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Date: August 07, 2004 at 11:42:54
From: ken, [pool-64-223-61-33.prov.east.verizon.net]
Subject: Re: All fishing stories are not the same.


The best thing I have ever read about this subject was in Haig Browns book, “River never sleeps.”
He relates a story about telling a story about catching rats to his grandfather. I am not clear on the details as I am using my memory, which is full of detail holes.
He was small boy at the time living on a farm during the war.
He had started to catch rats around the farm and had gotten carried away with the doing of it. One day he told his grandfather a story about how he caught some rats that made his grandfather pause and explain to him the difference between stories that exaggerated the truth and stories that created a false premise. I
The grandfather told him the difference in way that was gentle and kind but powerful and the result was that Haig Brown never forgot it.
The story was framed to show the young Brown that stories have different structures and that those structures have to be respected.

The grandfather knew the routines of farm rats, how they fed and how they moved and what you had to do to catch them. He knew the ways of rats so to speak. He knew them from a lifetime of living on a farm and having himself been a boy who learned how to catch rats himself.
When his grandson told him abut catching rats in a way that he knew was outside of the boundary’s that rats normally behave his B.S. detector went off and so he told him a few stories of the ways of rats and of other animals and then went on to tell him why it is important to always notice if a story about animals is accurate about their routines.

He told him about geese landing into the wind and how a story that says that the geese landed with the wind would be very important because it would mean that the known routines of geese landing into the wind would have to be re-thought and that all the men who hunted geese would have to factor this new truth about geese into their hunting strategies.

The story would have an effect on many people if they believed it was true. They would hunt differently and set up their blinds differently and because of this information about the routines of geese would begin to invest their time and effort based on the truth of the story about the change in their knowledge of the routines of geese.

He told him this story to make him aware of the true and wider ramifications to others of telling a “Tall,” story that is not based on an awareness of natural law.

Haig Brown went on to expand on what his grandfather told him.
At least I read it and understood it that way.
I do not remember if it was his grandfather or him who was the narrator but the gist of it was simple.

When a man tells a story about fishing and catches ten fish at a certain time using a certain technique and did catch those fish because they were there and available he has given information that is basically sound and if other come to fish because of his sharing the information, he has told a story that is true.
The fish were there and they were there for a reason that is natural and factual.
If he says he caught 11 or 13 when he caught ten it is still a true story about the presence of the fish.

If the fish were small and he says they were large then it becomes a different kind of story that deceives and causes others to invest their time in an effort to catch those big fish that is doomed to failure.

If a man fishes at a certain time and place and catches no fish,
and says he caught one fish - that means that he has said there were fish there at that time and place and because of this others will invest their time and effort based on his saying there were fish there at that time and place.
Perhaps there were no fish at all there and never were at that time of the year.
This lie is not a matter of exaggeration but one of natural law that can cause others to act based on the new information that there are fish at that place at that time.
He has in a sense stolen time from others through his, small (big) lie.

If you say that you caught fish where there are none that you know of through personal experience, you have told a lie that is
of a different order than saying that you caught twenty fish when you only caught 15 or 18.

Brown was not being scrupulous (splitting hairs) about telling the absolute truth in fishing stories but was trying to give insight into the effects of telling stories that are based on fact as opposed to telling stories that are misleading in terms of fish behavior. He knew that fishermen exaggerate and that no power in heaven or on earth is ever going to change that.


I think that Brown had said he caught a rat or two in a place and at the time of day when his grandfather knew that there would not be any rats present there.

The number of rats or the size of the rats did not matter at all as long as the routines of rats was the root of them being there.
If those routines had changed, which was the underlying premise of young Haig’s story, and then it changed the nature of the story into one that was important about the nature of rats.

One rat caught in an unusual place or time of day has more importance as a story than a story of 50 rats caught because of their known routines.
Bragging is catching twenty fish and saying that you caught thirty. Others can act on what you say and perhaps find the fish and catch them. You will be forgiven for the brag.

Lying is saying you caught one fish when you did not catch any.
Others can act but there is no basis in truth for their acting.
If they discover the lie they will not forgive. The lie has stolen their time.


Bragging is what fishermen do; it is a well-known weakness among fishermen.
It is not the same as telling a story that falsely misrepresents the fish’s behavior patterns and accomplishes nothing except the stealing of someone’s time.

In a perfect world no one tells lies.
But, as the old saying goes,
“All stories are true and some of them actually happen.”


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