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#LetsTalkFishing
If you want to be happy for an hour, drink alcohol.
If you want to be happy for three days, get married.
If you want to be happy for eight days, kill a pig and eat it.
If you want to be happy forever, learn to fish.
These are words Takeshi Kaiko quoted as an old Chinese proverb.
How one feels about the idea that happiness from marriage lasts only three days is a matter of personal opinion.
As for fishing, it is said to be forever.
Kaiko was famous as an angler and left behind many fishing travelogues.

Works such as "Opa!", "Opa, Opa!!", "My Fishing Encyclopedia", "Further", and "Wider".
He was, if anything, a big-game angler who wandered the world in search of trophy-sized fish.
I recall that the one fish he probably never caught a trophy of in his life was the black bass.
There are testimonies that he was a skilled angler, and others that he was not.

He is also famous for practicing catch and release, but on the other hand, he also said, "Anyone is allowed to take home just one magnificent specimen."
Though he is considered a gourmet, a gourmand, and a macho man, he was surprisingly a phone addict who would call close friends late at night saying things like, "This is the worn-out Kaiko," or "It's poor old Kaiko."

I ended up talking about Takeshi Kaiko rather than fishing.
There is a debate about whether fishing is better suited for patient people.
I recall manga artist Takao Yaguchi having Sanpei in "Fishing Kichi Sanpei" say that impatient people are actually better because they constantly adjust things, thinking about whether their rig is set up properly or if the bait is still on.
Kaiko wrote that "anglers tend to be impatient and have a taste for beauty."

Kaiko wrote that the secret to fishing is "Un, Kan, Kon (Luck, Intuition, Perseverance)," which is a brilliant saying.
In "Fishing Kichi Sanpei," there is a character named Ippei Sanpei, Sanpei's grandfather, who is depicted as a calm person with a philosophy on fishing and life. He left behind many words, one of which was, "A rod is, after all, just an extension of the hand."
Even though he himself was a rod maker who crafted traditional Japanese rods, he still called it "just" an extension.
He says that what is important in fishing is "not the equipment."
Conversely, Kaiko was particular about his gear, collecting ABU Ambassadeur reels and Fenwick rods.
In the end, I didn't talk about fishing, but about anglers.
Finally, fishing is truly wonderful.
You, your rod, the line, the water, the hook, and the fish are connected in a straight line, and that becomes your entire world.
Whether you catch something or not is everything, and at the same time, there is something to be gained even if you don't catch anything.
I believe Takeshi Kaiko wrote somewhere that if you feel like the things around you are falling apart, you should go fishing.
I think that's what it's all about.

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