Back Porch Fishing

HOMOSASSA, Fla. -- Fishermen come once for the novelty, a floating bait store in the bay, a lonely-looking, old pontoon boat with a hard-to-miss, five-foot-long, bright-white shrimp sculpture on the top.

They come back to see Bonnie.

Even when the fish aren't biting, fishermen still come to buy bait, stopping their boats like men dropping by the small-town barbershop when they don't need a haircut, coming just to hear the local chatter.

She makes everyone feel better.

Bonnie Van Allen, who turns 70 next month, has spent most of her daylight hours here the past 15 years, pulling her traps, catching her shrimp or anchored and rocking gently in her usual spot near channel marker 26, pointing the way to deeper waters into the Gulf of Mexico.

You won't see him hauling in boatloads of striped bass like competitive bass fishing's Michael Iaconelli--or screaming after hauling one in, either--in fact, you shouldn't see Putin reeling in any fish at all after his performance as an angler last week in the Yenisei River with Prince Albert of Monaco.

Despite the carefully leaked photos of Putin practically glowing with health (pun intended) and fishing shirtless on Siberia's Yenisei River, Russia's most muscular of presidents caught exactly zero of the river's prized taimen, the chief sport fish of the area that allegedly grows to up to 200 lbs in weight.

Keith Elliott of the Independent says the pic screams of shameless photo op, similar to old photos of Mao Tse-Tung swimming in the Yangtze River to demonstrate his virility. First, Putin's holding the fishing rod by the very end of the rod, which no sensible angler would do--you're begging to have it yanked from your hand. Second, going shirtless in Siberia in the summer equals a serious loss of blood thanks to hordes of mosquitoes. Barring a dousing in industrial grade DEET or other insect repellent, Putin's merely showing off for the cameras.

As Keith Elliott notes, pointing this out is just asking for a radioactive sushi lunch. We, too, will avoid taking any free lunches or drinks over the next few days.