This past November 2 was Election Day. During the course of our steelhead fishing trips, the topic of discussion has often turned politics. Now I generally try to avoid the topics of politics, religion, and other personal topics during the fish day. It too often detracts from the up-beat gratifying topics of new fishing gear, and lifted trucks.
In a recent riverside discussion on the topic of politics, my guests and I reviewed the life history of steelhead to try and determine a probable political alignment for the species.
Recall, that steelhead are abandoned at birth and left to fend for themselves. Lacking parental nurturing and care, the few that survive early childhood begin a nomadic life style that takes them to unknown global climes. They just don’t stay connected to a home fish community, or contribute in any way to local fish culture. Instead, they travel the world in roving pods of aggressive gangs, often returning as juvenile delinquents to terrorize the homes of otherwise sincere mature spawning adult fish. These half-pounder pre-adults have a propensity for body piercings and eagerly move to sharpened steel if it has just the slightest bit of flashy dubbing or exotic feather wrapped on a cold steel shank.
The sad truth to this scenario is that these renegade fish learn to live on the programmed dole offerings of big-nature. Now we all know how big-nature moves without any concern to the greater development of individualist fish character. It’s all about just passing along the best genes without any regard to the individual in the interest of the greater fish good. The net result of this is the most common steelhead character flaw of hedonistic feeding, voraciously consuming any and all prey animals that they can fit their mouths around. They seldom give up the barcolounger sweet lie or remote control up-stream view. They may spend hours or days at a time to slurp passing detritus while refusing to move too far out of their fish lies to earn their meals. If this were not appalling enough, these homeless often nose pierced carnivorous anadramoids cannot keep a home even if they manage to locate their natal waters! As soon as they build a nest and create a family, they immediately abandon their offspring and return to the sea with the surviving bros- from the hood to perpetuate the cycle indefinitely. Its heart breaking to me.
Have we mentioned substance abuse? These poor saps are on the whole, addicted to power baits hawked by those low-life power bait pushers that skulk around dark river corners in untoward riparian neighborhoods. I feel like crying.
Well, I don’t know for sure if these steelhead even vote, but some may conclude from the above life history, that steelhead may be of a liberal politic. However, others have argued that based on their frequent attempts to jump to the moon, to conquer distant global fish niches, and to encourage big-nature to move unfettered by fish legislations, that they are conservative. I, However, feel that based on their propensity toward anger after a lip piercing of their own choice and volition, tend to view them as tea-partiers. They just seem to get too pissed off when they are called on to accept the consequences of their choices. After all, peer pressure from the steelhead pod is no excuse for their willful choice to pierce their noses with Japanese steel. And what’s with those rosy cheeks? Are they embarrassed by the whole spawning scene? I mean, we all know what they are really up to. Perhaps we need to secure our boarders and patrol for non-native steelhead to preserve our national steelhead stock & culture.
So, I hope this discussion of fish politics hasn’t offended too many of my readers, but I didn’92t write this sad story, I’m just passing it along for your own evaluation and consideration.
Till next time, your fish politic analyst, Doug