Where Do You Fish?
Opening Day is fast approaching. April 16 will be here before you know it; right after that dreaded tax day. I can think of no better way to deal with the stress of funding our Goliath government than to go for a nice, peaceful fishing excursion.
That’s why I don’t fish Opening Day. I don’t even fish the first two weeks following Opening Day. There is no peaceful experience there. Around here, it is shoulder-to-shoulder, fish killers, not fishers. I’m sure that runs rampant all across the Commonwealth.
So if I need to get some stress reduction, I take my fly rod and find one of those beautiful catch-and-release streams. You know the ones. They are open all year long, because you are not permitted to kill the fish. The fish killers don’t visit these streams. To them, there is no sense to it. “Why fish where you can’t keep the fish you catch?” is their logic.
I don’t normally eat fish. So there is no rush for me to go kill as many fish as possible before my neighbor does. I’m not about to start eating fish caught where the authorities have to warn you about eating too much of it because of the chemicals. The PF&BC has a 57 page document that warns you of the dangers of eating fish from Commonwealth waters. What a waste of money. All you needed to tell me was don’t eat the fish you catch. There, one line, that’s all it would take. This year, the PF&BC is a little better, they have the summary of the advisory down to 4 pages. This paragraph sums it up for me:
STATEWIDE ADVISORY
On April 11, 2001, Pennsylvania issued a general, statewide health advisory for recreationally caught sport fish. That advice is that you eat no more than one meal (one-half pound) per week of sport fish caught in the state’s waterways. This general advice was issued to protect against eating large amounts of fish that have not been tested or may contain unidentified contaminants.
The emphasis is in the original text.
Nope, I will wait a couple of weeks before even looking at one of these fish-killing streams. You might see me out, with the fly rod and a cigar, but you won’t catch me with any fish in my creel. Heck, I don’t even carry a creel.
I don’t fish until the first day and even then I by-pass the special reg’s streams/sections. I’d rather go toe-to-toe and fly fish alongside (not litterally) with the bait and spin fisherman. I find it more challenging and fufilling that way. The streams are virtually empty by mid-May anyway!
Let’s see, You don’t want to eat any fish that may or may not contain unidentfied contaimantes, but you’ill poke a cigar in your mouth with several toxic contaimnates….makes sense to me..
You sound like a plaintiff’s attorney…whoever said a cigar contains several toxins?