Fishing vs Hunting: Head to Head Comparison

Any time fishing or hunting season comes around, someone mentions they like one over the other, and the long-lasting debate continues. What’s better, fishing or hunting? Both have their ups and downs, and each is loved by their respected hunters and fishermen. In this article, we make a head to head comparison that brings up the pros and cons of fishing and hunting to help you make your own conclusion.

Fishing Pros and Cons

Pros

• Fish are easier to catch: When comparing fish to animals, it’s no doubt that fish are easier to catch. This, of course, will depend on the circumstances of each situation, but generally, it’s much easier to fish than it is to hunt
• Fishing can be cheaper: Unless you are buying boats, multiple top-of-the-line rods and reels, and bait, fishing is a less expensive activity.
• Anyone can fish: It’s easy for anyone to toss a line in the water with a hook on the end of it. Fishing is so easy that anyone can do it, and that makes it fun for groups of friends and family.
• There is more public water than public land: There’s a lot less public land for hunting than there is public water for fishing. This makes fishing more accessible, as long as you live near a body of water like a pond, creek, river, lake, or ocean.
• Scent control doesn’t matter: You don’t need to worry about how you smell when you fish. The fish can’t smell you, and you don’t have to worry about showering or spraying anything on your clothing.
• Eat your catch immediately: For those who like a good catch and cook, fishing makes it easy to cook and consume your catch right on the water with a portable grill.
• The minimum requirements are easier: At the very minimum, all you need to fish is a cheap fishing pole kit, some bait, and a fishing license that takes a couple of clicks on a website to obtain. A complete beginner could decide they want to fish tomorrow, and they could make it happen.
• Multiple species caught with ease: When fishing, there are commonly numerous species of fish in the same body of water. And luckily, you don’t need extra licenses or any tags to catch more than one species.

Cons

• Hard to target a single fish: If you’re going after a specific species, it can be difficult to catch if another species keeps hitting your line. A lot of the time, you don’t know what you’re going to catch.
• More of a hassle to get to the water: For those who don’t live right on the water, it can be a hassle to get all your equipment to a body of water. Also, if you want to actually be on the water, you’ll have to buy or rent a boat.
• It can be boring if you don’t catch anything: While some may disagree and say that fishing is a good time whether you catch something or not, it can be a bore when you spend a lot of time and money to come home with nothing.
• Source of food is smaller: The fact is, when fishing for food, you’d need to catch quite a few fish to get anywhere close to tagging one deer.
• Releasing fish can be no fun: When fish are too small or not a healthy species, it sucks to have to throw them back in the water.
• More public, more people: Every fisherman has had his or her share of jet skis, speed boats, loud music, and disruptive people. You find more non-fishers in water than you find non-hunters on hunting land.

Hunting Pros and Cons

Pros

• Easy to target one animal: You don’t have to worry about targeting the wrong animal, unlike fishing, where it’s a mystery until you reel in the line.
• Less of a hassle when prepared: Once you have all your necessities, it can be easy to grab your gun and drive to the nearest hunting land.
• Teaches critical skills: When the need comes for a larger army, hunters have the critical skills of holding, using, and shooting a gun.
• Hunting is exciting even with no tags: Instead of sitting in a boat next to your line, hunting can be an adventure whether you catch anything or not.
• One catch is a lot of food: Comparing to those who fish to eat, tagging one deer can bring in a lot more food than catching one or even ten fish.
• No catch and release: There’s no catch and release in hunting. In hunting, you eat what you kill.
• More peaceful, less public: Having jet skis roaring through the water would be the same as a biker gang roaring through the forest. It just doesn’t happen, and it’s very peaceful.

Cons

• Scent control: If you don’t want animals to smell you coming, you’ll have to shower real good and spray scent control all over your clothes.
• Less public land: There’s just not as much public land to go hunting as there is public water to go fishing.
• Minimum requirements are more difficult: At the very minimum, you need to get a gun license, a gun, a hunting license, scent spray, ammunition, and tags. The minimum requirements are more difficult than fishing.
• It is more difficult: While it’s easy to throw a line in the water and get lucky, hunting takes a lot more skill, and there’s no shooting into the forest blindly hoping to get lucky.
• Can be more expensive: Comparing an average hunter to an average fisherman, hunting is usually more expensive. Guns are more expensive than fishing poles, ammunition is more expensive than worms or bait, and gun and hunting licenses or more expensive than fishing licenses.
• Catch and cook isn’t a thing: Even though you get a more substantial meal out of a hunt, it’s not really as catch n’ cook as fishing can be.

Final conclusion: Fishing or hunting?

We can’t base a conclusion on the number of pros and cons, because they aren’t that far off, and there are probably more pros and cons that fishermen and hunters could include in each. Realistically, there are things about fishing that hunters just can’t handle, and things about hunting that fishermen just can’t handle. It’s impossible to make a clear distinction of what’s better.

We enjoy both. What are your thoughts?

If you need more information, we have a detailed guide on fishing as well.