Gentlemen, don't kid yourselves about subsistence fishing (and hunting). My dad grew up in the anthracite region in a coal mining community (Lattimer village). When I was a kid, his stories about going fishing or hunting just about every weekend made the place sound like paradise. The year began with sucker season on the Susquehanna at Wilkes Barre, then there was crow hunting season, then April 16 rolled around and it was the first day of a respectable fishing season, trout. Bass opened in mid June and continued through the summer. Limits were strictly observed and my dad and his cohort would typically keep one shy of the limit and continue catching and releasing until the end of the day. They would limit out on trout, bass and walleye, plus take the occasional pike or pickerel as caught. Also, he was adept at catching bull frogs by dangling flies in front of them. He said they jump better than rainbow trout. In the heat of summer, it was groundhog season. My dad was particularly fond of eating groundhog and said the meat was very good because they eat mainly clover. Bass and walleye again in September, then came small game: rabbits, grouse, squirrel and the occasional pheasant (generally an escapee from stocked hunting grounds maintained by mine owners). Also, jump shooting ducks along Nescopeck Creek. My dad didn't like hunting deer, but his family gladly accepted venison from neighbors, all of whom hunted. In the dead of winter was snowshoe hare season. The man who taught him how to fish (keeping one shy of the limit until you gut hook one) and hunt was clear that there's no throwing them back in hunting. It's all food and wasting food is a sin. Sounds like paradise to a kid, but as I got older, my dad said while he thoroughly enjoyed fishing and hunting, the trout streams were mainly fished out by the end of May because people needed to put food on the table. He was allowed -- actually encouraged -- to fish and hunt so often because it made for better meals. He got a college degree and left the mining country as soon as he could (late 1950s) because, as he put it, the area was booming before the Great Depression and never really got out of the Depression. I've been in touch with anthracite mining country all my life, and I am keenly aware just how depressed the area is today (and has been for all of my 55 years on this earth). People who live in depressed areas who have a lot of time between work days or spend a lot of time on unemployment in the summertime, spend that time fishing and hunting to put food on the table. It's no joke. Those of us who have steady work are damn lucky to have it. It's easy for me to throw back all the fish I catch, but if my family was living on fatty sausage and canned meat, I'd be killing every trout I caught. And don't kid yourself about it being confined to the urban poor either. It's very much a trait of those of us with heritage in Pennsylvania's portion of Appalachia.
jk
