The Bass Bike and Fishing the 'Hood
Urban fishing and the people you meet there
As any angler does, I cherish the solitude of a boatless bay at 5:30 a.m. on a foggy morning, and wading around the bend of a stream and seeing trout rising on a pool unmolested by a casting rival. That being said, I don’t mind city fishing with a congregation of my fellow urbanites at the church of Our Lady’s Bait and Tackle, often near a dam of some sort where both fish and fishers gather to unite in harmony. Unlike hunting, which usually requires planning and then driving to a rural location, fishing enables me at a moment’s notice to hop on my angled-up bike and start casting for catfish, walleye and panfish ten minutes later.
Going back to my teenage years fishing below the Scott Street dam in Des Moines, the congregation has always been (and still is) a diverse one. Back then, just-arrived Vietnamese immigrants lined the bank, casting for whatever was biting. Rough fish species that never landed in the skillet of the average native Iowan were enthusiastically captured and cleaned and I’m sure their families were grateful for the meal. On Friday and Saturday nights, old black men (probably younger then than me now) lined the bridge above the dam until the wee hours of the morning with monstrous tackle intended for landing monster catfish, but it also seemed tough enough that it could be used to extract your car from a ditch if need be. Beer and bullshit were in abundance. No matter how crowded, there was always room for one more fisher on both the bank and the bridge.
While fishing between a middle-aged Chinese couple and several Hispanic men this past Saturday below the Burlington Street dam in Iowa City, it hit me that immigrants here seem to derive more joy from fishing (and catching) than us natives. This is curious to me; I wonder if the angling opportunities are so much better here than in their native country. I’ve been to China, and I saw people fishing there in some horrible-looking water; the brown foam and smell of our rivers have nothing on theirs when it comes to pollution.
There’s no doubt that many immigrants are more accustomed to and more tolerant of fishing amongst crowds, and there’s a comaraderie when you’re fishing with them, something often absent when you’re trying to claim a patch of water on a distant but high-profile lake or trout stream. The joy of the catch is not unlike the joy of the harvest I’ve observed in African immigrants at the Iowa City community gardens.
I spent some time talking to the Chinese couple and asked them if I could photograph them for writing this piece. They seemed to understand pretty clearly what I was saying but could speak English hardly at all. They seemed astonished when I told them I had been to Nanjing and Shenzhen. I was having good luck and gave them some of the lures I was using; the wife photographed the lure packaging so they could purchase some later.
One of the saddest and most disturbing things about our country right now is the contempt so many seemingly have for immigrants. Surely some of this is racism but I think it’s more than that. These folks are somehow ‘taking’ something that belongs to ‘us’, whether it be jobs, health care, or yes, fish. We earned it; they didn’t. Never mind that we almost exterminated several cultures and a 100 million people to get ‘it’.
A note on dams: a river immediately below a dam is indeed a good place to fish, but overall, these structures degrade a fishery and habitat for aquatic life in general by acting as an obstacle to migrating aquatic species.
About my book: The Swine Republic is a collection of essays about the intersection of Iowa politics, agriculture and environment, and the struggle for truth about Iowa’s water quality. Longer chapters that examine ‘how we got here’ and ‘the path forward’ bookend the essays. Foreword was beautifully written by Tom Philpott, author of Perilous Bounty. Choice of free book copy or t-shirt for all paid subscribers to this Substack ($30 value).
I know what you mean, I use to stand shoulder to shoulder where the Mississippi dumps into Lake Bemidji when i was in college tossing jigs for walleye, sometimes until midnight.
Chicago might be the best kept urban fishing secret ive ever seen. I was shocked at the size of lakers the handful of perch fisherman were picking up in open water between Navy Pier and the water plant
Spent many hours below the catching and releasing 1 to 1 1/2’ “paddle fish”. Later we’d go up to the old power damn in Coralville and catch and release catfish on the south eastern sand bars. (Prior to Iowa River Power restaurant time.) Many an afternoon and evening would find a few of us with our poles in the water and none of us having bait on so the fish wouldn’t distract from an otherwise perfect evening. On afternoons when it was too hot the rope swing,up river across from what is now the Hotel complex, was the ticket to cool down.