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Eyan Hackney (ʼ26) signs all his email correspondence, “Best fishes” — a mark of his commitment as president and founder of Castaway Club, the new fishing and stream conservation student venture. At the club’s first-ever open trout fishing trip on Dec. 2, he spent two hours setting up attendees’ rigs, then setting them up again once they lost bobbers, spinners, weights or power-bait. When at last he was able to cast his hook into the black waters below the Detroit Reservoir dam, he reeled in a 10-inch rainbow trout off-the-rip.
Some of the trout trip’s four attendees had already been to Castaway’s Willamette River stream clean-up or its seminar featuring Marion County conservation planners. Hackney explained that Castaway is a conservation club which recruits through fishing, not the other way around: “If we get people involved with the fishing aspect … I think they will … want to be out there and also clean [the streams].”

On the trip, not every fish lived to see said cleaner streams. Once landed, the Bearcats called their own shots regarding the fish’s life — Hackney thanked God before dispatching one. Ronan Cole (ʼ28), who had had his waders on before even leaving campus that morning, was planning on keeping his catches. However, the “shock factor” of using a rock to percussively stun the fish made him decide on catch-and-release in the moment.

Kristin Gaskins (ʼ28) said she was expecting the event to be catch-and-release and admitted that the killing of the trout “makes her sad,” but wasn’t against the other club members doing it. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) prefers percussive stunning, the method used by Castaway, from a humane treatment standpoint.
Those who kept their fish regarded it as an expression of consumptive responsibility. Hackney explained, “In today’s society we’re so used to just being able to go to a grocery store and pick up whatever we want. … [Fishing] makes me more thankful with where my food comes from.”
Hackney, who taught himself to fish in high school, has big plans for the club beyond reeling in rainbows. Namely, he wants to implement a native species restoration project throughout the campus Mill Stream, which he says was once a salmon run. “That’s the main … purpose of Castaway Club: to make change, good change, within our waterways and ecosystems.” On the ride back to campus, Hackney asked the group if he could have done anything to make the trout trip more enjoyable. He was met with silence.
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