Category Archives: current events

If you want me to pat you on the Arse, then the suffering had better be commensurate

It’s like hiring someone else to do your fighting for youI like the idea, but it smacks of a “gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today” ecological balance. It’s nice that these issues are slowly being acknowledged, but passing the burden to someone else isn’t deprivation, it’s just making the minimum payment on a credit card.

I’m not an ecology zealot, I still have to drive somewhere to fish and I don’t  blink at the consequences, but if I did, the suffering must be immediate to be rewarded.

The way I see it, there are no points scored for extincting a couple dozen species then feeling bad about it, you don’t wait until they’re all gone to change, if you’re sincere about the issue you have to endure hardship, as anything else is lip service.

So, to offset the effect of the fishing tournament on global warming, its promoters are buying carbon mitigation credits. Previously, after calculating the carbon footprint of the annual Gator-Seminole football game, NWF sponsored the planting of 158 acres of trees that will take 10 years to offset that one game’s carbon output.

On a humorous note, I wonder whether them scientists calculated for the obligatory “jawbone” session post-contest. If you’ve endured a group of anglers reciting feats of prowess, you’ll realize there’s more carbon released in the parking lot than the entire sailfish fleet at full throttle.

Maybe that’s the penance we’re seeking, the immediate carbon payback needed to cleanse ourselves of guilt, us fishermen have to tell the truth – the planet depends on it.

Goddamn scary thought…

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The Before and After – The Rise of the Big Muddy

Sleepy and Pastoral

The “Little Stinking” in it’s August benevolence, quiet, peaceful, scenic, and odiferous.

Swollen and unmanagable, damn near the same color

The “Big Muddy” from the same vantage point, 6″ of rain later. The color is damn near the same, so I’ll be fishing it by lunch today – via jetboat..

As both photos were taken from the same spot, it looks like about a 3 foot increase in flows. I make it 10 extra turns of lead wire, or a 4mm tungsten bead should do it…

Thanks, we needed that..

Gifts from the Wind God I’m still surveying the landscape changes from yesterday’s storm. I had the day off and a ringside seat to the festivities. I’m minus two fences, lost power for 14 hours, and received 3 new garbage cans from the Wind God, so I may have broken even.

Most of yesterday we received about 0.25 to 0.3 inches of rain per hour, and it was sorely needed as this winter has been as dry as any I can remember – delivered horizontal, due to the wind ranging from 40 to 60 mph, but we’re not going to quibble.

I’m guessing we may have to dig the Trout Underground out of a snowbank, if he received anything similar to what the valley got, we’ll have to locate him by his avalanche transponder.

I took a quick run out to the Little Stinking, and it’s now the Big Muddy. Swollen to about 4 times it’s normal size, and purging all of the instream debris into the Sacramento River. I guess if we’re going to see any salmon this year, it’ll be soon. Traditionally it runs at about 400 cfs,  yesterday it peaked at 12,000 cfs, and is running at about 1400 cfs now.

Naturally the camera batteries were played out, I’ll make another run later just to record the high water mark. We got somewhere between 4″ and 6″ of rain yesterday, and the effects are obvious.

I think I’ll have to add 6 or 8 more turns of lead on my flies..

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Am I supposed to swipe it on a rock each time I thump a fish, or is that next

Required for any outdoors pursuitRecent statistics on outdoors usage suggests the non lethal forms of adventure are on the rise; bird watching, kayaking, etc. Little surprise that some enterprising government is quick to cash in on the phenomenon, I just figured we’d be the first to tax the outdoorsmen into oblivion.

Governments have never been shy about separating you from your money, licensing costs have been rising steadily for quite some time. Introducing the “Outdoors Card” a new levy from the Ontario government, required before you can purchase a fishing or hunting license.

Poorly named, as I can see Mothers sending their waif off to school, “..got your books, lunch, and scarf? …did you remember your Outdoor’s card?”

Fishing Card (valid for 3 calendar years)

  • Fishing Card Only – no licence
    $5.88 
  • Fishing Card with 3-year Conservation Fishing Licence
    $47.10 
  • Fishing Card with 3-year Sport Fishing Licence
    $76.59 

Naturally the above pricing is in Loonies, the Canadian dollar. We can expect to see similar treatment here in the states, hopefully the name will be less onerous, and remember to carry your wallet when you’re in your backyard.

If them fellows were really thinking, they would play to an angler’s vanity with “gold” and “platinum” cards. Most of us would pay the extra couple of bucks willingly if it was connected with consumption or weight.

Most of that 42 Billion was snagged on tree branches

Money spent by the sporting crowd The final 2006 Federal fishing and hunting statistics have been released refining preliminary numbers posted earlier this year.

The most popular fish species among the 25.0 million anglers who fished freshwater other than the Great Lakes was black bass. Ten million spent 161 million days fishing for black bass. Following black bass in popularity were several species with a similar number of anglers and days of fishing. Panfish were pursued by 7.5 million anglers on 102 million days. Catfish and bullheads drew 7.0 million anglers on 98 million days. About 6.8 million anglers fished for trout on 76 million days. Crappie fishing attracted 6.2 million anglers on 91 million days.

That makes trout a distant fourth, with Brownliner fish scoring the top three spots. Most of my trips this year have been “crappy,” it’s nice to know I’m squarely in the mainstream, as it takes the fifth spot.

The sobering element is that fishing still is 75% men, 25% women, and each year of college reduces your chances of being a fisherman. I’m guessing they meant, “each year of college completed” – they don’t count agricultural studies in Hops, Barley, or Hemp.

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"It’s the line of death Infidel, beyond which your backcast will not cross.."

Overreacting a little bit It’s the tertiary phase of plundering a communal resource, tensions around the globe are escalating mightily around fishing and fishermen.

North and South Korea got into a shoving match at Panmunjom, the Russians have just confiscated Japanese trawlers, and even Croatia is about to lay claim to parts of the Adriatic. Little wonder that boorish angling behavior is on the rise domestically.

We’ve all been victimized, and we’ve read tales of uncaring oafs disturbing someone’s in-stream reverie in most of the major periodicals. Perhaps it’s not as personal as once thought – maybe it’s a growing trend.

Competition for fishing resources is on the increase, even though anglers are on the decline.  “Quality” fishing is available in an ever shrinking area, and despite fewer anglers, fresh and saltwater fisheries are losing ground. Similar issues beset commercial fishermen, with the developing countries protesting their fishing grounds are being ravaged by the fleets from developed countries.

Fishing etiquette assumes neither fellow is starving, while that isn’t likely anytime soon, you may want to pause before ripping an interloper a new one. It’s probable that as the pristine areas shrink, we’ll be forced into ever closer contact.

I’m not saying I like it, I’d rather not go down in history as “..the guy that yelled at Jesus..”

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I think I’ll sidestep the issue and add Pickles

Fish recall The latest Chinese toy recalls include 14000 fishing games, containing a fishing pole and 4 practice fish – all exceeding the allowable levels of lead. With all the furor associated with lead in toys, I’m wondering whether anyone has thought to test real fish?

We yank the plastic rod out of the little tyke’s hands, and to keep him from crying – hand him a Tuna sandwich?

Mercury and Arsenic always get top billing, but lead has to be right up there, and what better way to smooth Sino-American relations then by recalling all them Beijing Fillet O’ Fish sandwiches?

Lead in fish is measured in PPM (parts per million), lead exposure is in micro-grams, lacking a conversion table I’m not sure whether to spit out the tuna or  add additional mayo to thin it … This is where it gets really complex, as additional celery or onions may contain Ecoli, mayo is oily “white death”, and more tuna boosts the exposure – it’s a case of “pick your favorite poison.”

Too darn complex for me, I’ll duck the issue by adding pickles and take my chances.

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Lake Davis gets some new residents

Lake Davis, California I was only kidding about the “too-big” trout for pike to eat, it appears the Department of Fish and Game was paying attention however, as they’ve just planted 33,000 pounds of 2-4lb Eagle Lake rainbows in Lake Davis.

Actually it was the American River hatchery that pressed the issue, as the trout earmarked to restock the lake were growing too large to retain in pens.

Results of the poisoning were also published, 50,000 pounds of dead fish were recovered after the lake was treated, 6% were pike, 80% were bullheads, less than 1% were trout.

75,000 more trout will be released in the Spring, the lake will remain closed to all fishing in the interim.

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Fantasy Sports have finally reached their pinnacle

The fantasy partGuilty. I am a devotee of fantasy football, usually my fantasy ends on draft night and becomes a horrid reality the following Sunday.

I knew it was only a matter of time, but now we’ve got Fantasy Fishing –  I can look forward to public humiliation at the hands of my favorite bass pro.

Any fantasy sports aficionado knows the strength of his team lies in avoiding injury, while “torn anterior cruciate” ligaments end the season for football players, I can only imagine how a strained Gluteus Maximus would cut a season short for a fisherman.

I suppose I can check injury reports by reading the Police Blotter, scanning the “drunk and disorderly” section, thankfully most newspapers are online now.

A $1,000,000 cash prize is available, so start preparing your draft. I’ll trade Tom Chandler and Ernie Schwiebert for Cal Bird, any takers?

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Methinks immigration is a bigger issue than Republicans are willing to let on

Sandhill CraneThe debate continues about Global Warming, whether it’s a gradual warming of the Earth’s crust due to natural cyclic reasons, or whether cow farts and muscle cars are the root of all evil.

Like most of you, i’ll let the intelligentsia debate the issue, and when someone has a plan to fix it, we’ll do our share.

Of the many issues of interest, one with vast implications for both anglers and the rest of society is how the historic ranges of many species are expanding. Species move from the historic zones to new cooler areas trying to keep ahead of the temperature.

Maybe them “Africanized” killer bee’s and South American Fire Ants is smarter than we thought, as they may be the tip of the iceberg of a larger migration of everything northward.

As temperatures rise, animals are seeking cooler climes. In a study of more than 1,500 species, University of Texas biologist Camille Parmesan concluded that 40 percent had shifted their ranges, mostly toward the poles.

A dozen bird species have moved about 12 miles north in Britain, and 39 species of butterflies have shifted north by as much as 125 miles in Europe and North America, according to another study that Parmesan took part in.

Millions of Mediterranean jellyfish have turned up off Northern Ireland and Scotland. The Humboldt squid, which can grow up to 7 feet long, has moved up the California coast as ocean waters warmed.

“It’s the latest in a long series of bad news for fishermen,” said Stanford University’s Lou Zeidberg, adding that squid have been found as far north as Alaska in the past five years.

With warmer weather, 60 percent of plant and animal species are migrating, breeding and blooming earlier in the spring, Parmesan said. But not all are, and that could upset relationships between birds and the insects they feed on as well as insects and the flowers they pollinate.

I guess the “Good News” is that there aren’t many species that eat humans south of us, but if there were – they’ll be headed this way shortly… present company excluded, as most of the residents in Oregon and Washington insist that Californians eat their young…

We can expect a similar migration in our waterways. Having fished a number of “El Nino” seasons – I can vouch for the odd assortment of southern fish that showed up on my hook.

Scientists suggest that fast breeding species can adapt to climate change, slower species cannot. I assume the implication is, “if it lives 80 years and breeds once per annum, it has no chance…”

In the immortal words of John McClane, ” Welcome to the party, pal.”

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