When I was seventeen my best friend invited me to go on her family’s annual charter boat fishing trip on the Chesapeake Bay. I had no idea what charter boat fishing meant, but I enjoyed fishing with my brothers at the local parks as a kid, so I agreed to go. Actually catching rainbow trout and sunfish with my siblings is one of my favorite pastimes as a child. We went to bed early that night because it was essential we rise at 4am to drive to our destination. I was going into the activity completely blind. No one had explained to me exactly what charter boat fishing meant and I wasn’t even sure I would be okay on a boat because I couldn’t remember ever being on one.
We arrived at a dock and met our captain and expert fisherman. The charter boat was one of the regular local businesses that had been around for years. We boarded the boat and took off over the bay. It was a cold spring morning and the water misted my whole body. I discovered the only time I did not get motion sickness was if I was out on the deck and could feel the wind. Every time I went under to use the bathroom or grab a bite to eat I would start feeling horrible.
After driving over the green water for about 15 minutes I began watching the captain throw out the lines. He set them up, 4 lines on each side, and then said, “Now we wait.” I was still not fully grasping what was going to happen next. A couple minutes later the captain alerted the passengers on the boat that we had a bite on the first line to the right of the boat. Everyone insisted because it was my first time that I had to be the one to pull in the fish. I went up to the line hesitantly at first and then really wrestled with that fish trying my hardest to reel him in. I had no idea that the fish was so large or it was going to be so difficult to pull in. My friend was holding on to the loops of my jeans to keep me from accidentally falling over! I successfully reeled in the fish, which turned out to be a Striped Bass or “rockfish” as we Marylanders call them.
The rockfish was beautiful. I had never held a creature that large. He was utterly distressed and I sloppily held him up for a picture. I felt awful. I did not want to keep the rockfish — I wanted to throw him back. I asked my friends family on numerous occasions if I could throw him back, but they wouldn’t let me. The rockfish was measured to be 26 inches. That day the rest of the family also reeled in their own rockfish, a total of 6. Mine was the largest one caught that day and everyone congratulated me.
Dawn had turned into a beautiful early morning and the charter boat headed back to the dock. At the dock, the charter boat company had staff that prepped the meat of the fish for you. Against my wishes, my rockfish was filleted, packaged, and handed to me to take home.
Later I was feeling really uncomfortable about the whole experience. It seemed so cruel to snatch the rockfish out of the water like that and end its existence. The whole process of charter boat fishing seemed especially vicious in my eyes.
I looked up approximately how old my rockfish was when it latched on my line that day. It’s estimated he was about 15 years old. I was astonished at this age. The rockfish was nearly my age. He had swam in that water and survived every other fishing line for over a decade until that April morning.
It was after this experience that I decided to no longer participate in fishing as a sport. I came to the realization that every rockfish, every fish, EVERY ANIMAL has a right to be here just like me. I have no right to come into an animal’s environment and take it’s life for sport. Even though I had enjoyed fishing with my brothers as a child, what I really loved about those experiences was bonding with my brothers and being in nature, not the actual fishing part.
Our human lives are not above other species and this elitist mentality that humans have will absolutely be our destruction.
A short time later I became a vegetarian that doesn’t eat seafood. I find it extremely odd that there are so many vegetarians that eat seafood — the animals that live underwater are still animals. They are no different than a cow, pig, chicken, or goat. I have been a vegetarian for almost 8 years and have been slowly cutting diary and eggs from my diet. Completely ending my consumption of animals and animal products is the best thing I have ever done. I encourage everyone to challenge themselves to do the same, even if it’s just a little at a time because the truth is that animals are not here for us to exploit.
