by libertydave » Fri Mar 05, 2010 3:28 pm
I read all of the previous posts and remember when we first swore off killing fish. Now please don't get me wrong as I still enjoy a good piece of salmon, red snapper or halibut but I just do not go fising anymore. I certainly support those who fish and hunt. It is just I had a moment, an epiphany, where I decided that those fish were more than....just fish.
The deciding moment was on a dredging outing on the Klamath River in the early 1990s. We have dredged a large hole and every morning as we waded out in our wetsuits a growing number of fish followed us into the hole. They did not pay much attention and kind of just hung around, that was until we started the dredge's engine. I sense that the vibration underwater was saying "breakfast" or "food source". As soon as we got to work with the nozzle these fish, some as big as three feet, would dart in front of us feasting on what living things we had uncovered in the overburden.
After the third day we began to recognize a few and there was the one with the split dorsal fin and another with a scraped lower jaw, a brownish one we called "Rusty" and even one we called "Ol One-Eye" for obvious reasons. Soon they were joined by "Murray" and "Roscoe" and "Slick Willie" You get the idea. Following this fish bonding both my dredge partner and I gave up going fishing. Cheers!
Liberty Dave