Category Archives: current events

Police identify thief in fancy carp burglary

The Thief is unrepentant Police in Suffolk, England have closed the books on a £10,000 theft of rare carp. Over the course of a few weeks 23 exotic Koi were stolen from a backyard pond.

Among the highly-prized fish which vanished from a home in Carlton Colville were three ghost koi carp worth £500 each, a three foot long orange fantail koi carp and a gold koi carp.

Police in Lowestoft feared that a professional thief had stolen them to order and issued this appeal: “Did you see anything suspicious in the area or have you been offered any similar fish since?”

No mention is made of stakeout, infrared sniper scopes, or surveillance, but the thief was observed lounging in a neighboring field, a well fed Great Blue Heron…

“Thankfully on this occasion an arrest wasn’t necessary.”

Here in the States, I’m sure the distraught owner would have insisted on a civil suit and a firing squad.

Retail woes continue unabated

layoff Our economic woes continue to devastate the sporting fraternity, with the “big box” stores taking it on the chin.

Orvis laid off an additional 30 employees from its Roanoke, Virginia operations, Eddie Bauer severed 198 employees as part of a 61 million dollar restructuring, and even Bass Pro has let go of 50 associates.

Calling the fourth-quarter retail environment “brutal,” Eddie Bauer also announced recently that it will reduce the size of its board from 10 to seven members and freeze salaries.

Frugality is “in”, and as I mentioned earlier, we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg. Orvis’s Virginia operations were the source of many of its “tent sales”, which may affect the volume of tackle on eBay as well.

An economic “perfect storm” – record drought in the West, coupled with economic turmoil suggests trips will be fewer and earlier in the season, with the balance of the year handicapped due to low, warm water. The shops buttressed by guide revenue will not be immune.

Mix Blue and Brown and it still winds up Muddy

Oh, Dear! The Sacramento Bee reports that to maintain my Brownline status, I’ll have to move.

Tom Chandler over at the Trout Underground and Roughfisher are likely to accuse me of “selling out” – backed by numerous posts on how they didn’t like me anyways. Once they find out my beloved Little Stinking is being bandied about in the legislature to achieve “Wild and Scenic” river status, it’ll sort my pals from the camp followers …

It shows the steep decline in California waterways … we’re going to consecrate mud puddles next.

I can personally vouch for the wild and scenic thing; short of a bawdy house – it’s all floated by me, ricocheted off a nearby rock, or colored the air with decay, and I doubt I’ll be truly surprised by anything other than a tour guide pointing me out as the Old Man of the Sea-wage.

I did effluent before effluent was cool … and the stuff you’re wading in? Tame compared to what I used to walk through, why I remember back in .. ought 7, when …”

Maybe if I practice enough the nature crowd will toss me quarters, or slivers of sardine.

The unbreakable bond with my readership can withstand any hardship, now that they know I’ve been unknowingly victimized.

Perhaps after I donate my vast collection of graphite rods as freebie contest prizes, a few stalwarts might remain – I’ll need assistance on my conversion to bamboo rods and dry fly only, upstream presentation.

Actually, nothing’s changed. The headwaters of the Little Stinking have been nominated as has many hundreds of thousands of acres adjoining. There are already two wilderness areas designated along its path, and it appears a great deal of real estate upstream of me is included.

There may be a small silver lining, but the agribusiness of the lower river is sure to fight restrictions tooth and nail, perhaps they’ll no longer be allowed to direct their raw effluent into the drainage – or maybe they’ll let a little water through during the summer to simulate a permanent flow.

Then again – it may get new restrictions that prevent me from fishing it. Upstream counties close the Little Stinking along with normal trout season, only the effluent rich county I live in allows year round angling.

… and Tom, Slaw Dogs are a crime against humanity, not a suitable mascot for a “muddy” blog.

Names have been changed to protect the guilty

No, I'm the only loud fisherman in the room Row upon row of long faces trudge into the meeting room knowing the outcome is pre-ordained. The economic devastation wrought by the Wall Street mavens coupled with the cavalier treatment of debt by us consumers has finally rocked our little pond…

Management is just as solemn, there’s downcast gazes coupled with minute amounts of lint removed from sleeves, toes scuffing on carpets, and tacit admiration of ceiling tiles.

The Big Cheese clears his throat, ” … well the Governor has decreed we’re taking a 10% cut of your paychecks across the board…unless it’s an emergency – in which case you’ll work for free …”

Groans and teeth gnashing follow…

” The way it plays out, each of you will have the first and third Friday of the month off and will receive no pay.”

… and to the astonishment of the crowd, some portly, middle aged idiot in the back of the room exclaims, “Sweet!” – just a wee bit too loud, and as absolutely everyone swivels in their seat to stare holes through the offending SOB, he manages one last weak bleat, “Oh, I guess I’m the only fisherman in the room…”

The golfers were just as happy, only a “golf clap” makes less noise.

In your face and worse, in your lifetime

calendar We’ve seen a couple of decades of spittle and vitriol over the Right to Bear Arms, and many hunters are fishermen, can we assume we’ll offer as good a fight with legislators as the NRA?

We’ve mentioned the depletion of commercial fishing stocks in the ocean, how scientists predict the demise of almost all commercial fisheries by 2040 (based on our current consumption) – and a logical crisis “first step” will be to limit what everyone can catch.

The journal Science published a study by Felicia Coleman of Florida State University showing that anglers are the largest human threat for many species off America.

My question is, after all the posturing and rhetoric – after the Hollywood celebrities swear publicly they’re lifelong anglers, after lobbyists for Trout Unlimited, CalTrout, and other angling organizations wine and dine senators, and it’s all for naught, how are you going to spend your quota?

Joe Borg, European commissioner for maritime affairs and fisheries, said: “Control and enforcement of catch limits should be the cornerstone of the common fisheries policy. The future of sustainable fisheries requires us to replace a system which is inefficient, with one which can really produce results.” Under Borg’s plan, each EU state would be given a quota for each protected species. Governments would then divide this quota between commercial fishermen and anglers. Anglers would be banned from marketing their catches.

In the US we’re already prevented from marketing our catch, but the trend is plain. If the 2040 date is accepted as fact, most governments will ignore the issue until it’s too late, then clamp some Draconian legislation in place at the last moment. If you figure they’ll finally wise up about 20 years before the fish are gone, then the issue comes to a head in 2020.

Eleven years from now.

Now all those marine V-8’s and pleasure barges are hunting a freshwater venue – as they’ve used their allotment of salt water quarry by March, and if we give them a decade to start the same spiral in freshwater, it’s opening day of 2031, and you’re allotted 6 trout for the season.

Catch and Release may no longer be an option, because a 25% mortality rate is unacceptable.

We fought that legislation too – only we chose an aging Tom Cruise as spokesman – and he got Congress sidetracked on the whole Scientology thing and we lost. The decline in size of freshwater fish over the same 20 years, rendered those big stonefly nymphs illegal, and now anything over a #12 triples the mortality rate for trophy fish (11″ and longer).

So you’ve got 6 trout per season; do you go for the big dollar Montana trip – the cedar lodge, the grizzled guide, and use your entire quota in a single outing, or do you husband your quota until October – when the streams are deserted, and everyone else is working on their allotment of Pikeminnow and Suckers?

Take your time, you’ve got at least a decade to decide…

Free Willy IV – Willy starves to death and becomes odiferous mass on Southern California beach

willy The Sacramento Bee reports the National Marine Fisheries Service has compiled a draft “biological opinion” that may compel the California Department of Water Resources and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to change reservoir operations, improve river habitat and divert less water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

The 2004 version had a similar finding and was altered by the Bush administration to show fish would not be imperiled by existing operations, and were sued successfully by environmental groups.

The judge insisted that Interior department officials had violated the Endangered Species act by modifying the report.

Fishery biologists assert that the current system, whose emphasis is on water for people, does not provide enough cold water for spawning habitat in the Sacramento river. Climate change and increased population will magnify the effect.

It’s so bad that Killer whale’s are being added to the list of impacted species, due to the absence of Pacific salmon.

The report is scheduled for public release, March 2nd – with North-South fireworks to commence shortly thereafter.

Glampers and the 201K, reborn as Crampers

Leave it to some canny fellow from California to come up with a solution for the entire housing crisis using just “budget dust” from the TARP funds.

On the road again

This ushers in the age of “Jingle Mail“, sending the keys of your massively leveraged home to the mortgage company – along with some carefully chosen prose describing what they can do with it.

The Big Three automakers specialize in large, roomy SUV’s with indoor television and all the comforts of home. Your credit rating remains intact while the letter’s enroute, score a couple and make for the open highway.

Become an economic patriot…

“Glamping” died with Bernie Madoff, welcome to “Cramping” and the airy lifestyle of the modern American nomad.

The schools in Idaho and Montana are pretty good …

It only took them two weeks and 17 pages, Geniuses all of them

Secretary Chrisman likes to double down It’s the latest trend among those in power –  circumventing the normal political process with urgency replacing the painstaking scientific work, and when called to task for the crime,  blame the other fellow for not thinking for you.

The financial crisis in Washington has emboldening every political hack with a year or less on his term to “fast track” legislation, but there’s still no surrogate for careful planning and research, especially when it comes to Mother Nature.

Now them idiot cabinet secretaries appointed by Schwarznegger insist they can build the peripheral canal without asking the legislature or voters. For those out of state, the peripheral canal is California’s answer to keeping the desert in full bloom, tapping the Sacramento River in Northern California and swinging the water around the Delta to fill the faucets of Los Angeles.

It was soundly defeated by voters in 1982.

The bad news is that the move will continue the orderly destruction of the Sacramento river delta, and what little remains of the Chinook salmon run.

It’s only 15 Billion dollars, and since Schwarzenegger is already in Washington with hat in hand, and his state controller issuing proclamations of the state running out of money in 45 days, might as well “double down” on the handout. How else can they fund the project without asking voters?

I assume they figure no one will ask what was done with the cash, so what’s the worry.

I can’t make the case that urgency warrants bad legislation. The fact that “everyone else is doing it” sets a precedent, but it’s a shameful one. We’d hoped we were electing our best and brightest, instead we got another set of clowns that copied someone else’s homework.

Buy one of these before you sober up

I’m not going to ask why you woke up on the fire escape wearing a tattered lampshade and a dog collar, I just thought I’d add the gentle reminder that you need one of these..

2009 California Fishing license

The solace of the piney woods is denied you until you visit your local Dept of Fish and Game reseller.

Yes, the price has gone up dramatically, no – you didn’t use it half enough last year, but this year is different.

We’re not looking for some austere New Year’s resolution, we figure if 2009 is anything like last year, this may be your ticket to the soup kitchen.

Better brush up on your casting, accuracy is your friend

Get used to it We could certainly use some of those fresh faces, but with the barrier to entry multiple thousands of dollars, our economic woes won’t lend itself to any uptick in fly fishermen. Too bad, we could’ve used the votes.

Subsistence fishing is a torrid growth industry in Asia, what with the decline in worldwide markets, burgeoning layoffs, and plenty of folks with extra time on their hands.

“In the past, the number of anglers would usually be in the single digits on weekdays, but now they turn up in hordes and pack both sides of the river,” says Lin, forced to take unpaid leave by his employer, a memory chip vendor.

I expect we’ll see something similar, especially in urban waters with high population density, straining what few wardens remain on the payroll even further – and increasing the frustration level of regular anglers.