I got another half dozen obligatory junk mails delivered this week hawking angling publications and conservation organizations. That isn’t so bad, but they all signed off using the “dead cow” angling salutation, “Tight Lines.”
Daytripper expressed his suffering a month ago with his magical post on trite overused angling phrases, but it appears as if it was in vain, everything I get still ends with the same pabulum.
I’ll never be confused with Twain or Hemingway, and most of my best work is scrawled in public washrooms, but I think “Tight Lines” is short of the mark.
My line is tight when snagged, my “lines” are tight after a big Italian dinner, a hooked fish is a tight line, but it’s a “diet tight line”, not as good as landing it.
I’d assumed the author was wishing me something good, but there’s enough leeway to wonder.
“Weight gain and lost flies” may be the original intent, and we’ve been insulting each other ever since. I’m thinking we can do better, certainly we can be more precise.
“Sharing the warmth of forcibly puncturing the cartilaginous orifice of innocents” is a tad dry, and a two to three word limit is appropriate.
The salutation that’ll haunt your magazine renewal notice for decades, will immortalize an angler better than a dozen fly patterns that share his name, and I’m at a loss… It’s like the “Sword in the Stone” – I gave her a yank and she didn’t budge..
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Agh, I hate tight lines too, how about
Got Mercury?
How’s about “FULL CREEL AND A DRY ARSE” ?
“Bent Rod” would be just as bad as “tight lines”, I’ll beat a hasty retreat with “Day off work.”
Best I could do would be:
“Eat Me*”
The asterisk would have no explanantion, but it would leave you an out if you put it on a resume, or a formal letter to the IRS.
How about NO words-just a picture (and NOT more “fish porn” of the haul, but of the smile on the angler’s face)
guys your missing the point,it’s a bit of history from across the pond.and it still works fine on this side,nobody get’s embarressed.
jim
Anyone with “big” in his Id should be allowed to slam the bonnet on our intellectual fingers.
I curiously, don’t mind the idea of allowing a French poof to finish my formal letter to the IRS.
I’m thinking Yomomma has the closet to a marketable salutation, in the absense of further genius – I’ll take it.
“FULL CREEL AND A DRY ARSE.” NOTE THE ESPECIAL GENIUS OF THE “Shakespearean” ending. This will give this mantra INTERNTIONAL legs. The thing has classic elements and travels well. Okay, so what do I win ? Genius shouldn’t come cheap – even in a throwaway “Blog” you can’t even wrap fish or coffee grounds in. Yomama
Tight Lines might be better than “Cheers” at the end of a post, email, or worst yet — on the phone. I punched my little brother (who lives in NYC where he presumably picked it up) the first and last time he ever said it to me.
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