Last week’s series of posts were particularly distressing, a lethal combination of looming drought coupled with enough short sightedness to assure us of less fish next year; add the Trout Underground’s access issue for the Upper Sacramento and McCloud River, and both fish and fishermen are being squeezed from all directions.

There’s little question we’re due for some fundamental change, as even my short life has seen consistent degradation of most of the traditional gamefish.

My question is simple, are we still thinking like settlers, possessed by some silly notion that we can pull up stakes and head West?

Fly fishing includes many more species today than it did when I was young; web sites expound on the thrill of common salt water species, warm water coarse fish, and strange venues like Mongolia or downtown Los Angeles. Those exploits largely fail to make the cover of our mainstream media, but those deeds are as worthy and heroic as any fellow paying $10,000 to catch two salmon.

This is what we’ve got, there isn’t anymore unexplored continents, do we adapt our archaic notion of “quality” or do we wait until someone does that for us?

I am often chided for the “Brownline” angle; fishing for nuisance fish in a contaminated creek. I recognize that I am fishing for “cockroaches” – there is little nobility, no posturing, few groupies, and fewer practitioners. It’s fishing, with the same mixture of victory and despair as a fancy fish clothed in an expensive venue.

It’s unfortunate that even with all the stressors allied against trout, salmon, and all the traditional gamefish – and recognizing that future generations may not have the options that we do, we are still content to ignore Darwinism, and those species that will likely dominate the waterways of the future. 

Yes, it’s a cockroach – it still got me off the couch, out into the woods, and exercising – it has me pondering variables at the tieing bench, and leaves me alternately elated and frustrated when fishing.

Isn’t that the true measure of a gamefish?

The above picture is a 20″ Pikeminnow thrown onto the bank by a fisherman. Pikeminnow are notorious killers of salmon fry, but this fellow didn’t know that, he was merely disappointed that it was a “sucker” rather than a mercury filled bass.

It’s a cockroach and my guess is he felt that he was making room for more desirable species. It’s likely he’s right, but there are a lot of nets between the desirable fish and the river mouth, and multiple dams preventing their re-entry into my little creek, and if one or two were to actually make it, this fellow would be pleased to kill both of them.

Me, I look on this with a dim view. Both Darwin and the press of Humanity are conspiring to rid us of the desirable fish, why not ascribe a little dignity to what remains?

Ever seen this unappealing fellow? It’s a Hoki, sometimes called a “Whiting” and it should be very familiar to you. It’s a replacement for Pollock, which replaced Atlantic Cod, which replaced Halibut. It’s likely a cockroach for the 4 star restaurant crowd, but a single US company imports 61 million pounds of it a year. Meet the Fillet O’ Fish sandwich, gentlemen.

Fish Filet Patty:
Pollock or Hoki, bleached wheat flour, water, modified corn starch, yellow corn flour, dextrose, salt, yeast, cellulose gum, natural flavoring (vegetable source). Cooked in partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, (may contain partially hydrogenated soybean oil and/or partially hydrogenated corn oil and/or partially hydrogenated canola oil and/or cottonseed oil and/or sunflower oil and/or corn oil). TBHQ and citric acid added to help preserve freshness. Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an anti-foaming agent.

Change is inevitable both in our sport and elsewhere, and I’m thinking perhaps our value system needs to adjust in lockstep with the environment. I’m not interested in validation, I just want to swing my fly in front of the nose of that waterborne insect, and watch him melt my reel.

When my kids trod the “pooty” water, maybe he’ll remember the pictures and exclaim to his pal, “…when my Dad caught these they were huge.”

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