Primitive Fish

I happened to see about five minutes of a fish show on Animal Planet. I wish I would have seen the whole thing, since I like fishing, fish, the whole scene.

The first one I saw, some guys hauled in a 200 and some pound gar -- an alligator gar, meaning it's head looks sort of like an alligator's. These are primitive fish, in that they -- I don't know why. They just are. I guess they have features, appendages that other fish have lost over the years. I think they said it had a weird kind of lung system.

The other one, I didn't catch the name of. But it also breathes partially with a lung or two. And the guy fishing for it noticed it was stuck. The fight was suddenly gone. So it was tangled up in some way. But since it needs to come up to breathe once in a while, it was going to suffocate if it were left at the bottom. So another guy wades out and dives down and untangles the whole works. This leaves the fishing guy a new opportunity to pull the fish in.

They have a big net basket they put it in. It's humongous. They look at it for a while, pose with it, then they let it swim off.

Those primitive fish remind me of rough fish. Rough fish can be good to eat, if you prepare them right, like carp. But for the most part, buffalo fish, gar, chubs, all that -- they're not good. Something wrong with them for eating is what Grandpa always told us.

We used to do a lot of fishing. Grandpa knew almost everything about fishing. I learned a lot of it when I was a kid but forgot most of it. A lot of it was just seat-of-the-pants kinds of information. If you went on TV and tried to do some of it, they'd laugh you off. I know Grandpa thought it was helpful to fart on your bait. And I haven't seen a show where they do that!

One interesting bit of fish trivia. My family (Grandpa, etc.) used to make some kind of doughball bait to catch carp with. It was cinnamon, with bread dough, and sugar worked in there. It was actually good to pull a piece out of with your finger and eat. Until you've had fish on your hands and are going back for more bait.