Bad Weather
Next time you’re perusing your local grocers weekly ad circular take a look at the seafood section. You will notice a disclaimer for the fresh specials: “availability subject to weather and fishing conditions.” Seafood is the one category in the store that does not always come from a farm or a factory. The people love their fish to be wild, but they don’t know why. I think they must have romantic some notion of salty old fishermen in yellow rain slickers, following in the traditions of their forefathers, braving furious gales, battling leviathans, & resisting the songs of the sirens to reap the fruits of the sea; all so they can eat fish sticks.
The people don’t understand that fishermen are (somewhat) human; they have a sense of their own mortality. Most understand that going out into the ocean when it’s blowing it good way to swamp their boat, lose all the fish they might have caught, drown, and generally f*&% up their whole day. The ones that do go out when the weather is bad often become reminders of why the old timers stay in port & get drunk when the barometer drops. Remember that movie “The Perfect Storm”? Based on a true story.
The people don’t care about weather; they want their fish by golly! I can’t tell you the number of times people have whined “But it’s so sunny & beautiful outside!” They don’t understand that the high-pressure ridge that makes the skies blue over Seattle also whips up the seas on the other side – that’s the side with the fish, by the way. Every drive across the SR 520 bridge and notice the water on the upwind side is really choppy, but the down-wind side is placid & smooth? It’s kinda like that.
The most egregious offender of my meteorological sensibilities was a corporate buyer in the Midwest. We had a rockfish ad on with his chain and the weather had turned sour off the coast. I told him there would be no rockfish “due to weather and fishing conditions”
“But the weather is fine outside!”
So I drew him this picture to illustrate:
Click photo to see larger view
The people don’t understand that fishermen are (somewhat) human; they have a sense of their own mortality. Most understand that going out into the ocean when it’s blowing it good way to swamp their boat, lose all the fish they might have caught, drown, and generally f*&% up their whole day. The ones that do go out when the weather is bad often become reminders of why the old timers stay in port & get drunk when the barometer drops. Remember that movie “The Perfect Storm”? Based on a true story.
The people don’t care about weather; they want their fish by golly! I can’t tell you the number of times people have whined “But it’s so sunny & beautiful outside!” They don’t understand that the high-pressure ridge that makes the skies blue over Seattle also whips up the seas on the other side – that’s the side with the fish, by the way. Every drive across the SR 520 bridge and notice the water on the upwind side is really choppy, but the down-wind side is placid & smooth? It’s kinda like that.
The most egregious offender of my meteorological sensibilities was a corporate buyer in the Midwest. We had a rockfish ad on with his chain and the weather had turned sour off the coast. I told him there would be no rockfish “due to weather and fishing conditions”
“But the weather is fine outside!”
So I drew him this picture to illustrate:
Click photo to see larger view
posted by Fishpimp | 8:13 AM
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