Dandelions of the Sea

My crazy friend Jani left a harangue on the answering machine recently that I didn't answer because we were busy camping in the high, wind-blown desert, where my boy actually ate something green—miner's lettuce—that he found down in a moist canyon seep.

So I get a call the other day. "Dude, whaddaya think of my idea?"

"What idea, Jani?"

"You didn't listen to my message."

"Marty heard it. She said it was unintelligible."

"Dude!"

"What?"

"I can't believe you're blowing me off." Then he went on a long rant about a book review in the recent New Yorker (and I'm way behind in my New Yorkers; in fact, the New Yorker has mostly been boring the hell out of me for the last year). The upshot is that it takes a pound of fishmeal or more to produce a pound of farmed Atlantic salmon—no surprise there—and why don't people eat the fishmeal instead, which happens to be herring.

"So you plan to go fishing for herring, is that it?"

"Dude! The dandelions of the sea."

"I'm in." (After all, I now have a reputation as a Fearless Dandelion Hunter to uphold.)

We'll see where this leads. Jani's preferred fishing vessel is a sea kayak. If I'm not mistaken, we'll need a long line of little baited hooks and a fishfinder (or maybe just a gullfinder) to locate the herring ball, which could get hectic in kayaks. In the meantime, I'll be fishing for an anadromous type of herring in a couple weeks, the American shad. Stay tuned.

(photo by Bruce)