Class dismissed; the Dude abides, fishing for whatever

As I sit fishing on the side of the road of what locals call the South Slang, between bites on my line, I begin to ponder on those deeper insights into life. Fishing, of any kind, can do that to you. Especially when you’re alone.

It is late afternoon and the sun has begun to sink behind dark clouds across the lake. Migrating wood ducks whistle overhead, calling to their mate “whoooo-eeeek!” Red-winged blackbirds rise and fall, twisting in unison from one weed bed to another. A lone Canada goose honks high overhead.

I am sitting in my ultra-comfortable folding chair, and two medium-heavy rods stick up above my head at 45-degree angles on either side of my chair. I am watching the tips at the end of the rods, peering at them and watching for the telltale twitch downward on the taut line.

As I am staring, waiting for that slight movement that indicates a fish nibbling on my nightcrawler, I am creating questions in my humble mind that cannot be answered without great cogitation. It is a topic that vexes me regularly: classism. But how is “classism” applied to fishing? I am in pursuit of “bullpout,” known by colloquialisms as “hornpout,” “pout,” or as an elitist fisherperson would call them by their pejorative name, “mud puppies.”

Follow me down this rabbit hole and let’s see if we can learn anything about how a society that divides people into classes — rich, poor, middle class or a one percenter — and examine how this habit of creating classes can be seen even in the fishing world, where one goes to escape this kind of cerebral superiority complex.

Let’s start with what most people might think of as the “Ubers,” or 1 percenters. This group will only consider fishing in the Argentine Patagonia waters, chasing behemoth rainbow trout, while being guided by the most exclusive outfitters and wearing all the new gear from the most expensive outdoor designers. They will not settle for less than this extraordinary experience that requires a personal balance sheet exceeding most third-world GDPs.

One step down from them are the merely wealthy. They will take the company jet to the Yellowstone Club, where the cost of a membership is still greater than a small business’ annual revenue. These folks also fish for trout. Cutthroat, rainbows and browns that weigh as much as a newborn with a future in sumo wrestling. They have custom hand-turned fly rods with African Blackwood reel seats and polished silver guides. They have mastered the spey rod and can converse for hours about catching salmon on the Miramichi River in New Brunswick.

Next step down on the class ladder would be the bass fishermen who want to look like they had just won the latest Bassmaster’s tournament. $100,000 boats with more glitter than a Mardi Gras “woman of ill repute” with decals and stickers of fishing companies that want onlookers to drool over their sponsorships. These guys (mostly) have 20 rods and at least 2,000 different lures with colors to match their boat and windproof neon jackets. Their motors typically cost as much as the new double-wide trailer they call home. (Because if you’re never home, who cares where you sleep?)

Next step down the social ladder would be the local fly-fisherman who buys the best Orvis rod they can afford on a middle-management salary. They are typically adorned in breathable waders and felt sole wader boots with a 50-pocket front-style waist pack full of eight different tippet sizes and four Wheatley fly boxes with custom A.D. Maddox prints in a wrap-around paint.

They will not, under any condition, share their best spots with you and will likely have you make a blood promise by taking a blue-winged olive fly on a number 12 hook and draw blood from your ear then rub it on your forehead, swearing that you will never speak of or take anyone other than them to this location that they refer to as “theirs.”

Some are obsessed with a specific trout species and physically begin to resemble the belly of a spawning brook trout around their necks, as they will fish all day in the hot sun. Oddly enough, this species of fishermen must never be referred to as “rednecks.” Rednecks don’t go to boarding schools.

Further down the classist rabbit hole we go. Panfish fishermen. These folks are what the other classes kindly refer to as “salt of the earth.” It means that their primary culinary additive is the actual mineral by which these folks are classed. They love yellow perch, sunfish, pumpkinseed, bluegill, and yes, that one piscatorial species relegated to the worst possible moniker: “crappie.”

These folks carry ultralight spinning rods that can be broken down into several pieces for storage under the driver’s seat of the Ford Escort. Their bait of choice is nightcrawlers or the smaller, more tender “dillies” packed in a round plastic container with very dark soil that seems to stick to everything as if it were related to Velcro.

And finally, the bottom dwellers of the fishing world, the bullpout fisherman, happily ensconced on their throne of a white plastic pickle bucket. They will lob heavy spin casting lines with multiple large hooks that look like they might make reasonable earrings for the high school prom.

These large hooks are pierced through the half-body of a nightcrawler and heaved into the center of the channel, then propped up on a proper Y-shaped branch stuck into the shoreline mud. It is then that the fun begins. They sit back in their folding chairs and stare at the tips of their rods. If they pulse downward, they wait until the fish swallows the hook and then set it by a violent upward tug on the rod, like the rich kids do on their tuna boats.

So, there it is. You should now have an idea where you “belong” in this ridiculous caste system. Frankly, I can’t afford to fly the family jet to Argentina or even take a commercial plane to Yellowstone.

As a beginner fisherman, I was taken to elite fly-fishing clubs and learned to hold my own, but over the years, I have come to realize that I just love fishing. I don’t care if it’s catch-and-release steelhead, jigging for perch on the ice, delicately casting an elk hair caddis to a small brookie in a mountain stream or even yanking big yellow bullpout out of the slang.

This classism must stop. True fisherpeople should know this quote, which should govern all our prejudgments and stereotypes: “The Dude abides.”

(Bradley Carleton is the founder and director of Sacred Hunter.org, a privately owned limited liability corporation that seeks to educate the public on the spiritual connection of man to nature through hunting, fishing and foraging. For more of his writings, please subscribe.)