There are two things I like doing with wildlife: trying to catch them to pet them/play with them/ride them, and hunting them in video games with a shotgun at my waist, much like Doc Holliday. And running away from them if they're scary, like spiders or octopus or squid. Ok, three things. I haven't had much luck playing with any wild animals, and I've never brought my murderous spree to the real world, until...NOW!
When I was younger, I would often go fishing with my dad and sister at Kissena Pond, a small, man-made pond near Flushing, Queens. I was an excellent fisherman, and often caught double digit sunfish or crappies, using bread as bait. The fish were always returned to the water, and I'd go home content, knowing how good an outdoorsman I was, confident that the next time I'd outsmart the fish again. Unfortunately, this paradigm seemed to shift when pursuing actual fish you can eat, in real fishing places. I'm hoping it will shift back again, as I just applied for a one day fishing license in Colorado, and it was as rigorous as applying for a job.
First off, there are many, many, many hunting and fishing licenses you can apply for, some named after the animal (Wild Turkey, Mountain Lion), and some after the type, like furbearer (for small game). There's a chart on the site, showing how much a license costs per day, additional day, 5 days, week, month, or century, for residents and non residents. Once you finally get that all sorted, it's time to put in your information.
Colorado needs to know your name, date of birth, address...all the essential information you would imagine. Then they need your drivers license # and social security, which I was a bit leery of, especially after being asked if it was cool if they shared that info with their drinking and hunting buddies. Uhm. No. Not cool, actually. Finally, Colorado fishing license department whatever needed to know my height and weight (bit of a touchy subject right now), which I found quite odd. Odder still was the measurements, which started at 1 foot and went all the way up to 9. Sure, they don't want to discriminate. I was tempted to put in 9 foot, 4 inches, 400 pounds, but then thought if I caught a shark or something in the river and I wasn't allowed to, rather than send one ranger after me, they might send a battalion, and a tank. Which I'm just not physically prepared for.
Showing posts with label fish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fish. Show all posts
Friday, September 30, 2011
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
St. Lucia Vol. 5 - Caribbean Fish Strike Back
My second trip to St. Lucia was a very odd one. I usually don't travel anywhere, especially internationally, more than once unless I'm visiting friends or family. Due to this, I tried to do as much as possible on my first trip to the friendly but mountainous Caribbean nation, and honestly couldn't think of too much to do on my return voyage. I figured HD and I would be welcomed by everyone with open arms and people would be begging us for the honor of driving us around. This trip also differed because it was partially for business (I mean, completely, IRS. And stop reading my blog!). I was there to shoot HD's grandmother's 80th birthday party, a grand affair full of ornate hats and cakes that couldn't be eaten.
Aimless, and without anyone to plan trips or get us places for free, we spent much of the time relaxing in our temporary residence. Taking full advantage of the giant flat screen television and cable channels, I learned that Catwoman is a horrible movie. Not even the "but, Halle Berry in leather" argument could save it. Unfortunately, I found out that Death Race is an even worse movie. Sorry for the spoiler alerts and the surprises being revealed here.
The World Cup and the British Open (or Wimbledon, as everyone insists on calling it) were occurring during this time as well, and not watching these sports would be like an affront to the Lucian lifestyle, so we had no choice but to comply. British sports are absolutely loved in St. Lucia, which makes sense, as they were once colonized by Fawlty Towers and Andy Murray. What doesn't make sense, however, are the 4 most popular of these British sports. Soccer has rules I don't quite understand, beyond kick ball in goal. Rugby, which I learned about on the flight from Invictus, doesn't make any sense either, but that's ok, because I don't think it actually has any rules, besides Matt Damon always scores. A cricket field makes no sense, and the matches, which last for approximately 6.5 straight days, involve a huge amount of math, since scores are usually 1,800,935.74 wickets to pi to the 87th place. Lastly, there's quidditch, which barely beats both cricket and rugby for most arbitrary rules and made-up items.
Besides lazing about and watching too much TV (there's a channel almost entirely dedicated to replaying episodes of the A-Team!!!!!), we would go over to a nearby beach and chill in the Caribbean. During my first trip, I had to deal with marauding crabs. On my more recent excursions, however, I was constantly under attack from a new threat: tiny fish! They would brazenly swim up to my legs and feet when I wasn't paying attention and take out huge sections of flesh with their vicious toothed mouths, causing me endless pain. Then the blood would attract sharks, which ate me on my multiple occasions, and then I regenerated my entire body. True story. I would later get my revenge on the fish, but that's a story for another time, or posting.
Another popular activity was going down to the main city, Castries, and wandering around. Here, an enterprising and ruggedly handsome traveler could obtain delicious ginepps (mistakenly called akee by Lucians), tamarind balls, and valuable trinkets, like stone turtles. The theory/fact that nothing in St. Lucia is called by it's right name is on full display here. At the market, one can buy figs (bananas), avocados (which are, for some reason, purple on the outside) and apricots (which are actually ???? but could be this, according to a Google image search). There were also plenty of folks willing to sell crappy coconuts to tourists, while reserving the delicious ones for island folk. That's probably why I became ambivalent to coconuts my first trip. Luckily, time heals all scars and painful memories.
Aimless, and without anyone to plan trips or get us places for free, we spent much of the time relaxing in our temporary residence. Taking full advantage of the giant flat screen television and cable channels, I learned that Catwoman is a horrible movie. Not even the "but, Halle Berry in leather" argument could save it. Unfortunately, I found out that Death Race is an even worse movie. Sorry for the spoiler alerts and the surprises being revealed here.
The World Cup and the British Open (or Wimbledon, as everyone insists on calling it) were occurring during this time as well, and not watching these sports would be like an affront to the Lucian lifestyle, so we had no choice but to comply. British sports are absolutely loved in St. Lucia, which makes sense, as they were once colonized by Fawlty Towers and Andy Murray. What doesn't make sense, however, are the 4 most popular of these British sports. Soccer has rules I don't quite understand, beyond kick ball in goal. Rugby, which I learned about on the flight from Invictus, doesn't make any sense either, but that's ok, because I don't think it actually has any rules, besides Matt Damon always scores. A cricket field makes no sense, and the matches, which last for approximately 6.5 straight days, involve a huge amount of math, since scores are usually 1,800,935.74 wickets to pi to the 87th place. Lastly, there's quidditch, which barely beats both cricket and rugby for most arbitrary rules and made-up items.
Besides lazing about and watching too much TV (there's a channel almost entirely dedicated to replaying episodes of the A-Team!!!!!), we would go over to a nearby beach and chill in the Caribbean. During my first trip, I had to deal with marauding crabs. On my more recent excursions, however, I was constantly under attack from a new threat: tiny fish! They would brazenly swim up to my legs and feet when I wasn't paying attention and take out huge sections of flesh with their vicious toothed mouths, causing me endless pain. Then the blood would attract sharks, which ate me on my multiple occasions, and then I regenerated my entire body. True story. I would later get my revenge on the fish, but that's a story for another time, or posting.
Another popular activity was going down to the main city, Castries, and wandering around. Here, an enterprising and ruggedly handsome traveler could obtain delicious ginepps (mistakenly called akee by Lucians), tamarind balls, and valuable trinkets, like stone turtles. The theory/fact that nothing in St. Lucia is called by it's right name is on full display here. At the market, one can buy figs (bananas), avocados (which are, for some reason, purple on the outside) and apricots (which are actually ???? but could be this, according to a Google image search). There were also plenty of folks willing to sell crappy coconuts to tourists, while reserving the delicious ones for island folk. That's probably why I became ambivalent to coconuts my first trip. Luckily, time heals all scars and painful memories.
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