5.26.01
it’s a little late to share it now, but miss valya sent me the following link: towel day in honor of the late douglas adams. since towel day was yesterday, all there is to do now is go to the web site and look at lots of pictures of ugly people with their towels. alas, it seems that us douglas adams followers are not the snazziest-looking group of people. actually, the european geeks turn out to be much better looking than their geeky american counterparts.
my father dragged my sorry ass out of bed at the ungodly hour of 7 am this morning to go float-tube fishing. for any of you who don’t know, float-tube fishing is really more about the gear that it is the actual catching of fish. it works thus: you step into a giant pair of neoprene waders that go from your toes up to your armpits, so that you’re impervious to the cold and wet. then you put on flippers, and step into a giant inner tube (a real fancy affair, with a canvas cover, a big tall inflatable back rest, zippered pockets for all your fishing supplies, and a canvas seat to sit on, so that your legs dangle straight down into the water.) then everyone duck-waddles backwards into the lake, and you all paddle around, these truncated fisherman – chest and arms rising up out of a donut floating on the lake’s surface. of course, i don’t actually fish, because i think that catch-and-release fishing is barbaric, so i just paddle around and read a book. my father asked me what i’d say if any of the other fisherman (mostly old crusty idaho rancher-type dudes) asked why i wasn’t fishing. i told him i’d just say i didn’t any arms. or i’d reply in swedish. luckily, they left me alone.
the place we went to was absolutely gorgeous. it’s a big pond formed by a bunch of springs out in the middle of the owyhee desert. owyhee county, which is this giant county that makes up the corner of southwestern idaho, has a population density of 1.1 people/square mile. just to give you a comparison value, san francisco county had a population density of 15,502.1 people/square mile in 1996. this place is empty. which is part of its charm. it’s in a small valley surrounded by the craggy basalt cliffs of the rolling hills. there are virtually no trees, but the sage-covered hills are still green at this time of year. it had the potential to be beastly hot, but by about 11 am a thunderstorm started to roll in. so i just drifted around the lake watching the clouds slowly encroach. all around me giant trout rose to feed on the mayflies, breaking the glassy surface of the lake, disappearing with a little “plop” and leaving concentric circles to mark the spot in the water. two-inch blue dragonflies hovered over the water and did fly-bys on my ears, as did the swallows, who are also feeding on the mayflies. the killdeer dipped and soared overhead, making their strange, high, fleeting call. there were big goose families paddling around the lake with us, as well as an ebullient black lab. over the crest of the hill, i could hear cattle lowing from their grazing area (there’s so little water in the owyhee desert that farming is impossible; but it’s excellent land for ranching).
of course, a man-made pond created by damming up a bunch of desert springs does not provide much of a place for trout to breed; the guy who owns the ranch stocks the pond with fish every year and charges people for a year’s permit to fish on that pond. i maintain that fishing in a stocked-pond is cheating, as is fishing with one of those sonar devices that tells you exactly where the fish are. my father agrees with me on the latter point, but not on the former. but then again, i mostly come along on these fishing expeditions so that i can irritate him by telling him how barbaric i think the whole sport really is. summed up, my argument is thus: fishing for food is very different from catch-and-release. now, some might say that catch-and-release seems more humane, since it doesn’t kill the fish. i accept that the in the general food chain, some creatures have to die so that others live. humans eat fish. so, while i don’t care for bopping fish on the head myself, i can understand that fishing for food is simply working within the food chain that nature has created. the fish die a quick death and people get to eat them. on the other hand, in the case of catch-and-release, people tempt the fishies with what looks like food, the hungry fish bite, only to discover that they have a steel hook lodged in their cheek. then, the fisherman spends between 10 minutes and a number of hours trying to land the fish by dragging him in via the hook. once the fish has wrestled himself into a state of exhaustion, the fisherman drags him out of the water where he can’t breath, removes the hook (provided it wasn’t gut-hooked, in which case the fish is a goner), poses for a few photos, and then tosses the fish back in, saying, “oh, it’s okay little fish, you have a big hole in your mouth, but go swim and be free and i’ll trick you again on another day.” okay, so maybe i’m putting those words into the fishermen’s mouths, but you get the idea. the whole thing gives me the creeps if i think too hard about it.
