By Ethan Hollifield
“The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: ‘What good is it?”
~ Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac
Not long ago, I was fishing on the Davidson River when an event occurred that has caused me to ponder on the proclivity towards trout, and only trout, when we fly fish here in the mountains. It’s not unusual at all to see other folks fishing while out on the Davidson. And naturally, when someone else hooks a fish downstream, there’s a tendency for us to briefly glance our eyes over with both envy and curiosity at what the other person has caught.
In this particular instance, an individual hooked and landed a redhorse sucker, another species of fish that is relatively common in low gradient trout streams, along with a whole host of other aquatic organisms that make up an incredibly complex ecosystem. With that being said, the individual made it very clear he was disappointed in having accidentally caught a redhorse instead of a trout, and proceeded to roughly, albeit quickly, dump the fish back into the water without much afterthought.
Now, I’m not writing all of this to bash an individual on their bad sucker-handling skills; that’s not the point. I’m guilty of doing this myself with other bycatch species such as chubs, darters, daces, and so on. It’s easy to have the mentality that other species of fish in a river are “trash” when we have been taught throughout most of our fishing careers that trout are on such a high pedestal that catching anything else while we fish is sinful, and a complete waste of our efforts.
Seeing this all play out, however, did make me start and think about our views on the natural world as a whole, and how we tend to forget that trout make up just a small measure in the grander scale and complexity of aquatic ecosystems here in the mountains. These ecosystems are so complex, that the scientific community still doesn’t understand them fully, let alone the relationships that these species have with each other that makes one critical to another’s survival.
Sure, we’re taught that being ginger and dainty with trout is critical to the future of our sport. But if the trout and the chub, or darter, or redhorse both share a symbiotic need for each other, then why not treat them with the same respect as well? Wouldn’t then a trout’s survival be totally intertwined with that of a chub? Granted, it’s not my first choice to catch a random chub while I go out and fish for myself. It does, however, make me think of all the times in the past that I have mishandled fish because they weren’t my target species.
The main facet to all of this, is that it’s very dangerous to the greater ethical constructs of conservation to believe that only the fish that we try to catch are the only things in a river worth protecting. Everything in nature has a purpose and a reason for its existence, even that good-for-nothing redhorse you spent an hour fishing for thinking it was a giant brown trout. All life in our rivers here is nothing short of a miracle, and I wonder how much better off our rivers and streams here would be if we all shared that view of reverence and respect towards all the critters living in them…Just something to think about.
Ethan Hollifield is a member of a conservation organization called 2% For Conservation and a guide for Southern Appalachian Anglers