Welcome back to Three-Word Thursday, where Fish Hack is a getting jittery lately while waiting to add to the ol’ Biomass Footprint in the very near future.
Footprint. Predator. Nil.
One’s Biomass Footprint is the culmination of all the flora and fauna one whacks and eats in his or her lifetime. It’s kind of a Zen scorecard for carnivores and gardeners alike — those of us lucky enough to have a personal relationship with at least some of the food we eat, instead of accepting the silent screams of our chow muffled by Corporate America.
Reap it or thump it, it’s all part of your print. Own what you eat, baby.
Being the piscatorial predator I am, my Biomass Footprint is solely fish-centric. It grows geometrically during three distinct two-month periods each year. One for spring chinook salmon, one for fall chinook and one for hatchery winter steelhead.
This so happens to be nearing First Trimester…aka the Rogue River’s winter steelhead season.
But the carcass count is like the goal tally for the first half of a Euro soccer game: Nil.
I’ve cast and rowed into a decent, albeit not stellar, line-up of wild steelhead, coho and cutthroat in the past month or so, but no fin-clipped critter qualifying for the print.
A combination of work at the Fish Wrap (not legitimate work, but work nonetheless) bad weather and Tax Deduction No. 2′s weekend basketball games have conspired to, as we say, keep the stink in the boat.
No hatchery steelhead’s eyes turned into X’s. In essence, nothing landed that’s whack-worthy.
But the chance of that drought continuing by the next Three-Word Thursday: Nil.
