« Misconceptions | Main | How You Can Help »
Lifestyle of Stewardship
By Fish Recycler | April 24, 2007
“I just don’t get it,” the old-timer said, shaking his head. He was leaning back on a tree trunk, his long fiberglass rod, yellowed with age, propped in a forked stick on the bank. He sat up straight, and announced, “Why, we used to take ‘em out of here by the bucketful!” He got up with some effort and made his way to the water’s edge, and tightened his lips as
he lifted a stringer to show his one small fish, which gave a listless wave of the tail before being slung back into the water. The old man shook his head again, returned to his seat at the base of the broad oak tree, and picked up his rod. “Just don’t know what happened,” he grumbled.
That’s a story that has been played out in countless settings, a story uttered in similar fashion more and more often from innumerable lips over the past thirty years or so.
Read into those words what you like, but at Recycled Fish, we read this:
If the anglers who’d come before us hadn’t taken them out of here by the bucketful, there might still be fish to catch!
Not that we mean any ill will for our fishing forefathers. A strong case is to be made that they didn’t know any better. But we do know now.
And you know too, right? You know that catch and release helps support more and bigger fish, and that sometimes selective harvest is the best thing for the fishery, right?
Sure! A recent survey showed that 80% of anglers are releasing their catch 80% (or more) of the time. That’s great. Catch and Release has caught on!
And yet, size and numbers of fish in North America aren’t what they could be.
Why?
Because our lifestyle runs downstream.
How we live every day – our lifestyle – has a big effect on our fisheries, as much or more than catch and release.
The time has come for a Lifestyle of Stewardship to emerge among anglers, and Recycled Fish is leading the movement.
What does a “Lifestyle of Stewardship” look like?
Imagine “Joe Angler.” In a week’s time, Joe goes through his typical cycle of living, and at every opportunity, he makes a decision that benefits fisheries.
Maybe Tuesday looks like this:
Joe rolls out of bed, and the faucet he turns on to brush his teeth is a low-flow faucet
He’s got a low-flow shower head in the shower, and a low-flow toilet too.
(Fish need water to swim in, and we’ve got a water crisis in our country. If anglers aren’t helping conserve, then how can we expect ‘the other guy’ to?)
Joe kisses his wife as she shuttles the kids out the door for school, and he grabs an organic apple from a bowl on the counter.
He walks out to the end of his driveway, where he meets his carpooling to head to work.
At the office, he makes a stop by the break room to grab a ceramic coffee mug instead of disposable paper or Styrofoam cup.
Mid-morning, he’s choosing not to print the e-mail that he can just as easily read onscreen, and he’s using recycled paper to print the report that does have to get printed.
Next to the office trash can is a set of recycle bins, and those always fill up faster than the trash can.
He’s due to put in an order for office supplies, and he does it online – clicking through to the office supply store from GoodShop. (That simple 3 seconds to go to GoodShop first guaranteed that a percentage of his order would go back to the fishery, because he designated Recycled Fish as his charity of choice.)
Joe’s afternoon soda can hit the recycle bin, not the trash.
Once home, he had a short to-do list, which included changing out a burned out light bulb. He replaces his incandescent bulb with a CFL bulb.
Joe’s wife wants some evening down-time and there are still a couple hours of light left after dinner, so he’s taking his kids fishing for a few hours. They spend the first 5 minutes picking up trash before starting to fish.
Everybody does a quick spray of insect repellant – the natural, chemical free kind.
He’s got his kids using lead-free sinkers and he’s pinched down the barbs on their hooks.
While the kids explore under shoreline rocks and watch their bobbers out of the corner of their eye, Joe’s sneaking in a few casts for bass, using a biodegradable molded bait rather than a plastic one.
Every time the kids catch a fish, they’re practicing catch-photo-release and Joe’s teaching them the how and why. They’re keeping their fish out of water for less than a minute.
Once home, everybody’s washing up with biodegradable, phosphate-free soap, and Joe’s turning on their energy star dishwasher, which has phosphate-free soap in it, too.
That’s what it’ll take - all 40 million of American anglers living a lifestyle of stewardship at every turn, so a legacy of healthy lakes, streams and seas will be here for generations to come.
The benefits are clear - a lifestyle of stewardship means a healthier place for us to live NOW. It saves us money, it feels good – feels right, and it is the missing ingredient in consistently catching more and bigger fish.
Our lifestyle runs downstream, and at Recycled Fish, we’re standing with our fellow stewards to live a lifestyle of positive impact.
Thanks for standing with us as a steward.
Teeg’s Texas kayak bass
Photo Courtesy of Mike McPeters
Topics: Recycled Fish | No Comments »