Why catch tiny fish?

It's a fair question. One people often ask when they see someone pulling up two-inch fish with a three-foot rod. There are a lot of ways to answer so I'll share mine.

Fishing is Fun

Catching fish is fun and tiny fish are still fish. The feeling of baiting a hook, throwing it in the water, and fighting a wild animal is a rush. I've heard psychological reasoning like intermittent reward or that it sets off the caveman brain satisfaction trigger because you now have food. I don't know about all of that, but for my purposes, it doesn't matter why, just that it is.

It's Easy to Do

I don't mean it's easy to catch fish, but it's much easier to prepare for than most types of angling. I have complete microfishing kits that fit comfortably into a pocket-sized box and even without a specialized rig an Altoid tin provides plenty of room. You don't need a bass boat, livescope, six different rods, a mountain of hard baits and an even bigger pile of soft plastics or live bait. I don't like chores and seeing the amount of work people do before and after they fish seems horrible. I fish to relax, not to work through a checklist. I can have my rod out, line on, and bait ready in a minute or two and pack it up just as fast. The easier and more convenient it is, the more you'll do it.

Tiny Fish are Everywhere

The number of monster bass (or trout, or carp, or snakehead) in any given area is tiny and while catching a fat hog of a fish is absolutely a thrill, they need a lot of space, time, food, and luck to get there. With light enough gear, suddenly three inch bluegill feel like whales and three inch bluegill are everywhere. Creeks, rivers, streams, ponds, can all be filled with beautiful fish ready to fight. While tanago style fishing evolved to target a single species in Japan, the method allows so many more to be caught anywhere in the world.

Touching Grass

Getting outside and away from a screen, for me at least, is always a welcome escape. Even when you get skunked and snagged, breathing some fresh air and getting a little sun is healing. Water attracts life and microfishing takes just enough focus to also allow you to absorb the world around you and often more memorable than a catch are the animals I see also enjoying the water. I've found myself fishing next to otters, herons, frogs, turtles, snakes, spiders, and alligators; none of which are regular visitors inside my house.

Simplicity is a Radical Act

This is going to sound obnoxiously pretentious. Bordering on 'fly fisherman Instagram caption' pretentious. Life is complex. It always has been, but the digitalification of our world has added so many layers of abstraction between us and our experiences that we require more flashing lights and rapid edits and attention-grabbing headlines to compensate for the dulling effect caused by an experience that stimulates only sight and sound. That doesn't mean it can't be fun, but sometimes it's refreshing to say fuck it. When you're tanago fishing there are no gears, processors, or glass between you and the experience you seek. The tug you feel isn't a physical sensation rendered into its closest digital approximation and then reassembled by software from its chunked and compressed state into what developers thought would make you most likely to continue interaction. It is just a fish.

Everyone Can Do It

You can make your own fully functional tanago kit out of bamboo, sewing thread, midge hooks, and stale bread. It might not be pretty, but it'll work. Teaching someone to microfish is almost unnecessary. Sure, rigging and finding a good spot might take some knowledge, but you can hand a pole to a toddler and they can intuit what goes where. No elaborate casting techniques, DC brakes, or complicated knots. No lure selection dependent on tarot cards, advanced meteorological charts, and a Stonehenge builder level knowledge of the lunar cycle. You get to define the level of challenge for yourself. Most people do not have access to lakes, rivers, or oceans where they can easily go fish with a few minutes notice, but many do have a small pond or creek nearby. Microfishing is a democratization of recreational angling.