A Hell Of A Fish Story

Famous Boston comedian Steven Wright once said there is a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot. Even though I have a few fishermen in my family, for some reason the sport just never managed to capture my attention. Unlike some people I have no moral issue with it and don't think the fish are forever scarred by the experience, I just went a few times and decided there are better ways to spend my free time. (Such as looking for a small white golf ball in the woods.) Apparently fisherman Henry Liebman disagrees with me because he recently went deep-sea fishing off the coast of Alaska and caught a record-breaking fish. The fish, a shortraker rockfish, weighed nearly 40 lbs which is the heaviest catch for that kind of fish on record. But, what made this story worthy of more than a blurb in a local paper is that the animal had plenty of time to get that heavy because on further inspection fish and game officials have determined it may be close to 200 years old. (The fish has rings by its ears which tell you how old it is, like a tree.) I had no idea fish could get close to that old. Just to put that into a little historical perspective, if these scientists are accurate this fish was already 146 when Alaska became a state. You would think a fish which had been around that long would know not to go after lures by now.

As you would expect in this day and age when you can't sneeze without someone complaining, many people are criticizing Liebman for not throwing the fish back. And while I agree that on the surface killing a 200 year-old fish who was here well before you sounds like a dickish thing to do, I think it is all a matter of intent. Liebman just went fishing for sport and happened to catch this fish, he didn't go hunting down this one particular shortraker like it was his own personal Moby Dick. Beyond that, how exactly was he supposed to know how old this fish was when he caught it? You always hear about weight limits for fish, never age limits. Plus, I disagree with all the people who say that this fish was somehow historically important. I have previously stated by opinion that just because something is very old that does not automatically make it wise or worthy or preservation - it just makes it old. It is not like this fish was coming to the surface and regaling us with tales of how things used to be or providing us with insights as to whether or not climates have actually changed since it has been patrolling the waters. It really hasn't seen much history because it has been hiding underwater for its entire life. Liebman said he plans to have the fish stuffed and mounted, which means it will probably been seen by more people in the next couple of years than in the first 200 years of its life. Not the ending it probably wanted after all that time, but it beats ending up on someone's dinner table.