Passing Down
the Line
By Jim Colbert
"Generations Three and Five"
Photo by MC Schultz
My paternal grandmother loved to fish. She was not very good at it. I had the privilege of accompanying her and my paternal grandfather on numerous evening fishing trips. I don’t recall us ever catching anything more than a small bullhead or two. That, however, did nothing to dampen my grandmother’s enthusiasm. Every fish caught was cause for great excitement and exultation.
My grandfather avoided such aggravations by removing the bait from his hook when my grandmother wasn’t watching and “fishing” with a bare hook. His approach was quite effective at not catching fish. Still, I always looked forward to, and was excited by, fishing with my grandparents whenever the opportunity arose. It undoubtedly was the beginning of my understanding of the truism that “fishing is always great, but sometimes the catching is poor.”
My mother had quite a bit of experience fishing while growing up because she was mentored by an uncle and a cousin. My father must have learned something about fishing from his mother because I know he didn’t learn it from his father. In any case, Sunday summer mornings after breakfast often found my family of origin fishing for bullheads at a local backwater.
Our fishing gear was rudimentary: a hook baited with a worm, a sinker, and a bobber attached with black fishing line to a pole outfitted with the cheapest baitcasting reel available. The casting reels were specially designed to backlash whenever, and as badly, as possible. This elicited considerable grumbling from my father, both under and over his breath.
In the rare instances that we succeeded in catching a bullhead, the discussion of whether we should keep the fish or release it immediately ensued. My father was reliably on the side of “release it,” while my mother was a consistent “keeper.” We always took a few bullheads home to clean, roll in flour, and fry in bacon grease. They were salty, crispy, and tasty. Once I learned to clean bullheads, my father was considerably less opposed to keeping fish.
As it turned out, I became a pretty good fisherperson, though I still have a phobia about baitcasting reels. Spincast reels are fine. Spinning reels are great. Fly reels are okay if I feel a need to make catching fish more difficult. I’m not world-class or anything, just a capable and reasonably knowledgeable fisherman. The kind of person who knows how to catch most species of local fish and what to do with them after you bring them home.
Naturally, I felt compelled to pass fishing on to our children. It pretty much worked, though there were times in their teenage years when they may have felt themselves to be victims of “child abuse.” They developed the theory that “mediocre fishing was the worst.” If the fishing (really, catching) was poor, we’d go home early. If the fishing was great, we’d go home early because I had satiated my desire to give fish pierced lips. But if the fishing was mediocre, I’d keep them out fishing forever, vainly hoping that the catching would become great.
The author with lake trout. Photo by MC Schultz
Because of our children and me, our grandchildren have also learned to interact with the natural world through fishing. There’s a great deal that can be learned. What types of aquatic habitats are best suited for specific types of fish? What does each fish species like to eat? Who knew that adult dragonflies emerged from aquatic larvae? Are those otter tracks or raccoon tracks? How big can snapping turtles get? Do freshwater mussels really leave tracks in the sand? Could anything be more beautiful than catching one final smallmouth bass as the sun sets over the river?
So, as a family, we’re at least five generations of fishing in. The point, however, is not that we’re a “fishing family”; it’s that we’ve succeeded in passing down a way of spending time in, knowing, interacting with, and caring about the natural world through five generations. Fishing is, of course, only one of many ways of knowing and caring about the natural world. One could argue about which ways of knowing and caring about the natural world are the best, but two things are certain: if people do not care about the natural world, they are unlikely to protect it for future generations—and it is impossible to care about what you do not know about.
I did not know any of my great-grandparents, or anything about their fishing experiences, so I can’t claim more than five generations, but it still leads me to think about the “Seven Generations Principle.” This principle comes to us from the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) “Great Law of Peace.” These people have lived in North America much longer than any people of European or African descent. Tribal leaders were charged with making decisions that were not just best for the current generation, but decisions that would be best for seven generations into the future. This would have made such decisions weighty and difficult to be sure, but one thing is obvious. Destroying natural resources for short-term profit would be a choice made by a poor leader.
If our grandchildren’s grandchildren have the opportunity to know and interact with the natural world through fishing, we will have reached the seventh generation. I cannot claim that was what my grandmother was thinking about when she was helping me learn to bait a hook, but I’m confident that she would be pleased that, seven generations hence, her descendants were learning about nature through fishing. My hope is that those of us in generations three, four, and five will do whatever we can to help our leaders make wise decisions about protecting our natural resources so that generations six and seven will have a beautiful natural world to learn about and care about. I also hope that they enjoy some fried fish once in a while.
Jim Colbert grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he spent much of his time in and along Prairie Creek and the Cedar River. He earned a degree in Biology from Iowa State University in 1978, followed by an M.S. and Ph.D. in Botany from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Jim started his faculty career in 1985 at Colorado State University and returned to Ames in 1988 to join the faculty at Iowa State University. Jim’s research focused on plant and fungal biology. For 15 of his 33 years at Iowa State, he served as the director of the Undergraduate Biology Program. During that time, Jim led the “Skunk River Navy,” an educational stream cleanup initiative that engaged students in hands-on conservation. Jim is an outdoors guy who, at various times, has enjoyed hiking, canoeing, wilderness camping, rock climbing (not anymore!), winter camping, bird watching, moss and lichen watching, fishing, and hunting. He occasionally shares his thoughts about the natural world on Substack (substack.com/@jimcolbert).