Ice Fishing

To say I’m not much of an angler is an understatement. I get how fishing is kind of like hunting—particularly, say, permit or bonefishing, where you literally stalk the animal, as if with a bow or gun—and I can see how reading trout streams might be a little like reading a contour map, or a forested cirque, a north-facing slope, a gentle ridge with aspen—there, and there, and there, is where they might be, let’s go see—and yet: most of the time, or so I understand, you don’t see the animal. There’s an extra layer of separation, of distancing. (Or, it could be argued, an extra layer of faith.) So I understand there’s opportunity for crossover, but I’m just wired hard for hunting, and not so much at all for fishing.