Outdoors People, Why The Hate?

Have you ever heard the term “Women are catty”? I have. I’ve heard it my entire life. Vocabulary.com says this about the term catty; “If you act catty, you’re malicious or snotty toward other people. The adjective is unfortunately used more often to describe females than males, but anyone who treats people nastily can be called catty.”

There’s a line in that paragraph that I want to say again for the people in the back. “The adjective is unfortunately used more often to describe females than males, but anyone who treats people nastily can be called catty.”

It’s now 2024 and in the last few days of 2023 I wrote about two young men from NELA who straight hammered the big bass on Caney Lake in Jackson Parish. In two days, they caught roughly 85 pounds of bass in 10 fish; 5 each day with the two biggest being 13.6 & 11.8. The caught 48.6 of that 85 on the second day. Pretty impressive I’d say. 

Others apparently think otherwise. I posted a TikTok video talking about the guys and their big day 2 total weight and the hate started to roll in like a tsunami. It’s been up a total of 4.5 days and as of now has 495,000 views, over 21,000 likes, and 406 comments. 

That’s a lot. But the sad part is, of the 406 comments, 2/3 of them are of a negative light. Here’s an example of what’s posted:  

Most Commented: “Live scope is cheating. It ain’t fishing anymore with all that technology.” Ok but where do we draw the line on technology? People in Vietnam catch fish with strings tied around an empty can, so they could say the same thing to you and the $300 rig that’s in your hand. 

Biggest Conspiracy: “Check the fish! Probably shoved full of weights!”  I know this  was one of the top stories in 2023 but come on now, after what the walleye guys went through, I hope people would be a little less apt to do this again. I hope anyway. 

People who apparently can’t think of anything else to say: “I thought that was a girl.”  Colby has long hair and when this is commented, I just laugh. Colby’s hair is apparently a trigger to some people and after this, I hope he never cuts it again. That’s a marketing tool that costs him absolutely nothing. And heck son, I’d grow my hair long too (if I still had some). 

But I knew this would happen. And I knew because the same thing happened when I posted a video of a 14 year old girl from Texas who killed a hammer of a buck 100% fair chase. They crucified that young lady to the point of me turning off the comments. I have teenaged daughters and I know what that does to their self esteem. 

I asked Colby and Gage on the second day if I needed to turn the comments off on their video too but they said no. They wanted people to be able say what they have to say. To me, that’s what men should do. Let the talkers talk and shut them up with your actions on the water. Or just don’t read the comments at all. 

I said all that to say this; When did men start acting catty? Is it pride or simply jealousy? I honestly see it more often in men than women, so we should definitely change the gender application of the word.

Why are we so quick to try to tear someone’s accomplishments down rather than positively acknowledge what they’ve done and move on or just don’t comment at all?

And I’m not just talking about keyboard warriors here. We do it on the phone to other friends, we do it in the truck with our spouses. 

And the worst part is, we’re teaching our children that this is what you do when someone does something great. You rip them apart. 

Welcome to 2024.