Are Fishermen Really Liars?
By Ed Zern
...Thirty-odd years ago I was fishing for smallmouth bass
in the Thousand Island section of the St. Lawrence River,
staying at Cape Vincent with "Hike" Newell, a partner in
the company I worked for, and some important clients.
One morning I was baitfishing in a boat with Carl W., who
was advertising manager of a large corporation, and a
guide, and shortly after Carl had caught the first smallmouth
of this life, a two-pounder or thereabouts, I lucked into one
just under five pounds, and boated it. That evening Hike
took me aside and told me that Carl wanted to have his
catch mounted, but that being smallish it had already been
filleted for breakfast; he asked if I'd mind if he had my
bass mounted for Carl. "I don't mind a bit," I said, "but
Carl's sure to know it's not his fish - it's more than twice
as big as the one he caught." "Kiddo, you've got a lot to
learn about fishermen," Hike said, and went to telephone
the local taxidermist.
As a result, for several years after that I would walk into
Carl's office in Chicago two or three times a year, to show
him an advertising program or discuss budgets, and always I
would admire the mounted bass on his wall, and listen while
Carl explained, in excruciating detail, how he had let it toy
with the shiner until the precisely right moment, and what a
fierce battle it had put up after he had set the hook, while
I nodded and assured him it was a splendid fish, which of
course it damn well was.
I wouldn't say that either Carl or the soldier were lairs, really,
but I think that in their readiness, if not actually eagerness, to
exaggerate the size of their catch they exemplied most of the
anglers I know, including me. Most real fishermen are by nature
dreamers, with few occasions on which we can let our imaginations
off the leash, and the line between dreamers and liars is a thin
one, which tends to dissolve in the running waters of a trout
or salmon river, and even in the still water of a bass lake or
bullhead pond.
Personally I make it a rule never to weigh or measure a fish
I've caught, but simply to estimate its dimensions as accurately as
possible, and then, when telling about it, to improve those figures by
roughly a fifth, or twenty percent. I do this mainly because most
people believe all fishermen exaggerate by at least twenty percent,
and so I allow for the discounting my audience is almost certain to
apply, so that the net figure in their minds will be about right. Thus,
if I catch a four-pound brown on a #16 Adams in the Madison River
I tell my friend Dave Dubious, "Dave, I took a five-pound brown on
a #18 Adams just below the Varney Bridge last week." Dave thinks
to himself, "In that fast, heavy water this klutz couldn't handle a
five-pound brown on a #18 fly. It was probably a four-pounder, if
that - and like as not it wasn't an #18 but a #16 or #14 fly." "Say,
that's great!" Dave says, "let me tell you about the twenty-one inch
rainbow I took out of the Big Hole three weeks ago, on a 6X
leader." I instantly mark Dave's rainbow down to eighteen inches,
beef up the leader to 4X, and say, "Wow! Tell me about it!" Thus
we both come away with a fairly accurate understand of who what
what, nobody has been injured, and life goes on.
There is, among hard-core fishermen, a conviction that truth, like
pure water and the fish that live in it, is a precious commodity,
not to be squandered or over-used. I respect that conviction,
and those who hold it. And if the philosophers ask, "What is
truth?" I answer, "I haven't the foggiest notion, gents. But one
think it ain't is those stories your hear at Bud Lilly's
or Phil Wright's or Dan Bailey's or any other tackle shop or
fishing camp."
As for me, I get all the truth I need in the newspaper every
morning, and every chance I get to go fishing or swap stories
with fishermen, and to get the taste of it out of my mouth.
Field & Stream, 1997
Credit: Quoted from The Best of Ed Zern Published
by The Lyons Press. We appreciate use permission.
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