It’s a daunting project that Project Gutenberg & Google has undertaken, scanning all the books in the world and making them available online. It’s not without incident considering they already incurred $124 million in infringed copyrights – but they’re forging ahead undaunted. With Amazon’s Kindle creating quite the stir over Christmas, and competitors lining up [...]

Most of us anglers are oblivious to what goes on in all those streambed nooks and crannies. We’re content so long as it emerges at dusk and exists in enough numbers to keep fish fat and healthy. Like the dinosaur – scientists assumed that the biggest were at the top of the food chain and [...]

Those giddy days of Halloween television,  Ma insisted you were too young to watch a pissed humanoid water breather slime its way through the streets preying on the unwary, dragging screaming female teens into the cold bosom of a nearby bay … … there to perform unimaginable and completely horrific unknown rituals on their taut … flesh [...]

The prototypes for the next generation of Sixth Finger scissors arrived on my doorstep yesterday. I’d asked for them to add a zipper so I could change it each year and obsolete everything you already own … I figured I could offer it as a fetching facsimile to the Royal Canadian Mounties and the cord [...]

The ringtone belonged to “Deep Walnut”, the Yolo county landowner I’d turned to the side of righteousness. The pleasantries were brief, and I was informed that the annual “crop report” outlining the sins of watery tomatoes had been secreted on the grounds of my residence. Sure it’s a touch over the top, but in a [...]

The last decade was not our finest hour. Professional sports and ethics under scrutiny, press conferences featuring unrepentant athletes apologizing for dog fighting, bruised spouses, gunplay, infidelity, and their entourage – orchestrated carefully by agents and handlers hoping to mitigate the discomfort of sponsors. Plenty bled into our sport, the dawn of the “sporting professional” [...]

In Part 1 we covered most of the dyeing process – and the difficulty associated with matching a known color.  The steps are the same for dyeing anything; first a cleanse and prep of the original material, followed by immersion in hot water so the shock of the dye bath doesn’t induce physical change. Feathers [...]

I’m browsing some learned archives of scientific phenomenon while trying to stifle a yawn, when I saw a familiar banner. “Little known LSU professor dedicates life to the sensory capabilities of fish, discovers “can’t miss” lure system that guarantees extinction of all life in fresh water and salt…” (Proof that Scientific journals can be no [...]

Something I missed from earlier this year. For 2010, the Department of Fish & Game no longer requires California anglers to have their fishing license in plain sight. Initially it was a good idea, but the advent of licenses purchased over the Internet and printed by home computer eliminated the brightly colored paper – which [...]

I know I shouldn’t look, but I did. There are thousands of highly trained scientists examining the diet and feeding habits of both salmon and trout. The Bad News is they’re doing so to determine whether they can be raised on Plutonium pellets, concrete, animal waste, or anything else we don’t want… An admirable task [...]