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Date: Fish Cents
Title: Feb. WnW
Date: 17 Jan 2005
Time: 09:27:02 -0500
“What’s a Fish Worth?” Go to your local fish market and they’ll tell you, to the penny, what each fish there is worth at that moment. They’ll, often times, have a price sign stuck in the ice, right beside the fish’s head so you don’t even have to know what kind of fish it is, but you’ll know it’s worth $12.95 a pound. If you look around, you’ll notice different types of fish have different prices. Some types of fish are priced higher than others even though they’re lying right next to one another in the ice bed. A fish is not a fish, is not a fish? Aren’t all fish created equal? Come back in a few days and some of the prices will have changed. The fish you saw three days ago for $12.95 per pound is now $9.95 per pound. Come back the next day and the same fish is $8.95 a pound. The price of that fish is dropping $1 per pound per day; I’ll come back in a week. A week later you conclude that someone else obviously bought that fish the day before you returned but you learned old fish aren’t as valuable as new fish. Ask commercial fishermen the worth of a fish and he’ll tell you the current wholesale price and let you know that price will be less by the time he returns with his catch. Furthermore, the decline in wholesale fish price by the pound appears to be directly correlated with the increase in diesel cost by the gallon. I asked a fellow in Panama City how much a fish was worth. We were at the yacht basin standing beside his well polished 63 foot sport fishing wagon with a triple decker fly bridge trimmed with numerous gold international fishing reels. He said come aboard. I did after wiping my feet off on the section of carpet on the dock with the name of the vessel embroidered on it. The cockpit was a large dance floor with twin fighting lounge chairs port and starboard; embroidered name on the backrest, of course. On the transom was a hide-away sink, see-through live-well, raw and fresh water wash down, and tackle storage. Looking forward there was a full size chest freezer for fish food, a refrigerator for people food and drink and a bait prep station larger than a drafting board table with integrated tackle storage. A stairwell leads to the primary helm station on the first tier of the fly bridge. Gold plated rod holders dot the brightwork. A wrap around sofa framed the captains’ chair so guest could have a great view of a bank of electronics that would shame NASA in the 1960’s. The sofa had a stocked baby refrigerator so you wouldn’t have to go up and down the stairs to get a fresh drink. Embroidered name on the sofa? What do you think? A stainless ladder dropped from above and lead to the secondary helm station. Looking up the ladder, it seemed to me to be the “stairway to heaven” judging by how far it went up. I can’t imagine anyone climbing up that thing in a rolling sea without a safety harness. I suppose, in the event of bad weather, you could transfer helm control to the upper station so the Lord could take the boat in. Through the double doors was an all mahogany salon. Walls, sofa, chairs, table, hutch, galley/wet bar, etc. were all trimmed in mahogany in such detail that the grain of the wood was seamless. The floor was covered in a rich burgundy carpet except for behind the bar, which was Italian tile engrained with seashells. Going down and forward, we looked at the queen sized guest quarters and full sized bathroom. The term ‘head’ doesn’t apply to me when the head was larger than the bathroom I have in my house. We peeked into the king sized captains’ quarters. “This is where I stay” he said and closed the door. I assumed it had its’ own ‘head’. You know, one of those dank mildew smelly cramped toilet closets you find on party boats. He didn’t let me in his quarters because he was a little embarrassed he couldn’t afford a showcase bathroom like the guest were privy to, or so I made myself believe. After the tour, he offered me a drink and we chatted some more. I found out it cost $800 per month to have his boat float at that slip. That fee includes two parking places next to your slip. For $2000 a day he’ll have his captain take out your party for a wonderful day on the water. The mate’s tip is not included, by-the-by. He was a gracious gentleman but never quite answered my question as to the worth of a fish. Two hours of prep time on Friday night, to make sure most things are rigged and ready, so as to minimize doing much work in the darkness of the early morning, meaning that your Honey Dumpling didn’t get any ‘quality time’ after the work week. Then an hour and a half drive to the crowded boat ramp where it takes all your restraint not to blow your top at the ill prepared fellow ahead of you who obviously shared quality time with his Honey Dumpling the night before. Then an hour or so bumpy boat ride to the best fishing spot in your GPS to find out that three other boats have stolen your secret number. The bite is slow so you decide to take a snack break, you ask your buddy, whose sole responsibility was to bring the food and drinks, for a sandwich and soda. The look on his face tells you he spent quality time with his Honey Dumpling last night too and forgot the groceries. You manage to put a few fish in the boat before hunger and thirst force aborting the fishing mission. After the mental anguish of loading the boat back on the trailer at the public boat ramp, you find yourself at the Quickie Gas Food Mart and Laundry Emporium putting $25 worth of gas in your truck, $50 worth of gas in your boat, 2 quarts of two-cycle oil ($5), a cold six pack of liquid prosac, bag of stale chips and a peppercorn hotdog ($11). (Definition: Peppercorn hotdog- what you assume to be a spicy all beef link with a sprinkling of peppercorns only to find out, after first bite, that the ‘peppercorns’ where just roasted flies that got stuck on the wiener as it rolled around for hours on the machine). The party continues once you pull back on the road, after you donating the chewed and unchewed portion of the “peppercorn dog” to the roadside raccoons. Your buddy offers to help clean up the boat and the fish but you’re so ticked off that for the sake of the friendship you feel a little time alone is best and tell him you’ll take care of it this time. Soon you find yourself alone in the backyard with a few dead fish and a bomber squadron of biting flies that somehow heard what you did with their kinfolk at the QGFM&LE. Still scratching the whelps from the flies, you toss the chunks of bagged fish parts in the garage freezer, drag yourself to the shower, flop down in that nasty over stuffed chair she’s been dying to have hauled off to the dump, pop the last can of warm liquid prosac and receive the silent treatment from your Honey Dumpling. “Honey, do you want me to cook that fish for diner tomorrow night?” No answer and she’s sitting across the room staring at you. The worth of those fish? I don’t believe math applies. The joyful screams and antics of child speed cranking grunts to the boat at a rate that is only curbed by the time it takes you to remove the fish and put on more bait. He is absorbed in the moment like salt in water. He is the best fishermen the world has ever known. Just ask him. The satisfaction of digging a big grouper off the bottom to the point of getting winded brings the child out in a grown man. You can tell by the way he poses for a boat photo and then sneaks a few peeks in the cooler to marvel at the accomplishment. The roller coaster facial expression brought on by a submarine missile strike from a five foot plus barracuda on a trolled tube lure. The aerial dance brings silence till splash down. “Did you see that?” “Somebody get the rod!” The naked flicker of a redfish tail, bringing out the springer spaniel instinct in a guide as she poles her client within casting range. “Fish ON!” Who’s more excited? I vote the fish but I could be wrong. Those four quick scenarios are all very different but the same. You see, we can add up the cost of equipment and so forth, the value of our time and even factor in what we could have been doing if we weren’t fishing. But we can’t put a price on that single redfish, or one grunt out of a hundred or more, or that dancing barracuda that most people would just release anyway. The value of the fish is in the moment. The fish retailer and commercial fishermen are painfully aware of the cost of getting fish. They know the value of that fish declines from the time it is caught to the time it is sold. They’re simply trying to affix a dollar figure on the fish. They’re in the fish business but the value of the fish is in the moment. Sportfishermen look at fish a bit different but there is a similarity. The man with the 63 footer spent millions to be in the lap of luxury the moment the fish struck. The other fellow endured hurdles and hardship to have a brief moment with a few fish. The scenarios depicted the high moments with a fish but neglected all the time necessary to be there when it happened. Will the little boy remember dragging out of bed early, the hour long boat ride, the captains’ name, the bait used, etc? Probably not. He will remember the moment with the fish for the rest of his life. What is a fish not worth? Your life and those lives with you! The same person that counts calories, cholesterol, and/or carbs, doesn’t smoke or drink, drives the speed limit, makes sure their child is in a car safety seat, is worried when a loved one is on the road late a night, etc can be the same person that ignores the dark clouds, turbulent seas, preventative maintenance and ‘expensive’ safety equipment and takes a huge risk to catch a stupid fish. If a little voice in your head sounds off a warning whisper; pay attention to it. There is no fish swimming worth endangering yourself and others. If conditions aren’t right, go golfing. I do.