Last night was a flurry of pots and pans, screaming cooks with blistered fingers, slopped sugary icing, and my complete abandonment of the angling world.

This time of year similar scenes are playing out in kitchens everywhere – and most anglers are smart enough to make themselves scarce, go fishing, or nurse barked knuckles after being repulsed in their attempt to lick spoons.

In stark contrast to their fishing personae, I’m left wondering how the women I’ve fished with transition from “did you wash your hands” to complete killers …

‘Because up here in Alaska, well, one, we — a lot of us, you know, we smell like salmon’

… and how is it that some vestige of the woodlands variant doesn’t mix with the civilized version.

As a guy “cook” I’m obliged to lay my offerings at the coffee pot along with the rest of the assemblage. Despite hours of painstaking preparation the Lemon Bars are housed in Taco Bell salad containers – and the Christmas Stollen lays astride a greasy cardboard box.

Surrounded by platters of carefully arranged and immaculately presented baked goods, moot evidence of my male insensitivity, lack of artistic merit, and unsanitary kitchen – while the female version looks twice as good as they taste.

Why is it my feminine side is only on display when fly fishing?

Perfect presentations and artistic sensibilities abound when tying or fishing, yet food is “.. it’s got sugar in it, shuddup.”

… and the converse is just as true. Safely ensconced within civilization gals are concerned with artistry and hygiene, and in the woods can’t hit the broadside of a barn with a spatula, yet mix fish guts and sandwiches with the best of us.

The fingerprints in the icing don’t slow the “vanish rate” any – as stern looks surrender to the beatific smiles of sugary satiation. But that’s proof of subconscious lust – conscious thought being suspended.

… and I can go on all day about the proper accompaniment for a bronze dun hackle to assist its contrast with an olive thorax, then scuttle away horrified if the subject shifts to curtains ..

Busy calling the kettle black – I may have answered my own question.

Tags:woodsy self, unwashed hands, chief cook and bottle washer, fly fishing, unsanitary Renaissance Man, shuddup