Letter: Fishy-stories reflect a disturbing trend

A thief posing as fisherman? That’s an insult.

“Police seek South Hill pharmacy robber wearing fisherman’s hat,” blazed the banner this past Thanksgiving-eve.

Not ‘cowboy hat,’ or ‘stocking hat,’ or ‘baseball hat.’

Fisherman’s hat.

And with that – a “fisherman’s hat,” right smack dab there in the headline, being worn by a crook – the reputations of all who’ve painstakingly learned the art – the art – of fly-fishing; who’ve packed their expensive collapsible rod and nobly embarked upon the long and arduous unmarked trail to go deep into the wilds pursuing their fishing fantasies where no man has gone before; and who’ve returned from these oftentimes misadventures to tell the whopper of a story no witness can verify – well, a robber wearing a fisherman’s hat is to have entered upon unchartered waters.

To steal while being clothed in fisherman’s attire is to have besmirched a noble profession.

Fishermen, after all, from hat-to-waders, are most definitely not thieves.

Liars, but not thieves.

To any who have ever had multiple opportunities to expound, and with many – ok, most – accounts expand, upon their ever-changing story of the one that got away – the size of the deep-sea (lake, river, stream, creek, pond) monster increasing with every retelling – to read recent headlines is serious cause for concern.

After all, wasn’t it fishermen and not politicians, though the latter come close; and anglers, not lawyers – runners-up; who William Sherwood Fox himself distinguished with the rhetorical question “are fishermen all liars, or do only liars fish?”

Lies are the exclusive purview of those who fish.

With regards those who cheat and steal, fishermen are a cut – albeit a monofilament – above.

But it doesn’t keep thieves from trying to aspire to be more than they are.

A year ago this past August, another shoplifter, also in Puyallup, fled a store with $150 worth of stolen clothing and headed, of all places, out into the nearby river where he joined “the masses of fishermen.”

Why thieves think posing as fishermen is a deceitfully workable and wonderful disguise – and a reoccurring one at that – in Puyallup is itself a bit of a whopper.

Maybe it’s because a river runs through it.

Asked how officers found the thief, Puyallup police Capt. Scott Engle said, “He was the only one without a fishing pole.”