Kevin, Rick and I plumbed the murky waters as Kevin's Maverick gently drifted the edge of a deeply dredged channel in the harbor in the shadow of industry- giant industrial oil storage tanks, wharfs, and smokestacks were the backdrop. This is the case for many places where rivers meet the ocean in the northeast. Though much disrupted and in many ways ecologically compromised, there are still fish in such places. Periodically around us a flipping menhaden disturbed the otherwise flat surface, and overhead ospreys whirled and periodically dove to catch them. Kevin and Rick were working flutter spoons this particular morning, and in a short time some arches began to appear on the sonar. Not long after that, they were doubled with slot sized striped bass. The iridescent flanks of a striper may seem a stark contrast against the unnatural surroundings, but fish and city harbors are entirely synonymous. I've fished urban settings for much of my life, and though I certainly love to get away from obvious signs of human disruption, there's also just something that appeals about catching fish where they seem to be thriving despite monumental human pressure. I've long enjoyed catching fish in the shadow of industry and intense population density, because it can sometimes give me a glimmer of hope... if they can live there, we can bring back so many things that have succumbed to human impacts. This is a modern American luxury in many ways, as in many cases the centers of industry in this country had long polluted the waters they were built on to a point of lifelessness, and without the clean water act and clean air act, among other pollution controls both state and federal, there likely wouldn't be much fishing to do in the Cuyahoga River, Newark Bay, or Providence River. In other parts of the world; developing, industrializing nations, there are places where one wouldn't want to fish, where dissolved oxygen is a rarity and human waste is not. I must admit that the fact that urban fishing is in any way productive or appealing is a fortune of my place, both in time and geographically. And that doesn't mean that people are still trying to eek ichtyes from waters in Delhi, Phnom Penh, and Nantong.
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| Angler and guide Geoff Klane works an urban New England canal |
New York is our country's most populous city, with around 8.48 million people. Depending where you look, it ranks somewhere from 28th to 11th in the world's most populous cities. I've long wanted to fish New York City. I've not made the effort yet, but I'd like to. One of the big reasons was a documentary I stumbled on some years ago called Gotham Fish Tales. Photojournalist Robert Maass started filming crabbers, shad netters, charter boats, and recreational anglers in the city in 1996, and released the film in 2003. It portrays a tiny and diverse subculture of the New York populous... those who fish the waters that ebb and flow around the most metropolitan of American metropili. This is a slice of fishing culture in the pre-social media age, and I think it's an especially important piece of media for any angler in the northeast to see and hopefully appreciate. The cast of characters it portrays is just classic, and Maass let's them carry the story. Only occasionally do you hear him at all, only asking a question from time to time. From recreational anglers casting snapper bluefish and schoolies in the notoriously Gowanas Canal to eel fisherman cleaving horseshoe crabs to bait pots, Gotham Fish Tales does a good job of highlighting fisheries that were both just picking up, as well as those that were dying. More than two decades later some of the places that Maass filmed fisherman aren't accessible anymore. Some may even have better fishing now than they did then. You can find Gotham Fish Tales on YouTube here: www.youtube.com. Also worthwhile, Joe Cermele interviewed Robert Maass on Cut & Retie: open.spotify.com
Though I'm generalkly more interested in ecology than in people and fishing culture, there is something to be said for preserving that history. People fish for all sorts of things in all sorts of places, in many different ways and for many different reasons. Whether or not I think those means and ends are ecologically sustainable or should even continue has no bearing on the cultural value of remembering and preserving all things fishing. We shouldn't fill buckets of flatfish anymore, but we also shouldn't forget that once upon a time, within plenty still living angler's memory, fisherman were doing that. I have a deep interest and respect for the history of angling and what it has to tell us about both fish and people. I worry that much of that history is going to fade away, and many fisherman don't know and don't care what it was like, even just twenty something years ago.
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