When the FISH is caught the net is laid aside

Meaning & Analysis

Once a fish has been caught, the net used to capture it is no longer needed and is put away.

Insights

Abandonment After Use

The proverb warns that people or means used to achieve a goal may be discarded once their purpose has been served. It speaks to the tendency to neglect or abandon tools, strategies, or even allies after securing what one desires.

Instrumental Relationships

It highlights the instrumental use of people or things—valued only as long as they are useful, then quickly set aside, often without gratitude or recognition.

Change of Necessity

The saying also reflects the idea that needs and priorities shift: what was once essential (the 'net') loses value once the primary objective (the 'fish') is achieved.

Historical Symbolism

The net as a symbol of means or strategy appears frequently in both biblical and classical literature. In the proverb, the act of laying aside the net reflects a pragmatic, sometimes cynical, approach to relationships and ambition—a motif common in early modern moral and political commentary.

Psychological Truth

The proverb exposes a universal psychological tendency: to overlook or undervalue what is no longer immediately beneficial, mirroring the fleeting nature of attention and gratitude once a goal is attained.

Moral Critique

Underlying the proverb is an implicit moral critique of opportunism and ingratitude, questioning the ethics of discarding means or helpers as soon as they are no longer advantageous.

Rhetorical Devices

Metaphor

The net and fish serve as metaphors for means and ends, using a concrete fishing scenario to convey abstract ideas about utility and abandonment.

Symbolism

The net symbolizes strategy or assistance, while the fish represents the object of desire, making the proverb’s lesson vivid and memorable.

Ellipsis

The proverb’s concise, elliptical structure omits explicit moralizing, relying on implication to deliver its warning and critique.

utilityabandonmentmeans-and-endsingratitudestrategymetaphor

Analyzed with gpt-4.1 on July 12, 2025

Transcription

Quotations

You may perceiue, the fish is caught by their hanging aside their nets.

— 1615, T. ADAMS, Wolf Worrying Lambs, Wks., p. 382

And now they think they have all in there own hands, the Fish is catcht, they may throw away the net.

— 1699, HOLLES, Mem., p. 99

Thus would they draw this poor inconsiderate old man into their snare under pretence of Love and care of his Person: but the Fish once caught, off goes the bait.

— 1656, Trepan, p. 7

Related Proverbs

A194 He would ALL have and nought forgo 92.0%A190 He that ventures too far loses ALL 91.9%G299 Little GOOD soon spent 91.8%F644 He that has a FOX for his mate had need have a net at his girdle 91.7%P570 The PREY entices the thief 91.7%N89 He may well be contented who NEEDS neither borrow nor flatter 91.7%P27 A good PAINTER can draw a devil as well as an angel 91.7%F380 There is not so great a FLOOD but there is as low an ebb 91.7%F231 To thrust away with the little FINGER what one pulls back with the whole hand 91.7%D34 He that will sail without DANGER must never come upon the main sea 91.6%C132 A baited CAT may grow as fierce as a lion 91.6%F497 Let not one FOOL mock another 91.6%F56 Hard FARE makes hungry bellies (stomachs) 91.6%P440 Every PLUMMET is not for every sound 91.5%F337 Go early to the FISH MARKET and late to the butchery 91.5%F711 Make not thy FRIEND too cheap to thee nor thyself too dear to him 91.5%F654 We never find that a FOX dies in the dirt of his own ditch 91.5%A358 An ASS (horse) pricked must needs trot 91.5%F356 It is better to give the FLEECE than the sheep 91.4%H515 Who can HOLD that will away? 91.4%

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