Some 'incompleat' angling thoughts

In the days of my youth and younger manhood, salmon fishing, especially here in the northwest, was almost compulsory. When I was younger these magnificent fish were still bountiful and hadn’t yet suffered the depredations of obscenely flawed government ‘management’ (ha!), overfishing, habitat despoliation. driftnet fisheries from Asia (they deny they do it, but they lie, just ask the guys who operate the tracker aircraft) and a thousand other elements that have put a species at frightful risk.

There was a time, when I was in my 20s when I could ask my wife if she’d like to barbecue a salmon for dinner, and if she replied in the positive, I would put the boat in the water (we lived on the beach then), and within a half hour I would be back with an 8 to 12 pound coho. Such days were sheer bliss.

I loved fishing. Izaak Walton and I were philosophical chums. I still have a salmon-rod with a wonderful polished mahogany Peetz ‘knucklebuster’ reel sitting out in my garage. Yet, about 20 years ago I ceased salmon fishing. I quit because it was no longer as satisfying because of stock depletion. But, I also quite for a more significant personal reason. One day I looked down at a dying fish lying in the bottom of my boat and thought: “I no longer want to do this. This is a wonderful creature, and yet I took its life this morning. I don’t want this responsibility.” And that was it. I’ve never fished since. Oh, I miss it, because I loved it. Some have suggested there is always so-called ‘catch-and-release,’ but that’s a process that is essentially bullshit. The fish is so traumatized by having been hooked and then fighting the process, that it often dies anyway, or falls pray to dogfish and the like.

Here in the Northwest fishery stocks have diminished, and growing up in their wake have been the penned fish-farms. This is a commercial process that is fraught with controversy. Some say the penned stock is interior and infected with sea-lice which then go on to assail the wild stock. And yes, the multinational fish-farms are flawed and there is much that they need to do to clean up their act.

At the same time, those who assail the salmon farms are out-to-lunch in their logic. They, and their minions (like the shops and ‘precious’ restaurants that say they only offer ‘wild’ salmon) are ludicrous in their fight against the farms and their extolling of the wild species. How can a species that is under dire threat in its wild state be suggested as preferable to something that is raised specifically for the table? Why not a fricassee of panda, or a Bengal tiger steak, if you follow that logic?

Yes, wild salmon is very nice. Wild salmon also won’t be around for much longer unless we protect them. Meanwhile, fish-farms just might be a stopgap if proper controls are established.

There is nothing new about the concept of raising captive fish as a foodstuff. The Asians have done it for virtual millennia, and the Hawaiians were noted for their ‘fishponds’ (as pictured above from a painting I did a while ago) long before Europeans imposed themselves on those blessed shores.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on ‘Compleat’ Angling and what it has become. I can only hope that one day it comes back as it once was. As I said, I no longer choose to indulge, but I don’t begrudge those who do.