Finding Neno

Captain Ricardo is a soft-spoken guy. He has these deep-blue eyes you’d think were made to search over the waves and somehow way beneath them. He’s been fishing since he was fifteen – he’s now forty-six so you do the math – and he loves/hates the sea in that peculiar way too many seamen do.

But this is not about Ricardo or men like him; nor is it about how his soft-spoken demeanor translates into desperation when the going gets rough – bad weather, one of the boys gets hurt on deck, no fish today, folks, no fish today.

This is about Finding Nemo. While sailing off Mauritius on some long-line testing trip he saw the boys off the galley watching that famous Disney movie. He shook his head as the guys laughed and seemed to enjoy Dory’s chronic amnesia.

“How can they even watch that?”, said Ricardo without taking his eyes off his plate of fresh mahi-mahi. “Don’t they know those kinds of movies make us look like criminals?”

“Oh, it’s only a movie,” said the Chief Mate.

“It makes us look like fish murderers that don’t care at all for fish. It teaches children that.”

“It’s not like Bambie did wonders for hunters?”, I added.

“That kinda hunting is playing. This is not playing. This is our life. We’re not criminals.”

The steward served coffee. “Everything okay, Cap?”

“Everything’s great. My regards to the cook.”

W h y f i s h ¿ O n a h o o k ?

Because that's how folks used to catch it.

Themselves.

Gradma used to say that it was good for you -- so fresh -- it was clean, natural and good darn tasting.

It still is.

There are few products in today’s supermarket shelves that can deliver the natural goodness of fish – fish caught in the wild, like it always was. I’ve nothing against fish raised on farms; sounds like a decent idea to raise food made by people. Cows are also raised on farms so it may be fair enough.

But I digress.

Had we had our natural way we’d catch that fish or hunt that cow (though we might call it something bigger, with some other exciting name) but that isn’t practical anymore. Hard to do that mid-week in rush-hour traffic!

So someone’s got to do it for us.

Who do we trust? How do we know?

'Cause fish normally don't fly above our heads, well, not most of the time anyway.

* Print - Above the City, 2004

W i l d f o r F i s h ®

About wild fish, caught in the wild.

Caught traditionally, ethically and legally.

That means "responsibly" from sustainable fisheries…

…cause the sea only gives so much…

…to those who respect it for those who enjoy it....

One-Fish-At-A-Time®

'Cause that's not too much to ask for, now is it?

Painting by Mike Savelen - "Blue Water Hellraisers"