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I love to fish. I don't fish because I love the taste of fish. Actually I am probably one of the worst fishermen on the planet. Although the pleasure of catching a fish has to rank right up there in the top ten pleasures a human being is allowed to have. . . that is not really the reason I love to fish. I love to fish because it has to be the most relaxing activity on the Planet!
There are many different types of fishing. Deep sea fishing can be rather strenuous. Especially if you are going after huge game fish like Marlin. For that reason deep sea fishing is not for me.
Fly fishing is a lot like GOLF, it is a hard skill to master and only a small percentage of people become proficient in either activity. I never did improve in Golf or Fly fishing after reaching a basic level. Two more activities I no longer do either.
Nope my type of fishing is a good spinning rod & reel, with a can of worms, a bobber and a nice shade tree to lean against on a warm sunshiny day. I put a worm on a hook, throw the line out as far as I can so it doesn't drift to shore for a long time, lean back and watch the bobber. After about three minutes of watching the bobber my mind usually starts wandering. One of the things my mind always wanders to is new inventions or ideas about how to do things. Over the years a couple of those inventions and ideas have paid off. More often than not I get a great idea but due to a lack of finances or the knowledge to completely develop the idea I didn't follow through with it completely.
Several years ago I had what could be a great idea while fishing but like so many other ideas I filed it away in the "gotta do this someday" part of my brain. This idea came to me on a really rather chilly early spring day. It had been a long cold winter and not really the type of day that I want to go fishing. However a friend had caught a nice mess of Channel Cats a few days before and I developed an extreme appetite for fried catfish and hush puppies. So I was actually going after fish for the table that day. I followed his directions to the spot where he had caught the Channel Cats and lo and behold I had a few on the string within a few minutes.
I learned how to fish on a river as a kid and one bit of advice an elderly Uncle gave me to catch fish was to always move upstream. So I did. After moving upstream I caught a few more fish. BUT they were not Catfish but Rainbow Trout. Very unusual to catch both Catfish and Trout that close together in a river. After investigating I saw the reason why. There was a power plant about a mile from the opposite bank and they had a warm water discharge pipe emptying the heated coolant water into the river just across the river from where I was fishing. That was the reason that I was catching a cold water species of fish, Trout, above the discharge pipe and a warm water species like Channel Cats below the discharge pipe.
I got to thinking about how many power plants there are around the country that empty warmed up water used to cool their generating plants back into a Lake or River. During my travels in the trucking business I visited a lot of Catfish Farming operations in the Southern states like Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana. I know how good catfish can be and I left plenty of dollars visiting catfish restaurants over the years. After making note of how the Catfish thrived in that heated water I thought maybe there could be a future for Catfish Farming in some of the cold Northern states. Every power plant in the country that I know of requires a lot of water for cooling. That warm water could be used during the Winter in Northern climates to raise warm water fish or even heat green houses and raise vegetables. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to raise veggies during the Winter in States that get below zero? Think of how much diesel fuel could be saved by not shipping veggies in from Southern climates.
If any of you reading this have access to the money it would take to get this idea to market: GO FOR IT. Just let me know if it works out for you. Even better send me a basket of hothouse tomatoes next January.
I knew lots of folks that loved to catch the big stripers in the perimeter of Massachusetts old nuke plant. But everyone was afraid to eat 'em. Some were even afraid to get to physically close and counted on the currents to bring the fish closer.
I wouldn't want to chance the "rads". But you keep fishing, keep thinking up ideas. It's still a good thing.
tcrackly,
Those fish close to a Nuke plant would probably be one of the safest sources of water for eating fish. Nuclear power plants have a closed loop system that keeps the water from the outside from even coming close to being irradiated. They use several stages of heat exchangers to heat the steam that drives the generators and that water is completely isolated from the water that comes in from the outside and released back into the original source. Even in the Three Mile Island accident in the 1970's the radiation leaked into the (?) River was an insignificant amount. I lived within 20 miles of a Nuclear Power plant for many years and last time I checked I do not glow in the dark.
Underground mines that once produced a rich bounty of coal are supporting new life as a water source for fish farms in southern West Virginia. AquaCulture Food & Marketing Development Project - News Articles (http://www.caf.wvu.edu/afmdp/newsarticles/minewater/formermines.shtml - broken link)
In the Appalachian mountains of the United States, growing numbers of fish farmers are raising trout, catfish, and even salmon throughout the valleys of the state of West Virginia. What they'd rather not tell you, however, is that the source of their water is deserted coal mines.
Worry not, seafood lovers. According to independent experts from within West Virginia and outside the state, the farmers' claims of using 'clean, clear water' are true. The fish that are being raised in the mine waters are not only safe, but they may also be healthier than fish grown in conventional aquaculture operations. http://www.environmental-expert.com/...type=8&level=0
That is an interesting premise. When you think about it charcoal is actively used in water filtration systems. I'm glad to hear something good can come of the scarred land resulting from massive coal mining.
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