Fishing news from Zeke Grader

01:01/01. DETAILS OF BOTCHED FISHER RECRUITMENT PLAN REVEALED: The murky details of a brazen plan by a gang of U.S and Canadian fishermen to recruit young members into the fishing fleet, through raids on Indonesian orphanages, are becoming clearer from Jakarta news reports after the scheme was foiled last week by a local mullah.

Apparently the gang, with members from various fishing ports along the Pacific Coast, from California to British Columbia, frustrated by the dwindling size of their fleet and the lack of interest in fishing by local youth, decided on an aggressive recruitment plan by taking orphans and rearing them in a setting to guarantee entry into commercial fishing when the youth come of age. Three of the gang members, Toivo Fiskkonen of Sointula, BC and brothers Einar and Hjalmar Huhtalamaki of Astoria, OR are in custody in Jakarta after the plane they chartered for a flight to Yukatat, AK was stopped by authorities.

Talking to the local press for the first time, the three revealed some details of the plan. They said Indonesian orphanages were chosen because Indonesia was the one country they could find that breeds for intelligence. “We needed kids that’d be smart, not like the ones we got back home who’ve got the energy and intelligence of a piece of bait that’s been rotting on deck all week long,” said Hjalmar Huhtalamaki. “They’ve got to learn to troll and longline and do those fisheries that require some skill; this isn’t crabbing, if we wanted those fellas, we’d raided a gorilla colony.”

According to the ringleaders, the plan came about with the complicity of directors of different orphanages throughout the Indonesia. The children were to be reared in rural areas of Alaska “where’s there no damn videogames or cell phones,” given a traditional education, provided a small caliber rifle and fishing pole to become self-sufficient, and spend their summers on board fishing boats. After high school, the plan called for sending the youth to small liberal arts colleges in the Midwest where they’d be English or philosophy majors. The idea was to build a cadre of young fishing men and women who were extremely literate, critical thinkers and could not possibly find employment ashore.

“We need good young people who know how to fish and aren’t afraid to take on those bastard bureaucrats and those goddam environmental whores turning tricks for their corporate funders by making deals that are bad for the fish,” mused Huhtalamaki.

Fiskkonen said the three had been inspired by the stories of their great grandfathers who were drafted by the Czar, “because he needed smart Finns to man his ships, not those dumb Ruskies.” Many of these men later jumped ship when arriving in North American ports.

The scheme was thwarted after a mullah who worked with one of the orphanages learned of the plan. Upset that the children might not be taught the tenets of Islam if they were sent to the wilds of Alaska, he notified local law enforcement.

“We never gave organized religion much thought,” explained Einar Huhtalamaki. “We just figured we’d raise them Lutheran, but if they wanted to be Catholic, or Jewish, or Buddhist, or Quaker, or whatever, that’d be okay. We don’t have any problem with them being Muslim either. Hell, when you’re in a storm and your boat’s taking on water, we’re all peeing our pants and praying to the same god, anyway.”

The release of the three appears imminent with a deal that involves taking the mullah with them to assist in the teaching of the children and a promise that each child would be given a waterproof Helly Hansen prayer rug and a compass so they’d know which direction to pray when in the fog. The flight, however, will have to be diverted to Vancouver, after U.S. Homeland Security officials put the group on its terrorist watch list. Other gang members in the U.S. are reportedly being rounded up at the Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting in Seattle and sent on flights under the government’s extreme rendition program.