{"id":565,"date":"2016-02-09T17:00:15","date_gmt":"2016-02-09T17:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/?p=565"},"modified":"2016-02-09T17:00:15","modified_gmt":"2016-02-09T17:00:15","slug":"ballad-of-the-blotch-bellied-basses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/?p=565","title":{"rendered":"Ballad of the blotch-bellied basses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/blotch2.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-566\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-566\" src=\"http:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/blotch2-300x220.jpg\" alt=\"blotch2\" width=\"300\" height=\"220\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/blotch2-300x220.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/blotch2.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now, the Blotch-Belly Basses<\/p>\n<p>Had bellies with blotches,<\/p>\n<p>Which made the plain-belly fishes<\/p>\n<p>Really obnoxious.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Those blotches weren\u2019t so big. They were really so small.<\/p>\n<p>You might think such a thing wouldn\u2019t matter at all.<\/p>\n<p>But, because they had blotches, all the Blotch-Belly Basses<\/p>\n<p>Caused quite a stir among the media masses<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The anglers would catch them and throw them back with a snort<\/p>\n<p>They wanted nothing to do with the Blotch-Belly sort<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat caused those black blotches? Those hideous spots?<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s not fry them in pans or cook them in pots!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>And the plain-belly fishes, they saw this and jeered:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou Blotch-Belly Basses are wickedly weird.<\/p>\n<p>They throw you all back \u2014 it does truly amaze us.<\/p>\n<p>You black-spotted basses must be highly contagious!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So the scientists studied and state agencies squabbled,<\/p>\n<p>The politicians looked like bobbleheads bobbled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy?\u201d they all pleaded, \u201cdo our basses have blotches?<\/p>\n<p>Who is to blame? Who missed their due watches?<\/p>\n<p>The frackers up north? Is it their melodrama?<\/p>\n<p>Can runoff from farmers cause fish melanoma?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>That was 2012 \u2026 this is 2016<\/p>\n<p>Is the fishery better? Is the river all clean?<\/p>\n<p>Have we figured out the who, the how and the why?<\/p>\n<p>Can the Blotch-Belly Basses collectively sigh?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The true mystery here may not be the blotches<\/p>\n<p>Or the frackers or farmers or close river watches.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the bigger the story is that there\u2019s no story at all<\/p>\n<p>And that those who should care have slipped into a lull.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s time to ruffle some feathers \u2014 stand strong and deliver<\/p>\n<p>For our fishes, our families and our much-maligned river!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now, the Blotch-Belly Basses Had bellies with blotches, Which made the plain-belly fishes Really obnoxious. &nbsp; Those blotches weren\u2019t so<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[269,541,540,4,29,542,27,32],"class_list":["post-565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-outdoors","tag-archery","tag-bass","tag-blotch","tag-featured","tag-fishing","tag-impairment","tag-river","tag-susquehanna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=565"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":568,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565\/revisions\/568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}