www.alphadictionary.com

Or at least I think so. What do you all think?

searching for ... statistical gaps is like fishing blindfolded—how can someone know what they don’t know?

Source.

I'm no fisherman, but somehow I gather that if you at the very least know where your line is going, you can fish. A lot of it is a matter of feel, no?

True, a lot is by feel. If you're out in a boat but don't have a depth-finder of fish-finder you could be fishing blind, so to speak, not being able to see where they're schooling below you. You also may not be able to tell if you've hit a snag when reeling in, or where the gulls are feeding on a shoaling school off in the distance. But in general, probably not the best analogy.

A better one would be that it's like navigating in shallow water without a chart, a depth-finder, or channel markers -- one might easily hit a rock or run aground on something you can't see.

That much I do know from experience. Years ago my wife and I were camping with our neighbors in Chincoteage, VA. Ed and I were out fishing in a small rented boat with an outboard. As we were returning the tide was going out and we were in very shallow water. The motor cut out and Ed, a mechanic with biceps like picnic hams, was try to restart the motor. When it finally caught he started in what he thought was the shortest direction but I had him turn left (to port) to get out beyond the marker into the channel (we were in barely enough water for the propeller to work without hitting bottom). I said, "Watch that boat up ahead. He's going to turn into the channel." Just as I said that the other boat came off plane to a dead stop and started throwing up mud at the stern. There is a hellacious mud flat there at low tide, and the guy who rented us the boat drew its approximate location on the chart he gave us, which had the approximate location of the markers but no depth contour lines. Plus, I had learned to read channel markers in a Power Squadron course I had taken, so I knew where the channel was. We made it safely to the channel and home to port and our campground. It was a cold, rainy Memorial Day weekend with not much luck fishing. We settled for barbecued ribs on the grill.