Love Of Fish A Hot Topic At My Table

Outdoor writers across the country are taking the bait offered by the wackiest of the wacko animal rights groups this week.

I’ll be a sucker, too.

That’s one of the few ways I’d find myself on the same side of a cause with the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

The group that made its way into American hearts by freeing laboratory rats and assaulting women who wore fur coats has launched its Save Our Schools campaign to end sport fishing.

Readers might remember features this paper published years ago pointing out that fishing, especially catch-and-release fishing, was being protested in portions of Europe.

Anglers knew the great American pastime was only a few press releases away from joining hunting, breast feeding and racial tolerance as causes for some fanatics to oppose.

There’s no shortage of legitimate wildlife causes that need passionate support. But animal rights zealots would sooner sink their teeth into prime rib than a legitimate cause.

Frivolousness is the distinction that separates a wildlife conservationist from an animal rights zealot.

Two years ago, the Humane Society of the United States spent a small fortune in advertising to create artificial outrage over hound hunting for cougars.

In 1995, you could spend a month eavesdropping from coffee shops to board rooms and never hear a discussion of whether hunters should be allowed to use hounds to tree a cougar.

In 1996, it was a Washington ballot issue.

Voters opted to ban the only effective way of taking cougars. Yet the campaign money frittered away on that initiative didn’t do a hint of good for the well-being of mountain lions. Instead of being prized by hunters, cougars are now simply a nuisance animal that’s shot and left to rot.

Which brings me back to PETA and its latest publicity campaign.

On Monday, the Virginia-based group sent a letter to the National Park Service calling for an end to fishing in Lake Roosevelt.

Before you think this group has taken a special interest in the Inland Northwest, note that PETA officials are calling for a ban on fishing in 150 national parks across the country.

PETA says fishing is cruel. Winter steelhead anglers would agree, except they might argue whether the fish suffer more than the fishermen.

But any grounds for agreement with PETA could be considered a step forward.

Notice that the PETA campaign is cleverly focused. PETA is not yet calling for a ban on fishing at, say, Priest Lake because Oprah and Dan Rather are much more likely to have heard of Yellowstone Park.

It’s not a wacko animal rights cause if it won’t get national publicity.

PETA leaders are not spending the money of their 600,000 members searching for answers to prevent the extinction of salmon. That’s an issue that’s way too urgent.

PETA would rather be frivolous.

While I can’t side with PETA’s campaign to ban fishing at Lake Roosevelt, I can agree with the zealots on at least one thing.

I love fish, too.

They’re delicious.

Back to the wild: A barred owl will be released into the wild Saturday after a month of treatment at the Pend Oreille Birds of Prey Raptor Rehabilitation shelter in Farragut State Park.

The public is welcome to witness the release. Meet at 9 a.m. at Albeni Falls Visitor Center off Highway 2 between Newport and Priest River. Spectators will caravan to the release site, where the injured bird had been discovered. Info: (208) 437-3133.

Secret’s out: Three different people have cornered me in the past week to divulge secret fly patterns. Each of them said they’d discovered a pattern that had taken trout 4-1 better than whatever it was the other fly fishers were using at Fourth of July Lake.

One must marvel that each hot fly pattern was as different as a chironomid is to a purple beadhead leech is to a water boatman.

However, one angler noted that the fly that had hooked a trout on nearly every cast one day duped only a few fish a day later.

Seems like there’s only two proven lessons from talking to an angler with a sure-fire lure: in it.

You should have been there yesterday.

, DataTimes MEMO: You can contact Rich Landers by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5508.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review