summer is gone...

This is from Chicago Tribune Magazine, Sunday 21 August 2005:

"Q: Why each fall do people stand along the Lincoln Park Lagoon jerking fishing poles in the air?
This is a tough town to be a fish in. If you live in Lake Michigan, you're force-fed PCBs and other toxins. If you're a smelt, you're on the menu every spring. And if you're an aged salmon, whose only wish in coming to the lagoon is to spawn and then die, you are victimized each September by the controversial practice of snagging. Snagging involves jerking a treble hook through the water until it digs into a fin, eye, gut or some other fish part. The fish is then landed as if sport were somehow involved. Snagging is banned in most states, but the Chicago Park District allows it in Lincoln and Jackson Parks. Defenders say the fish are dying anyway and working-class people get to eat salmon they otherwise couldn't afford. But the same logic toward surplus deer would let hunters run over them in all-terrain vehicles."