I’ve often wondered what a fly fisherman does when they’re 80 years old and joints aren’t as limber, reflexes likewise, and they yank your driver’s license as you’re unsafe at any speed.

I saw myself as one of the “past their prime” old bastards sunning themselves at the casting pond, throwing an occasional word of encouragement at the fellow prying a dry fly out of his forearm. Mostly I’d be watching all the strolling females a third my age trying to straight face lecherous intent.

I’m allowed that as I can aspire to a dirty minded SOB as well as an ex-fishermen.

Now I know better. Me and the “Over the Hill” gang will be slapping knee and laughing at all the legal manifestations of water rights and cloned fish, and how the IGFA will be slapping asterisks on positively everything.

Young guys will shrug and dine at “sustainable” eateries, like us they never cared for the fish eating – it was the catching that made fishing fun. The middle aged fellows who got the last taste of wild fish when they were kids will be protesting asterisks and whether a salmon that tastes like a potato is still a salmon or no …

We’ll have little choice other than acknowledge our part in pillaging the watershed; how we didn’t know our feet was spreading pestilence, and the taint of urban runoff made our hook wounds turn into flesh eating disease – dooming Carp and Sticklebacks into a lengthy and painful demise. We had the best of intentions with Catch & Release, and how were we to know?

The Past became the Future when fish farmers mapped the Atlantic Salmon genome.

We applauded knowing that they could build a wild fish out of spare Cytosine from junkyard hubcaps, Guanine from lawn clippings … it was a bold new world and soon the streams would be teeming with real gamefish.

Only their interest was commercial, and we hadn’t figured on them fiddling with the DNA pairings. Instead of silver Chinook we got pen raised Kentucky Colonel Salmon, in Lethargic and Extra Risky, and while they could spawn in sewers, each time they did so, white vans would pull up spilling skinheads in tactical outfits and how they’d point at the copyright logo on the gill plate and repossess them all.

As salmon flesh possesses so many essential Omega-3 fatty acids, those canny “anglers” at the home office eventually found it cheaper to grow just the ass of the fish rather than the front. It silenced the environmentalists who were rallying support to ban Krill harvests, and solved the dilemma of feeding fish to fish to make fish. Consultation with a consortium of Sushi chefs and Plastic Veterinarians taught them the fillet work needed to make the “export” side of the salmon indistinguishable from the “import” side, especially when saran wrapped with a brightly colored sale sticker over the pucker.

Same thing happened to the leases and beats across the pond. Owning river or land doesn’t count when fish genetics show interbreeding with a corporate trademark. The conservation organizations puffed up their chest and tried the legal angle – but they’d never heard of the case law surrounding Monsanto and their lock on genetic seeds – and they got smoked.

The judgment along with previous ones upon which it was built has been interpreted by many to mean that if any Roundup Ready® crop is found on agricultural land wherein it was not specifically purchased even if it found its way there through entirely natural means such as wind or insect pollination, the farmer is liable to Monsanto for “theft” of its property.

But best of all will be the demise of the IGFA and world records as we know them. They’ll wield the asterisk firmly until offered the big money by Long John Silvers who’s engaged in a bitter war with Colonel Saunders over whose fillet of fishlike substance has a higher percentage of Wild.

The largest salmon in the world has never been caught – and doesn’t swim. It’s an amorphous blob of test tube fed flesh in the Gorton’s Clean Room, kept under 24 hour guard and completely sterile conditions.

… and each day the conveyor belt spins up and that white light from the carbon dioxide laser begins cutting thousands of identical Gorton’s “Copper River Spring Chinook” fillets.

“… flash frozen for freshness.”

Meanwhile “Bob” and I take turns passing the National Enquirer around the bench, old eyes straining to identify the make and model of the broken fly rod pictured next to the sobbing child as Poppa is hauled away …

Brave New World, and another Epsilon Semi Boron in manacles.

Tags: Mapping the Atlantic Salmon genome, Monsanto Roundup Ready Genetic crops, Brave New World, Epsilon Semi Moron, lecherous old guys, retired fly fisherman, environmental lobby smoked, krill ban, it takes fish to make fish, casting club, Carp