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Fish Porn: Good or Bad?

9K views 53 replies 49 participants last post by  Don Davis 
#1 ·
I was just looking through the gallery like I do every night when I get home from work and suddenly the luster faded. I all of a sudden had the thought that maybe sometimes when you catch a really nice fish it might just be between you and the fish and the river. There is something lost in the translation between drift, hook set, and landing and the snapshot. Kinda like telling a joke in the wrong context: it made sense the first time...

It's a bit like photographing every women you sleep with and posting the pictures on a website for anyone to see. Does that make the experience better or does it just create a false facade around the whole event?

Does anyone else get this feeling sometimes?

Maybe I've just had one too many beers.

What do you think?


-Luke
 
#3 ·
hoooray beer. I like to take pictures to remember fishing trips. When i see a picture, i can usually remember where, when, who with, and what fly was used.
 
#8 ·
iagreeiagreeiagree I just got a whole slew of pictures from a friend and every memory from every trip came right back to me. No better way to reminisce than with a photo album. Also, hooray beer, of course.
 
#4 ·
agree with you.... i personally have less luck when i take any camera other than my cell phone...(which isnt worth taking a photo with)... call it a jinx but if i want to have a good day on the water i dont bring my camera.

Unfortunately even leaving my camera at home hasnt helped on my last 3 trips... only managed a 10 inch whitefish bawling:

But you know what ive caught my biggest smallie, bucketmouth, coho, and king all while leaving the camera at home.... not that size is the only thing that matters

Also feel like when i go hiking if i bring my camera i wont see anything... but when i dont..ill see some rare animal or something.. Isnt that always the case?
 
#5 ·
DU,

I agree that posting pictures of every fish you catch is analogous to posting pictures of every woman you sleep with. Now I make no judgement whatever for catching all those fish or sleeping with all those women, but posting the pictures demonstrates a lack of class. If kiss and tell is in poor taste, why wouldn't fish and tell be also?

Sg
 
#13 ·
also on the topic of photos, killer "guitar hero" hold in your avatar.
Guilty as charged! I'm not making any judgments here guys. I'm as guilty or more so as the next guy. Just a thought that occured to me last night!
 
#7 ·
I was just looking through the gallery like I do every night when I get home from work and suddenly the luster faded. I all of a sudden had the thought that maybe sometimes when you catch a really nice fish it might just be between you and the fish and the river. There is something lost in the translation between drift, hook set, and landing and the snapshot. Kinda like telling a joke in the wrong context: it made sense the first time...

It's a bit like photographing every women you sleep with and posting the pictures on a website for anyone to see. Does that make the experience better or does it just create a false facade around the whole event?

Does anyone else get this feeling sometimes?

Maybe I've just had one too many beers.

What do you think?

-Luke
You're absolutely wrong! No such thing as one too many beers!:beer1:
 
G
#9 ·
Luke, I agree that sometimes fish photos can be a little ridiculous. I personally like to take photos of the steelhead I catch ( if I can do it without compromising the safety of the fish). It is a rare enough occurrence that the old photos help me get through the lean times, plus they're flat out gorgeous. I share my photos occasionally, usually just within my close circle of angling/biology friends, I really dont have a need to impress anyone with the fish I catch. So overall I've got nothing against photos. I do however loath the fishing "hero" shot. Holding a fish pointing towards the camera like a gun or a long arm look at me photo is not only uneccessary, it turns me off and makes me think the person holding the fish 1. has way too much testosterone in their fishing and 2. doesnt not respect the fish. Almost every photo I take of steelhead they're the only subject of the photo, in my opinion the grip and grin taints their naturally spectacular beauty.

Will
 
#10 ·
Up until recently I never took any pictures of fish. About 2 years ago a friend of mine was doing a pohotography project and took a bunch of pictures of fish and fish parts and I was facinated by them. I stll take very few pictures but the photography end of it is very interesting to me, and as for the trips and memories....I was too drunk to remember those, but it wasn't because of too much beer :beer2:
 
#11 ·
Being almost old enough to collect social security I can remember the days we would drag everything we caught home and take pictures on the front lawn.
Different story nowadays, now we try to snap a quick picture and get the fish back on its way. It seems more satisfying to see the pictures in the forum and know they are still out there just waiting to be caught again, or to make more fish.
Of course in my case if I catch a steelhead it is on the day I forgot my camera. I should leave it at home more often.
 
#12 ·
It's a bit like photographing every women you sleep with and posting the pictures on a website for anyone to see.
-Luke
Not even a close compairison:beathead: There hasn't been one fish I've hooked yet that I wouldn't have taken a picture of, as for your compairison to women that one may have been with....well......:eek::rofl::clown::) and after a fewww to many:beer1::beer1:'s well........ :eek:;) yeah..some of ya know what I mean...:rofl::rolleyes:
Anyway I would have a lot more pic's of fish........:thumb:
 
#14 ·
I rarely take on-the-river photos, because I fish alone the majority of the time and have a hard time managing live fish and a camera. When my friends get shots of me with fish in the water-I cherish the images greatly for the memories they provide. I have a horrible visual memory so pictures do a lot for me.

The few fish I keep, I enjoy taking pictures of on the rocks or at home because I relish both in the masculine tradition of being a provider, and being provided by my ancestral gods. Those images are tributes to the sacrifice of the fish and serve as badges of "male-ness". Displaying those badges may seem "crass" by todays neo-intellectual standards, but sadly much of what once made us men seems to have fallen into that category.

Occasionally, I get a feeling of disdain when viewing fish porn. On the surface it may seem that I'm becoming a PETA gimp, but when I look deeper into that unhinged feeling, I realize it's just primal jealousy--I'm sitting at a computer and not out catching fish.
 
#15 ·
Cameras are bad luck, for sure.
Once I was leading the biggest coho I had ever caught, a red-sided hooknose buck, back toward my canoe where I had left my camera. It was only 30 feet away. As I was ducking under an overhanging alder branch, sliding the almost exhausted fish thru the shallows, it pulled a grouse trick on me and exploded once more in a ferocious attempt at escape, causing me to slip and jerk my rod tip up, high sticking and snapping my Lamiglass spinning rod.
I looked down at the monstrous buck, and he glared back at me with his evil eye, all covered with river mud and no longer very photogenic. I reached down and slipped the hook out of his jaw and pointed him back toward the depths, hopefully never to be seen again by human eyes.

The next time I wanted to try for a hero shot, I hadn't even fully subdued the fish, which was not only the largest wild steelhead i had ever hooked, but the only one (I know of) on a fly, err...egg pattern. A memorable fight indeed, but when i shouted for my buddy to "get my camera out of my pack and snap a shot of me releasing this guy!" the wild buck responded by exploding into a fury and straightening out my #6 hook.

Cameras and hero shots are bad juju. very bad.:rofl:
 
#19 ·
I usually take a sample of pictures of some of the fish I catch to prove to the Mrs, one that I did fish and just wasn't just held up in a bar somewhere slugging down micros and two, to document the fish I did catch were close in size to what I did catch....ridicule is never far away sometimes. :)
 
#20 ·
My eye always catches the photo on the upper left corner of each page in this forum as I'm clicking through. Many of them are fish pics. They don't rate a second glance.

By contrast, the images of a beautiful stretch of stream, or a flowing river with canyon walls behind, or dripping alders and cedars framing a portal into the water world, catch my eye and I often click on the image to see the full size photo. Then, I'll often browse up and down through the adjacent pics in the gallery looking for more. Those are the shots that capture my imagination and take me away from the mundane, if only for a moment. Pics of somebody else's fish just don't do it for me.

Dick
 
#22 ·
I'm convinced that the real purpose for the vast majority of fish porn is an ego booster for the guy holding the fish - a proof or validation of his skill and ability as a fisherman in which the size of the fish is of secondary importance.

I wonder how many hero shots of guys with big fish are really subconscious attempts to compensate for a perceived inferiority, like being short or having a small dick . . . ;)

K
 
#33 ·
I wonder how many hero shots of guys with big fish are really subconscious attempts to compensate for a perceived inferiority, like being short or having a small dick . . . ;)

K


Kent and I'm Asian :eek:

Boy do I need a lot of compensating or what!

In all seriousness though, I love taking shots of great fish that I or friends of mine catch on the river. They don't have to be slabs they just need to be special. Either good colors, situation, or something else that made that moment special.
 
#24 ·
It's a bit like photographing every women you sleep with and posting the pictures on a website for anyone to see. Does that make the experience better or does it just create a false facade around the whole event?
Luke, you and the WFF photo gallery have no idea how lucky you are that most cameras are too complicated to operate for most 20ish year olds at 2:00 am after a dozen jack and cokes. :thumb:
 
#25 ·
There's a chance that it could just be the same basic reason that anyone takes any photo -- so that they can look back on it later and remember a happy moment in their life.

People love to read into and deconstruct very simple things. Sometimes they really are just simple.
 
#27 ·
Every time I see the pictures of fish I caught it takes me back to standing in the river with the fly rod in my hand. I can almost watch a movie of the entire thing from strike to release inside of my head.

I think that while every fish is a treasure in its own way, they definitely aren't all specimens worth putting up.
 
#28 ·
I never carry a camera. water + Tyler + camera = wet camera
I find the best fish porn to be the stuff in your head any way.

However, I have no complaints about the great gallery of fish porn on this site (zen piscator!)

If you want to show me a gallery of all the women you sleep with, I wouldn't mind either. Thats between you and them.

Tyler
 
#29 ·
I love all the fish pics in the gallery. Checking out all the pics is one thing I really look forward to on this site. It's fun to share your experiences (good and bad) with people that have the same interests. Sometimes people want to show off a really nice fish because you are proud or really excited. There is absoulutely nothing wrong with that and for those who don't like the hero or fish shots, just ignore them and don't make others feel lame for posting them. Besides, it's fun to see someone's excitement about a really nice catch or some cool scenery or whatever. I like how there is a good balance of hero shots, scenery, odd/funny things, travel photos, etc. Just look at the ones you like, and skip the ones you don't.
 
#34 ·
Again, I'm not trying to make anyone feel lame. The thought just came to me last night and I wondered how all the other people on WFF felt about it.:cool:
 
#30 ·
Personally, I almost always take my camera...and, almost always forget to even try to take a pic of the fish I catch. I do take a few but never at the expense of the fish...what I really like are shots like this:



or this:



this is one I actually did catch...I actually like the shot, for some reason...



another...



one more...



~randy
 
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