Those who share that view surely have never witnessed Carl Bruger et al lure record-setting catfish into the shallows of Lake Ontario by hurling cat food with an oversized slingshot. Bruger, also a track and wrestling coach, earns his livelihood as an English teacher and is fond of putting the tools of the language to work for him on the open water. Personification, by which stripers become willful marauders hellbent on escaping capture and elderly male salmon cluster on river bottoms to lament their impending demise, is one tool he wields with aplomb. I guess that tells you where his beliefs lay. Like all those who have battled the forces of nature and lived, Bruger has had his scares and scars.
Students get into their own binds.
An underclassm an needed barb cutters to snip a hook out of his hand. But ultimately, it's the fish that takes it on the jaw. Out on the charter boat forays, club members carry a bat. Bruger, also vice president of Hudson River Fisherman's Association and editor of River Views magazine, insists on wasting nothing and says he respects the lives of the fish he has caught. That belief seems to have rubbed off on his charges.