Ever since I was a kid, I loved the water. I loved swimming and if you ask my parents I loved taking loooooong showers. Heck, I even had a bedroom decorated entirely with underwater life. There were many times I remember being referred to as being part fish. The state I grew up in has a good quality game and parks program and a number of nearby streams, lakes, ponds and rivers to drop a line into. As a child I never went fishing a lot, occasionally I went with my dad, friends or on a Boy Scout camping trip (proud recipient of the Fishing Merit Badge). However, this never really amounted to very much in the way of a fishing passion. I do remember that I always had a keen curiosity for what was underneath the waves. At one point, my roving grandparents lived in a small town in Missouri that was near a series of large lakes. On one particular visit we went to a restaurant on a bank high above the water. This joint specialized in catfish and they had a tank full of some of the fattest catfish I had ever seen. Of course that may have partially been due to my minute stature as a kid. I think perhaps ever since that day, catfish have been my favorite under water curiosity, both to look at and eat. Attached to the restaurant was a long suspension bridge that dangled above the narrowing water below. My mother, who was afraid of heights mind you, took me out to the middle and we looked down below at the churning brown waves. What was down there?
During my teen and pre-teen years, my parents had taken me to Mexico (partially the reason I turned to archaeology) and Spain. I like to say that mother has this disease where she thinks she is part Mexican. The symptoms include a fascination with all things Spanish, be them from Spain or Mexico or elsewhere. She probably has like...stage 3 chronic onset or something, as displayed by the mixture of pseudo Hispanic decorations all over our house. Anyway, this brought me close to the ocean of more than one occasion. The ocean to me was always kind of scary. Not like the run away and hide scary, but scary none the less. It was large, and who knows what lie in the vast abyss beneath the wind tossed waves? Multiple readings of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and other Lovecraft stories only fueled this feeling and curiosity. It was not only the ocean that gave me a macabre since of wonder. On a trip down to Cancun, my parents took me to a massive sink hole where the guide told us that the Maya had thrown in sacrificial victims. The water was a deep sapphire and two tourists swam in the eerie gloom. All I could think of was the hundreds of bones and relics that lie in a heap deep beneath the crisp surface in the unwavering black.
Over time I continued to fuel my untapped passion for the water by various means. A particular video game, titled "Endless Ocean", was the only reason I even bought a Nintendo Wii. I savored the experience of scuba diving among all sorts of strange and beautiful life, even if it was just an educational video game. I discovered another quirky game about fishing and then low and behold I saw and advertisement on Animal Planet for a new series. River Monsters with Jeremy Wade. Wade is an "extreme angler" and biologist that hunts down the the subjects of the worlds greatest "Fish Tales". I ate this show up, from giant catfish to freshwater sharks and massive rays. Oh the marvels that lurked on the river beds of the world. My father, just over one year ago, graced my presence with a fantastic book by Jeremy Wade himself and this prompted me to buy my first, very own fishing pole! I was giddy. I by no means hopped to catch a giant carp or man eating catfish like Mr. Wade but I now had a chance to explore what was under the water on my own. I spent many afternoons on the rocky shore of a nearby lake during the hot summer. I only managed to catch a few Bluegill and Sunfish but I loved every second of it. The waiting, the sweat from the sun, the tug of war between the fish and I, and finally seeing the creature that I had struggled with before I let it return to its watery home, it was all exhilarating.
The waters of the world are an important resource, both for survival and to feed human wonderment. There is so little of the ocean that has been explored; the ocean is teaming with life yet unseen. Even the channels and waterways that are so close to home can hold mysteries and legends just waiting to be uncovered. These habitats are also is danger. Pollution, tourism and commercial overfishing are ruining the world's oceans and freshwater. There is a Star Trek movie that involves the consequences of whales going extinct. And while I have little hope a giant alien vessel will come and punish us for ruining the environment, that is still not a world I would like to live in.
This is my last semester of college (finally, I know!), and I have been trying to come up with projects or pursuits that will fuel my thirst for adventure and for writing. Over the summer I will be posting some of my adventures in fishing and scuba diving as I plan to take classes in my spare time. I guess the point of this particular post is to show that their are many ways of exploring. Hiking, climbing, star gazing, fishing; all different ways to experience our wonderful world/universe and all that it has in store for us.
For those of you who are interested in learning more about your home state's fishing programs, check your local Park and Recreation website. For those of you in my home state, you are in luck! I'll provide the links!
http://outdoornebraska.ne.gov/fishing.asp
http://outdoornebraska.ne.gov/fishing/programs/aquaticed/aquarium.asp (a really nice local aquarium)
My day started out relatively normal as far as survey goes. We drove our truck down some lonely dirt roads that snake between large tracts of grassland. We parked, we got out, we line up and then marched in lines. For the first hour or so we found nothing, which seems to be the norm out here. A herd of female Pronghorns trotted by and a very short distance, followed closely by two ever watchful males. Shortly after we met the owner of the property who has lived on this land all his life; we all guess he was pushing his 80's. His father moved out here and bought the land in 1913 and started out as a bean farmer but turned to cattle when the farming looked bleak. This is one of the few families the survived through the Dust Bowl.
