when fish
give a man a fish, feed him for a day. teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. and his family and their’s and…
do we ever learn when not to fish? darwin professes a basic cycle, one that even single-cell bob can’t fuck up, “eat. multpily”. when growth exceeds food, growth dies back into a web of living balance and submission? I wonder, then, is it possible for higher-order organisms to smoothen the cycle. to sort of tame it, or even preempt the swings by enforcing an inflection or series of correctional tangents. that is, of course, assuming we use the other cells.
in 2004 Hogan and Zanden published research regarding catfish migration along the Mekong River, which passes through or borders Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, and China, in order upstream. The article, in the American Scientist 2004 v.92 i.3 p. 228, describes studies of historic catches, strontium in otoliths [formed in the inner ears of balancing vertebrates], biotelemetry, and government-sponsored buy-back programs.
The silver-toned catfish travel an average of 5km/day for annual summers at the brackish water mouth. They are not only becoming fewer but smaller and now only occur upstream as far as Cambodia. Overfishing is placing a heavy hand on the wooden-handled knife into the former 300kg heavyweight catfish class, one of many fish experiencing the same on a river system that accounts for 16% of the world’s freshwater catch. Declines in freshwater stingray stocks support the same conclusion: habit degradation, dams, industry and agriculture all share the glare. Funny how even Animal Planet’s Jeremy Wade, on his recent video How to Catch a Giant Stingray, acknowledges the lack of stingray bounty compared to historic records and upstream reaches, as he takes all afternoon to reel in his fourth catch of the episode (itself nearly 150kg- and gives premature birth to three in the net).
these are my thoughts as a group of us floated down the Smith River at the end of this April (sunny and 70 for two weeks, a perfect window). Our fishing was terrible- the river too high and viscous for trout amateurs. Of course, all the old-timers who have lived or fished on the Smith back in the good ‘ol times had stories of better and browns to 2′. Connection?
Mark Kulansky’s non-fiction Cod tells of a familiar theme. Overfishing, under numbers, too much pressure. Seawater catch numbers that rose worldwide on the advent of boats that could handle more remote conquests, then fell even harder afterward. Salmon fisheries and more on the scare as copper mines and oil disasters alike flare with the pace of humanity.
I’m not writing about fish, actually, it’s more interesting to focus on good stewardship. minding our selves in the forests (pine beetles abhor fire) and everywhere else. we’re going to blow shit up and peel out and fire sidearms and love all of this for longer if we simply practice a little self control and accountability with our rods.
the fishing proverb isn’t actually from the Bible but rather presumed to have a Chinese origin. Like the catfish once did.
