Technological Overload
I was in a meeting in New York City recently with three other individuals. That brought the total number of people sitting around the conference table to four. And as I looked around the table, I was absolutely blown away by the sheer amount of technology that surrounded us. Three BlackBerries, two iPhones, two other cellular phones, six (count 'em!) laptop computers and a single iPod sat in various states of use or lack thereof. Again, all of this was for four people.

I realize this might seem like a little overkill. I'm pretty sure I agree with you if you're thinking it is, but it seems to be the way that the world has gone of late. We're all about technology and the latest and greatest and all that jazz. Gone are the days of those obsolete things like silent films, sl ide rulers and Pentium II processors. Now it's all about flash an d sp eed an d instant gratification.

And in the event you care to doubt the levels to which this need for technology has gone, my own dear father recently bought an iPhone. Yes, the same man who actually taped an index card over the clock on the VCR because the flashing numbers were keeping him awake at night and he couldn't figure ou t ho w to pr ogram it , is now one of those techno-geeks with a touch-screen phone. Funny thing about that iPhone, though. Dad got it to replace the BlackBerry he'd lost. But then he found the BlackBerry. So now he's one of those way cool people with both a BlackBerry and an iPhone. And, he wasn't even at the meeting in New York.

So with my father having an iPhone, it got me to thinking about what all of these people do with these phones that seem to do everything except make phone calls. You can take pictures. You can get directions to Mozambique. You can watch a movie. You can e-mail. You can even write a fishing column, or so I've heard. Yours truly hasn't been elevated to the status of iPhone owner; I'm still stuck in the backwoods of BlackBerry land.

And then I read an article about Japanese cell phone users. The article discussed the iPhone and its famed ease of use. Apparently this facet of the iPhone is actually a detriment to sales in Japan, where users are more interested in phones that can do things that are too complicated for them to do. Seriously. According to reports, many Japanese cell phone users own phones with features they not only don't need, they have features they don't know how to use. Long story short, a lot of phones available today in Japan have hidden features that can be accessed by pressing different combinations of keys on the phone. But it's up to the users to experiment in order to find the combinations. It's kind of a technological scavenger hunt.

And the more I sat there lost in thought about all that technology - it's a great way to pass the time when you're in a meeting, incidentally - the more my mind started to turn in the direction it so often seems to do when Friday's noon deadline is approaching, namely in the direction of fishing.

When you boil it down to its essence and get right at the heart of the matter, kids, it's all about segues. That and ball bearings, anyway.

Friends and neighbors, as I've said in these pages many times before, anglers are notorious for buying stuff they don't need. But I'm not here to belabor that point today. Rather, I'd like to just sing the praises of the lowly bluefish. Bl uefish are a ll o ver the p lac e these days, and they're a lot of fun to catch. And if you do it right, they're pretty good to eat, too.

I realize that, for many of you out there, striped bass is pretty much the all-or-nothing thing. You people go out there at the crack of dawn and cast and cast and cast, and after a few hours of casting, you might get a fish or two. And if you're lucky, those fish wi ll measure to be legal fish. And yes, it's a lot of fun to be on the water and in all honesty, there's not much to compare to fresh-caught striped bass as table fare. But I'm a basic kind of guy, a guy who shuns iPhones for reasons other than the fact that they're made by Apple. I'm all about the brute basic nature of the bluefish.

With bluefish, it's pretty much non-stop action once you get into a pack of them; you're pretty much guaranteed action when you're out there. And you don't have to rely on tape measures or best-guess methods to determine whether or not you're allowed to keep the fish. And let's don't forget ease of catching them. Kids, I fish for enjoyment and fun. In my own reptilian brain, fun and enjoyment stem from catching. Like my boy Pete Kaizer says, "Fishing is fun, but catching is better." So when I'm headed out for a couple of hours and I'm looking for basic-level fun, I'm going after bluefish in al l of th eir simple-minded glory.

And most importantly of all, bluefish are the single most sustainable game fish species in the waters around Nantucket. So you can catch and eat bluefish with a clear conscience, knowing that the population is of a healthy size.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm about to head out and do a little basic fishing myself. But first I need to take this call. Or is that the e-mail ring?

Tight lines. I