“…unto one of the least of these my brethren”

He’s b-a-a-a-a-a-a-k. J. B. Kasper, the outdoorsman behind the Times of Trenton’s weekly “Outdoors” column, this week wrote about how “Drought creates easy pickings for smallies.”

Translation: Despite the weather, you can still catch fish if you follow his instructions.

And his advice, excerpted here from the column, with wording and punctuation exactly as they appeared, includes the following:

· “Hook your minnows through the lips when using shiners, and through the head from the bottom to the top when using killies and fatheads.”

· “Once you detect a hit, wait a second or two and set the hook. This will usually hook the fish in the lip and makes for less gut hooked fish.”

· “Hooking a minnow in the manner we(!) have described and casting it into this flat water will cause the minnow to swim around on the surface of the water.”

· . . . “you can often catch more than one fish on a minnow. Even though the minnow might be dead it can still be used effectively. When the minnow is dead, re-hook it deep in the head.”

If you didn’t know differently, you might think minnows were created to serve as bait fish. If you didn’t feel differently, you might think minnows are just things, not living creatures with feelings, particularly when a fish hook is forced through their lips or head.

And how about those minnows who “swim around on the surface of the water”? Could that possibly be pained and panicked swimming?
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He's back

He’s at it again. “Mr. Outdoors” is once more heralding the wonders of the season by ticking off what animals can be hunted and killed, and exactly when. What a sport – which he must be seen as, since his column runs in the sports section of the Trenton Times. There are sports and sports.

When the headline reads, “Small-game season opens tomorrow,” he’s not talking Monopoly. No, he refers to “the men and women in orange” – as if that phrase were equivalent to “men and women in (some sort of altruistic) uniform” – and how they can enjoy themselves outdoors over the next few months.

His fearless band in orange will be “taking to the fields and thickets” to kill “pheasant, quail, rabbits, squirrels and . . . other small game” in whatever way is legal. He mentions “stocking” at least five times, as in “60,000 pheasants will be stocked on 24 wildlife management areas throughout the state.”

In other words, the pheasants will be brought in so the hunters can do their best to kill them. Does this sound like an adult version of hiding (or stocking?) Easter eggs for kids to find? No one can claim hunters are helping to control overpopulation in this hunt, since the population is expanded for the hunt!

Lucky rabbits! “The cottontail is one of New Jersey’s most popular game species,” Mr. Outdoors reports, mentioning that “use of a beagle or basset hound . . . can increase the likelihood of success and add to the overall enjoyment of the hunt.” Well, maybe not overall enjoyment.

Not to be outdone, those thoughtful gray squirrels “provide exciting opportunities for hunters.” To “the men and women in orange,” animals exist to serve humans in such ways. And what a glorious death: mobbed by happy hunters, shot and killed, then bagged. (“Daily bag limit is 5 per day.”)
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