THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX
According to my dictionary, the word "Neanderthal," when used informally, means "primitive, unenlightened, or reactionary; culturally or intellectually backward." In other words, calling somebody a "Neanderthal" isn't quite the compliment you might have thought heretofore.

Much of this negativity regarding Homo neanderthalensis comes from the misguided belief that, amongst other things, Neanderthals were, I guess you'd say, primitive and unenlightened, plus a little bit culturally backward. But recent science suggests that quite the contrary was the case. It seems that our old friend Neanderthal Man was capable of using advanced tools, complex language and ritual treatment of the deceased. Mind you, they are also thought to have practiced cannibalism, but that doesn't fit so well with my little theory here, so I'm excluding it intentionally. It's my column and I can do what I want, thank you very much.

Their propensity for eating one another aside, it seems that Neanderthals were actually a relatively nice and cultural bunch of folks. They're thought to have been slightly shorter but yet stronger than modern humans, and their skulls (and, theoretically, their brains) were actually larger than those found in modern humans, too. They used fire, skinned animals and lived in groups. And when you start reading about these guys, you discover that there's a whole bunch of scientific mumbo-jumbo about genomes and a lot of words ending in "- ological" that I don't even pretend to understand, but which is all good, I'm sure. And there's one characteristic of Neanderthal Man, a recently discovered little tidbit that piqued the interest of yours truly, that is the piéce de résistance in terms of proving Neanderthal's supreme worth.

Walk like a man, Andrew?

It seems that a few lucky Neanderthals were actually redheads.

That's right, kids. Just like ol' Uncle Andrew, the select elite of Neanderthals were graced with fair skin and red hair, a result of a mutation in the MC1R gene. And no, I don't really understand what that means either, but I know it results in an Adonis-like appearance. At least that's what it means in my case. But I digress.

So you've got this group of people who aren't around to defend themselves against baseless accusations of being primitive cannibals due to the pesky little problem that they're extinct. Thank goodness some well-meaning scientist discovered this fact about their hair color. And that one little discovery took the whole public view of Neanderthal Man and threw it into disarray. No longer could we look at these people as savages. I mean seriously, people. Redheads, while possibly a wee-bit temperamental, are certainly not savages. Lizzy Borden was a redhead. And so was Napoleon. Emperor Nero, too. Savages? I think not, dear readers. Misguided and misunderstood by historians, perhaps. But certainly not savages.

What this whole redhead discovery thing points out, though, is the necessity of going in a different direction (Christopher Columbus was a redhead, thank you very much), daring to attempt the impossible (General Custer was a redhead, too) and questioning authority (did I mention that Judas Iscariot was also a redhead?). Long story short, kids, you've gotta' think outside the box.

And the same thing holds true for when you're out there fishing these days.

That kind of makes you look at segues in a whole new light, doesn't it?

Friends and neighbors, summer might have gone out like a lamb, but winter kind of showed up all of a sudden like a train wreck. It's getting dark outside at four-thirty and I think I might have noticed a wee-bit of a chill in the air, too. But there's still fish out there to be caught, so don't let the elements keep you away.

I've heard reports of stripers being taken off the South Shore still, but that's kind of mainstream, Neanderthals-were-primitive-people thinking. There's been more than one good-sized striper taken from local ponds in recent days, a feat that is not unheard of. It just requires a little of that Neanderthals-were-smokinghot looking-redheads kind of thinking. When the ponds are opened to the sea - especially at places like Miacomet, Hummock and Sesachacha - a whole bunch of things happen. First, the pond water flushes out into the ocean and a lot of saltwater comes into the pond. Another thing that happens is that a lot of the little pond dwellers get swept out into the ocean, a fact that is not lost on the bass. The latter sit along the cuts and gorge on the small fish being flushed out. Now, the only problem with that equation, from the bass's standpoint, is that occasionally the stripers themselves get swept into the pond, which isn't that big a deal until the pond closes up, leaving the bass in the pond which, incidentally, now has a high enough salinity level to support striped bass. The same theory has been used to explain the Loch Ness Monster, but that's a whole other column for a whole other time.

What this all boils down to is that you end up with some stripers that are trapped in the ponds and they're basically a captive audience, no pun intended. To catch them, use the same techniques as you would use in the surf, but you've got to be a little more delicate in your presentation. But they're in there. It just takes a little outside-the-box thinking to catch them.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go find a donkey and some henna. Cleopatra, another redhead, swore by washing her hair in henna and donkey's milk to preserve its lustrous beauty.

And while I'm at it, if you happen to see my mother, tell her happy birthday. Just don't tell her I said anything.

Tight lines. I