Image: A fighting rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) as portrayed in a painting by Bob Hines, USFWS.
Today, House Assistant Minority Leader Joe Neguse released the following statement regarding the inclusion of his bill, the Upper Colorado and San Juan River Basins Endangered Fish Recovery Programs Reauthorization Act, in the final negotiated language for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025…
— press release from Rep. Joe Neguse, December 2024.
My dad was an avid fisherman, which is probably why I developed an aversion to fishing. Other fathers in my neighborhood spent their weekends teaching their sons how to throw a football, or how to hammer a nail. But whenever the weekend rolled around at my boyhood home, my dad was nowhere to be seen. Also missing: his fishing pole.
It didn’t register, at the time, that my dad loved fighting. Not that he himself was much of a fighter, but he loved watching violent contact sports on TV. Boxing, football, wrestling, anything that was likely to produce blood or mortal injury at some point.
He also love to hook a big trout willing to put up a fight. He used the lightest possible fishing line, the kind that would break easily if the fish was willing to do extended battle. Sadly, a fish that ended up successfully breaking the line would presumably spend the rest if its short life with a hook in his mouth and trailing a length of nylon monofilament. (I use the pronoun “his” because the fighting fish were presumed to be male, unless proven otherwise.)
I don’t recall seeing my dad actually involved in a fight, other than with a fish. He didn’t even like to argue with my mom. If perchance an argument got started at home, he would promptly disappear into the bathroom and close the door.
But he would gladly fight with a fish.
And to be fair, the fish were happy to oblige.
One day, he and two of his buddies from the office packed up our Buick with fishing gear, and drove to San Francisco, where they had chartered a boat to take them salmon fishing. They came home a couple of days later, and unloaded from the plastic coolers some of the largest fish I’d ever seen.
Presumably, these salmon had put up a good fight, but obviously, they had lost.
These memories were dredged up when I heard the news that one of Colorado’s Congressional Representatives, Joe Neguse, had successfully inserted the ‘Upper Colorado and San Juan River Basins Endangered Fish Recovery Programs Reauthorization Act’ into the final negotiated language for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025.
We can understand the desire to have recovery programs for endangered fish. Lord knows, America can never have too many recovery programs. Of all types.
And inserting a reauthorization for this recovery program into the National Defense Authorization Act makes a good deal of sense, because national defense is all about fighting.
Whether the fish in the Colorado and San Juan Rivers could actually contribute the defense of our country, I have no idea. Rep. Neguse seems to think so.
But as we know, certain fish in the Colorado and San Juan River Basins are endangered. Fighting to survive, you might say. This fight for survival is due partly to fishermen like my father who showed up regularly with expensive fishing poles and other top-notch equipment, looking to do battle.
The fish were, themselves, completely naked and unarmed. But willing to fight, nevertheless. Bless their courageous little hearts.