DATE: Saturday, September 20, 1997          TAG: 9709190014

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B8   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Opinion 

SOURCE: BY MIKE HANDLEY 

                                            LENGTH:   88 lines

FISHING TACKLED

I took my son to an Outer Banks beach, just the two of us. He and a tough summer had been screaming for it. Our car landed at a cottage next to the ocean and a tired, hot 9-year-old already wearing a bathing suit saw little wisdom in formalities like registration or unpacking. To the beach!

But we couldn't ignore a commotion in the parking lot. A local kid was using a rubber band to blast paper clips at a little frog in a mud puddle, and someone had called the cops.

The deputy sheriff arrived, rescued the frog, put the youngster in his squad car and explained to the crowd that the boy was often in trouble, a result, he said, of a broken family and child abuse. One more ride to headquarters and another stern lecture for the bad kid.

My son and I hit the beach. And we eventually got wet, too, once we found an opening between surf fishermen where we could swim without getting entangled in their lines or hooked. That sounds funny, but there were scores of these people with their rods pointing to the surf. Some were hardened, leathery types with coolers of beer. But many of them were families with children who looked a lot like us. They were simply doing what families are supposed to do on vacation - fishing and unwinding and bonding and all that.

Shrieks and applause greeted the animals yanked from the water and dangling by hooks jabbed through their mouths. Some people pulled the hooks out and threw the fish into buckets until dinner time. Many others pulled the hooks out and just tossed the fish back into the water, for humane or ecological reasons, no doubt.

These were not bad people. I bet many of them shun fur, cringe at hunting and coo at their pets. And most would probably have joined the mob against the frog-abusing child. But the obvious parallel was not lost on my kid. He asked me to call the sheriff.

Children say strange things. After all, there had to be some perfectly logical reason why torturing a frog for sport is considered an act of cruelty while torturing a fish for sport is legal and regarded as an uplifting and wholesome recreation for the entire family. I told my son that instead of calling the sheriff, we'd go to the library first thing in the morning to find some answers.

In the evening, channel surfing beat out unpacking for several hours. Although we'd seen most of the commercials before, it had never occurred to me how many ``feel-good'' TV commercials feature fishing: those for banks, beer, cars, insurance and phone companies. No escaping it: Fishing has become Madison Avenue's cliche for ``the good life.'' TV off.

The morning arrived all too soon. The material we found at the library painted a picture that was clear and to the point: Fish and frogs and dogs and humans are all vertebrates whose nervous systems are quite akin, regardless of brain size - especially when it comes to feeling pain.

A fish's mouth parts turn out to be exceptionally nerve-rich. A fish that is caught and released is severely, and often fatally, traumatized. And, in the case of deep-sea fishing, the fish's internal body parts often rupture from dramatic pressure changes while being yanked to the surface. My God!

Now, don't get me wrong: If I were starving, I'd catch a fish or drop Bambi without blinking. And I think that the term ``animal rights'' has got to be one of the stupidest public-relations moves of the century.

But let's call a spade a spade here: The evidence shows that sport fishing is one of the cruelest forms of hunting. At least biblical figures with little else to eat used a net. Even fish themselves are mercifully expeditious with their own prey. So how do I explain to my son that people who wouldn't harm a fly (or at least wouldn't pull the wings off first) would choose to unwind, get close to nature or bond by putting some fish through a living hell?

I told him I didn't think that most of those people fully comprehended what they were doing. The facts seemed to be safely hidden at the library.

We wrestled with it all for a while and then went through the motions of being carefree beachgoers. We learned to appreciate a good wave together, perused pirate maps and built a cool sand castle.

But, for better or worse, the endless images from the beach, TV and the library had changed us. We spent our last afternoon scrawling giant anti-fishing messages in the sand. Personally, I think my message, ``Fishing Is Cruel,'' was preferable to his, ``Fishing Sucks.'' At least his heart was in the right place.

According to George Bernard Shaw, ``Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity.'' We saw proof of that at the beach. Yet it shouldn't be overlooked that people, unlike fish, are blessed with a conscience and a free will when it comes to fun and dinner-time choices. And, given good reason and enough time, people traditionally change.

A millennium or two ago, gladiators and cockfights symbolized ``the good life.'' Fifty years ago, it was fur, hunting and cigarettes. And now, closer than we've ever been, my son and I hereby jointly nominate sport fishing to that same hall of fame. Consider it bonding. MEMO: Mike Handley, a Norfolk native, is a Washington-based narrator for

TV, radio and other media. KEYWORDS: ANOTHER VIEW

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu