Category Archives: current events

Just a little ahead of it’s time, but it’s the future of the Fillet O’ Fish sandwich

Carp for Christmas It all sounds wonderful on paper, but I remain unwilling to alter my idea of fine table fare. Farmed fish is a foregone conclusion, but I don’t think I’ll be trading the Xmas turkey for a Christmas Carp anytime soon.

It’s comforting to know the Little Stinking is the perfect candidate for a carp farm, substituting horse manure for the diatomaceous earth that makes a Chalkstream so protein rich.

Apart from a daily helping of homegrown mealworms, they browse the muddy depths where a carefully managed pond ecology nurtured by cow manure provides for all their needs. “Carp are a bit like chickens,” says Hepburn.

I’m sure some epicure could taste the difference, waxing poetic about, “earthen overtones, with a pleasing ferrous twang” – but I’m nervous about the “couple weeks in fresh water” part, I just don’t see how a lifetime of squalor can be made up with only two weeks of finishing school.

He has also taken steps to improve the taste of the fish, often described as “muddy”, by transferring the fish to natural spring water a few weeks before harvest.

I had the same reaction when Poppa insisted the common garden snail was a heady french import – and a couple weeks of cornmeal and lettuce leaves were enough to counteract the Snail-B-Gone.

Living in California requires a certain culinary cutting edge mentality, it’s part of the appeal, in this instance I may have to go with the burger instead.

At last count there was enough manure in those to earn me a merit badge of some sort.

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The Dry Fly is beloved of Green Energy

We always get the bad rap This alternative energy thing may have gone a bit too far, am I supposed to keep a butane lighter nearby and cremate all the flies I don’t want?

In today’s competitive marketplace for electrical power, utilities must optimize the use of their capital resources while continually providing system improvements. One way to do both of these is to convert an existing wet fly ash handling system to a dry fly ash handling system. This conversion replaces the large cost and real estate associated with maintaining an ash pond with a dry fly ash storage silo.

I tie more nymphs than dry flies and can only assume that all the lead is removed via the handling system –  but is some canny entrepreneur running a chipper-shredder on the limbs overhanging our favorite stretches of river, and can I file on the energy rights?

The Coal industry and fly fishing share some terms in common, a bit confusing, “dry fly ash” is why you don’t want a coal-fired anything next door. Apparently “dry fly ash” can be sold to fertilizer and cement makers, and “wet fly ash” is landfill. 

Different industry, different science, and the “Dry Fly Guys” still go home with the Prom Queen. I guess we’ll have to settle for all the big fish …

Lang Auction – Estate of Helen Shaw

Helen Shaw Kessler The estate of Helen Shaw appears to be one of the highlights of the next Lang’s Auction, November 7th & 8th. Lang’s uses both the traditional auction venue and eBay (for remote bids) and the items for sale are varied and mind boggling.

Flies by Helen Shaw, Walt Dette and his wife Winnie, bamboo rods, books, tying materials, and a veritable time capsule of paraphernalia.

Both Helen Shaw and Walt Dette were fly tyer’s of the highest caliber. Meticulous flies that were largely created pre-synthetic materials, pre-genetic hackle, and without the use of a vice (in many cases.)

This is the realm of Pearsall’s Gossamer Silk, local chickens, and manually waxed thread woven into a precise delicacy rivaling anything we produce today.

Ebay has 2500 items listed as part of this auction, and if you collect old cane rods – all the masters are represented; Walton Powell, Payne, Leonard, Orvis, Winston, Gary Howell’s, Nash, Thomas & Thomas, F.E. Thomas, etc.

… and the reels to go with them are also present in force; Meek, Milum, Hardy, Gehrke, Meisselbach, Ross, Galvan, and everyone else.

There’s quite a lot of sporting gear including a Ward Brother’s Redhead decoy, canoes, and correspondence from almost every noteworthy angler to and from Ms. Shaw. Fish decoys, duck calls, something for every sporting taste.

I would eyeball the flies while you’re able, fly tyers of this quality are squirreled away to preserve the organic materials and dye colors. There appears to be about 50 lots of Walt Dette’s work, and nearly 100 lots of Helen Shaw flies – including one collection of 338 flies, starting bid $4000.

You must sign up for the auction in advance, simply click on any of the items and read the process. Grab a mug of coffee and wander through this unique display.

You may want to rethink putting an antisocial fellow in charge

Where ist meine Dry Flies Every military entity has it’s elite shock troops – those fellows with polished braid, erect bearing, and starched berets. Sometimes they represent the best in us and sometimes the worst, depending on their leadership…

Bite Back magazine – a glossy rag appealing to the radical fringe of the anti-meat, anti-fur, crowd, lists among it’s victories the defacement and destruction of the Bank House Fly Fishery, a fly fishing club in Lancashire, England.

“On Monday 22nd members of the angling retribution squad visited bank house fly fisherie in caton lancaster uk. We ripped down competion pictures and generally made a mess of their little club house of death. Before leaving we trashed 3 windows including a big glass door. We want to make it clear this is just the start of our campaign and unless bank house fly fisherie stops the slaughter of innocent life for their perverted pleasure we will return and things will be taken to the next level. The choice is yours. Angling Retribution Squad

It begs the question, if fly fishing were to have elite shock troops – what great blow would they strike, and what would be the entry requirements?

Ski masks and AK47’s are old news, courtesy of Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army, and a catchy name would help to strike mortal terror in the hearts and minds of the populace…

It’s a cinch some dimwit would suggest emptying bloody Cul de Canard feathers on the steps of Congress, but all the fly tyer’s in the group would either boycott the attack – or scoop what they could carry. An easy trail to follow with some fellow running down the street and a feather blizzard in his wake.

A scrawled note from the Nymphal Freedom Deliverance Army would have great effect, but once they found out it wasn’t porn, most of the leaflets would line canary cages.

I think if I had the opportunity to be the “Oberleutnant Sturmfuhrer” of the NFDA, I might suggest adding six or seven additional chromosomes to triploid fish, hoping to make them “grab-oid’s”. It’s self serving and anti-revolutionary, but then I’m not so sure I wouldn’t “drop dime” on my compatriots just to have the river to myself.

An ignoble end to a worthy opponent

They nurse a grudge It’s the senseless exploitation that makes fish hate us, demeaning a noble foe by toeing him into the brush, worse yet, making him lick the feet of his master, that type of brutality is carried down into the gene pool and remembered.

I bet fish were once like slippery dogs, you throw the fly – they catch and return it; as most lacked the good sense of a setter or retriever, they’d play tug of war rather than drop the fly at your feet.

The news that we’re eating them probably made them reluctant to play, and now – pressing them into a lifetime of servitude munching Mrs Ledbetter’s bunions is the last straw.

Bui was personally delivered a letter Thursday informing her of the agency’s decision, which was based on a state law that all implements used in pedicures had to be “sanitized, disinfected, or disposed of after each service to protect salon customers from the possibility of disease and infections.”

“You can clean files and other equipment, but there is just no way to sanitize live fish,” said Christine Anthony, a spokeswoman for the agency.

I’m not so certain, as fish-nibbling pedicures was a thriving concern – why not increase profits by expanding the venue to include fish and chips while you’re being nibbled?

Wait for the customer to leave, take the tub into the back room and deep fry the contents. It makes as much sense as shooting the human performing the pedicure, aren’t they an implement as well?

I’d certainly make enough to keep me in rods and Whiting hackle

Fear may be outselling sex of late, what with elections so close and a significant block of voters needing to be scared into voting. We’ve covered the Red Menace, the Yellow Horde, the Scourge of the Sahara, and what’s needed to galvinate public opinion is a good old threat close to home.

Bar the door and pass the ammo

When they finish eating all the baby salmon, it’s house pets and your angelic daughter that’s next – not to mention they pee indiscriminately in your drinking water.

I’d like to think of myself as a modern day Willard – King of the Pest fish with legions of ravenous piscine torpedoes willing to do my bidding, but I can’t even get them to eat my flies regular, much less attack fellow anglers and devour them upon command.

The Pied Piper of Pikeminnow’s is one Nikolay Zaremskiy whose currently in the top spot for bounty claimed in Oregon’s ongoing war with the Pikeminnow.

In the first five months of the season, he hauled in 6,453 pikeminnows, earning a bounty of more than $52,292 — far outpacing his closest competitor, David Vasilchuk of Vancouver, Wash.

If I lived in the area, retired or otherwise I’d be all over this – $10,000 per month to fish all day with Madam’s blessing, she’d likely pack me a lunch and buss me on the cheek – provided I showered.

With all the Pentagon’s wunder-toys you’d think they’d have a Predator Submarine with a line of 11 year olds itching to fry a Pikeminnow with a particle beam. It doesn’t necessarily promote the finest elements of fishing – but if you charged a quarter for a couple minutes at the controls it’d pay for the R&D program in a weekend.

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Try Brownlining, your neighbors will like you more

It's quite the hatch, for some folks He certainly shows an enterprising bent, but I think he needs to get out more often. Trapped in an urban setting, there’s always some fishing venue that’ll draw less attention to yourself.

It’s unclear what the daily bag limit is – but being arrested by the authorities with 500 in possession is just a trifle much. It’s guaranteed to incur the wrath of us law-abiding anglers as wasteful is about the only sin that focuses our collective ire.

What trips poachers up is returning to the scene for another round of angling debauch, unfortunately with that many pairs of missing women’s underwear, the authorities are bound to be lying in wait.

I figure he fishes cane, as those fellows always were a bit “twitchy.”

Would Salmon lose their appeal if they were overweight?

That's a Big'Un, alright Will Salmon retain it’s place of nobility among fishermen if they all have big guts, too much cholesterol, and arses to match?

Science is many things, and some aren’t terribly pretty. Fish scientists have labored to find food to feed farmed fish that grows more “fish protein” than it takes to raise the feed..

It’s the same battle they’re facing with alternative energy.

Doctor’s have been warning us of the perils of McDonald’s fries for years, yet suddenly it’s a surprise to learn that feeding vegetable oil to penned fish grows more flab?

This is the first time we can refer to large-scale trials on fish over an entire generation, where we gain more fish protein in the form of salmon than we use to produce the fish feed.

Next time my girlfriend starts to scold me about my ample midsection she’ll get a scientific earful – “that’s human protein, dammit – now fork over more pie.”

They’re pen-raised but seals will ensure plenty escape, and with big guts, I’d like to see a female scape pea gravel into a nest – considering she hasn’t seen her tail in years.

… and you can forget jumping, sure – they’ll porpoise a few times when they’re rested, and the fast water will give them an assist – but is this still the same fishery when you have to wade out to unhook them?

I’ve handled plenty of unsavory fish, but can’t say I’d reach for some sweating silvery blimp that’d founder unless I held him upright.

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Everyone likes a fish that jumps, until now

… and Brownliner’s are the only line of defense for the nation’s waterways.

A recent story on a child being knocked unconscious by a jumping Asian Carp piqued my interest, what I wasn’t prepared for is the scope of the issue and how far reaching the problem has become.

Imported by Midwest farmers to filter ponds, and escaping into the Mississippi River during flood season, the Asian Carp is on a collision course with the cold waters of the Great Lakes and Canada – and only an electric fence exists between them and the projected collapse of the entire fishery.

Asian Carp Invasion – Part 2

Their behavior is something you have to see to believe. It’s thought that the leap into the air as a reaction to predators, but millions of 10-20 lb fish going airborne at the same time is enough to deny rivers to pleasure boat traffic completely.

Asian Carp Invasion – Part 1

I’d hate to think a wading angler might get the same reaction.

We’re used to mini and micro invasive species that a liberal dose of 409 can stymie, but I don’t think you’re prepared to combat something that can take you out just as quickly.

The rough fish contingent may be able to slow them somewhat as they blow through the brown water, but this is a cold water fish and may be the future of many streams that hold trout. It’s silver and jumps so you may not miss much …

Wolves identified as root cause of West Coast Salmon decline

Part Hollywood and part factual The Kern County Water agencies refiled their lawsuit against the California Department of Fish and Game over the Striped Bass depredation of Delta Smelt, and coupled with recent findings that wolves prefer salmon over deer, can another suit be far behind?

“Salmon is a safe resource in contrast to deer that could kick back and break your ribs or skull – which happens quite often with wolves. The fish is highly nutritious. Salmon offers a bit more protein but the real bonus is that it offers more fat. It has four times more calories bite for bite than deer.

We’re a silly and litigious bunch and anyone that filed the former writ and kept a straight face, should have no problem suing Idaho, Montana, and Canada.

Election year logic is always part Hollywood and part factual, I see the complaint as follows:

Since we haven’t yet agreed on the whole “human versus embryo” issue, it’s fair to say that the water evaporating off the rivers of California makes up storm clouds that rain on Idaho and Montana…

OK, sometimes they do that ..

Some innocent salmon Stem Cell in the throes of mitosis has to be sucked up in the water going skyward, what with all the estrogen and birth control residue saturating the watershed, feminizing everything – might spur a she-male to unleash something early.

As both Idaho and Montana, have propagated both wolves and habitat, wolves preferring salmon over every other furry critter – and the zygote being too small to see, it’s likely they kilt several dozen just by walking around – the rest they ate.

Still with me?

So the decline in Pacific Salmon is the wolves fault.

Wolves lack tangible assets, so we’ll sue snot out of anyone that every threw the mangy SOB a cookie…