While the mighty minions of Peta are busy protecting innocent school children  by soliciting colleges to give up their fishing teams – picking up the slack for lazy, insensitive parents who raised their children to adore fried chicken, comic books, and thick steaks … … still, occasionally, they hatch a pretty good idea. This time [...]

That’s when you turn to your son and have a serious heart to heart conversation – probably the hardest you’ll ever have, knowing the horrid truth … “Kid, you’ve seen the best fishing has to offer, it’s all downhill from here.” … minutes after the father and son team set up their rods by the [...]

I’m not sure my wooden visage could stand the strain. Facing the Magistrate in all seriousness – and staring at 12 years in the Big House, I’d make a yeoman’s attempt … “Honest, Your Honor, me and Bob there – was actually shark fishing, and them chocolate swizzling Dutchmen just opened fire out of pure [...]

No, I don’t expect you to understand the attraction, being a San Francisco native  and growing up in the halcyon days of local football imparts a special reverence. “ I don’t want to go fishing with Roger Craig, I want to have his Love Child.” In or out of wedlock, it don’t matter… Now that he’s [...]

Just finished a deep scan of the 293 page California Draft Recovery Plan for Chinook salmon and Central Valley steelhead (9MB’s PDF), and I’ll admit to being a bit disappointed. Not so much the scope and cost as their reliance on dam modifications for the existing pristine – versus recovery of any ancestral haunts. The Central Valley [...]

As a really tasty “pain and suffering” verdict could be in excess of twenty million, now’s the time to look hard at your legal staff. I’ll be sprawled amidst all that oak and cow leather sending another smoke ring towards the ceiling fan, while the earnest young chap insists he’s onboard … he’s got the [...]

… sure we poo-poo wild claims of fellow anglers, but that was in those hardship years of your youth, pre-Silverfin. The water was clear, the fish were refined and a meal was skill-based and the work of an evening. Now angling will be removing the muffler off your wife’s Subaru and driving along the levee [...]

We’re ill prepared to encounter someone interested in our fish – where our attempts to catch them interfere with others trying to photograph or paint fish in their natural surroundings. As the Pristine dwindles it’s likely to put a great number of heretofore invisible wildlife lovers squarely in our path. and begs the question, who gets first dibs at the quarry? Considering we’ve [...]

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 [...]

Our dictionary defines “keeper” not as a fish large enough to eat, but a significant other whose charity feeds our my addiction. … I suppose she could be having a torrid affair with some buff appliance salesman – using this as camouflage, but does it really matter? Most fishermen are packing the night before and [...]