Tom Chandler posted a short Twitter link yesterday that’s worth the read. Eye-opening to some, but not too far a reach to  suggest that the future of fishing and hunting might be private enclosures seperated by cyclone fence so I don’t interfere with my fellow “sport” in the neighboring enclosure.

The quarry might even be pen raised and as timid as domestic pets, but those qualities won’t show in the photos of the carcass, or the magazine article to follow.

These days a child’s first exposure to fishing is some above ground pool where images of Dumbo contrast sharply with a school of panicked trout milling about while smiling old guys bait hooks for kids. It’s like a street gang, where the initiate has to kill and eat something before he’s allowed to wear the colors.

Proud papa lingers behind snapping pictures and encouraging his bewildered child as he  jerks squirming silver fish into the air where they’re thrust into a plastic bag as quickly as possible to make way for another future sportsman … and his Poppa.

Then he spends the next four years glued to Nintendo killing everything else with equal glee. When Poppa deems him old enough he’s exposed to the heat, cold, wet, chill, mosquitos, and perspiration of the out-of-doors,  just enough to remain skeptical about it all while realizing that air conditioning and a fistful of Ma’s cookies is much superior.

Then it’s Internet Porn, Music Video’s, cell phones, texting and sex-ting, iPods, iPads, Facebook,  instant oatmeal, pop tarts, and instant gratification, and like a computer processor loses any developing attention span to become interrupt driven.

He’s old enough to understand the woods is one of the few environments he doesn’t control and fishing is a lot more fun when it’s bookended by hamburgers.  The lack of cell phone coverage limits  communication with the digital real world, but this imposition he might be able to endure for an .. OMFG .. entire weekend.

… we stuffed all manner of insta-gadgets in his sweaty little palm so he wouldn’t complain on those long vacation drives. We went digital to keep him rooted to the rug and avoid those mean city streets, and now the little snot would rather tweet and Facebook someone than hold a conversation, and reluctantly parts with a damp and lackluster handshake.

Just like a dead fish.

His is the generation that inherits everything we stomped life out of , he’s got the memory of “back when me and Dad went, they wuz huge” – only they aren’t anymore and are few and far between even in the smaller flavor.

With an attention span of 94 seconds, and the reflexs of a gunfighter, why wouldn’t he want his sport to be fast and on demand?

There is little question that the freshwater fishing of the future will bear little resemblance to what it is now. Our collective terra-forming cannot be undone. Roads pierce the last remaining wild areas, guys like us driving to the last remaining reaches of the Precious, providing those important ruts that will erode with winter’s downpour, and piss mud and silt into the last remaining quality fisheries, there to mingle with our discarded water bottles and toilet paper.

Private property will be the last bastion of off limits, and it’ll be there we’ll fight the first dozen or so court cases over who owns the rights to all the genetic enhancements, and whether fish grown to eat rock snot are fish at all.

We’ll have a glut of privately grown trout reared to order and sold to members on a rent to own, or catch and kill basis. The well healed package might include a movie filmed by video cameras that line the banks, edited by lodge staff with all expletives deleted, and a slo-mo action sequence of the trophy that the future angler will personally select like a lineup at a Nevada brothel. genetically enhanced, dosed with adrenaline and released into the private pond for a lifetime of memories or bragging rights.

It’ll have a first name and have spent the bulk of its lumpy existence wallowing in Growth hormone and Tofu-Watermelon Pizza, but so long as it’s big and stupid – them modern day sports will not care.

It’ll be like everything else enjoyable; fast, on demand, and him and his pals can be home in time to watch the video on the lodge’s web page.

The only reason you’re shaking your head with “that’ll never happen” is because you think we can actually restore something, even though we never have – and never will.

All that finery on the banks that you’re trodding  is shrinking inexorably with each year, and what’s removed first is the unspoiled and wild portion we hold dearest.

Your kid will never know your favorite creek without the water bottles and overflowing parking lot garbage can – because the public trust … isn’t …

Twenty bucks to CalTrout doesn’t fix a damn thing, it merely slows the future for a split-second.

Instead he’ll find a manicured ersatz facsimile for pay, and assume that’s what you meant by unspoiled – and the half mile drive by golf cart to his rented waders will be the “roughing it” part of which you were always so fond.

All them animal rights groups will be bought off with, “we’ll restore this unloved little toxic backwater, plant the fish the week prior, promote the fishery as ‘you can actually eat these’ because they ain’t lived here long enough to be completely toxic and you won’t picket us … right?”

That’ll ensure we’re not tracking deadly bacterium and nasty into or out of the carp infested public areas, nor are we swearing or blocking the view of all them birdwatchers.

The beauty is how economically feasible all this can be. With farmed fish comprising 50% of all fish sold already, and the fear of releasing tampered genetics via pens lolling in existing water, much of the increased reliance on farmed fish will come from landlocked waterways – ponds, creeks, and the like.

As most will be close to large urban areas to ensure freshness and ample commercial storage, it’ll be easy to lure a monied or aggressive angler to partake. Rented waders and wading paraphernalia ensure nothing foreign is introduced and fish planted in such numbers that guarantee the angler can be charged be the hour or day and still think it special.

It’ll allow fishing our generation has never seen. Wading a saltwater pond for Bluefin Tuna, and after tiring of 60 pound fish and 30 mph, spending the balance of the day using pellet-nymphs and indicators for Ling Cod or enormous trout.

I’m not suggesting it’s esthetically pleasing to us guys, we’re responsible for crapping on more than our share of the Pristine, and like our Pop – limiting our conservation efforts to our yearly twenty bucks to a Green organization, hoping someone else does the heavy lifting and lightens our conscience. It’s a legacy we’ll leave to the interrupt-driven instant gratification offspring we’ve managed to produce.

… who’ve had their genetics tinkered with all manner of our environmental excesses – just like the fishing.