You're not alone; although I don't know if it's reassuring or not.
"Seasons", by JC
You're not alone; although I don't know if it's reassuring or not.
This does scare me a little but I think that I agree with you.
Rick
WELL SAID, JC! Count me in as being in complete agreement with you.
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Dick
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You learn something new every single day of your life. If you don't, you weren't paying attention.
Well said JC. I go back a little further when we had to store our hunting meat in my uncles butcher store--even had fun cutting ice and storing it in sawdust. We have it so eazy these days.
Inventing fish -- How many would know what a Skamania is?
One one of my favorite 6 acre trout pond was poisoned, froze then thawed in the spring--A thousand new trout stocked died because the ice kept the poison thru the winter.
That christmas stocking--I worried more about getting a lump of coal.
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Bill
[This message has been edited by William Fitzgerald (edited 25 July 2005).]
Living in the MidSouth, I'm grateful to science for the opportunity to fish trout in the region. Most of our cold-water fisheries are man-made. Even the cold spring fisheries were artificially stocked at some point.
Here's a couple of interesting counter-points:
1. Pheasant - not native to North America. So that pheasant hunting you enjoyed so much throughout the years was the result of transplanting and cross-breeding. The Chinese Ringneck Pheasant was originally bred as a "garden ornament" for European estates.
2. Brown Trout - not native to North America. So even where we fish "wild" Browns, they were "planted" at some point.
3. Most of the tailwater fisheries in the MidSouth, Southeast, and Southwest were stocked with trout in order to rehabilitate sport fisheries that were destroyed by the construction of the dams. They're way better than nothing. And I'm sure they revlieve a LOT of pressure on the natural cold-water fisheries of the Northern Tier states.
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Fishing the Ozarks
Very interesting article this week. I am a youngster and did not know about the oranges in the stockings (I love hearing about those types of things though). As for the ice cutting, I learned about that from my great grandmother (who is 101 and still kicking) in a painting that they had at their farm. It showed a building next to a creek/river, and they called it the "ice-house" picture, which I found out that the ice-house was where they stored ice before freezers, they cut the ice from the creek and stored it in saw dust, nice memory.
I think what I took from the story is JC's seasons are more like traditions in my mind. I will always remember the feeling of deer season when I was finally old enough to go. The eating of cereal (usually corn flakes) the dressing up in layers, loading the shells in the cartridge (what a feeling when I was old enough to touch the shells and gun), getting in the truck (at a** am) and going out to the farm. No matter what I do to recreate this it will never be the same as it was (changes/seasons?). Anyway I wanted to thank Bill and JC for bringing up some memories.
Also I got M&M's in my stocking, the only time of the year that I got them, so they were special to me!
Drew
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A bum-legged old man and a drunk. That's all you got?
That's WHAT I got.
"I don't drink anymore, I freeze it and eat it like a popsicle"
I liked the article JC. I think that change scares me in that I do not trust it so much. So many things we tried to do have unexpected consequences. Nature took thousands of years to generate these delecate balances and we move forward and expect to be able to duplicate that kind of change in years. Our track record is not so good. Look at the polution of our waters, especially in the 60's. Look at issues of global warming and our lack of true understanding of that issue. We are decimating whale populations in the name of progress.
While I take advantage of many of these "advances in technology" sometimes unconciously, I think that if given a choice I would vote for something that is slower and less potentially disasterous.
I miss places where I used to fish that are now housing complexes. I am greatful on the other hand for some of the advances that have come with these times like anti-biotics and new surgical techniques. I don't think there is a single answer, or a simple answer, but you bring up some good questions that we will benefit from if we ask ourselves those questions again and again.
jed
JC, right on target, again. I for one believe in change, where would we be without it. When we used to get that Orange or that big red delicious apple in the stocking, that was a big big deal. You are right and I have to agree with you that they had more meaning back then then they do now. The stocking always had Brazil nuts, and English walnuts, and pecans too. I remember just exactly what you are talking about in fishing as well. I remember getting up at 3 in the morning and leaving with my Dad, driving what seemed like for hours to get to a "good" fishing spot, then cooking breakfast in an old iron skillet by the river as we fished...
Have the changes made it better? Guess it depends on who you ask. To me, I guess it has but the most important thing to me about the changes is that it has helped me to appreciate those days and has embedded things in my memory, just as it has yours that helped make me who I am today...and I wouldn't change most of that for anything
JC, yeah, I grew up with seasons....we picked possum grapes and summer grapes for jelly, both wild, of course. We knew where every wild plum tree was in a 10-mile radius, ditto with apples, peaches from old homesteads. We grew most of what we ate, and if it wasn't in season, it wasn't available. And yeah, that Christmas orange was a treasure......
As a member in the mid-30's age group I, like JC, am of two minds.
I believe it is OK to have some areas, I guess I would prefer man made lakes, man made ponds and canals (that can be segregated so that the fish can't get out in the adjoining river), stocked with non-native fish for those who'd like to broaden their horizons, and I'd even go so far as to allow the "frankenfish" in those reservoirs (sp?).
When it comes to rivers and natural lakes and natrual ponds, I would say leave them natural and only stock those fish that would be native to those waters in the hopes of reviving them (along with enforcement of restrictions on size and number of fish caught).
On one hand, it would be great to catch wild fish. But then again, why should someone have to fly to the midwest, say, to catch a "red-spotted brook trout" (or insert any real fish in this spot)? Is it really a bad thing to have a local reservoir stock such a fish and allow you to fish there, for a nominal fee to pay for restocking? I would be against it if my state were to stock the local river or a natural lake with such a fish, but I don't see anything wrong with having places specifically meant for fishing for species that are non-native.
[This message has been edited by Gandalf (edited 26 July 2005).]
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