Casting your rod fruitlessly? Not getting a bite where the majority has congregated—in the placid, more easily accessible locales? Try fishing in troubled waters instead. It’s not without risk however. Doing so questions your motives and your judgment, by “looking for trouble” or “putting yourself into a bad or confused situation.” There are also the consequences. A pretty kettle of fish, they say describing a state of confusion or disorderliness ensuing from an ill-thought out venture. It needn’t be that way. A pretty “kettle” or a kiddle once referred to “a net placed in a river to catch fish.” Long before becoming a sardonic remark, a pretty kettle of fish simply described freshly caught salmon served at a riverside picnic (early 1700s). It also offers sufficient incentive to occasionally fish in troubled waters. The phrase entered the language around 1568 from the belief that fish bite more readily in rough waters. As in life itself, though things are turbulent on the surface, by going more deeply into the situation you might well end up with a substantial catch. You might even go home with a kettle of fish—one that is really pretty.