text:
Talk:Let's roll

Previous discussions without headers
people expect encyclopedias to be able to tell them that there is one concept with two names.

I believe quite strongly that the concept identified with "move 'zig'" is exactly as real as the concept identified with "Let's Roll" and in fact the two are the same idea expressed to two different audiences. Furthermore, I suspect that defining "Let's Roll" *as* "move 'zig'" will tend to 1. prevent people from spreading either brand of crap into other areas of wiki and 2. very much help people not familiar with English or Engrish to understand each.

Policy on viral memes ought to be established early, as with references to risk and cognitive bias, which will otherwise creep into every single article.

The concept of "viral meme" is not a mainstream academic concept, and only merits the briefest mention in an encyclopedia.

 * it has that now. Academics are biased against recognizing viral memes as such since their entire careers are usually based on free-riding on same... I therefore think a substantially looser academic standard should apply to this subject, which is antithetical to the ideals of academia itself, e.g. that words or phrases should mean something specific, at least within one field, and that there ought to be some controls on who can use what to mean what.

 * "Meme" is already treading on thin ground, but is at least well known enough to be semi-respectable. "Let's roll" isn't a concept at all--it's a phrase that has made the news recently, and it's the title of a song, both of which deserve to be covered.  "Move zig" is another phrase, probably meaning more or less the same thing, but it isn't worthy of inclusion here.  It isn't even a common enough idiom to be found in a dictionary--you certainly wouldn't find it, say, in a New York Times used without reference to its source.  --LDC

 * define "worthy" - personally I think that move zig is probably not all that interesting on its own... but in context of *both* "all your base" *and* "Let's Roll" it becomes very interesting. Likewise the other phrases seem to propagate because they either had meaning at some distant point in the past when they were used very sincerely and specifically, or because they were so malformed to begin with that they had to propagate to survive at all.

 * Lee, I believe you are trying to overrule the Internet here... all of the phrases I listed had >1000 google hits. "all your base" had 52,000.  If you accept the moral equivalence of phrases dreamed up by academics and used in newspapers with absurdities or fads that only come to mean something through usage patterns, as I do, then we need a better policy for all this.

 * datum: Shakespeare made up 1/4 of the words he used in his plays.  obviously he was capable of doing that and having those words understood in context.  I submit that if an Elizabethan audience could absorb that level of invention in language, that it is contingent on encyclopedia editors and authors to be willing at least to abstract enough to create unifying phrases without academic permission, in fields that academics are motivated to ignore.

 * 1/4 of the words? Sure, he made up lotsa words, but this is surely hyperbole. Then again, 46% of all statistics are made up on the spot. :-) - Rootbeer 2002-04-04

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 * In early 2002, it was ordered that one airplane in each U.S. squadron would carry an image with the words "Let's Roll".

Ordered by whom? In each U.S. _military_ squadron? What kind of image? (Painted on the fuselage? Microfilm? PNG? :-) Do we have a source for this? - Rootbeer 2002-04-04

 * Here is one photo: http://www.afrc.af.mil/hq/citamn/default.html --rmhermen

 * Thanks; I've added it to the page. - Rootbeer 2002-04-04

 * Todd Beamer, a passenger on the doomed United Airlines flight 93, was permitted by its hijackers to call his wife.

Was "permitted"? You mean they actually gave him permission to use his cell phone? They had no idea he might reveal that the flight was hijacted? Or didn't care?

I think it more likely that he sneaked his phone call without the hijackers' knowledge.

Unless someone shows a source proving otherwise, I'm gonna assume he sneaked the call and revise the article accordingly.

Your "assumptions," whether that he was permitted or that he sneaked are unwelcome here. I will delete any assumptions that I see. -24.215.253.143 22:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Was it his wife he called? Was it a cell phone he used? This article say that it's not. (http://www.flight93legacy.org/StoryMSNBCnodate.html) But I have no idea which version to believe, so I don't want to be the one to change it. -- AdamRaizen

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Would be nice to rewrite the paragraph about the phrase's origins with a real story about the phrase's origins.

Is there any perticular reason this is at [Slogan: Let's Roll]? I don't see how [Let's Roll] could be ambiguous or offensive. - Efghij 20:16, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

"The image is intended to remain until the first anniversary of the attack." < OK, by this point we're approaching the SECOND anniversary of the attack. Has this been discontinued yet?

Beamer or Bingham?
Some claim it was Beamer, some claim it was Bingham who said these words. Did they had to change the story line script, because Bingham is gay? And a gay person cannot be a hero of the United States... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.208.115.126 (talk) 16:06, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Transformer
An anonymous user add the sentence "The phrase is used Optimus Prime in Transformers," which I moved to here. I remember OP saying "Autobots: transform and roll out!" but I don't remember his saying "Let's roll." Can this be confirmed? – Quadell (talk) (help)  18:18, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
 * Optimus gives the precise order "Let's roll" in five episodes, including the first one (More Than Meets the Eye parts 1 and 3, The Ultimate Doom part 2, Enter the Nightbird, and The Key to Vector Sigma part 1). Similar phrases appear elsewhere (e.g., "Let's roll for home" in War of the Dinobots). This is as heard on the Rhino DVD sets. I'm new so I'm not sure if such observations count as "original research," but anyone with recordings of the episodes can verify that it's there. Personally I don't think it's enough of a Transformers catch-phrase to merit a TF mention in this article, but I have no strong objection and the anonymous user's recollection is accurate.

Awareness Del 15:58, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Misquote
Maybe Todd said "Let's roll on the floor and beg for mercy" but his words were cut off.
 * Maybe you're an asshole Eddie (talk) 03:51, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Correction: There's no "maybe" about it. You're an asshole.  Mr  JM  16:11, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Is there a reason this section isn't simply removed? Microwiz (talk) 05:06, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I can't attribute a source for this but maybe Todd said "Let's roll the [beverage] cart [as a ram against the cockpit door]...."Chris-marsh-usa Likewise, his words were cut off. I agree, what a jerk. (talk) 03:53, 8 September 2011 (UTC) I'll look for an Internet source when I have time.

Resolved
The content referring to the phone call with Lisa Jefferson has been corrected with notable, verifiable sourcing NPOV. I'm amazed this article sat out there with bad information for so long. I'm glad it's been corrected. NYDCSP 15:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Continued use as a catchphrase unrelated to Sept 11th
We might want a bit here about the post 9/11 usage of the phrase remaining largely the same outside of the United States. I'm living in the US now, but while in Australia I had no idea that "Let's roll" was in any way related to Sept 11th and continued to hear and use the phrase with absolutely no connotations of "heroism" etc attached to it.

I only found my way here after seeing Curb your enthusiasm (as referenced in this article) and wondering what the hell "Let's Roll" had to do with the terrorist attacks.

Now on an unrelated note - does anyone else think the photo here looks fake? It looks like a photoshop job. The plane looks washed out and dark as though the photo was taken at dusk or dawn (or more likely in shadow) and the "lets roll" logo is bright and vibrant and bright and almost looks like computer graphics.

 * It's a USAF aircraft camouflage paint scheme, taken in indirect light. See the NY Times story for a description. dafydd (talk) 14:55, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Gagarin
Does the good old "Poekhali!" of April 12, 1961 count? - 109.252.77.136 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 09:06, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Nonsense
Is this article telling people that noone, neither in movies nor in life had the catchphrase let's roll? What a load of nonsense. He didn't invent it, and it was widely used before 2001. 86.137.59.237 (talk) 09:38, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That's what the Pre-9/11 section is there for. :) Ishdarian| lol wut 09:43, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
 * A Pre-9/11 section for Pre-9/11 usage? How confusing!  Mr  JM 16:12, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Removing Misinformation
I am removing the following statement: The actual words were "roll it", not "let's roll". The story of Fligh 93's "let's roll" is an urban legend. This claim is false and seems to be a confusion with the statement "Roll it!" heard separately on the cockpit voice recorder. The two statements cannot have been the same because Beamer's statement was given before the passenger revolt, and "Roll it!" was recorded from the cockpit during the revolt.Fortpinepitch (talk) 22:24, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Continued usage unrelated to 9/11
I think the article needs to be clear that, even in the United States, this phrase has continued to be used in the same way it was before the attacks. This article seems to suggest that most Americans now associate the phrase with 9/11, but, 13 years after the fact, I don't think this is the case. Tad Lincoln (talk) 08:10, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

title: Talk:Let's roll


text:
Idiom

An idiom is a phrase or expression that usually presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase. Some phrases which become figurative idioms, however, do retain the phrase's literal meaning. Categorized as formulaic language, an idiom's figurative meaning is different from the literal meaning. Idioms occur frequently in all languages; in English alone there are an estimated twenty-five thousand idiomatic expressions.

Derivations
Many idiomatic expressions were meant literally in their original use, but sometimes the attribution of the literal meaning changed and the phrase itself grew away from its original roots—typically leading to a folk etymology. For instance, the phrase "spill the beans" (meaning to reveal a secret) is first attested in 1919, but has been said to originate from an ancient method of voting by depositing beans in jars, which could be spilled, prematurely revealing the results.

Other idioms are deliberately figurative. For example, "break a leg" is an ironic expression to wish a person good luck just prior to their giving a performance or presentation, which apparently wishes injury on them. It may have arisen from the superstition that one ought not utter the words "good luck" to an actor because it is believed that doing so will cause the opposite result.

Compositionality

In linguistics, idioms are usually presumed to be figures of speech contradicting the principle of compositionality. That compositionality is the key notion for the analysis of idioms emphasized in most accounts of idioms. This principle states that the meaning of a whole should be constructed from the meanings of the parts that make up the whole. In other words, one should be in a position to understand the whole if one understands the meanings of each of the parts that make up the whole.

For example, if the phrase "Fred kicked the bucket" is understood compositionally, it means that Fred has literally kicked an actual, physical bucket. The idiomatic reading, however, is non-compositional: it means that Fred has died. Arriving at the idiomatic reading from the literal reading is unlikely for most speakers. What this means is that the idiomatic reading is, rather, stored as a single lexical item that is now largely independent of the literal reading.

In phraseology, idioms are defined as a sub-type of phraseme, the meaning of which is not the regular sum of the meanings of its component parts. John Saeed defines an idiom as collocated words that became affixed to each other until metamorphosing into a fossilised term. This collocation of words redefines each component word in the word-group and becomes an idiomatic expression. Idioms usually do not translate well; in some cases, when an idiom is translated directly word-for-word into another language, either its meaning is changed or it is meaningless.

When two or three words are conventionally used together in a particular sequence, they form an irreversible binomial. For example, a person may be left "high and dry", but never "dry and high". Not all irreversible binomials are idioms, however: "chips and dip" is irreversible, but its meaning is straightforwardly derived from its components.

Mobility
Idioms possess varying degrees of mobility. Whereas some idioms are used only in a routine form, others can undergo syntactic modifications such as passivization, raising constructions, and clefting, demonstrating separable constituencies within the idiom. Mobile idioms, allowing such movement, maintain their idiomatic meaning where fixed idioms do not: Many fixed idioms lack semantic composition, meaning that the idiom contains the semantic role of a verb, but not of any object. This is true of kick the bucket, which means die. By contrast, the semantically composite idiom spill the beans, meaning reveal a secret, contains both a semantic verb and object, reveal and secret. Semantically composite idioms have a syntactic similarity between their surface and semantic forms.
 * Mobile: I spilled the beans on our project. → The beans were spilled on our project. (valid)
 * Fixed: The old man kicked the bucket. → *The bucket was kicked (by the old man). (confusing)

The types of movement allowed for certain idioms also relate to the degree to which the literal reading of the idiom has a connection to its idiomatic meaning. This is referred to as motivation or transparency. While most idioms that do not display semantic composition generally do not allow non-adjectival modification, those that are also motivated allow lexical substitution. For example, oil the wheels and grease the wheels allow variation for nouns that elicit a similar literal meaning. These types of changes can occur only when speakers can easily recognize a connection between what the idiom is meant to express and its literal meaning, thus an idiom like kick the bucket cannot occur as kick the pot.

From the perspective of dependency grammar, idioms are represented as a catena which cannot be interrupted by non-idiomatic content. Although syntactic modifications introduce disruptions to the idiomatic structure, this continuity is only required for idioms as lexical entries.

Certain idioms, allowing unrestricted syntactic modification, can be said to be metaphors. Expressions such as jump on the bandwagon, pull strings, and draw the line all represent their meaning independently in their verbs and objects, making them compositional. In the idiom jump on the bandwagon, jump on involves joining something and a 'bandwagon' can refer to a collective cause, regardless of context.

Translation
A word-by-word translation of an opaque idiom will most likely not convey the same meaning in other languages. The English idiom kick the bucket has a variety of equivalents in other languages, such as kopnąć w kalendarz ("kick the calendar") in Polish, casser sa pipe ("to break his pipe") in French and tirare le cuoia ("pulling the leathers") in Italian.

Some idioms are transparent. Much of their meaning gets through if they are taken (or translated) literally. For example, lay one's cards on the table meaning to reveal previously unknown intentions or to reveal a secret. Transparency is a matter of degree; spill the beans (to let secret information become known) and leave no stone unturned (to do everything possible in order to achieve or find something) are not entirely literally interpretable but involve only a slight metaphorical broadening. Another category of idioms is a word having several meanings, sometimes simultaneously, sometimes discerned from the context of its usage. This is seen in the (mostly uninflected) English language in polysemes, the common use of the same word for an activity, for those engaged in it, for the product used, for the place or time of an activity, and sometimes for a verb.

Idioms tend to confuse those unfamiliar with them; students of a new language must learn its idiomatic expressions as vocabulary. Many natural language words have idiomatic origins but are assimilated and so lose their figurative senses. For example, in Portuguese, the expression saber de coração 'to know by heart', with the same meaning as in English, was shortened to 'saber de cor', and, later, to the verb decorar, meaning memorize.

In 2015, TED collected 40 examples of bizarre idioms that cannot be translated literally. They include the Swedish saying "to slide in on a shrimp sandwich", which refers those who did not have to work to get where they are.

Conversely, idioms may be shared between multiple languages. For example, the Arabic phrase في نفس المركب (fi nafs al-markeb) is translated as "in the same boat", and it carries the same figurative meaning as the equivalent idiom in English. Another example would be the Japanese yojijukugo 一石二鳥 (isseki ni chō), which is translated as "one stone, two birds". This is, of course, analogous to "to kill two birds with one stone" in English.

According to the German linguist Elizabeth Piirainen, the idiom "to get on one's nerves" has the same figurative meaning in 57 European languages. She also says that the phrase "to shed crocodile tears", meaning to express insincere sorrow, is similarly widespread in European languages but is also used in Arabic, Swahili, Persian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Mongolian, and several others.

The origin of cross-language idioms is uncertain. One theory is that cross-language idioms are a language contact phenomenon, resulting from a word-for-word translation called a calque. Piirainen says that may happen as a result of lingua franca usage in which speakers incorporate expressions from their own native tongue, which exposes them to speakers of other languages. Other theories suggest they come from a shared ancestor language or that humans are naturally predisposed to develop certain metaphors.

Dealing with non-compositionality
The non-compositionality of meaning of idioms challenges theories of syntax. The fixed words of many idioms do not qualify as constituents in any sense. For example:

"How do we get to the bottom of this situation?"

The fixed words of this idiom (in bold) do not form a constituent in any theory's analysis of syntactic structure because the object of the preposition (here this situation) is not part of the idiom (but rather it is an argument of the idiom). One can know that it is not part of the idiom because it is variable; for example, How do we get to the bottom of this situation / the claim / the phenomenon / her statement / etc. What this means is that theories of syntax that take the constituent to be the fundamental unit of syntactic analysis are challenged. The manner in which units of meaning are assigned to units of syntax remains unclear. This problem has motivated a tremendous amount of discussion and debate in linguistics circles and it is a primary motivator behind the Construction Grammar framework.

A relatively recent development in the syntactic analysis of idioms departs from a constituent-based account of syntactic structure, preferring instead the catena-based account. The catena unit was introduced to linguistics by William O'Grady in 1998. Any word or any combination of words that are linked together by dependencies qualifies as a catena. The words constituting idioms are stored as catenae in the lexicon, and as such, they are concrete units of syntax. The dependency grammar trees of a few sentences containing non-constituent idioms illustrate the point:

 * Idiom trees 1'.png

The fixed words of the idiom (in orange) in each case are linked together by dependencies; they form a catena. The material that is outside of the idiom (in normal black script) is not part of the idiom. The following two trees illustrate proverbs:

 * Idiom trees 2.png

The fixed words of the proverbs (in orange) again form a catena each time. The adjective nitty-gritty and the adverb always are not part of the respective proverb and their appearance does not interrupt the fixed words of the proverb. A caveat concerning the catena-based analysis of idioms concerns their status in the lexicon. Idioms are lexical items, which means they are stored as catenae in the lexicon. In the actual syntax, however, some idioms can be broken up by various functional constructions.

The catena-based analysis of idioms provides a basis for an understanding of meaning compositionality. The Principle of Compositionality can in fact be maintained. Units of meaning are being assigned to catenae, whereby many of these catenae are not constituents.

Various studies have investigated methods to develop the ability to interpret idioms in children with various diagnoses including Autism, Moderate Learning Difficulties, Developmental Language Disorder and typically developing weak readers.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Idiom


text:
Squalius cephalus

The common chub (Squalius cephalus), also known as the European chub or simply chub, is a species of European freshwater ray-finned fish in the carp family Cyprinidae, that frequents both slow and moderate rivers, as well as canals, lakes and still waterbodies of various kinds.

Description
It is a stocky fish with a large rounded head. Its body is long and cylindrical in shape and is covered in large greenish-brown scales which are edged with narrow bands of black across the back, paling to golden on the flanks and even paler on the belly. The tail is dark brown or black, the dorsal fin is a greyish-green in colour and all the other fins are orange-red. The dorsal fin has 3 spines and 7-9 soft rays while the anal fin has 3 spines and 7-10 rays. The vertebrae count is 42-48. It can grow to 60 cm standard length but most fish are around 30 cm.

Distribution
The chub is distributed throughout most of northern Eurasia, it can be found in the rivers flowing into the North, Baltic, northern Black, White, Barents and Caspian Sea basins, the Atlantic basins south to Adour drainage in France and in Great Britain north to 56°, in Scandinavia in southern Finland and southern Sweden north to around Stockholm. In the Mediterranean basin it is found in France from the Var to the Hérault, and may also be present in the Aude, drainages. It is absent as a native species from Ireland and Italy but has been introduced to both countries; in Italy S. cephalus is present and acclimatised since decades, but it seems marginally found here and there (mainly in the Po river basin), never forming well established populations.

Habitat and ecology
It is most abundant in small rivers and large streams in the "barbel zone" where there are riffles and pools. It occurs along the banks of slow-flowing lowland rivers in large lake and even in mountain streams. Chub in lakes undertake spawning migrations into inflowing streams. The adult fish are solitary but the juvenile fish are sociable and occur in shoals. The larvae and juveniles prefer rather shallow habitats along shorelines and these smaller fish have a varied diet of aquatic and terrestrial animals while the large, solitary adults prey mainly on freshwater shrimp and small fishes. In the United Kingdom, chub have been recorded feeding on worms, molluscs, crustaceans, and various insect larvae while large chub eat considerable numbers of small fish, such as chub, eels, common dace, common roach, gudgeon and minnows as well as frogs, crayfish, voles and young water birds. They have also been observed eating berries such as blackberries and elderberry from trees overhanging the water. They feed throughout the year if there are opportunities, even in the coldest days of midwinter. Spawning happens when the water temperature reaches 14 °C, and lasts from May to September. They spawn in fast-flowing water above gravel substrates but only infrequently will they spawn among submerged vegetation. The females spawn more than once during a season and each female will mate with several males. The males aggregate at spawning sites and will follow the ripe females, often with much splashing, to shallow riffles. Females lay pale yellow sticky eggs which adhere to the gravel, weed and stones in flowing water. Sexual maturity in chub is influenced by environmental factors with males reaching sexual maturity at the age of 2–4 years while females reach it at 4-6 although some individuals may mature much later than this. The fish can live for up to 22 years in the wild, where the age of fish can be assessed through by the number of rings that are visible in scales, these represent seasonal growth patterns.

Threats
Recent work has shown that chub ingest microplastic particles. Whereas many as 25% of sampled fish contained particles, these particles were not found in muscles. Many of the particles found were fibres that are released from clothes during washing, these are also ingested by macroinvertebrates such as Daphnia . Chub can also be contaminated by metal pollution such as copper, magnesium and sodium which can accumulate in tissues like the muscle, gills and liver. Young of the year fish contained particularly high levels of metal contaminants.

Fishing for chub
They are popular with anglers due to their readiness to feed, and thus to be caught, in almost any conditions. Small chub are freely biting fish which even inexperienced anglers find easy to catch. As they become larger, however, chub become more wary and are easily spooked by noise or visual disturbance. Consequently, large chub (in excess of 2 kg) are keenly sought by anglers who prefer to target specific fish.

The British angling record for chub was broken on 16 March 2012 when Neil Steven caught a 9 lb fish from the River Lea in Essex, though there are several over 10 lb on the Angling Trust's Top 50 list, which have been deprecated for various reasons. The European record is 5.72 kg. The chub can reach a maximum length of 64–82 cm (24-31.5 in).

Tackle and tactics
Smaller chub are not too difficult to catch and on small or medium-sized rivers, a stick-float fishing approach can be adopted or even a swim-feeder and using almost any bait including maggots, luncheon meat, sweetcorn and even small lures and flies. Chub also eat marine derived fishmeal-based pellets and diets of wild chub diets contain 44% of these pellets. Catching the larger specimens however requires a patient and stealthy approach as most larger chub are caught on the smaller, clearer rivers and as a result, the angler must make their presence as subtle as possible and yet again, not a lot of tackle is required and most anglers may even set their tackle up before they get their favored spot as there is less noise from tackle being set up that may disturb the fish. A classic chub spot is just hanging off (or even inside) branches/bushes brushing through the water as chub are quite sensitive to sunlight and most anglers may fish at sunrise or sunset when the chub leave their entangled home. An angler should also look for where the current is being pushed out, causing a re-circulation pattern behind what ever is pushing the current outwards and this is where much food will wash around and where there will probably be feeding fish. Like with the smaller chub, a range of baits can be used but smaller baits such as maggots may attract small fish like minnows (especially on smaller rivers) so a larger bait such as luncheon meat is best used. In terms of the line setup, line ratings of a range of 4-8 pounds breaking-strain is ideal, less experienced anglers should use the tougher rating until they have gained knowledge about 'playing' the fish.

Traditionally a quiver-tip rod is used with at least four-pound line rating due to the weight of the ledger/feeder (heavier weights need heavier line). In feeder fishing, bait will be put on a hook or a hair rig and inside a swim-feeder which the current will cause to flow out and attract fish to the hook's position so it involves fishing upstream of where the fish are, this usually involves smaller baits like sweetcorn or maggots. The same applies to ledgering except there is a weight (called a ledger) instead of a swim-feeder and usually heavier baits are used here such as luncheon meat. Another method known as touch-ledgering can be used which involves not using a quiver-tip but instead holding the line that is loose off the reel and feeling for any pulls or the line going loose. Some anglers do this without any weights and let the bait slowly drift downstream with the line steadily moving through their hands, slugs and luncheon meat are excellent for this method.
 * Feeder/ledger fishing

This method could involve fishing under the rod-tip in deep water or letting the float gently drift to where the fish may be situated (known as trotting) whilst throwing portions of bait in the stream to encourage feeding. Usually a lighter rod may be used (no more than ten-foot) and sometimes a centrepin reel is used as it allows the line to smoothly come off the reel. Anglers must strike quickly when trotting as bites can be easy to miss sometimes. Drifting baits such as bread, sweetcorn and maggots are usually used here.
 * Float fishing

This method is usually for the larger chub, a light spinning/lure rod with a fixed-spool reel of at least 10 pounds line rating as it is easy to snag onto debris when doing this method. Small lures such as bar-spoons and spoons or even small soft-plastics can imitate the smaller fish such as minnows that the larger chub feed on.
 * Lure fishing

Using flies such as damselfly patterns or even larger, dark patterns such as those that imitate slugs can be very good if presented correctly. More obvious, shiny flies that imitate small fish may work for more aggressive chub, this method is all-year but best in warmer months. Nymph patterns also do well. In late summer grass hopper and beetle fly patterns also work very well.
 * Fly-fishing

title: Squalius cephalus


text:
Low Earth orbit

A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, peaking in number at an altitude around 800 km, while the farthest in LEO, before medium Earth orbit (MEO), have an altitude more than about one-third of the radius of Earth (or about 2000 kilometers), roughly at the beginning of the inner Van Allen radiation belt.

The term LEO region is also used for the area of space below an altitude of 2000 km (about one-third of Earth's radius). Objects in orbits that pass through this zone, even if they have an apogee further out or are sub-orbital, are carefully tracked since they present a collision risk to the many LEO satellites.

No human spaceflights other than the lunar missions of the Apollo program have taken place beyond LEO. All space stations to date have operated geocentric within LEO.

Defining characteristics
A wide variety of sources  define LEO in terms of altitude. The altitude of an object in an elliptic orbit can vary significantly along the orbit. Even for circular orbits, the altitude above ground can vary by as much as 30 km (especially for polar orbits) due to the oblateness of Earth's spheroid figure and local topography. While definitions based on altitude are inherently ambiguous, most of them fall within the range specified by an orbit period of 128 minutes because, according to Kepler's third law, this corresponds to a semi-major axis of 8413 km. For circular orbits, this in turn corresponds to an altitude of 2042 km above the mean radius of Earth, which is consistent with some of the upper altitude limits in some LEO definitions.

The LEO region is defined by some sources as a region in space that LEO orbits occupy. Some highly elliptical orbits may pass through the LEO region near their lowest altitude (or perigee) but are not in a LEO orbit because their highest altitude (or apogee) exceeds 2000 km. Sub-orbital objects can also reach the LEO region but are not in a LEO orbit because they re-enter the atmosphere. The distinction between LEO orbits and the LEO region is especially important for analysis of possible collisions between objects which may not themselves be in LEO but could collide with satellites or debris in LEO orbits.

Orbital characteristics
The mean orbital velocity needed to maintain a stable low Earth orbit is about 7.8 km/s, which translates to 28000 km/h. However, this depends on the exact altitude of the orbit. Calculated for a circular orbit of 200 km the orbital velocity is 7.79 km/s, but for a higher 1500 km orbit the velocity is reduced to 7.12 km/s. The launch vehicle's delta-v needed to achieve low Earth orbit starts around 9.4 km/s.

The pull of gravity in LEO is only slightly less than on the Earth's surface. This is because the distance to LEO from the Earth's surface is much less than the Earth's radius. However, an object in orbit is in a permanent free fall around Earth, because in orbit the gravitational force and the centrifugal force balance each other out. As a result, spacecraft in orbit continue to stay in orbit, and people inside or outside such craft continuously experience weightlessness.

Objects in LEO encounter atmospheric drag from gases in the thermosphere (approximately 80–600 km above the surface) or exosphere (approximately 600 km and higher), depending on orbit height. Orbits of satellites that reach altitudes below 300 km decay fast due to atmospheric drag. Objects in LEO orbit Earth between the denser part of the atmosphere and below the inner Van Allen radiation belt.

Equatorial low Earth orbits (ELEO) are a subset of LEO. These orbits, with low inclination to the Equator, allow rapid revisit times over low-latitude locations on Earth. Prograde equatorial LEOs also have lower delta-v launch requirements because they take advantage of the Earth's rotation. Other useful LEO orbits including polar orbits and Sun-synchronous orbits have a higher inclinations to the equator and provide coverage for higher latitudes on Earth. Some of the first generation of Starlink satellites used polar orbits which provide coverage everywhere on Earth. Later Starlink constellations orbit at a lower inclination and provide more coverage for populated areas.

Higher orbits include medium Earth orbit (MEO), sometimes called intermediate circular orbit (ICO), and further above, geostationary orbit (GEO). Orbits higher than low orbit can lead to early failure of electronic components due to intense radiation and charge accumulation.

In 2017, "very low Earth orbits" (VLEO) began to be seen in regulatory filings. These orbits, below about 450 km, require the use of novel technologies for orbit raising because they operate in orbits that would ordinarily decay too soon to be economically useful.

Use

A low Earth orbit requires the lowest amount of energy for satellite placement. It provides high bandwidth and low communication latency. Satellites and space stations in LEO are more accessible for crew and servicing.

Since it requires less energy to place a satellite into a LEO, and a satellite there needs less powerful amplifiers for successful transmission, LEO is used for many communication applications, such as the Iridium phone system. Some communication satellites use much higher geostationary orbits and move at the same angular velocity as the Earth as to appear stationary above one location on the planet.

Disadvantages
Unlike geosynchronous satellites, satellites in low orbit have a small field of view and can only observe and communicate with a fraction of the Earth at a given time. This means that a large network (or constellation) of satellites is required to provide continuous coverage.

Satellites at lower altitudes of orbit are in the atmosphere and suffer from rapid orbital decay, requiring either periodic re-boosting to maintain stable orbits, or the launching of replacements for those that re-enter the atmosphere. The effects of adding such quantities of vaporized metals to Earth's stratosphere are potentially of concern but currently unknown.

Examples

 * The International Space Station is in a LEO about 400 km to 420 km above Earth's surface, and needs re-boosting a few times a year due to orbital decay.
 * The Iridium telecom satellites orbit at about 780 km.
 * Earth observation satellites, also known as remote sensing satellites, including spy satellites and other Earth imaging satellites, use LEO as they are able to see the surface of the Earth more clearly by being closer to it. A majority of artificial satellites are placed in LEO. Satellites can also take advantage of consistent lighting of the surface below via Sun-synchronous LEO orbits at an altitude of about 800 km and near polar inclination. Envisat (2002–2012) is one example.
 * The Hubble Space Telescope orbits at about 540 km above Earth.
 * The Chinese Tiangong space station was launched in April 2021, and currently orbits between about 340 km and 450 km.
 * The gravimetry mission GRACE-FO orbits at about 500 km as did its predecessor, GRACE.

Former

 * The Chinese Tiangong-1 station was in orbit at about 355 km, until its de-orbiting in 2018.
 * The Chinese Tiangong-2 station was in orbit at about 370 km, until its de-orbiting in 2019.
 * GOCE, another gravimetry mission, orbited at about 255 km.
 * Super Low Altitude Test Satellite, nicknamed Tsubame, orbited at 167.4 km, the lowest altitude ever among Earth observation satellites.

In fiction

 * In the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, Earth's transit station ("Space Station V") "orbited 300 km above Earth".

Space debris
The LEO environment is becoming congested with space debris because of the frequency of object launches. This has caused growing concern in recent years, since collisions at orbital velocities can be dangerous or deadly. Collisions can produce additional space debris, creating a domino effect known as Kessler syndrome. NASA's Orbital Debris Program tracks over 25,000 objects larger than 10 cm diameter in LEO, while the estimated number between 1 and 10 cm is 500,000, and the number of particles bigger than 1 mm exceeds 100 million. The particles travel at speeds up to 17,500 mi/h, so even a small impact can severely damage a spacecraft.

title: Low Earth orbit


text:
Appian Way

The Appian Way (Latin and Italian: Via Appia) is one of the earliest and strategically most important Roman roads of the ancient republic. It connected Rome to Brindisi, in southeast Italy. Its importance is indicated by its common name, recorded by Statius, of Appia longarum... regina viarum ("the Appian Way, the queen of the long roads"). The road is named after Appius Claudius Caecus, the Roman censor who, during the Samnite Wars, began and completed the first section as a military road to the south in 312 BC.

The need for roads
The Appian Way was a Roman road used as a main route for military supplies for its conquest of southern Italy in 312 BC and for improvements in communication.

The Appian Way was the first long road built specifically to transport troops outside the smaller region of greater Rome (this was essential to the Romans). The few roads outside the early city were Etruscan and went mainly to Etruria. By the late Republic, the Romans had expanded over most of Italy and were masters of road construction. Their roads began at Rome, where the master itinerarium, or list of destinations along the roads, was located, and extended to the borders of their domain – hence the expression, "All roads lead to Rome".

The Samnite Wars
Romans had an affinity for the people of Campania, who, like themselves, traced their backgrounds to the Etruscans. The Samnite Wars were instigated by the Samnites when Rome attempted to ally itself with the city of Capua in Campania. The Italic speakers in Latium had long ago been subdued and incorporated into the Roman state. They were responsible for changing Rome from a primarily Etruscan to a primarily Italic state.

Dense populations of sovereign Samnites remained in the mountains north of Capua, which is just north of the Greek city of Neapolis. Around 343 BC, Rome and Capua attempted to form an alliance. The Samnites reacted with military force.

The barrier of the Pontine Marshes

Between Capua and Rome lay the Pontine Marshes (Pomptinae paludes), a swamp infested with malaria. A tortuous coastal road wound between Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber and Neapolis. The Via Latina followed its ancient and scarcely more accessible path along the foothills of Monti Laziali and Monti Lepini, which are visible towering over the former marsh.

In the First Samnite War (343–341 BC) the Romans found they could not support or resupply troops in the field against the Samnites across the marsh. A revolt of the Latin League drained their resources further. They gave up the attempted alliance and settled with Samnium.

Colonization to the southeast
The Romans were only biding their time while they looked for a solution. The first answer was the colonia, a "cultivation" of settlers from Rome, who would maintain a permanent base of operations. The Second Samnite War (327–304 BC) erupted when Rome attempted to place a colony at Cales in 334 BC and again at Fregellae in 328 BC on the other side of the marshes. The Samnites, now a major power after defeating the Greeks of Tarentum, occupied Neapolis to try to ensure its loyalty. The Neapolitans appealed to Rome, which sent an army and expelled the Samnites from Neapolis.

Appius Claudius' beginning of the works
In 312 BC, Appius Claudius Caecus became censor at Rome. He was of the gens Claudia, who were patricians descended from the Sabines taken into the early Roman state. He had been given the name of the founding ancestor of the gens, Appius Claudius (Attus Clausus in Sabine). He was a populist, i.e., an advocate of the common people. A man of discernment and perception, in the years of success he was said to have lost his outer vision and thus acquired the name caecus, "blind".

Without waiting to be told what to do by the Senate, Appius Claudius began bold public works to address the supply problem. An aqueduct (the Aqua Appia) secured the water supply of the city of Rome. By far the best known project was the road, which ran across the Pontine Marshes to the coast northwest of Naples, where it turned north to Capua. On it, any number of fresh troops could be sped to the theatre of operations, and supplies could be moved en masse to Roman bases without hindrance by either enemy or terrain. It is no surprise that, after his term as censor, Appius Claudius became consul twice, subsequently held other offices, and was a respected consultant to the state even during his later years.

The success of the road
The road achieved its purpose. The outcome of the Second Samnite War was at last favorable to Rome. In a series of blows the Romans reversed their fortunes, bringing Etruria to the table in 311 BC, the very year of their revolt, and Samnium in 304 BC. The road was the main factor that allowed them to concentrate their forces with sufficient rapidity and to keep them adequately supplied, whereafter they became a formidable opponent.

Construction of the road
The main part of the Appian Way was started and finished in 312 BC.

The road began as a leveled dirt road upon which small stones and mortar were laid. Gravel was laid upon this, which was finally topped with tight fitting, interlocking stones to provide a flat surface. The historian Procopius said that the stones fit together so securely and closely that they appeared to have grown together rather than to have been fitted together. The road was cambered in the middle (for water runoff) and had ditches on either side of the road which were protected by retaining walls.

Between Rome and Lake Albano

The road began in the Forum Romanum, passed through the Servian Wall at the porta Capena, went through a cutting in the clivus Martis, and left the city. For this stretch of the road, the builders used the Via Latina. The building of the Aurelian Wall centuries later required the placing of another gate, the Porta Appia. Outside of Rome the new Via Appia went through well-to-do suburbs along the Via Norba, the ancient track to the Alban hills, where Norba was situated. The road at the time was a via glarea, a gravel road. The Romans built a high-quality road, with layers of cemented stone over a layer of small stones, cambered, drainage ditches on either side, low retaining walls on sunken portions, and dirt pathways for sidewalks. The Via Appia is believed to have been the first Roman road to feature the use of lime cement. The materials were volcanic rock. The surface was said to have been so smooth that you could not distinguish the joints. The Roman section still exists and is lined with monuments of all periods, although the cement has eroded out of the joints, leaving a very rough surface.

Across the marsh
The road concedes nothing to the Alban hills, but goes straight through them over cuts and fills. The gradients are steep. Then it enters the former Pontine Marshes. A stone causeway of about 19 mi led across stagnant and foul-smelling pools blocked from the sea by sand dunes. Appius Claudius planned to drain the marsh, taking up earlier attempts, but he failed. The causeway and its bridges subsequently needed constant repair. In 162 BC, Marcus Cornelius Cathegus had a canal constructed along the road to relieve the traffic and provide an alternative when the road was being repaired. Romans preferred using the canal.

Along the coast
The Via Appia picked up the coastal road at Tarracina (Terracina). However, the Romans straightened it somewhat with cuttings, which form cliffs today. From there the road swerved north to Capua, where, for the time being, it ended. The Caudine Forks were not far to the north. The itinerary was Aricia (Ariccia), Tres Tabernae, Forum Appii, Tarracina, Fundi (Fondi), Formiae (Formia), Minturnae (Minturno), Suessa, Casilinum and Capua, but some of these were colonies added after the Samnite Wars. The distance was 132 mi. The original road had no milestones, as they were not yet in use. A few survive from later times, including a first milestone near the Porta Appia.

Extension to Beneventum

The Third Samnite War (298–290 BC) is perhaps misnamed. It was an all-out attempt by all the neighbors of Rome: Italics, Etruscans and Gauls, to check the power of Rome. The Samnites were the leading people of the conspiracy. Rome dealt the northerners a crushing blow at the Battle of Sentinum in Umbria in 295. The Samnites fought on alone. Rome now placed 13 colonies in Campania and Samnium. It must have been during this time that they extended the Via Appia 35 miles beyond Capua past the Caudine Forks to a place the Samnites called Maloenton, "passage of the flocks". The itinerary added Calatia, Caudium and Beneventum (not yet called that). Here also ended the Via Latina.

Extension to Apulia and Calabria
By 290 BC, the sovereignty of the Samnites had ended. The heel of Italy lay open to the Romans. The dates are somewhat uncertain and there is considerable variation in the sources, but during the Third Samnite War the Romans seem to have extended the road to Venusia, where they placed a colony of 20,000 men. After that they were at Tarentum.

Roman expansion alarmed Tarentum, the leading city of the Greek presence (Magna Graecia) in southern Italy. They hired the mercenary King Pyrrhus of Epirus in neighboring Greece to fight the Romans on their behalf. In 280 BC the Romans suffered a defeat at the hands of Pyrrhus at the Battle of Heraclea on the coast west of Tarentum. The battle was costly for both sides, prompting Pyrrhus to remark "One more such victory and I am lost." Making the best of it, the Roman army turned on Greek Rhegium and effected a massacre of Pyrrhian partisans there.

Rather than pursue them, Pyrrhus went straight for Rome along the Via Appia and then the Via Latina. He knew that if he continued on the Via Appia he could be trapped in the marsh. Wary of such entrapment on the Via Latina also, he withdrew without fighting after encountering opposition at Anagni. Wintering in Campania, he withdrew to Apulia in 279 BC, where, pursued by the Romans, he won a second costly victory at the Battle of Asculum. Withdrawing from Apulia for a Sicilian interlude, he returned to Apulia in 275 BC and started for Campania up the Roman road.

Supplied by that same road, the Romans successfully defended the region against Pyrrhus, crushing his army in a two-day fight at the Battle of Beneventum in 275 BC. The Romans renamed the town from "Maleventum" ("site of bad events") to Beneventum ("site of good events") as a result. Pyrrhus withdrew to Greece, where he died in a street fight in Argos in 272 BC. Tarentum fell to the Romans that same year, who proceeded to consolidate their rule over all of Italy.

The Romans pushed the Via Appia to the port of Brundisium in 264 BC. The itinerary from Beneventum was now Venusia, Silvium, Tarentum, Uria and Brundisium. The Roman Republic was the government of Italy, for the time being. Appius Claudius died in 273, but in extending the road a number of times, no one has tried to displace his name upon it.

Rediscovery
The Appian Way's path across today's regions Lazio and Campania has always been well known, but the exact position of the part located in Apulia (the original one, not the extension by Trajan) was long unknown, since there were no visible remains of the Appian Way in that region.

In the first half of the 20th century, the professor of ancient Roman topography Giuseppe Lugli managed to discover, with the then-innovative technique of photogrammetry, what probably was the route of the Appian Way from Gravina in Puglia (Silvium) up to Taranto. When analysing aerophotogrammetric shots of the area, Lugli noticed a path (tratturo) named la Tarantina, whose direction was still largely influenced by the centuriation; this, according to Lugli, was the path of the Appian Way. This path, as well as the part located in today's Apulia region, was still in use in the Middle Ages. A further piece of evidence for Lugli's proposed path is the presence of a number of archaeological remains in that region, among them the ancient settlement of Jesce.

By studying the distances given in the Antonine Itinerary, Lugli also assigned the Appian Way stations Blera and Sublupatia (which also occurs on the Tabula Peutingeriana) respectively to the areas Murgia Catena and Taverna (between masseria (estate farmhouse) S. Filippo and masseria S. Pietro). However, the toponym Murgia Catena defined too large an area, not allowing a clear localization of the Appian Way station. More recently Luciano Piepoli, based on the distances given in the Antonine Itinerary and on newer archeological findings, has suggested that Silvium should be Santo Staso, an area very close to Gravina in Puglia, Blera should be masseria Castello, and Sublupatia should be masseria Caione.

Main branches
Since the latter stretch of the Appian Way turned out to be very impervious, some branches were created: first the Via Aemilia in Hirpinis, then the Via Minucia, finally the emperor Trajan built the Via Traiana, a branch of the Via Appia from Beneventum, reaching Brundisium via Canusium and Barium rather than via Tarentum. This was commemorated by an arch at Beneventum.

Travellers could cross the Adriatic Sea through the Otranto Strait towards Albania either by landing at present day Durrës through the Via Egnatia or near the ancient town of Apollonia and continue towards present day Rrogozhinë in central Albania.

The crucifixion of Spartacus' army
In 73 BC, a slave revolt (known as the Third Servile War) under the ex-gladiator of Capua, Spartacus, began against the Romans. Slaves accounted for roughly every third person in Italy.

Spartacus defeated many Roman armies in a conflict that lasted for over two years. While trying to escape from Italy at Brundisium he unwittingly moved his forces into the historic trap at Apulia in Calabria. The Romans were well acquainted with the region. Legions were brought home from abroad and Spartacus was pinned between armies. The ex-slave army was defeated at the Siler River by Marcus Licinius Crassus. Pompey's armies captured and killed several thousand rebels that escaped from the battle and Crassus captured several thousand more. The Romans judged that the slaves had forfeited their right to live. In 71 BC, 6,000 slaves were crucified along the 200 km Via Appia from Rome to Capua.

The World War II Battle of Anzio
In 1943, during World War II, the Allies fell into the same trap Pyrrhus had retreated to avoid, in the Pomptine fields, the successor to the Pontine Marshes. The marsh remained, despite many efforts to drain it, until engineers working for Benito Mussolini finally succeeded (even so, the fields were infested with malarial mosquitos until the advent of DDT in the 1950s).

Hoping to break a stalemate at Monte Cassino, the Allies landed on the coast of Italy at the Anzio-Nettuno area – ancient Antium – which was midway between Ostia and Terracina. They found that the place was undefended. They intended to move along the line of the Via Appia to take Rome, outflanking Monte Cassino, but they did not do so quickly enough. The Germans occupied Mounts Laziali and Lepini along the track of the old Via Latina, from which they rained down shells on Anzio. Even though the Allies expanded into all the Pomptine region, they gained no ground. The Germans counterattacked down the via Appia from the Alban hills in a front four miles wide, but could not retake Anzio. The battle lasted for four months, one side being supplied by sea, the other by land through Rome. In May 1944, the Allies broke out of Anzio and took Rome. The German forces escaped to the north of Florence.

1960 Summer Olympics
For the 1960 Summer Olympics, it served as part of the men's marathon course that was won by Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia.

Via Appia Antica
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the road fell out of use; Pope Pius VI ordered its restoration. A new Appian Way was built in parallel with the old one in 1784 as far as the Alban Hills region. The new road is the Via Appia Nuova ("New Appian Way") as opposed to the old section, now known as Via Appia Antica. The old Appian Way close to Rome is now a free tourist attraction. It was extensively restored for Rome's Millennium and Great Jubilee celebrations. The first 3 mi are still heavily used by cars, buses and coaches but from then on traffic is very light and the ruins can be explored on foot in relative safety. The Church of Domine Quo Vadis is in the second mile of the road. Along or close to the part of the road closest to Rome, there are three catacombs of Roman and early Christian origin and one of Jewish origin.

The construction of Rome's ring road, the Grande Raccordo Anulare or GRA, in 1951 caused the Appian Way to be cut in two. More recent improvements to the GRA have rectified this through the construction of a tunnel under the Appia, so that it is now possible to follow the Appia on foot for about 10 mi from its beginning near the Baths of Caracalla.

Many parts of the original road beyond Rome's environs have been preserved, and some are now used by cars (for example, in the area of Velletri). The road inspires the last movement of Ottorino Respighi's Pini di Roma. To this day the Via Appia contains the longest stretch of straight road in Europe, totaling 62 km.

1st to 4th mile

 * Porta Appia (Porta San Sebastiano), the gate of the Aurelian Walls
 * Church of Domine Quo Vadis
 * Tomb of Priscilla
 * Catacomb of Callixtus
 * Hypogeum of Vibia
 * San Sebastiano fuori le mura
 * Catacombs of St Sebastian
 * Vigna Randanini Jewish catacombs
 * Circus of Maxentius
 * Tomb of Caecilia Metella
 * Roman baths of Capo di Bove
 * Tomb of Hilarus Fuscus

5th mile

 * Mausoleum of the Orazi and Curiazi
 * Villa dei Quintili, with nympheum, theatre, and baths
 * Mausoleum of Casal Rotondo

6th mile and beyond

 * Minucia tomb
 * Torre Selce
 * Temple of Hercules
 * Berrettia di Prete (tomb and later church)
 * Mausoleum of Gallienus
 * Tres Tabernae
 * Villa of Publius Clodius Pulcher (in the Villa Santa Caterina, owned by the Pontifical North American College), 14th mile
 * Villa of Pompey

Roman bridges along the road
There are the remains of several Roman bridges along the road, including the Ponte di Tre Ponti, Ponte di Vigna Capoccio, Viadotta di Valle Ariccia, Ponte Alto and Ponte Antico.

title: Appian Way


text:
American pickerel

The American pickerels are two subspecies of Esox americanus, a medium-sized species of North American freshwater predatory fish belonging to the pike family (genus Esox in family Esocidae of order Esociformes):
 * Redfin pickerel, sometimes called the brook pickerel, E. americanus americanus Gmelin, 1789;
 * Grass pickerel, E. americanus vermiculatus Lesueur, 1846.

Lesueur originally classified the grass pickerel as E. vermiculatus, but it is now considered a subspecies of E. americanus.

There is no widely accepted English common collective name for the two E. americanus subspecies; "American pickerel" is a translation of the French systematic name brochet d'Amérique.

Description
The two subspecies are very similar, but the grass pickerel lacks the redfin's distinctive orange to red fin coloration. The former's fins have dark leading edges and amber to dusky coloration. In addition, the light areas between the dark bands are generally wider on the grass pickerel and narrower on the redfin pickerel. Record size grass and redfin pickerels can weigh around 2 lb and reach lengths of around 13 in. Redfin and grass pickerels are typically smaller than chain pickerels, which can be much larger.

Distribution and habitats
The redfin and grass pickerels occur primarily in sluggish, vegetated waters of pools, lakes and wetlands, and are carnivorous predators feeding on smaller fish. However, larger fishes, such as the striped bass (Morone saxatilis), bowfin (Amia calva) and gray weakfish (Cynoscion regalis), prey on the pickerels in turn when the latter venture into larger rivers or estuaries.

The pickerels reproduce by scattering spherical, sticky eggs in shallow, heavily vegetated waters. The eggs hatch in 11–15 days; the adult pickerels guard neither the eggs nor the young.

Both subspecies are native to the freshwater bodies of North America, and are not to be confused with their more aggressive big cousin, the northern pike. The redfin pickerel's range extends from the Saint Lawrence basin in Quebec down to the Gulf Coast, from Mississippi to Florida; while the grass pickerel's range is further west, extending from the Great Lakes Basin, from Ontario to Michigan, down to the western Gulf Coast, from eastern Texas to Mississippi.

Fishing
The E. americanus subspecies are not as highly prized as a game fish as their larger cousins, the northern pike and muskellunge, but they are nevertheless caught by anglers. McClane's Standard Fishing Encyclopedia describes ultralight tackle as a sporty if overlooked method to catch these small but voracious pikes.

title: American pickerel


text:
Redfish

Redfish is a common name for several species of fish. It is most commonly applied to certain deep-sea rockfish in the genus Sebastes, red drum from the genus Sciaenops or the reef dwelling snappers in the genus Lutjanus. It is also applied to the slimeheads or roughies (family Trachichthyidae), and the alfonsinos (Berycidae).

title: Redfish


text:
Porgy (novel)

Porgy is a novel written by the American author DuBose Heyward and published by the George H. Doran Company in 1925.

The novel tells the story of Porgy, a crippled street beggar living in the black tenements of Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1920s. The character was based on Charlestonian Samuel Smalls. In some of the novel's passages, black characters speak in Gullah, a creole language that had developed among enslaved African Americans during the slavery years on the Sea Islands.

The novel was adapted for a 1927 play of the same name by Heyward and his wife, playwright Dorothy Heyward. Even before completing the play, Heyward was in discussions with composer George Gershwin for an operatic version of his novel. This was produced in 1935 as Porgy and Bess (renamed to distinguish it from the play).

title: Porgy (novel)


text:
Cynoscion regalis

Cynoscion regalis, the weakfish, squeteague, bastard trout, bastard weakfish, common weakfish, gray weakfish, chickwick, gray trout, gray sea trout, sand trout, silver weakfish or squit,  is a marine ray-finned fish of the family Sciaenidae, the drums and croakers.

A medium-large, slender, marine fish, it is found along the east coast of North America. The head and back of this fish are dark brown in color with a greenish tinge. The sides have a faint silvery hue with dusky specks, and the belly is white. The origin of its name is based on the weakness of the mouth muscles, which often cause a hook to tear free, allowing the fish to escape. The weakfish grows to 1 m in length and 9 kg in weight. It is found along the eastern coast of North America from Nova Scotia, Canada to northern Florida, where it is fished both commercially and recreationally.

This species has become established in the Gulf of Cadiz in the eastern Atlantic. This introduced population was first noted in 2011 when a specimen misidentified as Cynoscion nebulosus was taken and there is now a well established population.

The weakfish is the state fish of Delaware.

Management
Cynoscion regalis stocks have been generally low in recent years due to fishing and natural mortality increasing. Management of the species includes gear regulations, seasonal fishing, bycatch limitations, minimum size limits, commercial creel limits, and bycatch reduction gear. It is hoped that these regulations incorporated with others will help weakfish populations come back to a sustainable point.

Appearance
Cynoscion regalis is a salt-water fish native to the mid Atlantic region of the east coast of the United States. Ranging from 12-18 inches once fully matured, with some adults reaching well above this range at up to 3 feet and 18 lbs. The weakfish can live up to 17 years but have an average lifespan of 9 to 12 years (Chesapeake).

Diet
Cynoscion regalis preys on a wide variety of species, including, small schooling fish like anchovies and Atlantic Menhaden, assorted crabs, shrimp, mollusks, and even large zooplankton. Weakfish move toward their prey slowly and once upon them they attack aggressively with an open jaw (Chesapeake). Although being a predatory fish and on a higher trophic level the weakfish are also a food source for other larger fish. Some examples of fish that prey on weakfish include the bluefish, the striped bass, and the dusky shark (Chesapeake).

Breeding
Cynoscion regalis mainly spawn from April to August. This spawning takes place in the shallow waters of estuaries. Their young are in the form of zooplankton, floating freely with the tidal current. They flow with these currents until reaching their nursery area of low salinity rivers. Once these fish grow large enough in these areas, they begin to migrate back to the saltier waters to which they were spawned. They stay in these intertidal bay zone until winter, then join the schooling fish towards deeper offshore waters. The males have the ability to perform a deep croaking sound as shown by the Chesapeake Bay field guide (Chesapeake). The reason why these fish have the capability to do this is because they are a part of the drum family. This trait is very common in species that belong to the drum family and is commonly used for mating purposes. It is believed that weakfish also use this to attract other females as stated in a study done at the University of Michigan, "There is some evidence that the male weakfish croaking sound may be used in attracting a mate and playing a role in the spawning behavior. This is because the male's sonic muscles, which are used to produce 'drumming' and 'croaking' sounds, increases three times its usual mass during spawning season" (Gillum). This study shows that weakfish make use of their drum sound more frequently during the mating season, suggesting that it is used as a process for males to attract females.

Behavior
Cynoscion regalis are schooling fish, meaning that they spend a large majority of their time swimming together either trying to evade larger predators, or trying to feed more efficiently on prey. Studies done by the university of Michigan state that these schooling patterns tend to become much tighter in signs of stress as they state, "weakfish have an acute chemosensory response mechanism. In times of stress, weakfish gather into tighter schools, this was seen in lab studies when higher temperatures were used. The weakfish under these conditions showed a 35% decrease in their distance to the other fish in the school. Also the frequency of school formation increased in response to stress" (Gillum). Weakfish school closer together when in situations of high stress in this study done by the university of Michigan. Theorizing that they use schooling as a form of protection.

Economic importance
Cynoscion regalis is excellent table fare; they can be used as a food source. The weakfish are recreationally fished and provide tackle shops with business.

Recreational fishing
Cynoscion regalis are finicky. They are very shy and prey selective; making them a harder fish to target recreationally, this provides a good challenge for anglers. They prefer a water temperature ranging from 50 degree F to 65 degrees F. This is the best time to target weakfish, as they are most actively breeding within these temperatures. They can be found feeding in temperatures exclusive to these numbers, but they may be much more finicky and hard to hook. The weakfish also have a very fragile mouth, making it hard for anglers to keep them from spitting the hook.

Conservation
Cynoscion regalis has its main breeding grounds in the near shore estuaries of the Chesapeake Bay. "The most important habitat for the weakfish is the brackish waters of the Chesapeake bay" (Gillum). This is where the vast majority of weakfish breed, to maintain a healthy population of weakfish these areas must be preserved. The weakfish experienced a crash that was recognized in 2009 as stated by John McMurray in the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, "A 2009 stock assessment found that weakfish were badly depleted. The stock had reached an all-time low of 2.9 million pounds, far below the "biomass threshold" of 22.4 million pounds, which is what scientists would consider a healthy stock. This is an astonishing drop, since the East Coast harvest in 1980 was 80 million pounds" (McMurray).

Natural mortality of this species has increased since the mid 1990s from 0.16 to an average of 0.93 from 2007 to 2014 but the underlying cause is still unknown. Given the decline in SSB in excess of 60% over three generation lengths and the unknown driver of increasing natural mortality, this species is listed as Endangered A2b with an urgent need for additional research to determine the driver of increasing natural mortality.

Current fishing regulations
Cynoscion regalis is a target for the recreational anglers and each individual state has its own size limit, possession limit, and season for targeting and collecting weakfish. For example, in the state of New Jersey, recreational anglers are allowed 1 fish that is greater than 13 inches at any time of the year as shown by the New Jersey Department of Environmental protection (NJ wildlife). Under Florida regulations weakfish are considered partially regulated, but there is a 100 lbs limit of unregulated fish including sand seatrout and silver seatrout per day outside of the Weakfish Management Zone. The Weakfish Management Zone includes state waters from the Florida-Georgia line to the southernmost tip of Amelia Island, the inland waters of Nassau County and the St. Marys River. The regulations in the zone are to protect mainly the purebred weakfish, as they are relatively rare in Florida outside of this zone. Sand seatrout and silver seatrout are species of least concern.

In human culture
Cynoscion regalis is the state fish of Delaware.

title: Cynoscion regalis


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Striped bass

The striped bass (Morone saxatilis), also called the Atlantic striped bass, striper, linesider, rock, or rockfish, is an anadromous perciform fish of the family Moronidae found primarily along the Atlantic coast of North America. It has also been widely introduced into inland recreational fisheries across the United States. Striped bass found in the Gulf of Mexico are a separate strain referred to as Gulf Coast striped bass.

The striped bass is the state fish of Maryland, Rhode Island, and South Carolina, and the state saltwater (marine) fish of New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and New Hampshire. It is generally called the striped bass north of New Jersey, rockfish south of New Jersey, and both in New Jersey.

The history of the striped bass fishery in North America dates back to the Colonial period. Many written accounts by some of the first European settlers describe the immense abundance of striped bass, along with alewives, traveling and spawning up most rivers in the coastal Northeast.

Morphology and lifespan
The striped bass is a typical member of the family Moronidae in shape, having a streamlined, silvery body marked with longitudinal dark stripes running from behind the gills to the base of the tail. Common mature size is 20 to(-). The largest specimen recorded was 124 lb, netted in 1896. Striped bass are believed to live for up to 30 years. The average size in length is 20 to(-) and approximately 5 to(-).

Natural distribution
Striped bass are native to the Atlantic coastline of North America from the St. Lawrence River into the Gulf of Mexico to Louisiana. They are anadromous fish that migrate between fresh and salt water. Spawning takes place in fresh water.

Introductions outside their natural range
Striped bass have been introduced to the Pacific Coast of North America and into many large reservoir impoundments across the United States by state game and fish commissions for recreational fishing and as a predator to control populations of gizzard shad. These include: Elephant Butte Lake in New Mexico; Lake Ouachita, Lake Norman in North Carolina; Lake Norfork, Beaver Lake and Lake Hamilton in Arkansas; Lake Thunderbird in Illinois; Lake Pleasant, and Lake Havasu in Arizona; Lake Powell along the Arizona/Utah border; Castaic Lake, Pyramid Lake, Silverwood Lake, Diamond Valley Lake, and San Francisco Bay-Delta in California; Lewis Smith Lake in Alabama; Lake Cumberland in Kentucky; Lake George in Florida; Lake Murray in South Carolina; Lake Lanier in Georgia; Watts Bar Lake, in Tennessee; Lake Mead, Nevada; Lake Texoma on the border of Texas and Oklahoma, Lake Tawakoni, Lake Whitney, Buffalo Springs Lake, Possum Kingdom Lake, and Lake Buchanan in Texas; Raystown Lake in Pennsylvania; Lake Wallenpaupack in Northeastern Pennsylvania; Umpqua River in Oregon and in Virginia's Smith Mountain Lake and Leesville Reservoir.

Striped bass have also been introduced into waters in Ecuador, Iran, Latvia, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, and Turkey, primarily for sport fishing and aquaculture.

Environmental factors
The spawning success of striped bass has been studied in the San Francisco Bay-Delta water system, with a finding that high total dissolved solids (TDS) reduce spawning. At levels as low as 200 mg/L TDS, an observable diminution of spawning productivity occurs. They can be found in lakes, ponds, streams, and wetlands.

Though the population of striped bass was growing and repopulating in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, a study executed by the Wildlife and Fisheries Program at West Virginia University found that the rapid growth of the striped bass population was exerting a tremendous pressure on its prey (river herring, shad, and blueback herring). This pressure on their food source was putting their own population at risk due to the population of prey naturally not coming back to the same spawning areas.

In the United States, the striped bass was designated as a protected game fish in 2007, and executive agencies were directed to use existing legal authorities to prohibit the sale of striped bass caught in federal waters in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. In addition, Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina have designated striped bass as a game fish in state waters.

In Canada, the province of Quebec designated the striped bass population of the Saint Lawrence as extirpated in 1996. Analysis of available data implicated overfishing and dredging in the disappearance. In 2002, a reintroduction program was successful.

Life cycle
Striped bass spawn in fresh water, and although they have been successfully adapted to freshwater habitat, they naturally spend their adult lives in saltwater (i.e., they are anadromous). Five important bodies of water with breeding stocks of striped bass are: Miramichi River, Chesapeake Bay, Massachusetts Bay/Cape Cod, Hudson River, and Delaware River. Many of the rivers and tributaries that emptied into the Atlantic, had at one time, bred stock of striped bass. This occurred until the 1860s. One of the largest breeding areas is the Chesapeake Bay, where populations from Chesapeake and Delaware bays have intermingled. The very few successful spawning populations of freshwater striped bass include Lake Texoma, Lake Weiss (Coosa River), the Colorado River and its reservoirs downstream from and including Lake Powell, and the Arkansas River, as well as Lake Marion (South Carolina) that retained a landlocked breeding population when the dam was built; other freshwater fisheries must be restocked with hatchery-produced fish annually. Stocking of striped bass was discontinued at Lake Mead in 1973 once natural reproduction was verified.

Hybrids with other bass
Striped bass have also been hybridized with white bass to produce hybrid striped bass also known as wiper, whiterock bass, sunshine bass, palmetto bass, and Cherokee bass. These hybrids have been stocked in many freshwater areas across the US.

Fishing for striped bass
Striped bass are of significant value for sport fishing, and have been introduced to many waterways outside their natural range. A variety of angling methods are used, including trolling and surf casting Lures such as wooden plugs, plastic swimmers, poppers, and metal spoons all work very well for fishing off of the surf. Utilizing live and dead bait can also be a deadly technique when targeting Striped bass from land. Striped bass take a number of live and fresh baits, including bunker, clams, eels, sandworms, herring, bloodworms, mackerel, shad, bluegill, and crayfish.

The largest striped bass ever taken by angling was an 37.14 kg specimen taken from a boat in Long Island Sound, near the Outer Southwest Reef, off the coast of Westbrook, Connecticut. The all-tackle world record fish was taken by Gregory Myerson on the night of August 4, 2011. The fish took a drifted live eel bait, and fought for 20 minutes before being boated by Myerson. A second hook and leader was discovered in the fish's mouth when it was boated, indicating it had been previously hooked by another angler. The fish measured 54 in long and had a girth of 36 in. The International Game Fish Association (IGFA) declared Myerson's catch the new all-tackle world record striped bass on October 19, 2011. In addition to now holding the all-tackle record, Meyerson's catch also landed him the new IGFA men's 37 kg (80 -lb) line class record for striped bass, which previously stood at 70 lb. The previous all-tackle world record fish was a 35.6 kg specimen taken in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on September 21, 1982, by Albert McReynolds, who fought the fish from the beach for an hour and 20 minutes after it took his Rebel artificial lure. On March 20, 2023, then 12 year old Henry Bulgin set the first Junior IGFA All-Tackle Length world record by landing a 98 cm striped bass while fishing the Chesapeake Bay just south of Annapolis, Maryland, but this was beaten by the end of that year by a 114 cm specimen in the same bay, just off Virginia. Recreational bag limits vary by state and province. On July 4, 2008, David Hochman shot a 68.4 lb specimen off the coast of Rhode Island to set the world record for Striped Bass taken by speargun.

Landlocked striped bass
Striped bass are anadromous, so their upriver spawning migrations led some individuals to become "landlocked" during lake dam constructions. The first area where this was documented was at the Santee-Cooper River during the construction of the two dams that impounded Lakes Moultrie and Marion, and because of this, the state game fish of South Carolina is the striped bass.

Recently, biologists came to believe that striped bass stayed in rivers for long periods of time, with some not returning to sea unless temperature changes forced migration. Once fishermen and biologists caught on to rising striped bass populations, many state natural resources departments started stocking striped bass in local lakes. Striped bass still continue to exhibit upstream migrations from freshwater lakes during the spawning period. Landlocked stripers have a hard time reproducing naturally, and one of the few and most successful rivers in which they have been documented reproducing successfully is the Coosa River in Alabama and Georgia.

A 31.55 kg landlocked bass was caught in February 2013 by James R. Bramlett on the Warrior River in Alabama, a current world record. This fish had a length of 44 in and a girth of 37.75 in.

A self-sustaining population of striped bass also exist in Lake Texoma, a brackish lake. In Canada there are no landlocked striped bass, but a large number of bass overwinter in Grand Lake, Nova Scotia. They migrate out in early April into the Shubenacadie River to spawn. These bass also spawn in the Stewiacke River (a tributary of the Shubenacadie). The Shubenacadie River system is one of five known spawning areas in Canada for striped bass, with the others being the St. Lawerence River, Miramichi River, Saint John River, Annapolis River, and Shubenacadie/Stewiacke Rivers.

Management
The striped bass population declined to less than 5 million by 1982, but efforts by fishermen with throw back lengths for smaller striped bass and management programs to rebuild the stock proved successful, and in 2007, the nearly 56 million fish included all ages. Recreational anglers and commercial fisherman caught an unprecedented 3.8 million fish in 2006. In New Jersey, alone among states, there is no legal commercial fishery for Striped Bass, it is against the law to sell Striped Bass in wholesale markets, retail, or in restaurants. The management of the species includes size limits, commercial quotas, and biological reference points for the health of the species.

The Atlantic coast-wide harvest of striped bass is managed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (AMSFC). In October 2019, the AMSFC announced that the 2018 Benchmark Stock Assessment indicated that "the resource is overfished and experiencing overfishing." Following a series of hearings during March and April 2021 to gather public input, the ASMFC Striped Bass Technical Committee will make recommendations for a new 10-year management strategy, Amendment 7 to the Interstate Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, to replenish striped bass to sustainable levels throughout its traditional migratory range from North Carolina to Maine. Amendment 7 will be finalized and adopted in late 2021 and implemented in 2022. Conditions of the Striped bass fishery have continued to get worse with Striped bass stocks nearly at the low hit all the way back in 1985. There is major controversy in the fishing community on whether this data is correct because many anglers have seen great fishing in recent years.

As food
Striped bass has white meat with a mild flavor and a medium texture. It is extremely versatile in that it can be pan-seared, grilled, steamed, poached, roasted, broiled, sautéed, and deep fried (including batter-frying). The flesh can also be eaten raw or pickled.

The primary market forms for fresh bass include headed and gutted (with the head and organs removed) and filets; the primary market forms for frozen bass include headed and gutted and loins. It can also be found in steaks, chunks, or whole. Fresh striped bass is available year-round, and is typically sold in sizes from two to fifteen pounds, and can be sold up to fifty pounds.

Striped bass has firm and flavorful flesh with a large flake. The hybrid striped bass yields more meat, has a more fragile texture, and a blander flavor than wild striped bass. The fish has a mild and distinctive flavor. In recipes, it can be substituted for milder fish like cod, as well as for stronger fish like bluefish. Other fish can substitute it, including weakfish, tilefish, blackfish, small bluefish, catfish, salmon, swordfish, and shark. Striped bass is easily grilled in fillets, and is therefore popular in beach communities.

In Virginia, anadromous striped bass caught from the Chesapeake Bay and its small tidal tributaries have been found to be contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), leading to the issuance of a fish consumption advisory by the Virginia Department of Health.

title: Striped bass


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Muskellunge

The muskellunge (Esox masquinongy), often shortened to muskie, musky, ski, or lunge, is a species of large freshwater predatory fish native to North America. It is the largest member of the pike family, Esocidae.

Origin of name
The name "muskellunge" originates from the Ojibwe words maashkinoozhe meaning "great fish", mji-gnoozhe, maskinoše, or mashkinonge, meaning "bad pike", "big pike", or "ugly pike " respectively. The Algonquin word maskinunga is borrowed into the Canadian French words masquinongé or maskinongé. In English, before settling on the common name "muskellunge", there were at least 94 common names applied to this species, including but not limited to: muskelunge, muscallonge, muskallonge, milliganong, maskinonge, maskalonge, mascalonge, maskalung, muskinunge and masquenongez.

Description
Muskellunge closely resemble other esocids such as the northern pike (Esox lucius) and American pickerel (E. americanus) in both appearance and behavior. Like the northern pike and other aggressive pikes, the body plan is typical of ambush predators with an elongated body, flat head, and dorsal, pelvic, and anal fins set far back on the body. Muskellunge are typically 28 - 48 in long and weigh 15 - 36 lb, though some have reached up to 6 ft and almost 70 lb. Martin Arthur Williamson caught a muskellunge with a weight of 61.25 lb in November 2000 on Georgian Bay. The fish are a light silver, brown, or green, with dark vertical stripes on the flank, which may tend to break up into spots. In some cases, markings may be absent altogether, especially in fish from turbid waters. This is in contrast to northern pike, which have dark bodies with light markings. A reliable method to distinguish the two similar species is by counting the sensory pores on the underside of the mandible. A muskie will have seven or more per side, while the northern pike never has more than six. The lobes of the caudal (tail) fin in muskellunge come to a sharper point, while those of northern pike are more generally rounded. In addition, unlike pike, muskies have no scales on the lower half of their opercula.

Anglers seek large muskies as trophies or for sport. In places where muskie are not native, such as in Maine, anglers are encouraged not to release the fish back into the water because of their negative impact on native populations of trout and other smaller fish species.

Habitat
Muskellunge are found in oligotrophic and mesotrophic lakes and large rivers from northern Michigan, northern Wisconsin, and northern Minnesota through the Great Lakes region, Chautauqua Lake in western New York, north into Canada, throughout most of the St Lawrence River drainage, and northward throughout the upper Mississippi valley, although the species also extends as far south as Chattanooga in the Tennessee River valley. Also, a small population is found in the Broad River in South Carolina. Several North Georgia reservoirs also have healthy stocked populations of muskie. They are also found in the Red River drainage of the Hudson Bay basin. Muskie were introduced to western Saint John River in the late 1960s and have now spread to many connecting waterways in northern Maine. The Pineview Reservoir in Utah is one of three Utah locations where the hybrid Tiger muskellunge is found.

They prefer clear waters where they lurk along weed edges, rock outcrops, or other structures to rest. A fish forms two distinct home ranges in summer: a shallow range and a deeper one. The shallow range is generally much smaller than the deeper range due to shallow water heating up. A muskie continually patrols the ranges in search of available food in the appropriate conditions of water temperature.

Diet
Muskies are ambush predators who will swiftly bite their prey and then swallow it head first. Muskellunge are the top predator in any body of water where they occur and they will eat larger prey than most other freshwater fish. They eat all varieties of fish present in their ecosystem (including other muskellunge), along with the occasional insect, muskrat, rat, mouse, frog, or duck. They are capable of taking prey up to two-thirds of their body length due to their large stomachs. There have even been reports of large muskellunge attacking small dogs and even humans, although most of these reports are greatly exaggerated.

Length and weight
As muskellunge grow longer they increase in weight, but the relationship between length and weight is not linear. The relationship between them can be expressed by a power-law equation:
 * $$W = cL^b\!\,$$

The exponent b is close to 3.0 for all species, and c is a constant for each species. For muskellunge, b = 3.325, higher than for many common species, and c = 0.000089 lb/in3.

According to the International Game Fish Association (IGFA) the largest muskellunge on record was caught by Cal Johnson in Lac Courte Oreilles (recognized as Lake Courte Oreilles by the association), Hayward, Wisconsin, United States, on July 24, 1949. The fish weighed 67 lb and was 60.25 in in length, and 33 - 34 in in girth.

Behavior
Muskellunge are sometimes gregarious, forming small schools in distinct territories. Muskellunge feeding behavior is directly synchronized with the lunar cycle. During both full and new moons, an increase in feeding activity can be attributed to the increase of moonlight, as it most similarly simulates daytime feeding. They spawn in mid- to late spring, somewhat later than northern pike, over shallow, vegetated areas. A rock or sand bottom is preferred for spawning so the eggs do not sink into the mud and suffocate. The males arrive first and attempt to establish dominance over a territory. Spawning may last from five to 10 days and occurs mainly at night. The eggs are negatively buoyant and slightly adhesive; they adhere to plants and the bottom of the lake. Soon afterward, they are abandoned by the adults. Those embryos which are not eaten by fish, insects, or crayfish hatch within two weeks. The larvae live on yolk until the mouth is fully developed, when they begin to feed on copepods and other zooplankton. They soon begin to prey upon fish. Juveniles generally attain a length of 12 in by November of their first year.

Predators
Adult muskellunge are apex predators where they occur naturally. Only humans and (rarely) large birds of prey such as bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) pose a threat to an adult. But juveniles are consumed by other muskies, northern pike, bass, trout, and occasionally birds of prey. The muskellunge's low reproductive rate and slow growth render populations highly vulnerable to overfishing. This has prompted some jurisdictions to institute artificial propagation programs in an attempt to maintain otherwise unsustainably high rates of angling effort and habitat destruction.

Subspecies and hybrids
Though interbreeding with other pike species can complicate the classification of some individuals, zoologists usually recognize up to three subspecies of muskellunge.
 * The Great Lakes Muskellunge or Spotted Muskellunge (E. m. masquinongy) is the most common variety in the Great Lakes basin and surrounding area. The spots on the body form oblique rows.
 * The Chautauqua Muskellunge or Barred Muskellunge (E. m. ohioensis) is known from the Ohio River system, Chautauqua Lake, Lake Ontario, and the St Lawrence River.
 * The Clear Muskellunge (E. m. immaculatus) is most common in the inland lakes of Wisconsin, Minnesota, northwestern Ontario, and southeastern Manitoba.

The tiger muskellunge (E. masquinongy × lucius or E. lucius × masquinongy) is a hybrid of the muskie and northern pike. Hybrids are sterile, although females sometimes unsuccessfully engage in spawning motions. Some hybrids are artificially produced and planted for anglers to catch. Tiger muskies grow faster than pure muskies, but do not attain the ultimate size of their pure relatives, as the tiger muskie does not live as long.

Attacks on humans
Although very rare, muskie attacks on humans do occur on occasion.

title: Muskellunge


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Pollock

Pollock or pollack (pronounced ) is the common name used for either of the two species of North Atlantic marine fish in the genus Pollachius. Pollachius pollachius is referred to as "pollock" in North America, Ireland and the United Kingdom, while Pollachius virens is usually known as saithe or coley in Great Britain and Ireland (derived from the older name coalfish). Other names for P. pollachius include the Atlantic pollock, European pollock, lieu jaune, and lythe or lithe; while P. virens is also known as Boston blue (distinct from bluefish), silver bill, or saithe.

Species
The recognized species in this genus are:
 * Pollachius pollachius (Linnaeus, 1758) (pollack)
 * Pollachius virens (Linnaeus, 1758) (coalfish)

Description
Both species can grow to 130 cm. P. virens can weigh up to 32 kg and P. pollachius can weigh up to 18 kg. P. virens has a strongly defined, silvery lateral line running down the sides. Above the lateral line, the colour is a greenish black. The belly is white, while P. pollachius has a distinctly crooked lateral line, grayish to golden belly, and a dark brown back. P. pollachius also has a strong underbite. It can be found in water up to 180 m deep over rocks and anywhere in the water column. Pollock is a whitefish.

As food
Atlantic pollock is largely considered to be a whitefish. Traditionally a popular source of food in some countries, such as Norway, in the United Kingdom it has previously been largely consumed as a cheaper and versatile alternative to cod and haddock. However, in recent years, pollock has become more popular due to overfishing of cod and haddock. It can now be found in most supermarkets as fresh fillets or prepared freezer items. For example, it is used minced in fish fingers or as an ingredient in imitation crab meat and is commonly used to make fish and chips.

Because of its slightly grey colour, pollock is often prepared, as in Norway, as fried fish balls, or if juvenile-sized, breaded with oatmeal and fried, as in Shetland. Year-old fish are traditionally split, salted, and dried over a peat hearth in Orkney, where their texture becomes wooden. Coalfish can also be salted and smoked and achieve a salmon-like orange color (although it is not closely related to the salmon), as is the case in Germany, where the fish is commonly sold as Seelachs or sea salmon.

In 2009, UK supermarket Sainsbury's briefly renamed Atlantic pollock "colin" in a bid to boost ecofriendly sales of the fish as an alternative to cod. Sainsbury's, which said the new name was derived from the French for cooked pollock (colin), launched the product under the banner "Colin and chips can save British cod."

Pollock is regarded as a "low-mercury fish" – a woman weighing 60 kg can safely eat up to 18 oz per week, and a child weighing 20 kg can safely eat up to 6 oz.

Other fish called pollock
One member of the genus Gadus is also commonly referred to as pollock: the Alaska pollock or walleye pollock (Gadus chalcogrammus), including the form known as the Norway pollock. They are also members of the family Gadidae but not members of the genus Pollachius.

title: Pollock


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Kingfish

Kingfish may refer to:

Fish

 * Argyrosomus japonicus or Japanese meagre (Australia)
 * Opah or Lampris guttatus (United Kingdom)
 * Kanadi kingfish or Scomberomorus plurilineatus
 * Kingcroaker or Menticirrhus spp.
 * King mackerel or Scomberomorus cavalla
 * Yellowtail amberjack or Seriola lalandi (Australia, New Zealand)
 * Butterfly kingfish or Gasterochisma melampus (Australia, New Zealand)

Military

 * AS-6 Kingfish or Raduga KSR-5, an air-launched Soviet anti-ship and strike missile
 * Convair Kingfish, a reconnaissance aircraft designed for Project GUSTO
 * USS Kingfish, a Gato-class submarine of the United States Navy
 * Kingfish, a nuclear test of Operation Fishbowl

Music

 * Christone "Kingfish" Ingram, American blues musician
 * Kingfish (Christone Ingram album), his first album
 * Ed Manion, nicknamed "Kingfish", American saxophonist, touring member of the E Street Band
 * Kingfish (band), a San Francisco Bay Area rock band
 * Kingfish (1976 album), their first album
 * Kingfish (1985 album), their fourth album
 * "Kingfish", a 1974 song from Good Old Boys (Randy Newman album)
 * "Kingfish", a 2010 song by Patrice Bart-Williams from his album One

Sports

 * Kenosha Kingfish, a baseball team in Kenosha, Wisconsin
 * Baton Rouge Kingfish, a defunct minor league ice hockey team in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Television and radio

 * Kingfish: A Story of Huey P. Long, a 1995 TV movie
 * Kingfish, a character in Amos 'n' Andy

Other uses

 * KingFish phone tracker, a product line of human-portable cellular telephone identification and tracking devices

People with the nickname

 * Christone "Kingfish" Ingram (born 1999), American blues guitarist
 * King Levinsky (1910–1991), American heavyweight boxer
 * Huey Long (1893–1935), Louisiana governor and senator
 * Kenny Washington (American football) (1918–1971)

title: Kingfish