As I have meandered through the world and through my life one of the great mysteries I have noticed is how much resiliance God has built into his creation.  Don’t weed your garden and in very short order, it is over run.  Don’t plant a field and in ten years it has 5 to 15 foot trees all over it and in 20 it is a forest.  Don’t fish an area and in a year or two it is full of fish.  Even an empty pond, if it has enough water, will end up with fish brought in by fish eating birds like herons and storks.  And Randy, don’t hunt Montana for a year and you will get a huge one later!

In some third world areas famous for slash and burn farming practices, a technique encouraged on the local citizenry is to create fields surrounded by a strip of trees.  In the case I read not too long ago, the trees provided habitat for birds and lizards the people ate. Without the trees, they lost a major food source.  With the trees in place, they kept habitat for other foods and seed trees to replenish the worn out soil with seeds and it seemed to me the remaining trees kept the soil from washing or blowing away thus they could farm longer.

I lived for a while on the Waianae Coast of Oahu, Hawaii.  It always bothered me to watch fishermen with fine mesh throw nets taking all the little fish along the shore.  Those are what fed the bigger fish which in turn fed even the bigger fish.  On my coast, there was not much good fishing.  Periodically, we caught things, but it was tougher.  Yet, when you went to Hanauma Bay, an ocean preserve on the other side of the island, there were billions of fish–at any rate there were a lot!  I wondered then what would happen if the coast was blocked off into mile long sections and every fourth or fifth mile was off limits for fishing for a mile out into the ocean for a year.  I bet the fishing would be better in all the open fishing quadrants! 

I do recall a day when God smiled on us.  My Dad and my kids and I were on the Makaha beach almost at the end of the road.  We noticed a commotion in the water which turned out to be whales and dolphin and tuna.  They jumped and cavorted in our site for about 20 minutes!  It was a huge gift!

So yesterday, I was reading about the trouble there is farming tuna.  Some like yellow fin tuna, others like blue fin tuna.  I like canned tuna and tuna fish sandwiches. Looks like the Aussies and the Japanese are getting it figured out, but, they still have a long way to go.   Also, those horrible oil rigs in the gulf seem to grow a lot of gunk on their legs.  The gunk in turn seems to support a lot of fish.  Putting those ideas together, I thought it would interesting to go out into the sea in areas out of normal traffic and creat some huge no fishing zones.  In those zones floating mile long rafts with ropes hanging down a hundred feet into the ocean could be installed to create habitat for the fish.  The rafts would be anchored to the ocean floor by some sort of bungee cord system which would permit the normal ravages of tides and storms to pass by leaving the eco system in place.  It seems to me some good protected areas would be great for the overall good of the environment, commercial fisheries and the sport. 

The two biggest questions are of course:  How do you fund construction and maintenance and how do you enforce the “no fishing within 1000 feet (or whatever is determined to be appropriate.)  I imagine it would be necessary to be withing the legal limits of a country with the capability to protect the project and demand the big ocean going fisheries of any number of countries stay well away.  Also, I imagine it could be done cooperatively with several universities and private ventures.  Short term licenses could pay to fish within a certain zone.  The thought is, the presence of a food chain of significance would creat a fish population over a much greater area than the several miles of the preserve.

I know this is a huge project, but then, I also think there should be a ten foot diameter pipeline from all the flooding points of the major rivers which moves excess flood water from flood zones to areas of chronic water shortages.  We have interstates with huge right of ways.  There are streams and rivers which could be filled to move the water inexpensively.  You get the idea, a grand scheme which I have no potential to implement–in either case.  Never-the-less, creative ways to enrich our world, environment and lives should be on all of our minds.  Who knows which ones will catch fire?

Speaking of creative ideas, Duane Markley’s uncle worked on a prototype fishing pole back in the early 30’s which involved a spring in the pole.  The design worked ok, but was not completely functional.  A bit over ten years ago, Duane saw the original idea and put his mind to work on it.  Low and behold, his uncle’s germ of an idea took root, grew and now, we have a whole class of exciting new emmrod fishing poles!  That is the power of an idea.  Take it and grow it!

To see Duane’s work, check it out at www.mycompactfishing.com, www.emmrodfishingfun, www.emmrodidaho.com, www.emmrodeasternwashington.com, www.emmrodfishing.info, www.whybuyemmrod.com, www.emmrodfunstore.com.