My wife, Bun, has been complaining of late that I can't seem to keep my mind on any single subject for more than five seconds. Nonsense, I say. Now where was I?
Oh, yes, a while back a reader of this column sent me a color photo of himself holding a forked stick containing about 10 little trout, all Eastern brook, as near as I could make out. He wrote that he and his son had caught them in a little Idaho lake, the name of which he forgot to divulge. Perhaps he knows that I am an Eastern brook fanatic.
Brookies are by far the best tasting of all trout. "Tasting!" some people cry out. "Are you mad? You eat your fish?" The recent rise of catch-and-release indeed has made catch-and-eat seem somehow immoral. Fortunately, it appears that some Fish and Game departments view the Eastern brook as a trout to be eradicated at the earliest possible moment, because the limit is often double that of rainbows. I am certainly not in favor of rushing the demise of brookies, but I do appreciate the F&G efforts to keep the limit on them up to a reasonable eating level. Rainbows, on the other hand, are
perfect for catch-and-release, particularly those removed from the hatchery and planted by F&G
the day before the season opens.
What's that, Bun? Forked sticks? Oh, yeah, I was just getting to that.
This report is not about brookies. It's about forked sticks. Forked sticks are what got me all excited when I first saw the photo. Here was a fisherman of my own ilk. One does not release fish that have been carried about all day on a forked stick, at least not intentionally. In my youth, I occasionally lost a fish from a forked stick, but only because it had dried out, withered and fallen off on its own.
By the way, there is something to be said for eating the fish you catch. I'm not sure what it is, but I suspect it has to do with a gene we still retain from the days when we actually hunted and fished for food. Undoubtedly, the joy of a kill or a catch was greatly enhanced in people who hadn't eaten for a week or two. We still get a little burst of elation from catching a fish, and I think that is why. Yeah, yeah, I know it's much cheaper and easier to go to the frozen-food section of the local supermarket and buy a package of fish sticks. Some people may still be thrilled by fish sticks, but probably only because that's all they ever catch.
We require
all participants in interactive areas to accept the terms of the Bonnier Corporation subscriber agreement. Please
read the agreement
before making comments. When you click on the button above to submit your comments, you are indicating your acceptance of and
are agreeing to adhere to the terms of the subscriber agreement.
RELATED ARTICLES
