Paul Roberts

Yeah, as in everything in photography, the quality of the original you work from makes a big difference.

The Weather: Nailed this one, weather-wise. Strong front coming in tomorrow with plummeting BP today, promised active bass today. The day (a Sunday) started sunny in the AM, giving way to increasing overcast, then passing storm cells that brought heavy wind. The front descended early the following morning bringing an expected 55F high, and rain. This front brought the first snow at my place -3000ft higher in elevation. There's some missing data in early part of day (Sunday), but see the low BP. And look at those afternoon wind speeds -40 to 50mph! The top two graphs promised a great day fishing; the bottom one nearly dashed it. Water temp'd 72F at the surface (open water not shoreline) and 68F at 10feet -at 1:30pm. The strong wind in the afternoon eventually mixed it up and the surface eroded to 68F by 6pm. The Pond: A pic of this pond, from earlier this year. I call this pond the pond that kicks my butt (actually it's not the only pond I use that label on lol), and it's got some of the largest bass in the area in it. I call it that because, come mid-summer, it's a tough nut. It's also heavily fished and it's quite obvious that it's not just my butt that gets kicked. It's fished all day by locals in spring and fall. By early summer the ranks have thinned and interestingly they only appear in the early AM and late evening. By the time the sun is up, the place is vacant with only me out there at times, either working darn hard for a few (often nice) bites or getting my butt kicked. I've tried the early morning stint in mid-summer, and it does indeed make a big difference. It can be fast and furious, until the sun hits the water then, like elk, they disappear into the forest in this case it's a forest of dense milfoil. This early bite is indicative of one important thing: Despite the pond's black anaerobic mud and peaty water that makes me and all my gear smell like a swamp, it's not suffering an oxygen deficit, which would plummet overnight as plants quit photosynthesizing, killing the early bite. Anyway, for whatever reason, the daytime bite in summer can be tough. Butt kicking's can be worth the pain however, as this pond has a decent popn of 4 to 5lb bass in it. Most of my ponds top out at something shy of 4lbs in many it's 3lbs. This pond, and a handful of others, have the potential to produce a 5 fish 20lb sack, which I've managed on occasion -but only in the coolwater seasons. And fall is HERE -today -along with a nice front rolling in! Now if I could only make good on it. The cool, dark, weather this year in general has brought many changes to my ponds, most notably besides water levels (up as much as 4feet in many ponds), is in the plant life. Milfoil, needing lots of sun, did miserably in all but the shallowest clearest ponds. Curly Pondweed, Threadleaf, and Coontail all mostly northern species took over many milfoil areas. In this pond, it was coontail that had taken over. Screen shot of dead milfoil clumps. That's silt covered rubble on bottom. Coontail in hand. Coontail forked whorls, and the tiny spikes that line the leaves. Milfoil whorls are multi-branched and feathery. Screen shot of Coontail. Note just how dense it is. The bottom shows rubble on a break (I'm following a contour here) little silt build up. This particular spot gave up the largest bass of the day. Fishing: I fished from 1:30 to 7:00pm. I expected that this day was going to offer a classic early fall shallow bite, so I rigged accordingly: shallow, both fast and slow: a buzzbait, a medium crank, 1/8 and 1/4oz jig-n-pork, and a 1/8oz swimming worm. My plan was to first hit the immediate shallows, against the flooded shorelines, because the shoreline acts as a barrier that can concentrate them. The shallows were also still heating, when I arrived, which can be a draw or activator. And when I first arrived I saw an angler carrying a stringer of 4 bass, the largest about 16". I called out, "What are you using..." (more curious HOW he was fishing, rather than what) and he replied, "Watermelon worm", which meant he was likely fishing the shoreline, relatively slowly. But the morning's heating, and calm weather, didn't last as the afternoon storms cells descended shortly after I got on the water. At the first point/shelf I hit, it was no go on the buzzbait which maintained itself all afternoon. In fact, no bass were caught against the immediate shorelines. But something else did, and it turned out to be an interesting scenario if you like to catch big fish regardless of species. On the first cast with the jig, Whap!, came the first of a half dozen youngish bass I'd earn for the day. I say earn because best layed plans don't always pan out. I was almost drooling when I read the forecast for the day, but several things reared up that quashed my 20# expectations: Wind! I kept checking the wind around my chosen pond on-line, deciding whether I dare steal a day, and quite possibly end up fighting white-caps in my float tube. It remained calm until a half hour after I got there! Then it all rolled in like a freight train. Coffee! I am one high-energy guy; I do not need coffee in the morning. Although I love it, I learned long ago I cannot drink coffee and perform in the real world woods and waters. I didn't decide to steal the day to fish until I saw the weather shaping up. By then I'd had more than my normal share of caffeine made by a guest who loves coffee you could stand a spoon up in. Now presentation is all about control; knowing just what your lure is doing down there: depth, speed, action, and detection are the big four. The rest is fluff. Take a caffeinated fiend , in a wind storm, with a rubber arm OK I'm getting ahead of myself: WHOP! The next fish bolted at the set and I was suddenly back-reeling madly Holy Moly!! After a few more holy-moly's, the thing stale-mated me under the boat, and I knew just what I had a cinder block with fins a big cat. Bummer > I was really hoping it was going to be the first third of my 20lbs. I call em cinder blocks with fins (CBWF we'll need this later) because unlike many fish, cats are both laterally compressed at the flanks and shovel headed. Both they can use as hydrofoils to hold position and stymie our attempts at moving them. When they get below you, they can simply swim figure eights, and feel for all the world like a CBWF. To move em you need to lift em, or drag em from a low angle to net or hand. To handle a CBWF from a float tube, what with all those spikes that could literally sink me, I finally just towed the beast to shore. There I was able to get some footing and be done with it. The result was a 7¼lb cat, and a rubber arm! After fighting it on a short handled spinning rod from a tube (unable to tuck the rod butt against my body, and no torque in the reel) my right arm had turned to jelly. And I developed the adrenaline/caffeine jitters. Two hours later, my rod tip was still shaking when I tried to swim a jig or worm on my spinning rigs! The strength just wouldn't return to that arm! Couple this with the boat dancing to a 30mph wind and I was a fishing basket case. > I found it simply impossible to maintain control and feel. Make Lemonaide: I stashed the spinning stuff, grabbed a casting rig and crankbait and kicked over to the next point. I dragged an anchor and kicked (fought) to hold position and ... WHOP! Another CBWF! I immediately and unceremoniously kicked straight to shore, just dragging the creature with me, popped off my swim fins and released it. Luckily the plug was barbless and release was cake cats have a lot of soft tissue up front. This one I guestimated at 6½. Somethin's up with these cats today, I thought. Wonder what's turned em on? I was to discover later, just what it was. As the wind peaked I moved to the lee shoreline, which allowed me to relax a bit, eat something, and explore a shoreline that in the past has mostly given up smalls. Turned out there wasn't much to find there, and it gave up its usual smalls. It was 6pm by the time the wind finally let up. I noticed I was feeling much better by then not shaking (or having to pee every 20 minutes lol). With the evening approaching, and the strength back in my right arm, I kicked over to one of my better known locations a shelf with a steep drop and weed wall in close proximity to some of the most varied bottom contours in the pond. Interestingly, this year it was coontail instead of milfoil, and I finally found a good bass there. Unmeasured, unweighed, probably 3-3/4lbs. Just before taking out I re-visited the first point I'd caught the first cat at. WHAP! Another cat; this one at 5lbs even. Since I was headed out I took this one home, and I got to look in its stomach to solve a mysteryWhat was up today with those aggressive cinder blocks?? Crayfish? Wave beaten bluegills? Nope. The stomach was full of the fruits from the Russian olive shrubs along shore. I had noticed them floating across the pond surface and collected against windward shorelines just where I'd caught all three. What's interesting to me besides this little bit of insider info is that those cats were made so aggressive by a ready food source, that they uncharacteristically smacked lures too. While matching the hatch here would have likely yielded the best cat-fishing action, the range of acceptable presentations was pretty wide with these cats today. Now if only my day had panned out that way for the big bass that lurk in this pond.

Actually, I think I'm so used to it now that, no, I don't! Only reason I might look up for someone is for HELP!! Luckily that doesn't happen much. ;D

To answer Dave and Dan: It's a quick-n-dirty photo montage from two photos. The first was an underwater camera shot of a bass I was holding by the jaw. The second is a green sunfish my son caught. I removed my hand, extended the canvas to accommodate the prey. I had to paint in the area where my hand was and the extra canvas. The sunfish was shot under different lighting of course and out of water to boot. I also didn't get fancy with the motion on it. That's why it looks sorta cheesy'. I've done a bunch of these. My magnum opus' (lol) was a group of small stream brown trout feeding aggressively on a Hydropsychid caddis emergence. Every element was taken from images I shot for the purpose. The coolest thing was that the individual pupae and emergers were photos of the real thing too: I maintained a stream tank in my house and hatched local aquatic inverts. I photo'd them for use in magazine articles and slide presentations, as well as to watch them. Local kids would stop by to watch, and they agreed it was better than TV! I always thought so too. For the Hydropsychid emergers shots I hovered over ready-to-pop pupae with a macro set-up for part of a day, and caught pupae swimming and got a spectacular shot of an adult leaving the shuck. I digitized em and soon had trout chasing them all through the head of a pool in the montage. Unfortunately, the I Love You' virus wiped it out. I now only have a couple 35mm slides of it. Some day, I may re-do it.

With that kind of line weight, make sure you bring a knife. Sure don't want to get tangled u pin that in a tube.

Wow! Great thought! I never considered that -that they might be after the 'gills that are attracted to the frog. Of course!! Those blow-ups used to be maddening, until I finally had to concede that on some days, I wasn't going to be hooking those bass on a topwater. Now I have something to go on. Thanks Micro! OK...this is now a punching game.

Congrats! Very nice fish too -in my neck of the woods. My tube is now pretty darn well thought out. EVERYTHING is tethered or Velcro'd. Even if I were to roll over, I'd lose nothing but my dignity.

Pretty cool? Or...a waste of 2 hours on a Sat night? Also...tell me how large the image looks on your screen. Too small? Too large?

It is interesting, but what's important is considering the different potential reasons for the difference. Stats mean little without good interpretation. Often they suggest another survey. I think every research paper states at the end, "more research could be done...", as new question pop up. Fun stuff I think. Some thoughts: Hypothesis 1: Older people have had different experiences with nature /the outdoors. But another possibility that might weigh in, and dash H1, could be that older people have estabilshed homes, eat more often at home, and are more apt to eat foods that require preparation. They also are more likely to have families to cook for (expensive to eat out, and still think about proper nutrition). The younger less established set might be more likely to grab food on the run -lotsa McBurgers and pizza -foods that don't require preparation.

For many decades, the fall turnover has been ballyhooed as a time when fish are highly negative and unresponsive. According to research of late however, the troublemaker is not fish disposition but fish location. Once fish are located during the fall-turnover, they appear no more difficult to catch than at any other time. During the fall-turnover however, the water temperature, water density and dissolved oxygen level are similar throughout the entire lake. Without the constraints of a thermocline and oxycline, fish of all species are free to scatter hither-and-yon, not only across the entire lake, but anywhere between the surface and the bottom. Paul, as a special favor to me, do not take away my "cold-front" alibi...it's all I've got left ;D Roger ;D ;D Roger, I'm working hard at taking away ALL alibii's. Unfortunately, I just don't have the 100 fish days every time out as proof. Still workin' on that end of it.

We're talking about the pending record rainbow. Sorry for the confusion. Certain strains of brown trout have been known to reach 60lbs (Seeforellen was one I believe) -captured via commercial net in Europe. (John, are we off topic again!! In complete agreement with your last post (on that ugly old excuse for a trout lol)).

Now I have a question for you, for clarity in the discussion: You mentioned: "Why is it that we still catch fish 20ft+ when the DO is not suitable?" Were you catching fish at 20+ in this lake around the time you took those samples?

Yeah, the words THE answer and IDEAL assume that there could be a single factor that overrides all others, and actually there can be at zero O2 ;D! Beyond that (and apparently <2ppm in winter and <5ppm in summer), there's an awful lot of real estate still left to cover. Other things weigh in more heavily in the vast majority of circumstances. You'd be much more efficient covering it with sonar and a lure, than with an 02 meter. HoweverO2 could weigh in heavy in certain circumstances: like heavily eutrophic waters in winter and mid-summer resulting in uninhabitable areas, or time periods. One thing that pops up each year, mid to late summer, is people complaining they can't catch any fish in their favorite lake or pond. Talk shifts to trying something new, or to fears that the fish have suddenly had an IQ boost, but it may not be the anglers fault. An 02 meter might actually help in such circumstances, at least to answer a burning question, but I wouldn't run out and buy one. I'd like to have one for one particular pond I fishbut a meter worth owning is too expensive for the use I could get out of it. And I don't need another project lol. BTW: The cheap units that you see in fishing catalogs do not measure 02 they extrapolate from temperature, assuming the water is at saturation which O2 compromised water is NOT. The whole point of measuring 02! Save your money. I have not done research in this. As a fisheries technician, water chemistry was standard protocol. My understanding of it is really pretty rudimentary. But there are entire fields of study waiting to be delved into. Maybe you could revisit this post in say, 2 or 3 years? ;D I'll be all ears. If you wish to pursue, on your own, at least read about nitrogen cycling in freshwater systems. Nitrogen is a key component in the interactions between plants and bacteria. As to O2 levels in reservoirs, you might have something to offer here. Of course flow, temp, velocity, hydrography, would factor in. Are we getting complicated yet lol? I always chuckle when I hear some non-intellectuals hand-wringing that somehow science will strip us of mystery. Get real! I think, Actually take up science, or even fishing! Then spout off, if you still can. Your head and heart will be stuffed full of mystery, much more so than all the BS that passed for it previously. And you're opinions will feel really small, instead of really big, and you might actually be satisfied with that. Off topic now?? No, the question was, how does a terminal electron receptor (like 02) cycle through aquatic systems, related to fishing. That's as big a question as you care to make it.

I would ignore your trepidation about the bass suddenly being smarter. Fish from a clean slate. Fish the conditions in front of you. Don't fish history, esp if it's bad.

True enough -about the angling part. I can appreciate that. But for me, it's not all about a screaming drag and my mug shot. Genetically manipulated fish are like steroids in the Olympics. Call me old fashioned. When I first came to CO I fished a famous river here. There was a shop there and the owner pointed out a deep pool where he said they'd just stocked genetically manipulated trout -"up to 12lbs!!", he exclaimed. I waited until he went back inside and then hiked in the other direction. Another time I came into a fly-shop and there was a pic of a slob 'bow at the counter. It was caught in private water I could pay a guide to fish. He then showed me pics of all kinds of tyros holding slob 'bows that came from a series of intensively managed (pellets) ponds. Such a scenario holds absolutely no interest for me. In fact, just the opposite. I'm drawing some lines -for myself. Guess I'm just not a record book kind of angler -especially when it's in-any-way-possible.

Ignorance Leo, let 's put an example ( I use the dairy farmer as an example because I 'm familiar with it, many of my relatives are and have been dairy farmers for generations and I 've worked with some of them ), the dairy farmer makes it 's livelyhood out of milk, to him cows are not only a source of income but also are viewed as milk producing factories on four legs. In order to produce milk the animal has to get pregnant and deliver a calf ( otherwise it doesn 't produce milk ), but that "simple" process is not as easy at it seems and it cost money, every day the cow is not pregnant is costing him food, shelter, workmanship, property taxes ( not upon the cow but upon the land ) and so on; farmers may posses a lot of empiric knowdlege about cattle, you may add to that empiric knowledge a little scientific knowledge provided by us vets or by pharmaceutical companies however you seldomly see a dairy farmer who is a veterinarian. The entire universe of a dairy farmer begins at the dairy farm door and ends at the same place, they don 't know and don 't care to know about waterways, ecosystems n 'all that stuff, all they want to know is about cows, sheep or goats producing milk to make his livelyhood so in a way we vets and pharmaceutical companies have part of blame because we only circusncribe our knowledge to provide the farmer with the elements he need in order for the animals to produce milk. Dang ! you didn 't notice the cow was in heat so you can 't inseminate it right now ..... no problem, I grab a bottle of Lutalyse ( a synthetic prostaglandin ) take out a dose, inject it to the cow and in about 72 hours the cow will be in heat and ready for insemination. But what happens to the product once it 's done the job it has to do ? it 's excreted whole or as a methabolite in the cow 's urine, falls on the floor and nobody worries about it anymore. One of my uncles has a 250 in-line cow dairy farm, that means he 's got at least twice as much animals, you know how many times I perform the procedure I described in a week ? at least 10 times a week on average, so it 's just a matter of multiplying, if that procedure takes place only in one dairy farm how many times it 's done in a region of dairy farms ? thousands of times. But we have rain, it rains and the product that nobody worried about is washed from the dairy farm floor and it goes into the soil and if it rains more then it leaches from the soil into the waterways, do that on hundreds of dairy farms and you are talking about pounds of a very powerful medication leaching into the waterways. But we ignore that ( not willingly most of the times ) because our entire universe is circunscribed to the dairy farm we own or we work on. This scenario in many forms and venues is repeated the world over. There are A LOT of us now, and we know not what we do. Or are willing to afford to care. Great post Raul.

;D And real men don't need training wheels. I go a couple steps further: Real men can go into the woods with a hatchet and come out with a bow.

Timing: You know, I wasn't on the water, taking profiles much at that time of year. But, as I remember it, turnover occurred anytime from late mid October into November (in NYS). You can keep tabs on it by knowing when the surface (over deep water) cools to near hypolimnion (below TC) depth approaching what's called isothermy meaning all the same temperature. When the water column approaches isothermy, the density difference that kept these water masses separate erodes with it. All it takes is a good wind to mix it all up. You can get a general idea of when turnover is imminent by noting when surface temps drop to around 60. From there it's up to wind, and/or continued cooling (which is inevitable by then). Of course not all lakes turnover, bc some do not develop a TC. And those that do vary with the depth and robustness of the TC, and the water quality below it. As to why some lakes: Deep areas below light penetration do not support plants (rooted or planktonic) that produce the O2. Most LM lakes are either eutrophic or mesotrophic (often with eutrophic areas) and are fertile enough that nutrients (dead organic matter -DOM) collects in the basin and supports a bacterial population that uses up existing 02. No 02 is produced down there so it isn't replenished until turnover. After 02 is used up, anaerobic bacteria take over, many of which respire using nitrate, or sulfur, instead of oxygen thus the sulfurous odor at turnover in some water bodies, and in some drinking water wells too. Oligotrophic lakes are different in that they are infertile and so little organic matter collects in the basin, and that that does is processed by relatively small populations of aerobic bacteria, or if it's deep and cold enough, maybe not at all. Turnover in these lakes is a period when trapped nutrients get rolled back up, bringing a flush of important nutrients back up into sunlit waters. It also allows warmwater fish to move deeper than they had in summer, and exploit deeper (coolwater) preyfish. This is why many such waters can have a deep fall fishery. Such lakes also have excellent water clarity and can have weedlines to 20ft or more. If you wanted a ballpark guess as to whether a lake has a deepwater fishery in summer, the first bet would be on water clarity. Reservoirs that move water really well can keep things mixed up and oxygenated in the depths. But stagnant periods can deoxygenate the depths. You can understand why lake associations and municipalities are so concerned with lakeside development, and associated fertilizer and sewage runoff. Many, if not most, mesotrophic lakes have been turned eutrophic by human activity. You can also see why turnover is not always a deathknell to fishing. It can raise Caine in some waters, and some years, but it can also be an excuse almost as common as the dreaded cold front.

First, I assume you are using professional equipment that is calibrated. Also, taking profiles at two locations is not likely indicative of the whole lake, or where the bass are. But, I'm gonna trust to you and your crews acumen on that. Assuming above is kosher: LM tend to show avoidance depending on temperature -their metabolic requirements. I just read a paper in which LM, during winter quiescence, moved out of water at 2ppm (mg/l). That's pretty darn low. In this study, the bass did not seek the highest DO. Habitat elements were probably more important. They were happy (in their quiescent state) at 3 to 6ppm. I'd have to re-check, but off the top of my head, values below 5ppm has been shown to move bass in warmer water. This I don't believe was a survival issue as much as an activity issue. Bass gotta eat in warm water. Your 5m depth sounds about right for a thermocline depth in a lot of waters. Below this, in a fertile water body (how many aren't "fertile" nowadays) it is not uncommon to have low to zilch DO. Couple thoughts: First, have you been catching fish in this lake at greater than 16feet lately? Many lakes have sufficient DO below 20feet and much more. This one may not -at this present time. Another thought is that while we may think we catching fish in 20fow, it's possible these fish were suspended nearby. I once held a similar mystery. We did a DO profile on a deep meso/euthrophic lake and found 0 DO at bottom. We also marked a couple large hooks down there on sonar :-?. I now have an explanation: I believe these were quiescent big pike below the thermocline, but were actually higher than the sonar displayed, due to their being at the edge of the sonar cone. Bottom line, we aren't going to catch fish where there is no oxygen. You are right there. If you discover something new. Let me know.

Check this out: http://www.bigindianabass.com/big_indiana_bass/2009/09/when-is-a-world-record-not-a-world-record.html I knew there was something fishy there.

We had that -200 years ago. Can we have it again? The practical answer is hatcheries and intensively managed waters. The right way, all along, has been to recognize the value of biodiversity and species richness. That starts with respect for the water cycle. It all comes out in the wash. I've always argued that anglers are the front line watchdogs of what's really valuable out there. Who else but scientists (and we know the respect they get nowadays from politicians and their media pundits) are gonna notice when something's amiiss. It's true that we're over-runnning everything, except the things we collectively care about (and just what is that?), or have the foresight to "save". But foresight is based on experience, and each new generation has less and less to experience in terms of the meaning of species richness and diversity. I'd love to say, "I hope I'm wrong". But I've been in this line long enough to have seen some important things follow the dire predictions. The latest to shock me (dunno why) has been the collapse of Pacific salmon fisheries. I've followed that story since I was a budding Natural Resources student in the 80s, and a die-hard steelheader. I remember the talk of saving unique strains (something only scientists and die-hard anglers could really appreciate), only to have them all swept away by an ignorant and politically motivated court decision. Money wins. And it actually happened; I watched it go -once again. We lick our wounds and reset our sights lower. I never did get to fish some of those unique strains -just the hatchery clones that simply failed to fill those rivers, streams and headwaters with progeny. What's next? A lot is predictable, but by then, only lamentable by fogies.

The infrastructure, posturing, and fighting, has already begun.

;D ;D Happy bass will hit anything! And enjoy it!

Sounds like fishing, the way you were doing it, has become something of a let down, or as M Starr put it become a stressor. It may be that fishing is not all you need and, at present, it's just not fulfilling it. So what's missing? Here are a couple of common ones: Purpose: A common lament so many people have is the lack of satisfying purpose day to day. For most of us, esp in this country, life has become a lot about day to day comfort and convenience, and can become pretty hollow. One of the restorative things I enjoy is wilderness backpacking, esp combined with hunting or fishing. Survival (more the erosion of convenience and comfort ;D) becomes the new ground rules. You HAVE to get a tent set up in an appropriate location, find a good water source, dry firewood, add to the larder, and meter out energy while avoiding getting lost, bears, lightning, etc -much less kill something. What I love about all this is the feeling of accomplishment and well being that falls over me when I'm sitting around a good fire or snug in my tent despite a surprise squall. And these feelings result from of all those minor but important tasks that kept me busy much of the day. I'm deliciously tired at the end of the day which is likely 8:30pm! None of that, Well..I guess I'll go to bed now, I'm apt to say at home, not really wanting to go to bed with that generally unsatisfied feeling. Backpacking, hunting, fishing, puts me to rights with the real world the one our bodies came from I'd argue. There are other ways to return those all important on-our-own-terms physical elements to our mostly convenient lives. I just think backpacking is especially fitting. One could also take up running marathons Here's a great book on the subject Why We Run: A Natural History by Bernd Heinrich. Social: For many, it's not just the physical that's lacking; It's the social. We're so individually successful that we can safely detach ourselves from community, rely on ourselves, and pursue our OWN interests often to great depth or none at all. We end up belonging to micro-communities: bass clubs for instance that really aren't designed to support people in their fullest sense, but just fishing as hobby and often competitively. Talk about turning a pastime into a job and a stressor. Some of these communities we never actually see think of an on-line fishing, or woodworking, community. The detachment has a price. For me, and many others I've met, pastimes are only fulfilling, and restorative, if your basic needs are met. Otherwise you can be unhappy, or just hollow, doing just about anything.

Sad. Potentially scary. But, not a new topic. This has been known in European waters for decades. It was only a matter of time before it made the news here. I'm always re-struck by Apollo 8 astronaut Jim Lovell's comments when he looked back at Earth, for the first time in history, a little blue ball hanging there, "That's all we have. ... How fragile it appeared." There are a lot of us now. We care for what we collectively value. And what do we value, really?