Crime Doesn't Pay Whom?
By Ed Zern
Excerpt from How To Catch Fishermen
Several years ago a friend of mine grew weary
of elbowing his way through hordes of fishermen along
the banks of every trout stream within driving distance
of New York City, where he then lived, and having no
particular ties with the metropolis he pulled up stakes
and headed west. When he found a western city with
a nice climate and an even nicer trout stream flowing
nearby, he bought a house on the outskirts of town and
settled down as a permanent resident. Shortly thereafter
he sent me a long letter with rapt description of the
nearby fishing, with special enthasis on the fact that
anyone who fishes the several local streams may not only
latch onto large numbers of sizable brown and rainbow
trout but may have a mile or more of water all to
himself, even on week ends. It sounded sensational.
Last year, though, the same friend sent me a
batch of newspaper clippings describing his off-season
activities. It seems he had organized 3,000 (or maybe it
was 3,000,000) youngsters of the city into a gigantic
Junior Sportsman's Club and was teaching them the basic
elements of fly fishing - with classes in casting, fly tying
and all essential phases of the sport. He was manifestly
pleased with himself, and in a accompanying note he explained
that the club would undoubtedly help reduce juvenile delinquency
and make fine, cleancut, wholesome citizens out of boys who
would otherwize end their days in the hoosegow, if not actually
in the hot seat.
Personally I feel that this guy is a menace to his fellow
fishermen. If his program is successful he will have that mob
of moppets sloshing around in trout streams, instead of loitering
around pool rooms, and gin mills, where they belong. And in
a short while the streams of his neighborhood will be as
crowded with anglers as the Esopus or the Housatonic or any
other eastern river. It simply does't make sense. Instead of
letting those kids go happily about their business of rolling
drunks, holding up filling stations, smoking reefers, and other
normal pastimes my friend is trying to herd them into streams
and lakes, where they will be a real nuisance.
And regardless of what you may think of our penal system,
the fact is that every man in jail is one less potential fisherman
to clutter up your favorite pool or pond. Frankly, if there were
a few more people in penitentiaries and reform schools and
fewer on rivers and lakes it would suit me fine. They could all
be paroled on the last day of fishing season, with orders to
report back to the warden and be locked up again on the following
opening day; the money saved on prison food bills through this
arrangement could be used for general stream improvement work.
In fact I am about to start, in my own neighborhood, a campaign
to interest all youngster in joining a Junior Crime Club, with courses
in petty thievery, hijacking, pocket-picking, marijuana culture, breaking
and entering, arson, counterfeiting, salf-blowing, disposal of stolen
goods, felonious assault and other larcenous arts, criminal crafts and
sinful sciences. Any member of the Club who is caught within
five hundred feet of a lake, stream or pond containing any species of
game fish will be stood in a tub of concrete until it hardens, and then
sunk in the deepest part of the water that led to his downfall. And
the only "tight lines" that Club members will ever know are the ones
by which they swing from a gallows.
Here - have an application blank. ~ Ed Zern
