 |
 |
Camilla: As we will report in tomorrow's weekly update from Parkinsaw, we may have made a discovery which will give the lowly Bug its place in the sun--and snow. Especially when combined with the diet food ideas. But since the Bug is out of the Bag, we might just as well provide some details surrounding the event. Roll the video tape back to Wednesday where Lars Larson, fishing on Parkinsaw Bay, testing out the Bug as a better bait for parkies with tremor problemst, describes in his own words what happened on that day: "I sat in my fish shack at the shallow end of Lake Parkinsaw, and with shaking hands struggled to bait my hook with the infamous Palmetto Bug. I thought to myelf that although it went on the hook well, it sure was a ugly, disgusting creature. I tried to imagine a decent fish hitting on the insect, but couldn't conjure up the image. I then chopped the 6 inches of ice which had formed since the day before, and could see the black clumps of the latest scourge of the Great Lakes, the indestructible Zebra Mussels scattered on the lake bottom. In just a couple of years the useless mussels, a pure trash mollusk, had multiplied a thousand fold, eating everything in their path. Marine life, the perch, the walleye and the whitefish were slowly being starved into extinction. After tossing my line in, the Palmetto Bug swam around on top of the water for a minute or so, and then exploded like a rocket down to the lake bottom. The Palmetto Bug was actually attacking the black clumps of mussels! No, the Palmetto Bug was doing more, much more, it was eating the Zebra Mussels! My hands were really shaking now as the excitement of my discovery became clear: I may actually be looking at the last great hope for the starving fish population: A Florida Super-Roach of all things. I hurridly packed up my gear, and made my way back to town to tell Tom Shelton the news." That's all we know to date. If this bug turns out to be the natural enemy of the Zebra Mussel, there's no limit to the economic potential. But, are there enough Palmetto bugs in Florida to satisfy all these demands of diet food paks, bait and trash species vigilante? What if they make it a protected species? John Bjork Dateline: Parkinsaw, MI A view from the lighter side