The Great (Stocked) Trout Migration

 (This is intended to be read as if in the voice of Sir David Attenborough. If read in any other affect, it will not be received as intended)

In a concrete raceway swims a mature rainbow trout. This trout, like many others it shares it's current artifice with, lives a most peculiar life. A scheduled one, in fact. A couple times a day, always at precisely the same times, the trout partakes in a massive feeding frenzy, the likes of which are extremely rare in the wild. Fish froth at the surface on schedule as their prey, little brown pellets, enters the water. It and many of it's brethren, were all conceived, born, and reared in a highly regimented manor, by a specialized species known as "hatchery manager". The hatchery manager is at the whims of the trout as much as the trout are at the whims of the manager. He must keep them alive and growing before the migration, and they must feed, move, and breed when he says. It's an unusual sort of symbiosis. 

 This trout's schedule dictates that is must soon make his final migration, though he doesn't know it or even want to. His majestic grey and speckled sides and short nubby fins ripple as he navigates the habitat he's known his whole short life, flanked on three sides by concrete and by netting above. It's a trout's dream... consistent water temperature, regular and fattening meals, and little fear of a predator. It is a little crowded, though...

(60 seconds of seconds of b-roll of trout bouncing off of each other in a hatchery raceway set to dramatic music)

Unlike many species before they migrate, the trout has no urge, no drive to leave. But suddenly one day it is swept into a big net. Flopping franticly in a pile of it's own tank mates, the trout only knows that this is different. Not where it could be headed or what is in store. But this is, in fact, what he was born for. It is his final purpose. from the net the trout enters a tank, similar in some ways to the one he just came from but smaller, darker, and metallic. and this one is on wheels. When the lid is closed the trout is plunged into darkness. Soon, there was a sensation of moving. Nobody knows how a trout perceives the passage of time, but some say this journey feels like an eternity. In reality it is only a about 30 minutes before the lid to the tank is opened again. In a net plunges, and wriggles trout leave the vessel. The trout are frantic, and our little friend cannot see where his tank mates are going. He just knows that with each scoop of the net, there are fewer and fewer. After a few nets full, the lid closes again, and the travel continues. Next stop... the wheeled tank parks atop a concrete bridge. The hatchery workers hop out and repeat the process. Once again the trout are startled be the abrupt introduction of light when the lid opens, and once again a net enters the water. This time, it's our trout's turn. He flops in the net deliriously as it is passed between hatchery workers. Then he is dumped most unceremoniously off the side of the bridge, plunging ten feet into his new habitat and the endpoint of this admittedly short migration. This place is completely foreign to the trout, though someplace so far back in his genetic code that is barely gasps a whisper are the relics of his ancestors, trout that lived their whole lives in places like this. 

(b-roll of a wild trout with it's brighter colors, intact fins, and robust musculature swimming past the stocked trout)

This place is wholly unfamiliar. The food comes in forms the trout has never seen, and at times that seem random. There is no protective net and the trout watches some of his hatchery mates get taken by a predator just hours after reaching the destination... a heron, merciless in it's intense desire for trout, stabs a few. Incidentally, he is intended for a predator. A very specific one. The trout has no immediate fear because this predator looks exactly like the hatchery manager he could always trust. And that's the cruel trick. This predator comes bearing snacks. The trout, growing hungrier with each passing hour after the regularly scheduled feeding should have occurred, hears something enter the water and goes to see. Its a pellet, not brown like the ones he usually eats. It's bright green... but has a profuse and enticing flavor, so it must be food. The trout spends his final moments thrashing helplessly on the end of a line as a vest-wearing man sitting on a bucket reels him in. 

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Franky, Geof, Luke, Noah, Justin, Sean, Tom, Mark, Jake, Chris, Oliver, oddity on Display, Sammy, and Cris & Jennifer, Hunter, Gordon, Thomas, Trevor, Eric, Evan, Javier, Ryan, Dar, Eric, and Truman for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version. 

Gotham Fish Tales & Fishing Culture

 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. 

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. 

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Franky, Geof, Luke, Noah, Justin, Sean, Tom, Mark, Jake, Chris, Oliver, oddity on Display, Sammy, and Cris & Jennifer, Hunter, Gordon, Thomas, Trevor, Eric, Evan, Javier, Ryan, Dar, Eric, and Truman for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version.