Category Archives: current events

Why the trout fairy tale no longer has a happy ending

Global_Warming I’m a sucker for the dim view, given that economics and temperature mixed with apathy and the potential decline in size of the US government adds up to be  the worst scenario, not the neutral agent others envision.

The short version is that a panel of 11 scientists from Colorado State University, Trout Unlimited, the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group, have released a study of four trout species that suggests we’ll be losing half of all trout habitat over the next seventy years.

Most of that loss will be attributed to rising temperatures and global warming, and depending on which warming model is chosen – will dictate how much and how fast – and determines whether we care whether girls use saddle hackles or mule dung in their hair …

Congress is adamant the size of government must be reduced, given we owe most of the GDP to those countries still able to buy our debt, and depending on how much we decide to divest, will be eager to prune wasteful dollars funding watchdog agencies and trout planting – areas that hinder industry from creating  millions of jobs, or serve only the privileged few … us fishermen.

Trout Unlimited and every privately funded conservation group added together couldn’t save  a single river, especially so due to the waves of genetically-superior invasives outcompeting historical residents. Carp might be able to survive a couple of decades longer, but standoffish salmonids have no chance whatsoever.

Mostly because you guys balked when AquaBounty insisted they could insert the gene for sharp teeth and claws – which would’ve allowed them to go toe to toe with all those foreign regiments climbing out of the bilge water.

Instead you left their fate to boards of directors filled with well meaning retirees gashing themselves over “how come they let them trout’s die,” whose wailing lent wings to global warming.

health_careThis being the age of Tea Parties, Beauty Queens from Alaska, and indistinguishable political parties, who’ve got no reason to keep industry in check, or slow their exploitation. Well meaning types weakened by foreclosure and the enforced idleness that comes with 24 months of unemployment, are likely to let down their at the lure of lasting and permanent jobs. Most of those will be cleaning the Pristine because BP fracked it, or something equally poisonous.

That’s more than likely the causal agent of most of the habitat loss, only the body scientific is reluctant to confess and endanger additional grants.

Should the globe warm a couple of degrees as science is predicting, that’ll clear both coastline and interior so they can pave and erect great glass edifices proclaiming our victory over Nature; how we booted Bambi from crapping on all that real estate – and gave her a spacious suite at the Zoo as reward …

They’re hurting, these men of a certain age. Losing their livelihood isn’t the only “transition” they’re going through. Dr. Jed Diamond, author of Surviving Male Menopause and The Irritable Male Syndrome, calls it a “double whammy.” The first: “a change of life, hormonally based, affecting our psychology and emotions from 40 to 55.” The second: unemployment. “It’s devastating. The extreme reaction is suicide, but before you get there, there’s irritability and anger, fatigue, loss of energy, withdrawal, drinking, more fights with their wives.”

– from Dead Suit Walking, Newsweek Magazine

Newsweek calls our demographic the “Beached White Male” (BWM), suggesting the real casualties of the recession being middle aged college educated white boys. Add in all them guts spilling over waistlines and the Type II Diabetes epidemic that’s about to leave the streets paved in corpses –  and our generation will have destroyed most of the tillable sections of the globe, as well as eliminated any need for (non televised) sports, the out of doors, and John Wayne …

… then paid the price in one spasmodic orgy of cholesterol.

Which I find strangely appropriate, proof that despite all the advances of science we’ve never listened to anything other than our reproductive organs and our gut – settling the whole issue about whether we read it for the pictures or the articles …

As we do so love to count the little darlings

There are as many flavors of angler as counting systems, and we’ve all been faced with “The Accounting” … that most common of questions put to us by spectators. It has to blend with our ethics, for those that think them other than liability has to match any remaining shreds of honor, be capable of impressing a disinterested onlooker with the quality of the experience we’ve completed, and convey to other anglers the measure of our sophistication, whether that be as a smack down, a gentle greeting, or in rare cases – the truth.

… and while we wish it otherwise the body count of the day’s fishing is made fulsome or sparse based on whichever counting system we hold in esteem, our mood, and the demeanor of them posing the question.

“… all I caught was a cold.” Humorous, dismissive, lacks detail. Best used on non-fishermen as the experience is known and shared.

“ … I caught fitty-six.” Smack down flavor, omits fly used and technique, no mention of location. Best used on fellow fly fisherman that saw you as a source of quality information – yet failed to recognize the tell-tale signs of you being a humorless prick …

“ … it was slow, they were finicky, and my fingernails are too long.” Semi-friendly, non-committal, best used when two “gunslingers” feel each other out – terse without being mean, reluctant to give offense …

Then there’s this guy …

kolodz

2,649 Bluegill landed in one 24 hour angling marathon. A Guinness World Record for that many colored maggots drowned by one fellow for the sake of charity. Lacking a calculator … it’s two fish per minute.

Jeff Kolodzinski completed the marathon fishing event as part of Fishing for Life, a non-profit organization that exposes kids to the outdoors and creates a sense of community through fishing.

The new record is now 2,649 fish caught in a 24-hour period.

The previous record was set last year at the same spot.

I’ve seen a documentary on this fellow from last year, how the area is baited in advance of the effort, no reel used as it slows him down, simplest rig possible – dyed live maggots in a half dozen shades.

… and yes, the number of curious onlookers that ask him “how’s fishing?” or “how’d you do” is equally staggering.

Fish with Nugent & the Trumps, if not for the entertainment value, then perhaps for charity

Ted Nugent and us Weekend Warriors It’s a mixture of chance or luck that aligns celebrities with the love of the out of doors. We’ve enjoyed a lot of minor nobles and B-list celebs, interspersed with Presidents and hedge fund big wigs, but that mainstream banner-carrier continues to elude us  …

… mostly because the jury is still pending on that Jesus thing, at least until they roll away the stone and find a couple of hammered Roman KastMasters at the bottom of the ossuary …

Of them that’s left, only Ted Nugent commands enough testosterone and unabashed outdoor goodness to plow through all them animal firsters, animal rights and lefts, and Vegans, to hold a reporter’s interest long enough to pin a couple soundbytes on the evening news.

For that, we love him.

Now Ted has promised to entertain you for charity with some unlikely bedfellows, given that the Trump children aren’t known for straying too far from armed guards and penthouse – never the less both factions have decided to set aside all differences to entertain you while you fish.

The iconic madman and avid hunter has put a day of hunting and fishing at his Waco, Texas compound on the auction block at leading charity auction site charitybuzz.com. The lucky winning bidder and a guest with join Ted Nugent, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump Jr. for a day they’ll never forget.
The experience, valued at $30,000, is open for bidding through August 8th at: http://www.charitybuzz.com/catalog_items/270205

I can only hope one of the Trump’s breaks a nail – while Ted runs down live prey and eats it raw – sending the NY contingent scrambling for  their jet – or temporary cover behind their manicurist …

Knowing my audience I figure the Ted must’ve earned a special place in your Camaro or Trans-Am, and while your coin may come dear in this challenging economy, the desire is still there …

Supercatchables & Shovel Ready: Spending 5000 dollars to catch you

Fish_Education Angered over the recent contest won by Roscoe, New York as America’s Fishing Town, the principality of Dunsmuir, California, decided to squander precious treasury dollars to become Home of the Mashed Fin Fatty.

With its long history as a fishing destination, the town is tossing a fly of its own onto I-5, hoping to lure oodles of free spending fishermen. It plans to purchase $5000 worth of two foot long Rainbow trout and sprinkle them within the confines of the township hoping they’ll get caught.

“Every week we’re going to see a picture of some kid holding a fish wider than he is. It’ll be in the newspaper. It’ll get on the internet.”

Figure a couple year’s worth of sodden flesh draped over the arms of beaming tourists, a couple videos gone viral, and word spread on all that hatchery goodness.

Hookers might have been cheaper …

Should a town really wish to be a magnet for fishermen, it needs to put in the appropriate infrastructure, including; at least two adult restaurants open after 10PM (adult is defined by the cook being so in deed as well as name), a breakfast stop open before dawn, a fly shop off Main Street, a source of 24 hour ice and gas, ample sleeping arrangements from posh to outdoors, and a Laundromat open both Saturday & Sunday.

… and it is easy to hate the Trout Underground, given all the current riches he enjoys being so tawdry and commonplace as to need an upgrade to Fish X, and Fish Y, and with his connections to Councilman Raine, I’m sure they’ll drop a couple of fish within casting distance of his verandah.

… specially  trained, dry fly only …

Dinner is a sure start to extinction

All our lives we’ve dreamt of this fish, and when it arrives we think it something beneath our refined taste buds and certainly unworthy of sport.

The fact that you continue to purchase Budweiser is testimony to your lack of tastebuds, ensuring you’d enjoy a donut about as much as a dog turd if both were glazed equally…

That’s primarily because you guys are optimists and think should you remain aloof something more befitting will come along. As a pessimist, I know better …

In 2008, Asian carp made up 82 percent of the commercial catch on the Illinois River and 30 percent on the Mississippi, according to the Illinois DNR.

– via St Louis Today

Fourteen or fifteen states gets a fish that leaps into the boat its so eager to get caught, and rather than thank Heaven for a little tawdry sport in a river that grows more coliform bacteria than biomass, we’ve got to appoint a Czar to wage war on it …

Fortunately there’s a little “out of the box” thinking left in the lower 48, and rather than turn up their nose at all this free protein, St. Louis has decided to de-bone it, grind it up, and serve it as canned tuna and fish sticks to the city’s poor.

If Obama had any real stones he’d march a contingent of Secret Service down to Mickey Dee’s and get Ronald McDonald some waders …

The real question is the fat content of raw crude

fish-sticks It would be easier if fishermen actually liked eating fish, but most of you simply enjoy torturing them and put them back instead.

By doing so, the Federal government would like you to know you’re adding to the trade deficit, depriving the US of thousands of domestic jobs, as well as propagating the notion you’re a complete prick.

That’s because they mine your Facebook page and know you scored an exotic and imported Fillet O’ Fish on your return to civilization. Ignoring domestic fish flesh in favor of adding to the nearly insurmountable debt burden your children must assume …

… yes, the very same children that flipped you off when you inquired would any of them trade joystick for some mountain air that weekend …

The Obama administration is fast tracking approvals on our domestic waters for fish farming so we lower imports of those flaccid fillets in favor of growing our own – in the heady soup of nitrogenous fertilizers and female hormones that pour out of our coastal waterways.

Michael Rubino, who heads NOAA’s aquaculture program, said expanding the area where fish farming is allowed will boost production, create new jobs and help ease concerns that some imported seafood may be tainted with industrial wastes.

* snicker

Naturally it’s the Gulf of Mexico that’s the initial recipient. Converting all those idle oil platforms and out of work fishermen into pellet shoveling fish ranches, repopulating those empty miles of taint with genetically engineered freaks capable of reproduction without cell division …

Pump a couple gallons of crude off the bottom, scratch match, and Gortons can bring the refrigerator ship alongside and pack hell out of fish sticks – breaded or unleaded … whichever they’ve contracted for …

… and we can watch them help themselves to our tax dollars when the oxygen-deprived dead zone shifts their way and wipes out the fish, the sea lice, and anything else wet …

and we do so love our Fisheries and their science

We Love Science Science suggests that it would prefer you not call an invasive species,  invasive …

Firstly, it may hurt their feelings, and secondly, given that it’s successful in outcompeting the local fare means it’s possibly superior (owning Adonis DNA), and may simply be species extincting a weaker occupant of the same resource …

In short, as history is written by the victors, it’s merely a Darwin thing, not a full fledged invasion.

To illustrate the peaks and valleys of successful science allow me to mention how a recent study in Japan illustrates how a terrestrial snail has a 15% chance of survival given their digestion by birds and crapped out after the full tour of the gastrointestinal tract …

This is the first study of its kind to show that the bird’s and their droppings are able to disperse living snails to other geographical locations. One snail managed to show the researchers that entire snail families could be transported by the birds. Not long after being ingested, one small gave birth to juveniles not long after passing through the gut of the bird.

Turn of the century studies have shown that diatoms can pass through a bird gut unharmed, given the armor of snails and their small size it’s not surprising that incomplete digestion might occur and birds might disperse a viable population outside their normal range.

In our continual battle against “Superior Darwin-esque victor-species” birds (ducks especially) may well be responsible for a portion of their travels.

Think didymo, mussels and snails …

… and for the Invasive chuckle of the week …

The Giant Salvinia is one of the more horrific invasives being battled intensely in the Southern United States. It spreads faster than daylight and completely chokes off lakes and waterways – rendering them impossible to navigate due to sheer volume of weed.

Giant salvinia is able to double in number and biomass in less than three days in optimal conditions and forms dense mats on still waters. The plant can regenerate even after severe damage or drying. The explosive growth of giant salvinia not only adversely affects the natural ecological system of the infested region, but it also causes considerable economic damage and sanitation problems.

… and has recently been found to cure cancer in humans, go figure.

I’ll wait until the AMA confirms the finding before grabbing a couple handfuls for my tub, a vain attempt to make up for all them cheap cheroots I sucked down earlier.

Insensitive to food and fashion

Millions of impressionable school girls casting themselves onto railroad tracks or off bridges knowing the lack of animal remnants and the cold, bolted door of the salon – means they’re doomed to uncool, where even the prom is in doubt.

That’s PETA’s plan, who apparently doesn’t mind condemning a few hundred thousand gals to tears, in favor of saving a few scrawny chickens. I figure its a clear-cut case of age-typing, where anything over 15 has bound to have eaten McNuggets and therefore is collateral damage.

PETA_Feather_Hair_Extension

PETA’s official response to the entire hair extension phenomenon, is “a scrap of ribbon and a magic marker is the same thing” – proving that all that Vegan brainwashing has made them completely insensitive to both food and fashion.

THATSSOLAMEDUH.

Now it’s only a matter of time before a bunch of skinny guys wearing ski-masks rush The Whiting Farm’s barbed wire – hoping the press of their numbers gets them through the claymores.

Big Oil will need a couple of lodges just to house all them VP’s

A few thousand gallons of crude down the Yellowstone is merely a drop in the bucket compared to what that area may be facing. It’s called a lot of things, but “oil shale” is about the best way to describe the discovery of oil deposits that may dwarf those of Saudi Arabia … within the confines of our territorial borders …

… at last count enough to power the US for years, and might go much more, we’ll know once the latest seismic estimates are completed some two years from now.

A McDonald’s worker earns $15 an hour, given the manpower shortage, and North Dakota has no housing troubles, nor unemployment woes, as they’re in the midst of the biggest oil discovery this century, with the eastern half the state and northwestern Montana having both the Bakken and Three Forks shale formations, likened to one big gusher sitting on top of a second. Exhaust one and drill a bit deeper to tap the second …

Bakken Oil Formation

The downside being how vile and nasty all that “fracking” of native rock will be – given that petroleum recovery uses enormous quantities of water to be pumped down the well along with sand to force the oil out of all that prairie.

Continental has developed a new drilling concept it calls Eco-Pad to exploit both reservoirs. One rig will develop a 2-square-mile area by drilling eight wells—four into the Bakken layer and four into the Three Forks. Each well goes down two miles, then horizontally two miles through the reservoir. Using explosive charges, the drillers will make hundreds of holes (called “perforations”) in the pipe of each well. Then comes the hydraulic fracturing— where the well is injected with 1.8 million gallons of water and sand that props open tiny fractures in the dolomite rock to let out the oil. The “Eco” in this Eco-Pad concept? All this work on eight giant wells gets done from one spot, causing less surface impact.

– via Forbes.com

Given the West is already water-starved where’s all them new gallons coming from? More importantly, where are they going afterwards, given the post-frack oil-water mixture will be intermingling with the native groundwater and will play hell with farmers and anyone else with the courage to drink all that oil tainted brew.

Which leads to an unwelcome conclusion, just how many of them Yellowstone area rivers will be surviving un-dammed in the face of hordes of thirsty SUV’s and a couple of states renowned for voting for a lot of partisan, asinine, stuff?

The current estimates of the reserves are at 12 Billion, and while guiding and the wilderness experience offers considerable revenue, it’s most likely ends in an “m” than a “b” .

Now that North Dakota has the fastest growing economy in the Nation, like Texas and Alaska it’s probable they’ll take a shine to Stetson’s and big cigars, given they’ve got one of the smallest populations of voters – most of which are almighty thankful someone tossed a bone in their direction.

Which brings us to the issues of a couple thousand gallons of crude during high water. All that oil located in out-of-the-way locales require an enormous amount of plumbing and pipelines to move all that Black Gold to them as wants to refine and burn it.

Which’ll lead to pipelines headed in all directions, under and over rivers, and will bring most of that petroleum to the population dense markets.

It’s already the largest construction project in the US today, imagine what it’ll be shortly.

… these being the Good Old Days …

A change of heart is fine, just drop the shoe price by half and we’ll like you again

vibram As mentioned this morning in Angling Trade, SIMMS has apparently pulled the plug on its self imposed felt ban, and will be making all manner of felt soled wading shoes for 2012.

Naturally we’ll assume that’s it’s the suddenly decreased threat of Didymo that’s the root cause of this change-of-heart, or it may simply be the recognition that angler behavior is the key to invasive species spread, and like prostitution, it’s tough to legislate morality.

Me, I think their holy oath resulted in being spanked smartly in the retail aisle, given any discussion on rubber soles amongst anglers brings great froth, dissent, and much vitriol over their efficacy. Adding additional burden has been the lack of reliable information from shoes owners, given that the same boot is mentioned both as slippery, useless, and wonderful, depending on who’s doing the pontificating.

One industry insider said it best, “Simms tried to score green marketing points at everyone else’s expense, and after they largely succeeded, now want the brown dollars to go with them…”

Nothing like the potential for a downward slide of the sales graph to make folks rethink their commitment to the Pristine.

“We know felt is not the only material that has spread invasive species and disease,” Walsh said, “but felt is surely part of the problem. At Simms, we’ve decided to be part of the solution.”

The SIMMS “solution” being to orphan your current shoe, sell you a new rubber variant that is less reliable in slime, then have a sudden change of heart, hoping us anglers follow blindly and buy another set?

Fat chance of that happening, you’ve mortgaged what faith your public had already, Lumpy.

I say SIMMS should drop their shoe price by half, allowing us anglers to purchase two pair, which will allow us to be less infectious as we can swap wet for dry, and potentially restore some of that good will we once had toward vendors.

You can get some good will…  I love SIMMS already – due to the panic caused by their earlier announcement, I scored three sets at $40 when the shops unloaded all that tasty felt  …