Night Fishing: A Last Resort

I'd like to begin this by saying that if any of my peers at school are reading this, either alone at home or aloud to their art class, I would advise you to immediately take whatever electronic device you are using and throw it as far away from you as you can. This blog is a reflection of my life outside of school, and many of you undoubtedly have thought of me differently after reading my musings on the laxative effects of numerous tropical fruits or the state of today's sturgeon fishery. So once again, I would strongly advise you to direct your attentions on the internet elsewhere before I regret having started this blog in the first place.

I know a friend who was reading my blog and switched it to pornography because "it was easier to explain."

For those who have stubbornly continued reading, this week I have delved into the lowest underbelly of the sport: night fishing. It's something everyone should try at least once in their life, and the fishing for many species becomes much better during the night than during the daylight hours. Of course, these species tend to be of the beady-eyed, bottom-dwelling, whiskered orientation.

Night fishing for the venerable brown bullhead catfish is something that I usually do when nothing else is biting. Even when the salmon stop running, the sturgeon hibernate for the summer, the bottomfish grounds get choppy and dangerous, and the trout stop getting stocked, you can always count on a few of the slimy, spiny, foul-tempered beasts to ring your bite alarm at the most ungodly hours of the day. You'll usually have the lake to yourself, or at least it seems that way because it's always too dark to see whatever might be hiding behind you.

In regular fishing, there are constant frustrating annoyances that plague the angler. In night fishing, the fish gods essentially flip you off and make you do it all while essentially blind. The flashlight I always forget to bring never has batteries in it anyways, leaving me to grope around like an animal in the mud. Between blindly tying knots, fumbling around my tackle box, baiting hooks, and handling venomous fish that are essentially living weapons, all in the dark, I feel almost like that one Marvel Superhero.

Night fishing also has an eerie sensation to it. It might have something to do with the fact that you're sitting alone in complete darkness in an area known for suburban crime, but it seems as if all the silence of the pond becomes deafening to the point where the smallest sounds become extremely noticeable. These sounds range from the gentle hooting of owls and chirping of crickets to the drunken guffaws and shouts of the riff-raff fishing across the lake from me.

Let's talk about how truly nasty-er, resilient the Brown Bullhead Catfish is. These fish, native to the South, have spread across the country to every single inhabitable body of water and nearly every uninhabitable one. Sewage treatment plants, muddy ditches, septic tanks, you name it, there's probably a thriving population of these catfish. Nobody knows how they ever get there, but once they get introduced, they're staying. Unlike trout, who have a full on seizure if accidentally dropped, these fish will literally scoot several feet across the shoreline back into the lake with their pectoral spines. And speaking about pectoral spines, they are barbed, venomous, and break off in skin extremely easily. 

Faults aside, the bullhead is an example of a fish that best exemplifies the spirit of our country and of its people. As opposed to the trout, which get stocked and all die off by the summer, or the salmon, who are unable to survive for a second in water that isn't completely pristine, bullheads are adaptable. They are the everyman's fish that can be caught by anyone of any skill or income level. They are scrappy for their size and fight hard until the end. And like many of this country's people, they are by no means perfect. They are slimy, spiny, foul-tempered, aggressive, and bite with a vengeance. They are a fish that exemplifies the working class spirit like no other. Hopefully one day they will be recognized for what they are worth.

But until then, I'll just keep on night fishing.

Tell the art teacher I said hi,

Kamran Walsh