Learn from the Fish
Author: Nick Carter, Retired Biologist
Don wrote that this was to be an expedition to help promote environmental education by fishing for striped bass. The idea was that if we learned something about the need to conserve fish habitat and populations, we could incorporate that knowledge into our environmental teaching.
Thousands of books and maybe millions of articles, both popular and academic, have been written about fish, fishing, habitat conservation, and fisheries management. Fishing technology improves each year, and so does complex, mathematics-rich scientific research on fish population dynamics and size estimation, and the modeling of complex biological systems. Universities offer courses on fish anatomy, physiology, behavior, and evolution. Government and private organizations, both national and international, worry about fish management and conservation.
So, what can we add?
We went out in small boats onto the Honga River and Hooper Straits—a world of wind, water, tide, and rockfish. It was late October, cold and rainy, with wind-driven spray and 63° water. We followed birds hunting for fish, hoping they would lead us to our quarry. Sonar helped us find them, too. On the way, we learned about rockfish life—how and where they spawn; how they use vision, hearing, smell, and the detection of water pressure to survive. We thought about how our lures could imitate their food. And we caught them, within the limits of size and number allowed by the laws of the fishery.
Feeling a line tighten and a rod bend is an atavistic experience, connecting us to the ancient desire to catch, kill, and eat. It is also an experience that can motivate us to understand and protect the Bay.
In our lifetime, this ancient pursuit led to the collapse of the Bay’s rockfish population. We now know how much power we have over these fish and their future, how hard it is to restore their population and ecosystem.
These were hard-earned lessons. It is now our responsibility to pass them on to our students, followers, and descendants. We must show them how to avoid our mistakes.
