My Shameless Eliteism
OK, I am about to reveal that I am an ‘avid’ fisherman. (Ok why is it always ‘avid’ for fishermen. Sorta like ‘staunch’ for Republicans. “He is a staunch republican.” I read somewhere in reference to some damn hollywood actor, it think it was Bruce Willis. What does staunch mean anyway? Would anyone really want to be staunch? “Stiff necked, unreasonable, narrow minded and thoughtless, Jim was a staunch Republican.” You’d never hear a contra-dancing enthusiast described as staunch. Or, how about, “She was a staunch Hari Krishna.” It just doesn’t work.)
Anyway, I flyfish, and it isn’t glamorous no matter how many Brad Pitt flyfishing movies they make. Seriously, don’t believe the hype. It is not a Zen art; it is throwing fake bugs at lower order vertabates with brains the size of two nickels stuck together.
Think of it has compulsive gambling with nice scenery.
Anyway, the other day textiletart sent me the following link, http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/25/big.fish.ap/index.html. It's about a record catfish caught on the Mississippi River. This story inspireded me to frame a response to her email, and thereby betray one of my few genuine elitist streaks. She then suggested I it post here. So don't blame me. Anyway, here it is:
And wrt your email/link about the catfish:
(This composed itself in my head as I was in the shower musing about the massive catfish, this sort of thing just happens to me on occasion and I beg your pardon in advance.)
Now adopting (channeling?) the fishing snob and sometimes alter-ego Henning Hale Orviston III's voice (A character from the classic fishing novel, *The River Why* By David James Duncan...) I will tell you what I think of this lowly catfish which was hauled out of the foetid waters of the Mississippi by some thickset hayseed named Pruitt...
Thought it is delicious deep fried - but only if raised on a fish farm with a pollution free diet - the catfish, an ignoble warm-water species, is a poor excuse for a sport fish (which, at first glance might seem as ridiculous a concept as a sportcoat, but stay with me.)
This sluggish slime eating 'record breaker,' despite its 124 pounds of flabby bulk, is hardly the stuff of angling legend. An ordinary four pound Brown trout has ten times the ebullience, vivacity, cunning, of any goo grazing dung fish; not to mention the trout's flashing intensity, wily elusiveness and stout hearted fighting spirit, which dwarfs that of even the largest of catfish: a lower order species with the lugubrious temperament of an obese welfare mother with acute clinical depression.
As for this particular specimen, clearly it only grew to such an ungraceful size by eating the toxic sludge off the bottom of the Mississippi River, and its fabulous weight is no doubt augmented by the enormous amounts of heavy metals diffused throughout its feculent tissues. From the cnn report it seems that the most challenging aspect of this catch was in merely lifting it out of the river after it had been dragged, lolling apathetically at the end a five hundred pound test cable, from the nadir of murk and scum at the bottom of this septic slack-water drainage.
*Not* an achievement worthy of an angler with any sense of aesthetic or finesse.
But thanks for forwarding it anyway. ;-) Really, the above was the ranting of a *very* obscure alter-ego of mine that almost never comes out for any topic unrelated to fishing...
Anyway, I flyfish, and it isn’t glamorous no matter how many Brad Pitt flyfishing movies they make. Seriously, don’t believe the hype. It is not a Zen art; it is throwing fake bugs at lower order vertabates with brains the size of two nickels stuck together.
Think of it has compulsive gambling with nice scenery.
Anyway, the other day textiletart sent me the following link, http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/25/big.fish.ap/index.html. It's about a record catfish caught on the Mississippi River. This story inspireded me to frame a response to her email, and thereby betray one of my few genuine elitist streaks. She then suggested I it post here. So don't blame me. Anyway, here it is:
And wrt your email/link about the catfish:
(This composed itself in my head as I was in the shower musing about the massive catfish, this sort of thing just happens to me on occasion and I beg your pardon in advance.)
Now adopting (channeling?) the fishing snob and sometimes alter-ego Henning Hale Orviston III's voice (A character from the classic fishing novel, *The River Why* By David James Duncan...) I will tell you what I think of this lowly catfish which was hauled out of the foetid waters of the Mississippi by some thickset hayseed named Pruitt...
Thought it is delicious deep fried - but only if raised on a fish farm with a pollution free diet - the catfish, an ignoble warm-water species, is a poor excuse for a sport fish (which, at first glance might seem as ridiculous a concept as a sportcoat, but stay with me.)
This sluggish slime eating 'record breaker,' despite its 124 pounds of flabby bulk, is hardly the stuff of angling legend. An ordinary four pound Brown trout has ten times the ebullience, vivacity, cunning, of any goo grazing dung fish; not to mention the trout's flashing intensity, wily elusiveness and stout hearted fighting spirit, which dwarfs that of even the largest of catfish: a lower order species with the lugubrious temperament of an obese welfare mother with acute clinical depression.
As for this particular specimen, clearly it only grew to such an ungraceful size by eating the toxic sludge off the bottom of the Mississippi River, and its fabulous weight is no doubt augmented by the enormous amounts of heavy metals diffused throughout its feculent tissues. From the cnn report it seems that the most challenging aspect of this catch was in merely lifting it out of the river after it had been dragged, lolling apathetically at the end a five hundred pound test cable, from the nadir of murk and scum at the bottom of this septic slack-water drainage.
*Not* an achievement worthy of an angler with any sense of aesthetic or finesse.
But thanks for forwarding it anyway. ;-) Really, the above was the ranting of a *very* obscure alter-ego of mine that almost never comes out for any topic unrelated to fishing...