that crap themselves out of a nozzle accompanied by the musical notes of carbon-based flatulence. They’re cold and plasticine, and cost seventeen times what they’re worth.

For that matter everything today costs seventeen times more, including fishing licenses and divorce.

… but the wardrobe is cheaper. Modern fishermen eschew bathing in lieu of an extra hour of fishing. The tweeds and ascot replaced with an extra application of anti-perspirant and a wet-knap chaser. Just enough homage to the niceties of civilization to get you through the drive thru and toll booth without incident.

The saving grace, the item enabling us to continue hemorrhaging both time and money in pursuit of diminishing returns, is we’ve abolished Debtor’s Prison … whose return appears imminent given the current Congress, delayed only by the inevitable Republican filibuster.

Tags: fishermen work harder, fly fishing, fly fishing cost, fly fishing humor