Category Archives: commentary

You look quickly for a wide spot and hold the rod behind you

Trains are part of the fabric of the Upper Sacramento, a mixture of positive and negative that keeps you mindful of their presence and noise.

I’m sure locals have a more realistic vantage, having endured the extinction of the river in the Cantara Loop derailment many years ago.

I remember resenting their intrusion on my initial visit, but enjoy the spectacle in the years since then.

It’s an odd mixture of gaily “tagged” boxcars, horrendous vibration, deafening noise, and the wail of the horn; drowning your peaceful reverie in a cacophony of industry. It’s so out of place as to startle you no matter how often you witnessed their passing.

The watershed is a steep notch bisecting mountainous terrain where movement is never simple. Deep pocket water forces you onto the slope to move around boulders, and felt soles don’t offer much purchase. The level grade of the railroad tracks follow the river throughout, offering easy navigation and the vantage of elevation to scan likely water.

But you have to keep an eye on your surroundings, as blind corners can vomit a million tons of steel at a moment’s notice.

Squealing metal takes on an eerie component in the quiet of evening, with the draws and canyons alternately baffling and enhancing sound. Tromping the tracks back to the car after a full day of fishing and a sudden squeal lends wings to tired feet – especially when there’s so little clearance between you and all that freight.

Especially if you’re on the outside of the turn – in the river, you can’t help but expect some tank car to come over the lip and head for the streambed.

I was watching all those tank cars and remembering the Metam Sodium spill – wondering how much “soil fumigant” enters the Little Stinking on a daily basis, and how only the PPM (parts per million) makes one a stream enhancement and the other a stream killer. 2005 statistics suggest it is #5 in the list of chemicals applied to Yolo County, likely all 83,000 pounds used came through this same narrow canyon.

I still like trains – but now “eat a tomato, kill a trout” is running through my head – and maybe Vegans are bad for the environment …

I figure most of the caddis are addle-pated from the vibration of train traffic. Nothing like getting bounced around inside a stone casing to make an “October Caddis” emerge in November instead.

Guys don’t whine if there’s a gal in the boat

Photo courtesy Dick Blume / The Post-Standard I hear the logic but remain unconvinced. Barriers to coed sports have been breached on many levels, but fly fishing requires us to drop all the advances of the last 100 years and isolate women from men?

I think it’s a farce, led by canny vendors and abetted by guides doing “high five’s” as next week is “the Amazon outing, wo0t…”

Women haven’t embraced fly fishing with any real vengeance, and while inroads have been made in other leisure sports,  I’m thinking part of the problem is their introduction and exposure to our silly notion of segregation.

It’s hard enough to instruct your spouse, but after she’s been mauled by a bunch of louts from the local shop, the memorable part of our sport is the stuff that sucks blood, and stuff that sucks … period.

Women can be vicious wags at the watercooler, their voices grow silent as you approach and animated as you depart. Guys do it too – we’re certainly no saints, but why would we introduce them to a supposedly restful and relaxing sport, when they’re subject to the haughty glare of whichever female clique takes possesion of the lodge and its environs?

Guys go fishing, it’s not “Special Guy Week”, it’s some gaggle of oversexed, overfed, and overbearing fellows, vying to impress others by how long they can go without bathing. Casting classes are not “for Guys Only,” yet somehow the “for Women” label seems to crop up at every opportunity.

I think it’s a setup. A “puppy mill” for hopeful boyfriends, desperate spouses, and avaricious vendors hoping they’ll dump their overstock of claret fishing vests and petite waders.

Guides, shop owners, and lodges don’t clear the decks of males to “ease the learning curve” – nor is their staff suddenly chaste, they’re giggling amongst themselves while the gals endure the presentation attempting to get some “rise” from a participant – and reluctant to acknowledge any “refusal.”

This ain’t a “Lonely Hearts Club” – and most are there at the urging of partners, boyfriends, and husbands. Likely they’d feel a good deal easier if there’s a friendly face to explain some of the technical detail, rather than having to strike up a friendship, and absorb the lesson all at the same time.

I’d want to be there when the instructor mentions her Shakespeare wasn’t as good as my Sage, supposedly the gear was split equitably – and now I’m the callow, gear hogging spouse that’s not to be trusted.

Having taught fly tying for 20 years, women aided the proceedings immeasurably. It keeps the machismo crap to a minimum, and most fellows watched their language – something they never did around kids. The ladies felt welcome – and were catered to politely, never pestered, and made comments that were insightful and welcome. It didn’t matter if they were 13 or 86, they had the same calming effect.

Women are the better novice, guys are too enraptured of the technical detail and reluctant to ask questions and take instruction, as they’ve been taught it’s not masculine to appear helpless. Mixing the sexes at the novice level is a good match – it’s liable to steady both participants; he’d stop whining and she’d have someone to break the current when crossing the deep spots.

Given the choice, I’d rather fish with women. They smell better, are less vain, tell the truth with only minor embellishment, share the fish equitably, and are as gracious in victory as in defeat.

Guys, well … they aspire to that.

I don’t expect some enmasse migration to the Brown water, but I’d expect a steely set to her jaw when I explained the fish wasn’t fit for Man nor beast. It’d be a sharp contrast from her trout loving boyfriend – who’d be dancing around the shallow end hoping I’m there to take the fish off his hook.

Vindication, Now us Rubenesque types can wag finger

Food worth dying over Brownline authors are a sordid lot, living a half-life of darkened ritual, half truths, fawning groupies and poor diet..

Lectured repeatedly on how much Sodium my beef jerky contains, how the chocolate Old Fashioned is the work of Satan, and how countless well meaning health buffs with an unnatural interest in my colon would liberate me from chocolate and sprinkles. 

Now, a little payback is in order:

The Wake Forest School of Medicine report found that farm-raised tilapia contained higher levels of omega-6 fatty acids than foods like doughnuts and bacon.

Excessive levels of omega-6 fatty acids have been linked to a number of diseases, including heart disease, arthritis, osteoporosis, cancer, and depression.

So, after a long productive life enhanced by leafy greens and whole grains, you’re wheeled into my room – and while we both wait to expire -I assault you with tales of the glazed obscenity you should have ate instead of the eco friendly cardboard foisted on you at the health food store?

Sure, I’m headed for the “hot” place – but they got bacon there too ..

It’s Old School economics, and it’s never wrong

The BeFi Indicator, it's never wrong With the government tinkering with all the numbers, and the nightly news assaulting you with economic hardship typified by gas prices, foreclosures, and the decline of the US dollar, us fly fishermen are left in a quandary, is now the right time to buy a rod?

Us brown water specialists have lots of time to ponder on the really weighty issues, it’s the price of solitude – as the rest of you elitist sumbitches conspicuous consumers insists we fish downwind of everyone else.

The short answer is “NO”, now is not the time to be spending precious dollars on a luxury item, as according to the Brownline Economic Financial Indicator (BeFi, or “Beefy”) we’re in for an extended period of financial hardship.

Candy maker Hershey Co said on Friday it was raising U.S. prices by roughly 10 percent and warned that the higher cost of ingredients such as cocoa, corn sweetener, sugar and peanuts would weigh on profits.

The price of a Hershey’s with Almonds has predicted the ups and downs of the stock market with uncanny accuracy, and while the well coifed “suits” foaming from the safety of your television insist the Market is near a bottom, don’t believe it.

A 10% increase in the “Beefy”, means we’re at least 20 months from stability, and you’ll need that cash to pay for important staples like Whiting Saddles and fly floatant.

Nebraska’s 20 year plan for Hunter and Angler recruitment

Angling for recruits You’re a herd animal, and if you lose your fishing pals you’ll give up the sport entirely.

Can’t say I blame you much as most of my fishing is solo, it takes a special dementia to walk 3-4 miles back to the car in the dark, or wade risky water without anyone knowing your whereabouts.

Nebraska has published some of their plans for retention and recruitment of their hunters and anglers, and the above is just one of their findings.

If you’re enamored of fishing for more than one species, you’ll remain an angler longer and generate additional fees for the state’s coffers.

I say, “Welcome to the Brownline” – as it wouldn’t surprise me to see  emphasis on trophy warm water fisheries; migratory fish are in decline worldwide, there’s no more pristine water for fancy trout “farms”, and warm water fish are hardy, plentiful, and close to home.

Makes you wonder what would happen if they applied the traditional “single barbless catch and release only” restriction to a Largemouth fishery – and whether you’d allow your kids near the water’s edge …

If hunting and fishing are to increase in popularity,
public support is critical. Education and marketing
programs that portray the hunter and angler as the law
abiding citizens they are have not been effective. One
study by Responsive Management in 2003 suggested
the majority of our public still feels that most hunters
knowingly violate hunting laws and over one third of
Americans feel that “a lot” of anglers consciously violate
fishing laws.

… you’re also a poacher, which isn’t much of a sin considering the number of Jack Rabbits and Deer taken during “Steel Belted Radial” season.

All the states are struggling with the same phenomenon, the gradual gentrification of society and the slow erosion of the outdoor skill set, mostly because the outdoors is vanishing as well.

Findings like this will be watched carefully by the other 49 states, and it shouldn’t surprise us to see some commonality in their approach – especially if any are successful.

I’m getting fitted for my white hat

We may be the good guys for once I’m not so sure we’re not the good guys.

We travel great distances, spend gobs of cash, and when we’re lucky enough to outwit a fish, we don’t belittle it, make a guppy face, or give it the finger.

We slide it into the water or the fry pan as painlessly as possible. Some regard us as eccentric, some think us cruel, but all of us can agree that despite the quarry – there’s a hint of respect in all this.

Them other folks, the non fishers they’ve got some ‘splaining to do:

I’m thinking the moral high ground is ours for a change, and uncomfortable as it feels, bask in it while you can…

Every so often a really good idea isn’t

Sacred hour, the last 60 minutes before dark I see it as using turn signals in the city, all you’re really doing is giving information to the enemy…

Picture that rarified hour before dark, the lake is a sheet of glass, the fish are feeding in earnest, and tippet looks like winch cable on the surface. It’s “perfect” time, in 60 minutes either your execution is perfect, or you’re perfectly frustrated, it’s the only possible outcomes.

I’m focused on willing my 6X to be 9X, and someone to my right starts speaking:

“Yea, and remember my idiot sister with the cleft palate, well she married that loser dude you met. Yep, the short guy with the nose ring, that’s the one.”

Incredulous would be the operative word, some fellow 300 yards distant appears to have a two way radio glued to his ear, chatting with a buddy in a float tube. Conversational tones carry at least a half mile, and he’s emptying the family closet for the entire lake to hear.

“%$#*, I missed one.”

At this point, assorted Mom’s are hustling kids away from the shoreline, and I’m wondering whether my destiny will be, “%$#@, the fat guy next to me caught another ^%$# fish.”

Technology is a wonderful thing … at times. It holds much promise, but like the Atom Bomb, not everyone that can afford it should own one.

The running diatribe pauses long enough for me restore “last hour’s bliss” and I managed to fool a nice rainbow with a Pheasant tail. Sliding the fish back into the water the silence is punctuated with more blathering:

“Naw, I’m using a dry, I’ve never caught %$#& with Pheasant Tails, that what you’re using? &%@#, I missed another one.”

Well that confirms everything they’ve said about distracted drivers talking on cell phones, my discomfort is fading a bit with each announced muff – it’s irritating, but Loudmouth has his pants around his ankles for the amusement of all within earshot.

“OBAMA? %@*& him, I can’t believe you buy into that liberal &^%#*, Jesus.”

I can’t help you pal, once religion and politics dominate the conversation, you’re on your own.

… Hell, I can’t see my tippet anyways, time to call it a night.

We forgot the Conestoga when we started drinking Calistoga

Roughing It I’d like to call it wisdom, but that small voice from the Eternal Child Within suggests it ain’t smarts, it’s unwelcome gentrification.

Prior to age 30 a weekend fishing trip was a buddy calling Friday night with a twenty burning a hole in his pockets, a pack of bologna, and a blanket. As long as you had the cash to match his tank of gas, the details fell into place when the creek came into view.

As daylight turned to darkness, the absence of proper planning meant, “You didn’t bring a flashlight? Guess we’re sleeping here.” Meals were spur of the moment, “I got some bread, some moist toilettes, and … SWEET, Tic Tac’s …”

Years later, my coworkers and I are headed up to Manzanita Lake for the weekend, and the water cooler conversation sounds like the antithesis of all we held sacred…

“You aren’t bringing a tent? You ain’t sleeping with me!”

Nope, as compelling as your narrow arse is in the moonlight, I thought I’d just toss in a tarp and a bag and call it good.

“There better be showers at the campground. You think they have showers there?”

You’re going to be arse deep in water all day, you think bathing will be that much of an issue, and if so – what about simply going swimming, like Jim Bridger…

OK, so it’ll be steaks Friday night, but what about Saturday night?

We could fight over the bones the bears leave us, or we could break camp and return a day and half early, just before we starve to death.

What do you guys put on your steaks?

Teeth mostly, sometimes fingers.

I’m trying my level best to steer the conversation to the important stuff; ensuring everyone is bringing a rod, someone is packing a float tube pump, which fly shop we’re stopping at so everyone has flies, how old is your tippet, knotted versus knotless, and will “NumbNuts” remember to bring his wading boots this time.

They’re having none of it, good sports, but somewhere between 20 and 50 we lost or gained something. Creature comforts asserted themselves, and invulnerability or spontaneity were lost when old bones touched cold ground, with wood smoke no longer the after shave of choice.

Well, what about Breakfast?

That’s the meal you and Martha Stewart slept through, I call it lunch, which will be the first time my feet touch dry land since dawn broke.

200 words on the appearance of a spoon

The thought was good, the execution a bit sloppyI’m guessing something is in order as Singlebarbed turns “one” today.

Blogging is hellish enough and a niche subject like fly fishing reminds me of a High School English assignment, “write 200 words on the appearance of a spoon.” “Round and shiny” comes easily enough but there’s still 198 more words left and you’re dry.

428 posts in 365 days is a lot of practice. I’d always been taught that writing is like a muscle and must be exercised to keep tone. The slow evolution of stilted, unfriendly prose to labored and ponderous – suggests something’s changing. It appears I require a lot more “reps”  before the “Ghosts of English Teacher’s Past” will stop rattling those chains each night.

Maybe cutting those classes was a bad idea..

1000 valid comments and 4000 attempts to sell you Viagra. I’m not sure whether the fishing fraternity has a problem with tumescence, but the spam ‘bots think you do. This is strictly, “don’t ask, don’t tell” from my perspective, but if you’re interested in offshore Viagra made from Kitty litter and Agent Orange, I’ll send you some links.

The Contest That Was Never Announced

The winner of the Singlebarbed “Contest That was Never Announced” is Singlebarbed reader, San Mateo Joe. SMJ commented about twice as often as other readers, on 40 pieces total, and has earned his choice of 40 dozen trout flies – or a new Orvis T3 9′ #4 rod (with a prominent “R” on the cork), and 20 dozen flies of his choosing.

Knowing he sat on the last one and may have nothing to wave in anger, requires us to assist. It should prove a sturdy backup should his arse get a taste for more graphite. Comments are as rare as 20″ trout, and even bad writing is a lot of work, it’s nice to know someone reads this stuff besides my Mom me.

SMJ, you let me know what’s needed, but you can forget about the #18 married-wing Silver Doctor’s …

My thanks to all of you for enduring the last 12 months of split infinitives, outright made up words, and dangling participles, and I’m looking forward to some serious misspellings, crazed hyphenation, and outright lies next year.

Bare Bear Bayer with me.

Work first, play later, Mr. Wharton

Team USA I thought the biggest challenge for a CEO was making the company profitable, increasing market share, and ensuring their stockholders were rewarded by their investments.

Most of the news coming from Wall Street suggests otherwise, enormous compensation not tied to any real performance metric, declining stock prices and exposure to “Sub Prime” combining to earn them the boot.

In addition to focusing on the really important stuff, we’ve earned their attention via CEOchallenges.com – where the privileged “boy’s club” gets to flex their sporting muscle in the contest of their choosing.

I’m not bitter, just concerned that one of these sweet smelling types will break a fingernail is all …

On behalf of each CEO who registers for this event, 50 percent of net proceeds will be donated to Fly Fishing Team USA, which finished eighth in the 2008 World Championships in New Zealand in March. “For Challenge winners, accompanying Team USA in Scotland is a great opportunity to meet the greatest anglers on the planet as well as make connections for future fishing worldwide,” said Buchner. “Participants can join us for team meals, assist us with charting, team scouting, and fish with team members during unofficial practice sessions.”

I recognize the value of corporate sponsorship and how precious dollars are need to defray the costs to the talented fishermen that earn their berth, but it still gives me the “creeps.”

Having guided a lot of privileged corporate types in the “C-Class”, almost none could cast or tie on their fly without assistance. Team USA likely needs scouts and chart help, but not from a fellow that wakes up at 11:00 AM and insists on gluten-free wheat toast.

I’m guilty of a gross generalization, and am unashamed.

I’m looking for parity is all, you dabble in my beloved sport, distracting my anglers with company logos and gimcracks unrelated to the fishing, I want to run your company for six weekends a year …

That is a challenge worthy of your metal, Mr Wharton…

Note: Below is the graph of the stock prices of the larger companies participating in CEO Challenge. 

Going Down, Mr Wharton?

Thankfully they don’t allow CDO’s to participate, some of these companies have tons of those..

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