姜太公 - Mr Jiang

Mr Jiang is written by automatism regarding a man from old China, jiang tai gong. He fished with a straight hook and with the hook 3 inches away from the water surface.

The idea behind this is complex.

In a nutshell, it is somewhat like "if the fish wanted to be caught then he shall be caught and I will not, need not, go out of my way to go and catch it." So, to be able to catch fish (some accounts said he caught a lot of fish) he must be some genius or a man with extraordinary calibre. In this way, he caught the attention of some king who hired him to be some strategist.

I recall reading about Jiang tai gong's fishing's and why the fish is caught... I try to transpose some of the learning here to the best of my ability, maybe it's not so accurate... (here's the original passage in chinese.)

1) The fish is no ordinary fish who would want to be caught because they would want to get near the extraordinary person, it's good for the fish to be close to the vitality or energy of extraO persons (implicates karma and such).

2) If he can catch the fish in such an incredible way, he must be an extraordinary person. An extraO person must do something incredible to show that he is extraO. Thus, he would fish with a straight hook.

3) He wants to catch the fish and the fish wants to be caught, so, it is a win-win situation.

The original is better. I tried to summarise. Anyway, hope it's fun for you to know.