The Anatomy of a Fish

I know that most people find the Tour de France boring. I understand that. I, however, rather enjoy it and as such, find myself watching it on Versus several times a day. Yesterday, during one of the rare times when they aren’t showing live coverage or replaying the day’s stage on that channel, I happened across a show, the name of which escapes me, where a guy was bow-fishing from a boat at night(which, I would guess is the only practical way to bow-fish).

If you aren’t familiar with bow-fishing, it is simply standing in a boat with a bright light shining down on the water and shooting fish, mostly alligator gar on this day, with an arrow and then reeling them in with the string attached to the arrow. Essentially the same concept as fishing with a pole except with more adrenaline. At least that how it seems to me. It looks kind of fun.

At one point, the gentleman who was hosting the show and offering colorful commentary throughout, shot some sort of fish other than a gar. I’m not much of a fisherman but it looked sort of bass-y if you know what I mean. Maybe a carp. I don’t really know. The point is this: When he got the fish in the boat and was holding it up for all of us viewers to see he said something like, “This was a perfect shot. Got him right through the shoulders!”

I’m neither a hunter or a fisherman. I just never learned how to do either very well. I can tell what a gar is because they are such unique looking fish with their long nose/beak thing. I can tell what a catfish is because of their “whiskers” and shape. Everything else looks the same to me.

I have never seen, as far as I can recall, a fish with shoulders. The impaled specimen that this fisherman hoisted didn’t appear to have shoulders. I grew up in Slapout, Alabama, on Lake Jordan. I’ve seen a lot of fish and talked to a lot of people who love to catch a lot of fish. I’ve never heard anyone say, “Boy, you should have seen how broad the shoulders were on that striped bass I caught Saturday! His trapezius and deltoids were amazing! His bench max must have been six or seven pounds!”

If they have shoulders, do the girl-fish have hips? Do the dude-fish make inappropriate comments about the width of the girl-fish’s hips? Is there a little fish-tattoo parlor where the really buff fish can have brake pads from a car tattooed on their little fish shoulders(since fishermen/sailors tend to get anchors on theirs) to impress the girls? I ain’t saying…I’m just saying.

Could be that I’ve just missed the whole fish/shoulder discussion all these years. That certainly is not beyond the realm of possibility. Let me know!