20 MILLION FISHERMEN vs. 30 BILLION FISH
For the West Coast's winter steelheader the fishing year 1956 may have begun on January 1st with a shivery trip to the Umpqua or the Klamath or the Nooksack. For the winter-vacationing Easterner it may have begun in February with a chartered boat trip to the Gulf Stream out of Palm Beach or Miami or Tavernier. But the first man is regarded as something of a freak, even by his fellow fishermen, and the second is not a fisherman at all, in the pure, psychiatric sense of the word (unless, of course, he came to Florida seeking the presence of fish rather than the absence of snow).
Thus for most anglers throughout the United States and Canada the fishing year is just now beginning—and not until June or July will it really achieve its peak. By then nearly 20 million men, women and children in 48 states will have paid out about $40 million for licenses and will be happily catching a conservatively estimated 100 million game fish and a quarter of a billion pan fish. Of the 20 million, nearly two-thirds will pursue at least one of the four popular species portrayed in bait's-eye perspective on the opposite and following pages.
By and large, this army of anglers will be using tackle and techniques basically unchanged since their great-grandfathers went fishing. In fact, flyfishing is at least 3,000 years old; the catching of fish on trolled lures predates the Christian era; and nobody is certain which beetle-browed caveman first skewered an earthworm on a thorn hook and hopefully dangled it in a river on the end of an elk's tendon (although it is known for sure that a chap whose cave overlooked the pool came by and quietly told him he should have been there yesterday).
There are, of course, some recent tackle developments: the growth of spin fishing and the use of synthetic materials for rodmaking are the most important. The spin fisherman employs a relatively new mechanical device for casting a bait or lure or weighted fly, and the mixed feelings with which anglers view this method are reactions to spin tackle's chief characteristics: it's so easy to use that a) anyone can catch fish with it after a few minutes' practice and b) it de-emphasizes casting skill and stream craft and overemphasizes the mechanical advantages of the tackle.
In England, where the bulk of good fishing water is still privately controlled, spin fishing has long been banned on most trout streams. In the United States, where the possibility of such restrictive laws is remote, observers at recent sportsmen's shows have reported a promising revival of interest in fly-rod fishing, and veteran fly rodders hope the pendulum has now started to swing back, and that spinning will soon assume the same limited (but important) position it now holds in England.
As for the new rodmaking materials, it now seems certain that just as bamboo rods can't compete with the so-called "glass rods" in the low and middle price ranges, neither can synthetics compete with natural cane in the highest price brackets (from $100 to $200), and that the split-bamboo rod will survive a while longer, if only as a luxury item. (But SI spies reported several glass rods on the Restigouche Club's hallowed salmon pools last season, in the hands of men who could easily afford the most expensive Payne or Leonard or Orvis split-cane rod.)
The new 1956 model lures, of which there are hundreds, are almost all trademarked variations on ancient fish-getting themes: the metal spoon, the wooden or plastic plug, the metal spinner, the "Devon minnow" revolving lure, the top-water "bug" for fly-rod use; and in salt water—the feathered jig, the wooden plug, the "block tin" squid, the spoon. The bait fisherman will find few improvements in earthworms, hellgrammites, crawfish, shiners, frogs, salamanders, sand-worms, lamprey-eel larvae, mice, shrimp, grasshoppers, crickets, grubs, cockroaches, fiddler crabs and other tried-and-true enticements for fresh- and salt-water fishes, but he will be happy with the old familiar models.
More important, however, than any new techniques or lures is the recently read about discovery by fresh-water fish biologists that most warm-water lakes are badly underfished, that it is virtually impossible to "fish out" a bass lake or perch pond and that even in some heavily fished waters, more fish died of old age than were caught. As a result, many states have declared year-round open seasons for warm-water species and have liberalized or even abolished creel and size limits.
The weather, as always, played a great part in shaping future fishing conditions. In the East, fresh-water fishermen found some favorite trout streams badly damaged by last year's several hurricanes, and some lakes and ponds altered by washed-out dams and fish-barriers. The Brodhead Creek in Pennsylvania headed the list of casualties: the cover was stripped from the streamside, pools were filled with silt, the deep runs were flattened out and it will be a decade, say stream biologists, before the Brodhead will again be a good trout stream. In Connecticut, the Housatonic suffered almost as badly, and there are few coastal rivers that don't show flood damage to the pools and to aquatic insect life.
In the West, too, there was flood damage in some northern steelhead rivers, notably Oregon's Klamath, but throughout the West alarmed sportsmen were confronted by an even greater threat. This was what seemed to some observers a determination on the part of the Army's Corps of Engineers and the Department of Interior's Bureau of Reclamation to slap a dam across every gorge and valley in sight, often with seemingly total disregard for the migration of fish (especially steel-head trout and salmon coming in from the sea to spawn) and for wildlife and recreational values. Even the Madison River in Montana, considered by many fishermen to be America's greatest trout stream, was slated by the Bureau of Reclamation for a series of storage and diversion dams. But in other parts of the country, dams were credited with increasing recreational and fishing facilities a thousand fold. Such man-made lakes as Kentucky, Center Hill, Fontana, Mead, Mussel Shoals and Elephant Butte will provide fun and sport for more than five million Americans this year.
And everywhere there will be more fishermen than ever before, with more leisure time for fishing and more money for fishing tackle and trips—even with more fish, for an estimated quarter of a billion legal-sized game fish will be planted in public waters by federal and state hatcheries during the year, to augment the 30 billion or more game and pan fish already inhabiting the waters of North America. And while some far-sighted states are buying or leasing the fishing rights on lakes and streams for public use, private clubs are increasing in number each year and often leasing fishing waters and closing them to non-members. "It's a race," said one observer, "and it's too soon yet to say who's going to win."
FOUR PHOTOS
MARTIN IGER
ILLUSTRATION
"And then I walloped the cover right off a high inside curve that cleared the right-field wall by about 50 feet and must have rolled halfway up Fujiyama."
LARGEMOUTH BLACK BASS
Rated by many as the most popular game fish in the country, the largemouth ranges from southern Canada to northeastern Mexico, is native to 33 states and has been introduced widely in all other states. An indiscriminate feeder, it prefers weedy waters with mud bottoms, and when fully grown usually weighs between four and eight pounds.
MUSKELLUNGE
Known affectionately as the "musky," this largest member of the pike family is to be found in the weed beds of shallow bays of lakes, large rivers and mud-bottomed northern U.S. waters. Because it is so hard to catch, it is highly prized by fishermen. Average weight when adult is 10 to 30 pounds, but the world's record stands at 69 pounds 11 ounces.
RAINBOW TROUT
Most acrobatic of all American trout, the rainbow is perhaps the most famous freshwater game fish. Usually found in cold white water with a high oxygen content, it is native along the Pacific slopes from Alaska to California but it has also been introduced successfully over a large part of the country. Average weight is two to three pounds.
CHAIN PICKEREL
Second cousin to the muskellunge, the pickerel here falls victim to its voracious appetite and is hooked on artificial lure. This game fighter is found in shallow waters and weedy areas from eastern Canada southward, from east of the Appalachians to Florida and in the Mississippi valley down to Missouri and Texas. Average weight is two to three pounds.
As part of its seasonal look at the world of fish and fishermen, SI in the next four issues will present intimate portraits of the brown trout, the eastern brook trout and an appreciation of the father of the modern fly rod, Hiram L. Leonard