Category Archives: commentary

Ice Cream on tap and the Pizza Chopper hovering overhead

Coin activated showers Once again I’m the center of attention as co-workers dance about me in utter horror.

We’re leaving this morning for the Annual “Guys from work go fishing and talk smack about everyone else,” trip – and I’m being admonished to bring quarters for the shower…

“Shower? %$#@ That.”

While the other fellows roll their eyes skyward pantomiming the “Eww” face, I’m wondering how we got to this sordid gentrified state.

When I backpacked we’d use a handful of wild lavender for soap and go bare-arsed into the lake – and only then after being voted off the island. Grubby clothing and a weeks worth of stubble was nothing when you’re cutting your own firewood and survival was Rainbow Trout stuffed with the last handful of trail mix.

Add eight miles of dusty trail to a week without Twinkies, sprinkle in 5000 feet of elevation and we swore Rice-A-Roni was ladled by Wolfgang Puck hisself…

Older bro’s hushed whisper, “this lake has Brown Trout!” really meant, “maybe these are imbued with different natural spices” – as we’d run out of Lemon Pepper a week ago.

Now, with pavement leading up to a groomed fire pit and a trunkload of gleaming cutlery, thousand candlepower lanterns, and Gnocchi’s boiled over a gas stove – we’re back to white dinner jackets and fine china.

“Maybe some cold cuts and a little bread to make a sandwich, we’ll have been on the water for 15 hours, horse shit will look and taste good by then. Just keep the cleanup light – as once that food hits your belly – and after all that fishing, you’ll be asleep in minutes.”

They weren’t listening. They were lost in a land of pizza choppers hovering overhead delivering cases of cold beer and thick steaks.

It dawned on me that it’s the converse that’s true – and why I find so many empty discarded water bottles in the forest. It’s not how rough it is that characterizes the outdoor experience – it’s the degree you tamed the outdoors that now separates the hardcore from the casual.

Unless you’ve got ice cream on demand, you’re not an outdoorsman, unless you transform that 30X30 regulation campsite into your living room, complete with satellite TV and NFL Ticket, you’re a total outdoor wuss.

I’ve only got a couple of choices, yank the generator cord and watch them cry over all that wasted dairy, asking each other in disbelief whether it’s safe to eat pate and gruyere with mayonnaise that’s been room temperature for the last nine hours…

“Bob? *Sniff* Christ Jesus, the Grey Poupon’s been kilt!” 

… or I could just skip the shower all three days … which isn’t nearly as fatal, it only seems that way.

… um, still deciding ..

The saga of the Columbian Bounty Killers

Clint does Trash Fish I’ve always assumed it’s professional disdain – why the Fish and Game is reluctant to use anglers for eradication or thinning fish populations.

The only venture I know of; “Fistful of Pikeminnow”, and “For A Few Pikeminnow More”, suggest that the bounty program on Columbia River Pikeminnow netted 158,000 fish for 2008, with anglers pocketing nearly $1,000,000 during the fracas.

Nice lump of change for many – with nearly $500,000 dollars paid to the top 20 fishermen. That’s $25,000 each for countless days afield and a swell suntan.

It’s plain that the agencies are reluctant to go whole hog – as the jobs created by bounty-killer “infrastructure” projects would be neatly offset by the number of anglers abandoning work in favor of professional fishing – otherwise we’d see thousands of such programs nationwide.

Since 1990, more than three million northern pikeminnow have been removed through the sport reward program. As a result of these efforts, predation on juvenile salmonids is estimated to have been cut by 38 percent.

Whether you believe the numbers or not, that’s a healthy return on investment – considering the multi-million dollar fish ladders and bank restorations that achieve single digit returns.

During the same period we’ve increased our appetite for cooked salmon nearly 12% – suggesting that while we possess a certain altruistic lean, we are listening to the doctors lecture us on heart health.

A little scrimshaw will make that tie-dye less attractive

I had another chat with Kevin Compton the distributor for the Dohiku and Grip hook lines and was reminded to check up on our my favorite subject, competitive fly fishing.

My contention has always been that all real evolution in tackle is occurring due to the competitive angler – and us hobbyists are pretty content with the current state of rods, lines, flies, and fly fishing sundries.

Considering we’re enjoying rods and tackle whose roots are in the Space Race – competition merely showcases the trends and materials early. American manufacturers hindered by our reluctance to embrace the competition aspects probably scowl as did “Fatso” Goering, when he asked Adolf Galland what was needed to win the Battle of Britain..

“Finally, as his time ran short, he grew more amiable and asked what were the requirements for our squadrons. Moelders asked for a series of Me109’s with more powerful engines. The request was granted. ‘And you ?’ Goering turned to me. I did not hesitate long. ‘I should like an outfit of Spitfires for my group.’ “

… it must be tough on the Sage rep to walk off as the American team wave their Italian rods , but the B.A.S.S. circuit knows a sponsor when it sees one – and will be thrilled to wear the Sage decal.

Competition is by nature secretive and ever changing –  the only reason the Bassmaster’s winner divulges his secret bait is because he has to – and digging up information on contemporary competitive tackle is like pulling teeth – at best you get what worked last year.

Jiri Klima “googles” nicely –  the Czech fishing coach introduced a line of jig hooks and pre-weighted nymph forms unlike the “shrimp” style seen in past years. These are turned into Caddis jigs versus the more traditional nymph tie.

Naturally we’re clutching our chest in horror, “jigs” being the Devil’s handiwork and proof the competitive instinct is damning our sport to perdition.

I don’t see it that way.

The return of the semi-automatic, in your face

.. now that the French are using semi-automatic reels it’s time to crack out all those old Martin wind-ups, as what’s old is new again.

Makes those tie-dye Abel’s look mighty drab – but scrimshaw will do that to you. The above Vivarelli Grayling runs just a bit under $1200, with the more mundane models, made from carbon fiber, around $250.

Nope, there’s no US maker with anything similar.

Eleven foot three weights are exciting to many, but competition is having its greatest impact on hook development. The absorption of the Redditch-based Partridge by Mustad marked a low point in fly hooks, the remaining manufacturers offering little variety and nothing but established styles.

Something as simple as a nickel/chrome hook for Shad or Steelhead left only Eagle Claw’s 1197N as the sole silver hook available. Targus has added one more in the 3908T – a replacement for the traditional Mustad 3908C that was swept under the carpet with all the other “marginal” sellers.

Dohiku_Nymph_Special_HDN302 While the Clouser minnow allowed fly tiers to consider jig hooks for streamers, the Czech nymph crowd have introduced the Nymph Special, a bent shank nymph hook designed specifically for bead usage.

Debarbing a traditional Model Perfect bend-forged wire hook has always been problematic; forged wire is much more brittle than its round wire equivalent – and the Model Perfect bend is the poorest for purchase and retention in fish flesh.

Sproat and modified Sproat dry fly hooks in round wire replace those missing short shanked Mustad’s like the 7957B and 7948A – both considered nymph hooks yet set the standard for tying our heavy water (large fish) western dry flies like the Humpy and many others.

Seeing the reintroduction of small niche players means big dividends for the rest of us. They’ll struggle with production, temper, wire, and all the other ills of hook making – but they offer us some interesting diversity – sorely lacking on the shelves now.

The upturned beak point, kirbed points,  and elongated “spear” style looks like it’ll address many of the barbless issues we’ve had in the past. Especially those makers that yanked the barb off their standard hook with no thought to redesigning point and bend to compensate.

I’ll be testing some of the styles from Knapek, Skalka, and Dohiku, in an upcoming article – I just need to learn Yugoslav and Czech first … maybe some Japanese as well.

My public school system only awarded degrees in Modern Chemistry, now the kids get Angling?

Degree in Timewasting mostly The credential is slowly winkling it’s way into our sport, and I have mixed emotions about the legitimacy that implies..

It was the same when I worked for a large brokerage house (now deceased); I asked the traders what it took to be a stock broker and was surprised how little training was required, “Basically, we offer positions at $1100 per month (1990), and after they take their Series Seven exam they’re brokers – so we turn them loose on their friends and family, and if they ever ask for their salary – we fire them.”

… OK, maybe I’m less surprised after the last six months …

If my kid ever darkened the doorway and announced proudly how he’d chosen to spend the next five years studying angling – he’d taste the boot heel, and as the door slammed behind him he’d hear the tail end of, “Good, start with the Fillet O’ Fish…”

Five years of womanizing and beer drinking I’m expected to pay for – but angling? Screw that …

We’ve got certified casters, certified instructors, and the Certifiable, can we assume there’ll be a “certified angler” shortly?

I’d bet on it.

Vendors have been “endorsing” all manner of anglers for decades, it’s the best way to cement brand loyalty and outfit a new angler from head to toe. A couple days on the lawn and a pancake breakfast on the Battenkill, with little pewter pins tacked on starched olive vests to mark coming-of-age.

That’s neither extreme nor hardcore, so the process will be amended to include rigor, that way we can have gradations of certification akin to military awards – with Oak Leaves, 1st Class, and with Cluster.

… then again it could be Boy Scout badges, where you can drape your accomplishments over your gut, and watch the riffle clear of riffraff at your approach.

The current flavor emphasizes the Big Three; casting, knots, and entomology (flies). Certified “fly fishing schools” all list some variant of the above like an intro to fly tying – or some similar difference. That’s way short of the mark. Angling certification should make you sweat akin to your driver’s test – where you hoped that little squinch-eyed fellow doesn’t ask you to parallel park.

A couple of weeks on etiquette is sorely needed; it’s bad enough the SOB can’t cast – but he’s put down all my fish too..

Toss in a couple of heartstoppers like, “identify which feather is called ‘Greenwell’ ” – have them demonstrate a Bimini Twist, and for graduation we could have them barehand a Ling Cod, replete with those icicle teeth …and we’d be getting somewhere.

Lastly, issue them an identity card with a unique serial number so you could build a database like the Sexual Predators system. Internet based so when you sidled up to your next prospective mate she could find your shortcomings via her cell phone.

… besides, that pick up line was truly awful, now she suspects …

Yep, he’s a certified angler.

We could call it American Idyll

We’ve played this game before; I try to wrench you into the 21st Century, and you’re content with the pasttime your poppa taught you.  Still leery of professional fly fishing as a sport, televised or otherwise, and scowling while I insist competition would liven the small screen, and using NASCAR rules would make an interesting twist…

Spying an article on collegiate angling set my too-vivid imagination in motion. Rather than a gaggle of anglers, camp followers, and their entourage in an exotic venue, with apres-hatch masseuses, cold drinks, and sponsor’s hovering about, why not start the competition with a cavity search in the parking lot of the fly shop?

… then hand each fellow $1000 dollars for his entire ensemble; leaders, rod, flies, waders, boots, vest, floatant, absolutely everything – and only then turn them loose on the stream.

Parity Czech, we'll see if they can handle real American food

Like football we could show the ambulance crew close in on the guy that invested his cash in flies, and opting to wade wet – froze his equipment and succumbed to hypothermia.

… and there’s the agony of the top seed forgetting to buy a reel. We’ll have popcorn coming out our nose as he stuffs line in pocket, oblivious to zippers and dangling vest essentials, breaking off fish after fish – while we giggle over the *bleep* intensity of frequent outbursts.

There’d be the petulant fellow unwilling to part with a single Royal Trude – staring menacingly at the register total, insisting that in his state sales tax was 2% less – and he should get a waiver…

…  and the fellow that drank far too much at the Scientific Angler’s party,  and missed out on the #16 Adam’s ..

Most sports aren’t about identifying heroes any more; the cameras insist on tirades, tantrums, and villainy – we can moan from the sanctity of our couch when this week’s “Snidely Whiplash” makes it through another episode, after spiking his pal’s waders when the judges were distracted.

Then as each fellow is eliminated the remaining anglers could descend on him like a pack of wolves and tear his gear from lifeless fingers. All them young eyeballs glued to the screen learning valuable hunter-gatherer techniques to bully the bus and dominate their playground.

Oprah couldn’t resist that much testosterone, and we could fete them in all the daytime gossip venues.

Fly fishing has more than it’s fair share of opinionated insensitive types that could light up the small screen with pouts, scowls, and blame-storming. As everyone hates everyone else – a little blood or a couple of spilled drinks, a fist fight or gunfire, and we’d be rivaling the Ultimate Fight Network for Thursday night Primetime.

Plows or Pavement, the fish don’t like either

Studying the diversity of New Zealand’s freshwater fisheries for the last 30 years suggests even the exotic locales are struggling mightily.

Overall, at a national scale, the health of fish communities declined between 1970 and 2007, especially over the last decade (2000 to 2007). The biggest decreases in the health of fish communities were in rivers in mostly pastoral (farming) or urban areas.

Farming could very well be the weapon that quashes our meager resistance to land exploitation and pollutants. Everyone understands eating  – and naturally wants to keep doing so, which puts the battle of clean water versus plentful lettuce on a unique plane – against a foe we’ve only begun to understand.

The resource-rich, food poor countries like China, Saudi Arabia, and other Middle Eastern countries are buying agrarian land in more temperate longitudes to ensure their foods supplies.

You pump their gas, and they pump your water …

Lacking water and arable land – but rich in dollars and oil, makes for a heady mixture that ensures salmonids will see no respite anytime soon – despite their out-of-the-way home…

A report in May, co-authored by international agencies estimated that nearly 2.5 million hectares (6.2 million acres) of farmland in five sub-Saharan African countries has been bought or leased since 2004: an investment of $919.98 million.

A Little Stinking toxic can dump, 100 feet from the water Africa and South America comprise the bulk of existing sales, but we’re just entering this new paradigm and have little idea how virulent the trend will become.

Cities are toxic, but we’ll continue to mitigate the obvious pollutants as we’ve been indoctrinated to their ills for the last 30 years. What city people don’t realize is that farms can be just as toxic – and have less controls or monitoring than industrial chimneys and sewage treatment plants.

Which are the Usual Suspects…

Wading through farm chemicals offered me a unique perspective of the issue, and while I still eat lettuce – there are times when I wonder which resource is the most precious.

Plows and pavement both terraform the environment into something other than native, rendering the stream less diverse than it once was, only the fellow behind the plow isn’t percieved as some sinister corporation fielding a bevy of legal firms to whitewash transgressions.

Welcome to the 800 pound gorilla in our future.

The name on the map doesn’t match the name its earned

Leave them on and spare us all It’s the same thing I tell new employees, ” if I forget your name and call you ‘New Meat’ – don’t take it personal, I have a helluva time remembering names, but once I catch you filching my favorite donut I’ll remember your name … just not in a good way.”

I use placeholder names as a survival tactic. Angling authors (in any medium) learn to tiptoe around certain words; obvious ones like “always” and “never” – and the not-so-obvious, riffle names, geographical landmarks, and anything that identifies someone’s secret spot – despite it being common knowledge.

Writing is the ultimate in brinkmanship –  as the author is only a consonant away from being flamed cruelly, and over time develops “Spidey” sense – that tingle that alerts him to unguarded prose.

Placeholders are more fun than actual names – as most rivers and landmarks out West were named after the robber-baron owning the most real estate or railroads. Our landscape is dotted with capitalists whose surname is unwieldy at describing a gleaming river filled with voracious fish.

Reading about the Battle of Hue and its Perfume River earned my creek “the Little Stinking” – and for obvious reasons. Renaming something as lofty as the American River is problematic, but after three weeks of exploiting its chilly bosom, I’m calling it “the Underwear” from now on…

Snags have always been part and parcel to fishing, and sunken tree limbs and brush piles lighten our fly boxes considerably. There’s always a sense of relief when a sustained pull gives ground instead of snapping your fly off – but on the Underwear it’s a sense of foreboding.

This weekend was typical. One set of checkered boxers, one bikini bottom, and a pair of Tidy Whities –  resembling Rock Snot.

I’ve assumed that somewhere between Folsom Dam and my riffle are tenements whose clothlines stretch over the river, but the locals assure me its the rafting crowd that contributes with such regularity.

It’s that memory that makes barked knuckles pause enroute to the mouth. The Brownline is simple, avoid water – stem the blood flow by wrapping the wound in your shirt. Blue water is equally straightforward, clean the wound with chill water – then dance around yelling “owwie” before leaving in a huff.

Is the Underwear something betwixt the two? Blue water strained through cotton briefs is unappealing … and based on my catch rate the “run” of partially clad nubiles is two-thirds male … Equally offputting.

I suppose the “silver lining” of dredging all those undergarments is not having to purchase any, but those bikini bottoms do chafe something fierce ..

Like minded friends are nice, but the reward is better

edibles-alert.jpgWe may be at a crossroads with health and well being on the one hand, and allegiance to environmental principles on the other.

While the “Talking heads” assure us the worst is over, and the President’s cabinet stump the streets doing likewise, reports continue to surface of the rebirth of angling, sustenance variety…

“Belt tightening” is the rage of cocktail parties, and forswearing of luxury the new esthetic – with woeful tales of suffering and deprivation swapped between mouthfuls of Starbuck’s and Cinnabon.

“Foraging” is the rallying cry of the neo-sporting fraternity, their food-lust indiscriminate; weeds and tubers, fish in park ponds, and anything with four legs that doesn’t alert neighbors.

Distinctions between brown and blue are blurred with survivalists intent on cheap eats – and as they shove their way into the crowd of us old timer’s, do we attempt to educate, or merely guard our lunch and walk further afield?

  • Chauncey Niziol fishes for bass and bluegills in downtown Chicago.
  • Steven Rinella traps squirrels and catches pigeons in Brooklyn, N.Y.

The chances that Chauncey and Steven have cracked the fish and game regulations are slim. Trifling detail like season, tackle restrictions, and  licensing probably hasn’t occurred to them.

Steven, “squab” is a grand meal, unfortunately MSNBC didn’t bother to check the regulations, and now you’re featured in absolutely every Post Office.

So where does that leave us? Tapping the fellow on the shoulder and mentioning the need for a valid NY Trappers license, or merely admiring how many pigeons over the “six in possession” limit he’s draped on his fender?

A street sweeper employed by the Doe Fund, a charity that employs homeless New Yorkers to clean city streets, picked up a $2,500 bonus last month by defending the pigeons on the Upper East Side. According to In Defense of Animals, Desi Stewart witnessed a man spreading bird seed on the ground and “netting a large number of pigeons.”

… or are we the guy putting chow on the table after “dropping dime” on the clueless n00b?

Longtime Singlebarbed readers are fitting themselves for ponchos, slim cheroots, and practicing the “Bounty Killer” swagger popularized by Spaghetti Westerns …

… but the activity has riled the venerable New York Bird Club, and suddenly the prospect of Clint’s icy voice coming from the nearby shrubbery would be the least of my worries…

Hell hath no fury like an Old Lady crumbling a crust of bread for pigeons. Driven by her screams, the crowd wouldn’t be content with anything short of dismemberment.

Yawn, is that supposed to be .. like .. extreme?

I suppose my life list can be etched on a "sleeve"Like you I’m the recipient of every strange aberration that is loosely connected to fishing. Today some well meaning cubicle denizen sends me a link to body piercing, featuring fish hooks and the traditional, “Dude, check it out!”

Any guide worth his salt would suggest fish hooks and flesh have a natural attraction – with client owning the hook(s) and guide owning the flesh.

… and as I’m poring through the pictures of nutcase’s insisting that meat impaled on hooks is a mixture of Jesu Christo and colonic cleansing – how their Shaman insisted it was the fast track to Oneness, I’m only mildly amused.

With tattooing, branding, and shaped scarring in great demand – what does a fly fisherman stab in his arm to prove he’s worthy – and will you want to erase the Sage tattoo if you become enamored of G. Loomis?

Just a thought…

My experience with piercing always involves being many miles from civilization with me asking, “did you pinch the barb like I asked, or will I have to operate?”

A good clean “through and through” on an earlobe is a thing of beauty. A combination of precise timing and a gust of wind; are we a tad hasty on the removal, and with most of the urbane sophisticates sporting the simple “pirate” hoop or stud, what fashion message is conveyed with a full dress Jock Scott?

I think Scarface holds the answer to why Salmon are gone

I think “Scarface” holds the key to the entire salmon – steelhead issue, and is the poster child for what ails us…

A Crystal FX leech proved his undoing, which would suggest diminished capacity – as the fly does look appealing, but it in no way rivals a Big Mac.

 Face removal via rocky debris

My interest started with the winter floods, and while I could find little information about what fish did – there was a great deal of research on what bugs do in response to natural calamity.

Take a water district operating with complete autonomy;  no CalTrout, no Trout Unlimited, no passionate enviro-lobby, as there’s little glamour in little brown rivulets, couple that with a week long promise of heavy rain, and you get Scarface and more like him as progeny.

140 CFS is the normal flow, yet for 12 hours during the storm the dam release was 14000 CFS – enough to take the face off what few fish could hide, and blew the rest of the fish into the Delta accompanied by Dodge Escorts and rusty shopping carts.

I’m wandering an empty creek, barren of Bass – and what few fish remain show scrapes, scratches, and assorted wounds compliments of the “Zero Sum” water policy on the lake above.

You’re tired of hearing it, and I’m tired of saying it, “.. rather than spend those precious dollars on restoring the pristine, which we quickly despoil, perhaps we should be focused on restoring the balance of Nature.”

Most drown in their den, the rest are beaver burger In each of the last two years the release from the lake coincided with the wettest storm, suggesting the water district management blew open the gates in response to what runoff was anticipated. Swelling any river 100 times its normal size in an instant makes a killing machine; it destroys the insect population, kills or removes all the fish, and probably wipes a goodly portion of indigenous reptiles, amphibians, and anything else that calls the streambed home.

Both years would have scrubbed the creek at the height of the salmon spawn.

Beavers are great swimmers, but not when the river is a torrent. Likely it kills most in their burrow – and those that make it into the water are battered into pieces. At right is one of three dead beaver encountered at the high water mark. A little far-gone to determine cause of death, but it’s possibly additional evidence of an abusive water policy.

Multiply my little toxic creek by a couple hundred and you can see why there aren’t any salmon or steelhead, and why we’re dependent on the four hatcheries for the homogeneous mix that is shat onto the spillway.