I opened a paper a few weeks ago and found a special section – not on terrorism in the world or violence in the schools or ethnic cleansing (why do they call the murder of an entire group of people “ethnic cleansing”?…it sounds like Norwegian day at the Laundromat.) –   no, this special section of 18 pages was concerned with the opening day of walleye season in Minnesota.

          Now, I was born and raised in a town on the banks of a major reservoir.  Many of my younger days were spent hydrogenating various bait species, often in pursuit of the shore-elusive walleye.  Of course, at that age I didn’t care if I caught a walleye or a bluegill; I was a kid – I just wanted to catch a fish.  As I grew older I was distracted from one prime purpose to another.  Adolescent hormonal changes caused me to troll instead for the beach-bound-bikini-beauty.  I really should have stuck to walleye – I got more bites and they’re easier to get along with.  Young love (read:  “temporary mental lapse”) and then parental responsibilities caused me to further neglect my angling studies.  By the time I rejoined the monofilament community I was way behind.   I was forced to take remedial casting courses and was threatened by Game & Fish with winter school so as not to pose a danger to other anglers and fish of all species.  I finally realized I needed help while rigging up a trolling bottom-bouncer during an evening of shore fishing.  This history has helped me become an angler firmly rooted in below average ability.

          I think the walleye edition is printed for fishermen who are a bit more, um…zealous than I.  These extreme walleye fishermen have a complete science and specific branches of study built from the pastime of fishing for walleye.  There are different techniques of bait casting, jigging, trolling and set fishing.  In addition, there are infinite points involved in fishing structure, fishing different seasons, different times of day, various weather patterns, water types, astronomical effects, zodiac indications, fish mood swings and walleye hair color, to name but a few.  The calendar with the little shaded fish on the good fishing days just doesn’t cut it anymore so put away your bamboo pole and safety pin hook.

          Fish are more sophisticated today in response to the technological pressures placed on them by modern anglers.  A friend of mine who fishes, yet still has time for the hobby of diving (largely brought on by his poor boat operating abilities) became curious about a school of fish always found, by use of his depth finder, in the exact same spot.  While investigating he found a group of decoys floating suspended at a depth of 15 feet.  When he attempted to prove his find to other divers, he found that the fake fish had been moved in response to his discovery.  This is proof that fish are becoming more intelligent – sometimes more intelligent than the fishermen.  It also points to the problem of boat operation while consuming large amounts of alcohol, but we can touch on that at another time.

          This continuing leisure-time attention has spawned (pun intended) the rise of the sportsman’s sportsman, the tournament fisherman.  The average tournament fanatic is an advanced amateur, usually someone in a professional vocation that generates enough income to allow him to pay and exorbitant amount to do something he could do for free any other weekend.  Quite often these tournamenteers travel from tourney to tourney around their region, if not the country, trying to win back their gas money.  Michael Jordan could take up tournament fishing as an acceptable substitute to betting on his golf game.

          The professional, on the other hand, is not so much another breed as he is a mutant of the fanatic…probably an excellent salesman who came up with the idea – “Hey, wouldn’t it be great to do this all the time and get paid for it?”  Most professionals have become connected with some type of informational media, either radio or television broadcasts or magazine and newspaper articles.  Thanks to the single-mindedness of some of the fishermen mentioned earlier, sales of ad time associated with these productions can be quite lucrative.

          It is also this religious fervor toward walleye and other types of fishing that enables these people to produce one of the most powerful narcotics in America today – the television fishing show.  These programs are tied with barbiturates and telecasts of pro golf tournaments as the strongest sleep inducing items that can be taken non-intravenously.  An acquaintance of mine shows them to his elementary age daughters to get them to go to sleep…although care must be taken since an overdose can induce a coma-like state.

          From the cross-section of fishermen we have looked at today I feel it might be a good idea, maybe even necessary, to organize clinics for the treatment of compulsive fishing disorders.  It may be possible to arrange Fishermen’s’ Anonymous meetings on a weekly basis.  Whole support groups would be very helpful:

“Hello, Bob?  It’s Wally.  I hate to bother you at this hour but I…I really want to bait a leech on a lindy rig.”

“Okay Wally.  You make some coffee, alright?  And I’ll be there as soon as I can get dressed.  Just promise me you’ll stay away from your boat until I get there, alright?…alright?”

          This could be a business opportunity if I could get co-payment from the medical insurance community.  With a good salesman to sell the concept I think it could work.

          Maybe I’ll talk to a professional fisherman – I bet he could sell this idea.