‘Fishermen Are Born Honest, but They Get Over It’ : Ed Zern’s Dry Wit Is a Good Catch for Anglers

Outdoorsman and writer Ed Zern, a conservationist with a sense of humor, is still spouting the one-liners that have endeared him so long to so many anglers.

“I prefer any kind of fishing to any kind of work,” the 78-year-old Zern likes to say.

And:

* “Fishermen are born honest, but they get over it.”

* “Some wise guy once defined a fishing line as a piece of string with a worm on one end and a damn fool on the other. This is a silly definition, of course, for many fishermen use flies instead of worms.”

* “Fish is brain food. People who eat fish have large, well-developed brains. People with large, well-developed brains don’t fish. It’s that simple.”

Beneath the mischievous grin, however, is a serious concern about what could lie ahead unless Americans start paying more attention to the world around them.

“Thirty-five years ago, we didn’t have waste products of nuclear plants,” Zern said. “We didn’t have a lot of the poisons that are poisoning the atmosphere. We didn’t know that spray cans could destroy our ozone layer.”

Zern never imagined things would become as bad as they have.

“I thought something would be done about it, measures would be taken,” he said. “Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way.”

The bearded, hoary-headed author of the “Exit Laughing” column in Field & Stream magazine, occasionally mistaken in the past for another avid outdoorsman, the late Ernest Hemingway, is doing what he can to increase public awareness.

Zern is the author of six volumes of humor and a 1985 anthology titled “Hunting and Fishing from A to Zern.” He also is creator of the more-or-less imaginary Madison Avenue Rod, Gun, Bloody Mary and Labrador Retriever Benevolent Assn., whose motto is “Keep your powder, your trout flies and your martinis dry.”

“It’s implicit in everything he does, the respect for the outdoors, the love for it,” said Maggie Nichols, Field & Stream’s managing editor.

That zeal is perhaps best exemplified in the conservation awards program Zern founded in 1954 with corporate backing. His aim was, and still is, to give conservation-conscious folks “a slap on the back.”

His Chevron Conservation Awards Program, believed to be the oldest privately supported program of its kind in the country, has recognized 663 individuals and 101 organizations over the years. The 1989 finalists were honored May 17 in Washington, D.C.

Each year, Zern helps whittle down the list of up to 150 nominees. Some of them, he acknowledges, fit the stereotypical image of the conservationist.

“Little old lady in tennis shoes? They exist and they’re charming people, usually,” he said.

His all-time favorite finalist is a 70-year-old Pennsylvania game warden who was honored in the late ‘50s. The man’s wife, who nominated her husband for the award, thanked Zern profusely after the ceremony.

“This little old lady came up to me and said, ‘Mr. Zern, I want to thank you for being involved in this and to tell you what a wonderful thing it was for me,’ ” Zern said. “I said, ‘Well, I should think it would be wonderful to have all these people here to honor your husband.’ ”

“She looked sort of surprised. She said, ‘Oh, no, it isn’t that. We’ve been married 52 years and this is the first time we’ve ever stayed at a hotel.’ ”

Zern’s passion for the outdoors was nurtured by his father, who headed West Virginia University’s Department of Mines during the early 1900s. The elder Zern often took his young son on inspection trips.

“I would see what the mine drainage had done to the stream,” he recalls.

Zern caught his first trout at age 5. The next year, his family moved from West Virginia to the Pittsburgh area.

Since then, Zern has fished and hunted on five continents.

Sometimes Repeats

Occasionally, sometimes by accident and sometimes not, Zern repeats himself in his “Exit Laughing” column, which he began in 1958. It never goes unnoticed.

“I always get three or four letters, and I have the same answer to all of them,” he said.

“I say: ‘Dear Mr. Thompson, Thank you for your letter of such and such a date. The last time I heard the Philadelphia Orchestra, they played the Brahms First and I understand they’ve done it several times before. Sincerely yours.’ ”

So just where does he get his ideas?

“I wish I had one,” he said. “I’ve got a piece due the day after tomorrow. It was a lot easier when I was younger and smart-aleckier than I am now.”

He also suffers now from Parkinson’s disease, which causes his hands to tremble and consequently prevents him from shifting from a manual typewriter to an electric typewriter or computer.

Nevertheless, Zern is at his home in Scarsdale, N.Y., only about half the time. The rest of the time he’s on the road.

Releases His Catch

His favorite sport, and writing topic, is fishing. Like many serious anglers, he releases his catch back into the water.

Zern doesn’t feel the least bit sorry for the uninitiated.

“I’m rather glad everybody doesn’t like fishing, or the good fishing places would be so overpopulated,” he said. “So I’d never knowingly write anything that would encourage anybody to go fishing. You can always build more bowling alleys or tennis courts. You can’t build more trout streams.”

His sentiments are shared by his program’s awardees.

Among the 11 citizen volunteers honored this year were a Juneau, Alaska, couple who have developed a school curriculum on marine and wetlands resources, and a Milwaukee man who has led a campaign to establish a national park in American Samoa.

Ten professional conservationists also received $1,000 and a bronze plaque, including a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist from Massachusetts who is working to save the threatened Piping Plover, a shore bird.

Honors Petaluma Youths

The five group finalists included the United Anglers of Casa Grande High School in Petaluma, Calif., which is rehabilitating local waterways so fish can migrate upstream. The 30 to 40 students are raising money for a new hatchery to replace one that failed to meet earthquake standards.

Zern said he has no real way of knowing whether the awards program or any of his other efforts have had, or will have, a significant effect.

“We don’t really know how many souls are saved,” he said, “no matter how tough the sermon.”