The real Little Green Man from Mars is alive and well and living in Appalachia.

The Truth Is a Lone Assassin by Jonco Bugos


Friday, May 6, 2011

Making Holes In Fish

Now don't get me wrong. I may not have started my cosmic sojourn on Earth like everybody else but that doesn't mean that I don't have a lot of the same propensities that Earthlings do. Just because I was from Mars in my previous life doesn't mean that I was some little green Namby Pamby who would be afraid to bait a hook, for example.

As a matter of fact, I have made holes in earthworms and meal worms with a fishing hook many times, in the hopes that I might catch a nice Brook Trout or Rainbow Trout that would fry up nice with butter and go good with some fried potatoes and pork and beans. Followed by a cup of coffee and a wedge of blackberry pie which might be followed by a shot of Jack Daniels, a bottle of lager and a big fat cigar.

But I never once considered the "sport" of making holes in fish just for the fun of it. Yeah, I know, it's called "Catch and Release" fishing and it's almost exclusively the summer pastime of American fly fisherman, many of whom are those clothes-horse and gear-horse fisherman who like to fish the way they see people fishing in upscale catalogs that cater to monkey-see monkey-do middle-class Americans with too much disposable income and too much time on their hands. But, giving these "fishermen" the benefit of the doubt, I'll admit that they just might be people who like to catch fish but who don't like to eat fish or smell fish or who can't cook fish or who simply won't take the risk of eating a fish that might be chock-full of PCBs or mercury or E. Coli bacteria. Now, that makes a lot of sense.

What doesn't make sense to me is that making a hole in a fish with a hook just to take it out again is any kind of sport. I think I'm one of the few people who wonder how long that fish that's just had a hole made in it by a "Catch and Release" fisherman has to heal before another "Catch and Release" fisherman makes another hole in it with a fishing hook just to pull the hook out again. As far as the "Catch and Release" fishermen go, I try not to think about them at all.

But, then again, I am originally from the planet Mars, so don't go by me.