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The rules of the Baltimore Association of Rat Fisherpersons (or, yes, BARF) were fairly simple. Only light tackle was allowed (spin-cast, cast, spin, or fly rod). No wet or dry flies, hand or trout lines. There was a $3 entry fee, and rat-fishing licenses were printed up. The tournament took place in the area around the Yellow Rose, and rats were presented (dead) in sealed plastic bags for a weigh-in at the end of the tournament.
"It's not as dangerous as people think," Ochlech says. "They think, Well, if you've got a rat, the rat's going to come after you. The rat's going to try to get away from you if they can. What they would do is, get on, reel it in, and somebody would be standing there with a bat, and when it got close enough they'd smack it."
Hooks baited with raw bacon and peanut butter were the favored lure for the first few tournaments. In 1995, the last year of the tournament, continued opposition from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals forced a change to peanut butter-smeared glue traps on the end of the fishing line. The change did little to silence PETA's charges that the rat fisherpersons were mistreating the animals: "They thought that was terrible, too," Ochlech says.
The tournament eventually captured the interest of the public outside East Baltimore. In addition to a 1994 City Paper cover story, Ochlech and his tournament were featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and, Ochlech says, "It kind of found itself as far away as Johannesburg, South Africa, Australia, Alaska-we got called from all these places on it.
"[Kurt] Schmoke was the mayor at the time, and he even personally called me and asked me what did I think I was doing," Ochlech says. "The city had the Inner Harbor, they were trying to bring in all these people to see what a nice city we had, and all of a sudden I've got this rat-fishing contest going on. So I told him, `Well, if you get rid of the rats, I'll stop my contest.'"
