Anglers have always been an agile lot, any crack in the fence or slack in barbed wire quickly exploited for fishing purposes. We’ve scraped flesh, twisted ankles, and occasionally needed ambulances and the Coast Guard to return us to safety.

As the press of people grows, and mindful that the largest growth in outdoor use is wildlife watchers, are we suddenly at the mercy of large insurance companies and their stiff premiums?

My saltwater-youth was largely the San Francisco waterfront – which was a thriving commercial enterprise; freighters would dock and depart and were impervious to the 4 ounce pyramid sinkers we flung in their direction.

With the demise of the freighter traffic and the collapse of the freeway during the Loma Prieta earthquake, the waterfront was rebuilt and gentrified to make the area attractive for tourists, dog walker’s, and inevitable “40 is the new 20” jogging crowd.

So which group do we exclude?

However the local water board has banned fishing on the dam wall after a number of anglers sustained minor injuries slipping on the rocks. Anglers are also banned from most of the rest of the reservoir for fear back casting will snare a passer-by, although this has never happened in the forty years since the reservoir was built.

It’s merely a footnote about a UK impoundment – banning fishermen from fishing for fear they might hook a passersby, but this type of contention for a resource is liable to increase.

The urban waterfront is likely at risk, with voters pedestrians outnumbering anglers by many hundredfold, but with the press of humanity expanding outward, marching under the Political Correctness battle standard, will this be an issue for some of our freshwater venues as well?

It’s too early yet to tell, but it’s likely each of us knows of numerous spots close enough to a parking lot, or within the confines of a wildlife sanctuary, where anglers and non fishermen intermingle.

Soaring insurance premiums endured by the owning counties and cities are a compelling reason to side with the less agile pedestrian – as they’re not tempting fate by repelling down a cliff face, or being stranded at high tide as we are.

They’re still debating whether to bill the 134 ice fishermen rescued off Lake Erie this year. It could be we’re headed for a wakeup call.

It does beg the question of why that breakwater was created. The intent was to protect the boats and harbor – but if they’re no longer a factor, who has first dibs? Certainly, fishermen scampered over the greasy rocks first – but now that the city has installed a path and landscaped the aging edifice, and it’s used by a mix of folks – what now?

We’ve seen how lawns vote more frequently than fish, it’s not unexpected that pedestrians will vote more than fishermen.

Some well intentioned angling organization gains public access to a formerly private creek, installing parking lot and riparian protection – and in so doing denies us fishermen from ever using it due to more frequent use by birders?

Ouch.

It’s jarring everytime I see it mentioned. I’m not sure whether to insist it’s a sign of the times, or Goodwill Industries is a new tackle juggernaut in the making.

My casual count shows eBay tackle sales on the rise, and if it didn’t sell there – is Momma winning, and we’re laying down our arms?

Apparently Goodwill and FLW Outdoors are fielding a team for the pro Bass circuit. Goodwill’s angle is to tap the festivities for clothing donations – but if Father Joe is funding orphanages with used cars, can Goodwill do similar with last year’s bass boat donation?

With the recession-assisted withdrawal of the high dollar sponsors, there’s plenty of room for charitable causes. Angling and charity are a natural fit; us fishermen have always been keen on donating tackle to tree limbs and stream debris –  we could wind up their richest catch yet.

You’re a soft touch and you know it …

“I’ve even had an angler tell me that those who fish and dogs are the only two who need to wear a license around their neck.”

I’ve been “collared” for the last couple of years and haven’t had much issue, but a California Sportfishing group is apparently taking the Department of Fish and Game to task over the requirement that your California license be in plain view.

I admit that the license clashes garishly with my Pith helmet and red suspenders – but the lack of fashionista lounging in brown water allows me to skulk from bush to bush without incurring a social faux pas.

Maybe if I owned “six pack” abs – instead of carrying all them cans, I’d complain more.

Mine is clipped onto the fishing vest which makes it easy to remember, but I suppose the casual salt water crowd has to remember to attach it to something – and if the fishing is slow and the suntan more important, I suppose they’ve an issue.

The McCloud comes to mind. Everytime I’ve clawed my way through brush and undergrowth to the water’s edge – it was to find something missing off the vest. Perhaps I’ll have a chance to complain later this season.

Terms like “girth”, “chunky” and “football”, sprayed at large fish by those lucky enough to have hooked an uncommon specimen. The rest of us nod, recognizing the use of reserved fishing superlatives.

So what are we going to call the exceptional blended farm-raised-wild strain of salmon?

Tom Gill of Dalhousie University told The Chronicle-Herald newspaper in Halifax said producers complaining to him about the texture of their farmed fish can blame themselves for adding fish oil to the salmon feed to increase their weight.

Some ponderous lard body rolls on your fly, giving you a brief and lethargic dead-weight squeal to your drag, then points itself at your feet and gasps in long sobbing wheezes, while drooling all over your shoe.

“So you can fatten the fish up and make them heavy in a hurry by feeding them a high-fat diet, but it gives you a really sloppy sort of soft texture,” he said. “If you’re feeding them a high-fat diet, it’s like feeding an individual on a diet of peanuts and potato chips only — of course they get flabby and soft, and that’s what happens to the fish.”

I’m thinking that this has to turn the angling world upside down. Noble Salmon reduced to crack-whore status, spurned by legions of former aficionado’s, and loved only by the Malibu physician administering celebrity facials. 

A “fatbody” isn’t getting up for the morning bite, it’ll be napping by midday, and will skip dusk in favor of the all night drive thru – where it won’t have to display it’s sickly, pale flesh to the gaze of bystanders.

In the latest incident, at the end of last week, 30,000 maturing 2.5kg (5.5lb) fish escaped from their cage in West Loch Roag, off the coast of Lewis, after a seal attack.

The escape, which was detected four days ago, comes at a time when wild salmon are approaching the rivers to spawn, meaning that there could be intermingling and genetic dilution of the wild fish. These are extremely fit creatures, swimming thousands of miles across oceans, then battling their way upstream.

If they spawn with the flabby, cage-reared fish, it is claimed that the offspring can be genetically weak and the wild salmon population, which is recovering after some very bad years, could be threatened.

The Association of Salmon Fishery Boards and the Rivers and Fisheries Trusts of Scotland are now preparing a formal complaint to the European Commission.

In the states, we’ve always asserted that “wild fish” were superior in every respect to their hatchery counterparts, but will that remain true? Hatchery fish have to make the same journey as a wild fish, imparting some common sense and muscle tone, with the addition of a flabby panting farm fish in the watershed – will we have a new respect for its pen reared migratory cousin?

… and will we invent new terms of endearment and prowess? “Half Pounders” refer to returning small steelhead, will we call the smaller farm fish a “quarter pounder with fleas?”

Will the “honor roll” of distinguished names; King, Chinook, Pink, Dog, Chum, and Silver, be augmented with the Butterball and Acne variants?

“I prefer the Butterball, less stretch marks on the fillet, and the timer pops out when it’s done.” 

Go ahead and giggle, a couple seasons from now that could be you talking.

We’ve seen a couple of decades of spittle and vitriol over the Right to Bear Arms, and many hunters are fishermen, can we assume we’ll offer as good a fight with legislators as the NRA?

We’ve mentioned the depletion of commercial fishing stocks in the ocean, how scientists predict the demise of almost all commercial fisheries by 2040 (based on our current consumption) – and a logical crisis “first step” will be to limit what everyone can catch.

The journal Science published a study by Felicia Coleman of Florida State University showing that anglers are the largest human threat for many species off America.

My question is, after all the posturing and rhetoric – after the Hollywood celebrities swear publicly they’re lifelong anglers, after lobbyists for Trout Unlimited, CalTrout, and other angling organizations wine and dine senators, and it’s all for naught, how are you going to spend your quota?

Joe Borg, European commissioner for maritime affairs and fisheries, said: “Control and enforcement of catch limits should be the cornerstone of the common fisheries policy. The future of sustainable fisheries requires us to replace a system which is inefficient, with one which can really produce results.” Under Borg’s plan, each EU state would be given a quota for each protected species. Governments would then divide this quota between commercial fishermen and anglers. Anglers would be banned from marketing their catches.

In the US we’re already prevented from marketing our catch, but the trend is plain. If the 2040 date is accepted as fact, most governments will ignore the issue until it’s too late, then clamp some Draconian legislation in place at the last moment. If you figure they’ll finally wise up about 20 years before the fish are gone, then the issue comes to a head in 2020.

Eleven years from now.

Now all those marine V-8’s and pleasure barges are hunting a freshwater venue – as they’ve used their allotment of salt water quarry by March, and if we give them a decade to start the same spiral in freshwater, it’s opening day of 2031, and you’re allotted 6 trout for the season.

Catch and Release may no longer be an option, because a 25% mortality rate is unacceptable.

We fought that legislation too – only we chose an aging Tom Cruise as spokesman – and he got Congress sidetracked on the whole Scientology thing and we lost. The decline in size of freshwater fish over the same 20 years, rendered those big stonefly nymphs illegal, and now anything over a #12 triples the mortality rate for trophy fish (11″ and longer).

So you’ve got 6 trout per season; do you go for the big dollar Montana trip – the cedar lodge, the grizzled guide, and use your entire quota in a single outing, or do you husband your quota until October – when the streams are deserted, and everyone else is working on their allotment of Pikeminnow and Suckers?

Take your time, you’ve got at least a decade to decide…