The Margaretville trooper shootings happened more than two weeks ago.

The funerals are over. Some of the questions have been answered. And the state and regional television media have moved on to the next big story.

On April 25, a pile of gravel and stones off county Route 38 in Arkville became a vantage point for local residents and the media as a daylong siege of a farmhouse ended in flames.

Some in the media who had covered last year’s search for Ralph "Bucky" Phillips said there were a lot of similarities in the hunt for Travis D. Trim.

In both cases, the rural landscape of upstate New York was flooded with swarms of law-enforcement officers. Helicopters circled overhead, and checkpoints with troopers wielding guns were everywhere.

One of the common questions posed by the media in both cases went something like this: "With a fugitive on the loose, are you concerned about you and your family’s safety?"

A man being interviewed by a TV reporter on the Arkville hillside about the threat posed by Trim gave an answer similar to those I heard from people during the search for Phillips.

"I’m ready for him," the man said.

A puzzled look crossed the reporter’s face as she asked him what he meant, but the man didn’t elaborate any further.

But I knew what he meant.

In decisions such as Bowers v. DeVito, South v. Maryland and, most recently, Castle Rock v. Gonzales, the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently ruled that police have no obligation to protect the safety of individuals. Instead, the court has said police have a duty to protect the public-at-large.

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I jumped at the chance to cover the story of Ian Kiraly, of Franklin, catching a record-breaking striped bass from the Hudson River this week.

There is just something about "stripahs," as they are called by anglers who live along the Northeast Coast.

The silvery-white, and of course, striped fish played a huge role in Colonial America, where they were used as an important food source and even, for a time, as fertilizer for crops.

But decades of commercial fishing, as well as rampant pollution in the Hudson and the Chesapeake Bay, caused striper stocks to dwindle in the 1970s. By the mid-1980s, even recreational fishing for striped bass was halted for a short time in New York state.

My fishing partner Eric Stankus of Ulster County introduced me to striper fishing last year. And I fell in love with the Hudson River.

The scenery _ both manmade and natural _ is amazing. The Hudson Highlands rise near Newburgh, and it doesn’t take much to imagine Henry Hudson in 1609 sailing the Halfmoon near the densely forested landscape.

I have also been on the river and felt the wake of a Turkish freighter at the same time as I watched Metro-North trains race to Poughkeepsie on the east shore, cars cross the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge and commuter flights pass overhead.

Unlike former New York Gov. Hugh Carey, who once famously offered to drink a cup of PCBs, I don’t think I’ll be drinking a cup of water straight from the Hudson anytime soon.

But the river is surprisingly clean.

Last Saturday, Stankus and I fished the same part of the river where Kiraly caught his behemoth _ a 55-pound, 6-ounce striper. There were migrating waterfowl everywhere. Cormorants were snatching herring from the water and perching on floating logs.

I caught my first two stripers that day and released both. They were much smaller than Kiraly’s monster.

Maybe some day, a lucky angler will catch one of those two fish, and it will be a record-breaker.

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Staff Writer Jake Palmateer covers Oneonta city government, police, the fire department and fishing.