We were golfing at Sylvan Heights Municipal Golf Course in New Castle recently, and as I was walking near one of the scum-covered ponds on the front nine, I couldn't help but notice the large carp that were lazing close to the shore.
When I say large, I mean it, one of them longer than three feet. They reminded me of the carp that my dad and I used to drag out of the Shenango River in Sharpsville and Clark when I was a kid and it seemed like we walked the river for miles.
We liked to fish for bass, not only in clean parts of the river, but in the former Orangeville Creek as well, which is long gone, becoming part of Shenango River Lake. When you're fishing for bass, trying to be as quiet along the streams as possible, hooking a dreaded carp did nothing but stir the water and chase the smart bass away.
They weren't fun to catch, either. My father called them "big fat pigs," bottom-feeders that would grow to enormous size. They would fight briefly before tiring out, and were easily reeled to shore. We hated catching them, and gladly gave them to folks on the banks who knew how to specially cook them.
Sometimes, when we simply wanted to have some fun on a warm summer evening and see how many carp and catfish we could catch, we would head for that portion of the river that runs along the Sharon Sewage Treatment plant. The waters there were filled with carp and catfish, and they loved homemade doughball that we used as bait. It seemed like the dirtier the water was, the more carp, suckers and catfish one could catch.
I'm telling this story about carp, fish without teeth that will eat anything and everything and thrive and multiply, because of the events this summer at the Linesville Spillway at Pymatuning State Park.
Since the 1930s, the spillway, filled with thousands of carp, has been one of the most visited attractions in the state. Local vendors along the road sell stale bread, and visitors, especially children, get a kick out of feeding the layers of carp. They would lazily gurgle and grunt and suck down the bread, many times as ducks walked on their backs.
All that will change Jan. 1, when the bread is being banned in favor of pellets, like the ones sold from bubble gum machines in amusement parks. Tossing pellets to the carp sounds and will be boring.
Officials have a list of reasons why this decades-old tradition is being phased out. As was stated in a Herald story in July, officials said that some of the food being given to the fish, such as bad onion buns, moldy bread, bagels, cupcakes and other baked goods, was no longer fit for human consumption.
While I know nothing about marine biology, my experiences at the river catching carp tell me that none of this will bother them. People have been feeding the carp at the spillway for some 70 years, and they hardly seem to represent an endangered species.
In that story, officials said that the move isn't aimed at tourists, but others who dump larger quantities of waste into the water. And how is the sale of pellets going to stop that practice? Are we calling out the carp patrol to monitor such activity?
The switch to pellets, at least in my mind, sounds very fishy. One caller to The Herald last week said she believed that the move had as much to do with the state making money from the sale of the pellets as it did with worrying about the health of the fish and the spillway water.
State Rep. Michele Brooks said last week she is fighting to preserve the tradition of feeding bread to the fish, and wants a public meeting on the state's plan to allow only pellets to be served to the snorting masses.
But as we know, unless the spillway is so heavily policed that it chases away the tourists, the feeding of bread to the fish is likely to continue in covert fashion. I can see the story The Herald: "Seven tourists were charged by state game officials with feeding bread to carp in Pymatuning State Park at the Linesville Spillway. Five of the tourists, who were juveniles, had slices of bread stuffed in their pants. They were released to the custody of their parents after the bread was confiscated and destroyed."
Here's to leaving the unique spillway experience as it is.
Jim Raykie is the editor of The Herald and writes this column on Mondays. His e-mail is jraykie@sharonherald.com
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