There’s no question, fish exist! I know, I’ve hooked them, played them, caught them, lost them, held them, released them. Hell, I’ve eaten a few, too!
So, ignore the cladists and their clades and their insistence on fishes' non-existence! Have of any of them stepped out of their labs, wadered up and chased steelhead on the Trinity or Klamath, hooked into one just fresh back from the sea, felt them tighten a line and tear off upstream like a runaway train? Have any of those white-coats stripped a clouser minnow through a murky slough out on the California Delta and had a 20-pound striper hit it and rip it the other way, leaving a raw burn from the fly line deep across the underside of their index finger?
Painful proof, those beautiful water creatures with fins and scales, gills and translucent tails exist. Cladists are fanatics, rather than simply group us, animals and plants by evolutionary similarities, they dig more deeply, searching for evolutionary novelties, the less apparent similarities hiding beneath scales and fins, feathers and skin, advocating lungfish and cows belong together, along with frogs, birds, and people! They believe fish don’t exist, as a category, that is. I’ll remember that the next time a non-existent steelhead hits my swinging fly, tightens my line, and has my 7-wt reel singing like a violin, then crying like a baby and melting down in my hand.
Amen, and will just keep thinking (and kidding myself) that July will be here “soon” here on the east coast for the striper run!
May your lines be tight in the year ahead😉