| A Q&A with Mark Spitzer, renowned expert on fugly fish | |
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Source: 4state news |
10/25/2021 |
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Some people travel the world seeking beauty. For Mark Spitzer, a writing professor at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, it’s the chance to reel in what he calls the “demonized grotesques” that lures him across oceans and continents. Slimy, obscure, humongous, hideous; these are the traits he’s looking for when he wets a line. Spitzer has visited 20 countries to pull in monstrosities that would have most of us throwing our rods into the water and running away, screaming. |
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Gar, eels, giant carp and other sub-aquatic misfits deserve our attention, Spitzer said, because of what they have to tell us about the state of our waterways and the planet as a whole. He’s written 30 books on the subject.
Your extreme fishing obsession landed you on an early episode of “River Monsters.” How did that happen?
Jeremy Wade [the show host] wrote to me before anyone knew who he was and said he wanted to do a documentary on alligator gar. “Do you want to help?” I said yes. I didn’t hear from him for eight years, then I got an email from Animal Planet that Jeremy was going alligator gar fishing in Texas, and could I come along and bring bait? They asked me what my daily fee was, and I said $100. We went out there and caught all sorts of gar and had a blast. |
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