cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Tyranny of Successful Fishing Jenny is hardly around on gmail chat anymore. Which is a sad thing to me. One more piece of the world I recognized, gone. I went fishing on Saturday at my parents' upper pond. Harry was with me when I caught a truly ginormous black crappie. And this really was a gigantic fish for a fresh water pond. It measured out at 15 inches. Literally, we did some research to see if it was a record book fish. And it almost was. To qualify for the state record book, it would have to be 15" or longer and 2 lbs or more in weight. This fish did measure out at 15 inches but it was under 2 lbs. It is the second ginormous crappie that we have gotten out of that pond. Ida got the last one herself. This latest one tasted really good. I fileted it very carefully and got enough meat off of it to make dinner for me and Ida (Harry had already fallen asleep). I rolled it in Japanese panko breading mixed with chili powder, pepper, salt and paprika. The conclusion I have to reach here is that I have found the perfect spot for giant crappie (both fish were caught with casts over the exact same submerged tree). And I think that it is rational to say that if I keep fishing that same spot with the same lures and bait, I could eventually catch a fish that breaks the record. However, this dimension ups the ante of fishing there. Because now I'm feeling like I shouldn't keep and eat any other big crappie that I catch in that spot because I should be throwing them back to get a little bit bigger. However, I am not a believer in deliberate catch and release fishing. This practice basically amounts to torturing animals for fun, which is just sick. My fishing is only ethically justifiable by the fact that I eat what I catch, unless it is too small a fish to be worth cleaning for half a mouthful of meat. So my conclusion is that I have to stop fishing at that spot for a while. Otherwise I'll turn into a 'trophy fisherman,' which is not something that I want to be. I need to find other places on the ponds where I can fish for largemouth bass and catfish, both of which can be big enough to make a good meal ouf of without getting into trophy territory. I was never this good at fishing when I was a kid or a teenager. The missing element was natural sciences. I failed to make a proper study of the natural history of any of the fish I had hope of catching. All I did was toss a line with a lure on it into a random patch of water and hope for the best. This summer I started studying natural history and anatomy of bass, crappie and blugill. Plus other pond ecology topics in much greater depth than I'd ever studied them before. The result was being able to look at a pond and know right away which spots I should be fishing in at various times of day. And then I cut paths through the undergrowth on the hillside in order to have access to those spots. And voila! I started catching trophy-class fish. Not that I am particularly good at fishing per se. All I know is the natural history and ecological stuff. I still have no idea what the difference between a spin cast rod and a bait casting rod is. I make a lot of my own lures and my sinkers are mostly bullets I've pulled out of wooden targets and split open with a knife. I don't know how or when or why to adjust tension on my $15 rod & reel combo. I look at the stuff on the covers of fishing magazines and I have no idea what any of that shit is. 1:51 p.m. - 2009-07-13 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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