Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/812511
Habitat: Once common in London, New York, and East Los Angeles; now predominately associated with suburban high schools. Life History: The punk trout starts out like any other normal trout, but gets over it. Just as fishermen are born truth-tellers who overcome this virtue after catching just three fish, so the punk trout is forever changed by being hooked just once. Here's how. The punk falls for a fly or a spinner or bait and, fighting hard, breaks the angler's line or tippet, leaving the lure hanging from its lip. The onset of lip pain disturbs some deep neural substrate in the trout's brain, and the persistent nerve excitation produced by a hook in the mouth starts an unexplained process that forever alters the once-innocent trout. While not exactly a tattoo—although those are soon to follow—the dangling lure in the mouth initiates a permanent transformation of what would have been a perfectly normal rainbow, brown, brook, or cutthroat trout. As it habituates to the pleasure-pain dynamic, it undergoes indelible physical, psychological, metaphysical, neurological, and spiritual changes. The change begins slowly at first, then builds in speed and ferocity as the punk trout emerges. It is a complete alteration of body and mind not unlike the shaving problem that develops after being nipped by a werewolf. You can guess what follows: a second piercing, this time with a number 2 Royal Coachman; a treble-hooked spinner in the ear (or where an ear would be if fish had them); and a gradual transfiguration of the dorsal fin into an iconic, high-spiked, pink ridge of rage. A spike-do that screams, "Hook me again, you f-----, and I will pull you into this river, eat your eyeballs out of their sockets, and drown you myself!" We don't know if punk trout actually talk like this, or if they use the F-bomb, but given how they dress, we figure they ought to. Why go to all that trouble if you're only to use "dang," "please," and "thank you"? Somewhere in its early evolution, the 100 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S