Fishing

I know I have talked about it before, but I am a big fan of "The Deadliest Catch" on the Discovery Channel.  Yes, Nicole thinks it's repetitive and the same stuff happens over and over again (they go out on a boat, they catch some crab, they get slammed with a winter storm, Keith blows his cool, and we have some cool shots of seagulls), but I LOVE the show.  What I have come to recently figure out about myself, though, is that I not only love that show, but apparently it's fishing shows which involve some sort of danger or risk of injury that capture my attention.  By that I mean, I'm not tuning in to ESPN to watch a fishing derby (I'd rather poke a fish hook through my eye) or watch some guys sit in a boat and talk about the types of lures they use to catch whatever the hell kind of fish they're going after that day (again, give me a hook).  No.  I'm talking about shows where somebody can get hurt, killed, or maimed in the act of fishing.  My newest passion is Swamp People on the History channel.  These guys are down in the Louisiana bayou hunting alligators.  The way they catch them is by baiting a pole with raw chicken and waiting for the gators to bite.  Now, if they do get a bite, that's when the games begin.  These guys then try to pull the gator up to the surface and...wait for it...wait for it...they SHOOT HIM WITH A SHOTGUN! 

Now, there are a couple of things that come to mind with this style of fishing.  First of all, I don't know what kind of money there might be in alligator fishing (or as they say on the show, "huntin"), but this seems to be an expensive set up already: fuel for the boat (small boat, but still has a motor), chicken for the bait, and shotgun shells for your shotgun.  I don't know much about the cost of any of those things other than the chicken, but I am sure as hell not feeding good chicken to a gator that I'm then going to shoot.  Second, do these guys have workman's comp on these boats?  And, if they do, what freaking insurance company thought it would be a good idea to underwrite them?  And my final thought about it is, A SHOTGUN?!?!?  REALLY?!?!  Although, when I think about it, I don't really have a leg to stand on in questioning their use of a shotgun.  The reason I say this (and come to think of it, maybe this is why I'm so completely infatuated with these crazy life threatening fishing shows), is because I have witnessed similarly unbelievable fishing tactics in my dad's village.

Ok, let me set the story.  My dad was born and raised in Portugal in a small farming village smack dab in the middle of the country.  It's not close to a beach, it's not close to a big city, and it's not close to anything resembling a highway.  There are not movie theaters, department stores, or even grocery stores.  My grandmother's television only got two stations - RTP 1 and RTP 2 and programming only ran for about 5 hours a day.  Let's put it this way, as a teenager when my friends would get really excited because they were going to Portugal for a month, I would think to myself, "What?!?!?  What could you possibly do there for a month?!?!""  Don't get me wrong, it was nice to visit my family, but after the first 15 minutes I was ready to head back to...well...anywhere.  I wanted something to do and this village didn't, and still doesn't, have a whole lot there for entertainment.  It does, however, have a concrete soccer field, a church, far too many roosters (who, by the way, take their job of waking people up at the ass crack of dawn too seriously) and two bars in a village of about 500 people.  But the biggest attraction there in the summer was "O Rio" (The River).  This was, essentially, the town beach.  Now, when I say "The River" one might conjure up images of the mighty Mississippi or even the Connecticut River (if you want me to stay local) with their broad waterways, plenty of room for fishing, boating, swimming, etc.  and, while I have not been to "The River" in over 20 years, I don't remember it that way at all.  In fact, what I remember was closer to a husky, mucky stream with some rocks, water snakes, and a lot of dirt on the banks.  You could jump off rocks, but you had to be careful about where you were jumping from because it would be very easy for you to land in area that wasn't deep enough for a frog to make a mighty leap.  Long story short, this was The Place to be in the summer.  The Riviera of Ribamondego (the name of my father's village).

Now, much like other bodies of water, people would turn to The River for food through fishing (see?  The story is coming full circle now.  Thanks for hanging in there).  However, and this is where my infatuation with death defying feats of fishing was born, the fishermen here don't use poles or nets or even rocks to catch their fish.  Nope.  Not here.  Here, fishermen choose a more testosterone laden, more powerful (insert cave man like grunt here), and immensely dangerous implement to catch their fish.  Any guesses?  Anyone?  Anyone?  No?  Ok.  They use sticks of dynamite.  That's right.  That's what I said.  Dynamite.  Now, the reason I know this is because one summer day while sitting on the porch and having a contest with my brother to see who could kill the most flies with one swing of the fly swatter, we heard "BOOOOOOM"!  We paused and looked at each other and waited.  And, of course, a few minutes later..."BOOOOOOM"!  At that point, we ran inside and asked "WTF?" (Well, we didn't really say that.  One, this happened in the 80's and text messaging wasn't invented yet.  Two, the "F" in that phrase was punishable by death in my house so there is no way either one of us would ever say that word...in front of our parents).    The response we got was, "Oh. That? They're just fishing".   WHAT?!?!?  Who fishes like that?!?!?!  Who thinks that's a good idea?!?!?  I mean, what happens?  A couple of guys sit on the banks, throw in a stick, and wait for fully cooked fish to emerge from the megaton blast they just launched into The River?  Can you just walk down to the banks and hire a couple of guys to blast your lunch out of the water?  "Yes.  I'll have the smelts for two.  And please make sure they are blown to smithereens.  Thanks."  I don't know what the stats are for people getting hurt or maimed while fishing this way, but I have to believe it ranks right up there with the fishermen on the Bering Sea. 

So, that's where I think my propensity for outrageous and dangerous fishing shows come from.  Apparently, there is a new show in the works called, "Hillbilly Fishing" where they show folks reaching into the water and catching fish with their bare hands.  Now, throw a couple of piranha in there for some excitement and you know I'm tuning in to watch that.  Sorry, Nicole.