There are a lot of imponderables in the annals of angling. You, I’m sure, have attempted to ponder many of them. One of the interesting aspects of fly fishing for this angler, is the cerebral aspect. There are so many variables at work when fishing, it’s a wonder we catch anything.
Have you ever had a particular question about fish behavior that science might be able to answer? How would you like to design your own experiment to answer your burning question? If only there was funding for such unimportant things as angling questions. Well, there just might be!
Eccles (of Turning Over Small Stones fame) said the following:
In the last month or so I have had a few conversations with fish biologists, proper ecologist, evolutionary biologist, physiologist type people. In the banter about this and that a question was asked by one of them which took me back a little.
“What experiments would you like to see done?”
“Eh?” [that was Eccles' reply]
“Well there are some students who are keen to run things and we could possibly rustle up a bit of seed funding if there is some academic rigour attached. The facilities are there so what would you do?”
Eccles is graciously passing on the opportunity to you, the inquisitive angler. Get over to his site, read the post, then answer his two questions. Pretty simple.
Hmmm…fishing experiment. Well…how bout…taking sabbatical from all these pesky 8th graders for a whole year…and go over to Germany and fish like mad and try to find some relic Yellowfin Cutts? Anyone want to join the team?