Category Archives: environment

If we introduced Trout Lifecycle in auto shop they might understand the connection

Sir Isaac Lays it Down for small block Chevies It’s a heartwarming article to be sure, local volunteers from Trout Unlimited introducing “Trout in the Classroom” to the bright, eager eyeballs of youth.

Emily Sklenka, a 10-year-old Bristol girl, said watching the eggs hatch and the trout grow will be “really cool.” She said she likes that the fish eye is already visible.

My question would be – when does a small block Chevy thrown off a bridge become “cooler?” Sure, it’s the same impressionable eyeballs doing the deed – enraptured by Natural Order, and balance in Nature, but was it the Physics professor that turned all those potential naturalists into hooligans?

The answer has to be somewhere’s in the 10 to 20 age range; covering Junior High, High School, and the subsequent two years of lounging around deciding what to do next.

“If we didn’t teach them how to eat, they would probably starve,” Swanson said. He told the students that some of the trout won’t be clever enough to survive because they won’t figure out how to eat.

“Some fish just don’t get it,” said Swanson. Those fish, he said, are called pinheads because their body never fills out to match their enlarged heads.

Then again, we could be dealing with the Natural Course Of Things, only our pinheads fill out just fine –  they just have to be taught to work rather than eat. That’s the theory Dad used, but I was hoping it was the Physics professor, I guess I’m still smarting over the ” a tone-deaf little weasel” epithet.

Elastomeric sounds horribly sexy, but it’s still a rubber cap

I figured he was needling me because of my boundless generosity and acute business acumen. It’s a “no brainer” really, what with the decline in the stock market and all of us looking for that second job to make ends meet, I figured to leverage our fishing expertise into big coin…

“Caribou Barbie’s” husband leveraged his into a shot at Mr. Vice President, and his fishing could be from Marine-1 from now on, why should we aspire to less?

All I had in mind was utilizing them precious dirt water skills to go into the scrap metal salvage business – and with Daytripper, the Roughfisher, and myself – that’s three states, and in the current economic climate that’s a multinational conglomerate.

I’ve got more rusting metal in my watershed than the Coral Sea, and at current prices all it takes is a little elbow grease, a couple of conservation organizations to lure into our enterprise, and we can sit back and make like Sanford and Son’s.

Instead, Daytripper sends me a napkin when I need a crane … Microtrash? The smallest refuse in my creek … is me …

How many rusting Audi's will fit in one of these

Saving the environment from the perils of a six inch length of monofilament is a worthy gesture, but in a brownline fishery it’s the scale that’s all wrong.

I need something like Noah’s Ark where I can add rusting debris in pairs; first the Audi’s, then lawnmowers, water heaters, washing machines, tractors, bridge girders, and the small stuff like Volkswagens and Subaru Foresters…

That's a nine foot rod for comparison Think bigger guys, note the small sample to assist you in scoping the effort…

It’s not collecting aluminum beer cans to assist the school band in scoring uniforms, it’s heavy industry and enough income to score us each a couple of burritos.

Remember, after the first couple of million all our sins are forgiven, we’re the lions of the new-New Deal, and the cover of Time and the stony faces of a Senate sub-committee are only a heartbeat away.

Even the Holy Water is suffering mightily

I was considering a pilgrimage to California’s Carp Mecca when my brother gleefully informed me that Clear Lake is suffering from some unknown malady and carp are dying by the bushel.

Great.

I was hoping it was some hunger strike wherein I could render assistance with Darth Clam or some such gaudy worm-based substance, wind up with blisters on my “palming” hand, and rescue the environment in the same breath.

Apparently it’s plant decomposition robbing the water of oxygen, an as yet unidentified virus, or pesticides – and Lake County is digging trenches for disposal of numerous carcasses, hoping to minimize the bouquet. It’s enough to make a brownliner cry – first the local fish serve up a extra helping of extended digit, followed by mass depopulation of the Holy Water…

This year’s Clear Lake Bow Fishing Tournament killed 5 tons of Carp (10,104 pounds), and all I was looking for was a couple confirmed nibbles, it don’t seem hardly fair.

I suppose I could fish for trout, but there’s not enough frustration involved…

Live Bacon excretions prove fatal to Mayflies

The nymphal form of Bacon Based on my own experiences I’ve often wondered how long it’d be until somebody sued someone over farm effluent.

Considering that potable water supplies are a finite resource coveted by land developers and big cities alike, “that little brown creek” will be worth something to someone soon. Environmentalists and fishermen don’t count – they’re the fringe electorate whose predictable foaming of the mouth can be dismissed out of hand…

A PIG farm which polluted a stream with waste so badly that nothing could live in the water other than fungus and worms has been ordered to pay out almost £7,000 by a Suffolk court.

I found myself asking whether I was fungus or the worm ..

With the well documented illnesses spread by farm produce, and unfiltered pumping for irrigation, it also wouldn’t surprise me that some of these outbreaks weren’t caused by surface water – crapped in by all manner of agriculture, warmed to a lethal temperature, and then sprinkled into your evening meal as spinach, tomatoes, or bell peppers.

The thought of my unsavory boots tromping through your side salad should send an average person screaming in terror – fortunately you’re made of sterner stuff, or only eat meat n’ taters..

Hell yes, we can build a better one, maybe a couple dozen flavors

You design it, but don't shoot the messenger I’ve mentioned the topic before, but am reminded anew by today’s story on the FDA’s genetically modified animal approval process.

A great deal of emphasis has been placed on the fly fishing “boutique” experience, complete with ponderous grain fed trout lolling in hygienic currents – for rich patrons and their entourage. It’s been folded into the sport, compliments of the “grip and grin” photo – where “slabs” are awe inspiring, despite being fed Fruit Loops by the shovel full – with a leavening of Human Growth Hormone as chaser…

There’s only a couple million of us – but that’s enough to have Sage or Orvis commission the “perfect trout” – grows four times faster than normal, eats sewage without ill effects, and can reproduce in a rain puddle without stress.

Declining water quality and the loss of critical watershed to development could be countered with genetics – although we’d fist fight over whether to put an asterisk next to any IGFA record book.

We could switch genetics as often as fashion, introducing Brown Trout capable of 60 MPH speeds underwater, prefers Mud Snails to Mayflies, and glows in the dark – allowing all the conundrums of fishing to be laid bare.

In a neighboring watershed we could feature Eastern Brook Trout with teeth as big as sharks, whose impoundments are fenced with Concertina wire – and all the guides carry sidearms … adding risk and fear, something we’ve never had before.

Throw some original DNA in a freezer so’s we could always return to the “Old Timey” flavor, and toss a bunch of dissimilar stem cells in a blender to see what else we could catch…

You know it’s coming, the consumer angle will be first due to it’s broader market, but the boutique experience will surface in some indoor cement pond in lower Manhattan, featuring piped chamber music, Bling water, and complimentary Sushi.

River frontage in the crap water is still cheap – you may want to think outside the streambed …

It’s definitely the water

Fishdoo If I’m growing my vegetables with fish crap – am I going to get the same curled upper lip when I mention it was Carp that made that Spinach?

Like people, the “good looking fish” get all the breaks – and fish with big tails, feelers, and roman noses, are relegated to a second tier of desirability – except for the Catfish, and only because 72 million Southerners insist on it.

I figure the next big outbreak of Ecoli will have everyone pointing at the Pikeminnow, while the Salmon responsible crap indiscriminately in your radishes.

Farmed fish effluent transformed by bacteria into fertilizer – feeding a hydroponic vegetable plot. It sounds like the best of both worlds; no Red dye #3 to taint the rockfish below, and no “trout chow” shoveled into the ocean causing oxygen deprivation and blight.

“Aquaponics” is still on the pricey side – and cannot compete with a ball of fish in the Ocean, but it doesn’t have all the detrimental side effects plaguing the large aqua-farms.

These demands make it tough to compete with foreign and industrial-scale aquaculturists on the metrics of price and size alone. (Luckily, the fast-growing vegetable crops are the primary moneymaker.) Cabbage Hill’s customers are mainly local restaurants and markets that prize what Ferry refers to as “farm-to-table” relationships. “These systems are fairly expensive,” Rakocy notes. “So you have to raise really high-value crops and look for niche markets.”

Now all you need is a hardy, fast growing fish that can thrive in tepid water, doesn’t migrate, and is content to munch stems and seeds, as we’re eating all the other stuff.

It’s in there, both feet and some cheap cigar butts

More scouting on Sunday, also a lot more pillaging of produce. I’m trying to keep pace with the Fat of the Land boys, demonstrating that SaranWrap is for sissies – at least in two states..

I added another 25 lbs of Almonds to the drying rack, a couple of weeks in the garage and my house will be an obscene orgy of baked goods.

The Little Stinking has some water in the lower end again, so the irrigation is slowing a bit, you can contrast what they’ve pulled from the creek with this picture from August 19, 2007… 

Little Stinking 8.19.2007

… and the same stretch of river taken today. The “Horse Barn” effluent dominates what little flow is coming down the channel. 

Little Stinking 8.10.2008

It looks cleaner but it’s not, the 2007 shot was taken later in the day, versus early morning, and the creek is the same ocher-olive as seen in last year’s picture. 

The Singlebarbed fedora, sweat, selenium, and spider guts - lends it that rich patina

Don’t even think about it – that’s a years worth of selenium infused sweat mixed with yesterday’s spider guts, combining for a rich patina of raw dirt masculinity. Dogs pizzle on hydrants – and us Brownline types mark turf similar. 

Attack of the Killer tomato trucks

The fruits of the Little Stinking are evident on every onramp – and for the next month or so hitchhikers will be dodging produce as big rigs swerve onto the freeway.

You giggled at me for fishing in it, now who’s laughing? Think PREGO babe, it’s in there…

Both my feet and a lot of cigar butts Both of my feet and a lot of stale cigar butts I tossed into the creek; just when you thought it was safe and antiseptic – then I pull the rug out…

That’s OK, yesterday I was hip deep in the drinking water of Benecia, Vallejo, and Fairfield – them folks have a more pressing issue.

All them odiferous brown creeks you pass on the Interstate have a heady role in your supermarket. Small and numerous and tended lovingly by your’s truly ….

Ignore the Bouquet, it’s all part of the natural order of things

Migration by truck I don’t think the government would be terribly appreciative but we may want to reintroduce the “Viking funeral” for hardcore anglers, what better way to display your devotion than,  “I want to be nutrients for invertebrates.”

A lot of research has been focused at the effect of pacific salmon carcasses in West Coast fisheries, specifically the benefit performed by many thousands of tons of decaying fish distributed throughout the waterway and its banks.

Researchers have traced salmon nutrients to many
different types of organisms, from freshwater invertebrates
and fish to birds and bears and even to streamside
vegetation. These organisms take up the nutrients
by feeding directly on salmon eggs and spawnedout
carcasses, incorporated dissolved nutrients (e.g.,
algae and fungi), or feeding on other organisms that
have taken up salmon nutrients. Streams that are fertilized
by salmon nutrients are hypothesized to be more
productive than streams that receive relatively few or
no salmon.

Salmon apparently have great impact to the insect populations of their host streams, and not all of them are beneficial. Construction of spawning “redds” are destructive to to the host insects – and the density of the spawn can radically diminish insect populations in the prime gravel areas.

After two years of benthic sampling for insect production
and analysis, preliminary results show that the stream bed disturbance caused by salmon spawning activities severely impacts the insect community, reducing density and perhaps even diversity.

This affect is reversed by the decomposition of spawned salmon, and the benefits of carcasses and their debris lasts about 6 months. Researchers are able to see the effects of Carbon, Nitrogen, and Phosphorus, released by the decaying salmon, as their isotopes originated in salt water making them different than resident minerals. Streams vary in mineral richness, and some streams can get a mineral boost in excess of 30% of their historical totals.

Bilby et al. (1996) also monitored growth rates of juvenile
fish, finding that age-0-plus coho salmon exhibited a doubling in growth rate after adults spawned in the stream. In a nearby stream without spawning salmon, age-0-plus steelhead showed no change in growth rate during the winter. High growth rates can increase the overwinter survival rate, and larger smolt size has been related to increased marine survival (Bilton et al. 1982; Ward and Slaney 1988). Piorkowski (1995) qlso found that direct consumption of salmon biomass was the main avenue of nutrient uptake for salmon fry, grayling (Thymallus spp.), and rainbow trout (0. mykiss) in southcentral.Alaskan
streams.

The value of a carcass is obtained only if it isn’t flushed out of the ecosystem due to high water. Streamside debris plays a role in capturing and retaining carcasses long enough for them to be consumed by insects and terrestrial animals.

The bad news is the value to the watershed rises if more bodies are available to decay, as almost all of the Pacific salmon runs are a fraction of their historic size, this makes the host rivers less fertile than before. The implication may be that less returning fish means  the rivers are able to support less insects and juveniles.

The same applies for salmon eggs and released milt. About 30% of the eggs released actually spawn, the other 70% become additional forage for anything able to ingest them.

What isn’t mentioned and might be inferred is the effect of dams on the fertility of a host river. Blocking any migration would remove the beneficial effect of carcasses and suggests the river is immediately less fertile and unable to support historic populations of insects and resident fish.

The short answer is there’s no such thing as a bad way to dispose of fish parts. Tossed onto the bank they’re forage for all manner of terrestrial wildlife and plants, and flung into the creek they’re chow for mayflies, caddis, and everything else, including next season’s fry.

Add it to your list of snappy comebacks should some bird watcher grief you over your “natural” disposal methods – as long as you don’t hit them with it – it’s all good.

I may have to side with the Fundamentalist’s just once

Genetically engineered piss-water I never thought about the perils of genetically manipulated beef, with my meager BBQ skills I usually eat briquette of “beef like substance”. Charcoal is a spice – get enough black on that haunch and the genetics are the least of your worries.

I’m fine with modified grains – and anything else derived from stem cell research, figuring whatever plague we unleash would be tame compared to what we’d already done to the environment, and it might even weed a few of us conspicuous capitalists off the landscape – lessening the burden somewhat.

But a fellow has to draw the line somewhere’s …

The current flap over a new sewage treatment plant for the Provo River may be our call to arms, not in the traditional sense – but if the manager has his way, they’ll be adding trout to the outflow to test water quality:

Matthews has his own idea for demonstrating the water’s high quality. He wants to build a 10-foot fish tank in the sewer plant to hold a couple of trout from one of the nearby fishing holes. The district will run treated effluent through it.

“If there’s a problem,” he said, “we’ll see it in our own plant.”

The old “canary in a coal mine” ploy – but what if a half dozen fertile fish were to escape after a couple seasons of inhaling pooty water?

It could stimulate catch and release fishing out of self defense, then again, they could be the next Invasive Species – intermingling and inter-breeding with native fish so everything tastes like warm Pampers.

Suddenly I’m waffling on the science front, brown trout are fine – but I don’t want all of them that way…

Homebuilders in Hot Water

The way it's gonna be If you’re one of the big homebuilders the ground has been coming away from underfoot for over a year –  now the courts have determined all that “ground” went into the creek, and in addition to all the homes they have and can’t sell, they’re liable for the sins committed while building all that excess inventory.

It smells kind of like … Justice …

Michigan-based Pulte Homes, Southern California-based KB Homes, Texas-based Centex Homes and Colorado-based Richmond American Homes agreed to pay a combined $4.3 million in penalties to resolve widespread Clean Water Act stormwater violations at hundreds of construction sites nationwide. The companies are also required to implement a program that should prevent an estimated 1.2 billion pounds of sediment from entering the nation’s waters each year.

In Northern California, the beneficiary will be the Garcia River, home to a modest run of both salmon and steelhead.

Pulte will spend an estimated $418,000 on the North Fork of the Garcia River, the largest sub-watershed of the river, to treat an estimated 13,475 cubic yards of stored and road-related sediment, and upgrade all permanent and seasonal roads and stream crossings within the sub-watershed. The North Fork project will decrease sediment loading and runoff and improve anadromous fish habitat.

The company will also spend an estimated $190,000 on the Blue Waterhole Creek, which is a high-priority for restoration because although it contains good natural pool structures desired by anadromous fish, it is also subject to very high water temperatures lethal to young coho salmon.

Now that we’re counting Salmon on one hand every little bit helps, whether this is the start of an endless chain of appeals, or the start of something tangible remains to be seen.