Category Archives: fishing

I’ll take Taxes for two hundred, Bob

Arnold_Troutstamp Politicians love to make distinctions that don’t exist in dictionaries. It’s part of the benefits of such a lofty post, caretaker of the public trust.

Miriam Webster doesn’t see it that way.

Main Entry:
user fee
Function:
noun
Date:
1967

: an excise tax often in the form of a license or supplemental charge levied to fund a public service —called also user’s fee

Main Entry:
tax
Function:
noun
Usage:
often attributive
Date:
14th century

1 a: a charge usually of money imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes b: a sum levied on members of an organization to defray expenses2: a heavy demand

During times of economic hardship fees can never be taxes, as increasing taxes play havoc with economic recovery, and increasing fees just means those that used to enjoy something – pay more for enjoying it.

With the collapse of the financial system states and business’s are struggling to find new sources of revenue to bolster massive shortfalls in traditional taxes. Bond markets remain in upheaval, and many states are prevented from using the traditional tools to secure operating revenue.

That’s where you come in.

Your house isn’t worth pizzle, your investments have been cut in half, you’re squirreling money away rather than spend it, in short – you’re not holding up your end of the economy.

You’re not patriotic.

We can expect most of the 50 state legislatures to start getting creative with the fee versus tax distinction, and those groups with little representation (anglers) will pay much more for “normal” stuff.

New York state is soliciting opinion on their new 2009 Salmon – Trout stamp, ten bucks on top of the normal license fee. Salmon anglers are likely a minority – toss “trout” on the label and you’ve got everybody having to pony up.

We’re not suggesting that wardens and natural resources aren’t deserved of protection, nor are we suggesting that state’s raise and plant trout for free.  We’re suggesting these dollars will be siphoned off into the General Fund, and spent on something wildly different than their original intent.

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.

What’s needed is more artists and humor

hughmacdonald Fly fishermen are only slightly worse than the Pro Bass circuit, we’ve got more theories and a better pedigree than Sir Isaac Newton, and enough bluster and ego to believe our own press ..

Anglers only tolerate humorists and artists for trodding on our beloved pastime – and then only reluctantly.

davidkrys I say we need more of both, keeps us focused on the important stuff … lying to the Boss and stealing an extra day off work, developing an unemotional and scientific argument for yet another rod, and why you should be allowed to go fishing Sunday.

I’ve always assumed fishing should be like sex; four seconds of bliss followed by a lengthy apology – most of my outings bear witness.

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I’d be more sensitive to the environment if I wasn’t constantly attacked by it

Change it oftenForgetting to purchase new tippet each season is an Opening Day ritual. Some fish slurps your offering, looks bigger than average, and you’re reduced to sweating bullets knowing 6X is more like 9X due to oxidation.

Only a visit to the dentist results in more prayer …

Many hundreds of years of discarded fishing tackle and a half century of old monofilament has us in the crosshairs of numerous organizations, all intent on cleaning up our act.

It’s logical that with monofilament and its shelf life of 600 years, somebody comes up with Bioline, a “green” monofilament/fluorocarbon alternative.

Bioline biofilament fishing line biodegrades in the environment in five years.. Further during years 2-5 it is significantly degraded permitting wildife to easily break free should accidental entanglement occur.

Guaranteed to decompose in only 5 years, which includes the two seasons your vest hung in the closet, and us fly fishermen will need to be extra diligent in changing out old tippet spools. Even the Bioline spool decomposes, so you’ll be reminded by the handful of oxidized powder in your vest pocket if you haven’t fished in a while.

It smells expensive – and we’re supposed to absorb the extra cost knowing we’ve done right by the environment.

Brownliner’s will save a ton of money as fluorocarbon tippet decomposes in six months in brown water – only slightly faster then our waders and boots.

I’ll be haunting all the closeout sales while the eco-friendly types chastise me for not being sensitive. I can take the heat –  none of the stuff I’m walking in was made by Mother Nature…

Ten fingers on the fender

busted Now that the screaming has died down, Mom’s in the bedroom sobbing and the “little criminal” has been banished to his room for life, you still have to dispose of the half ounce of dope Ma found in his underwear drawer.

One option is to flush it quickly, but the other is to toss it in your tackle box…

Proof that fishing bait can be genuinely addictive! Hemp seed is one of the most effective and well-known fishing baits; so find out why this is and how to exploit this drug-containing bait for the best big fish catches!

I’m not so sure that on a slow day you won’t be tempted to eat the stuff yourself – which may be the real root of it’s popularity among anglers. Boilie baits are a dough-based bait extremely popular for coarse fish in Europe. The recipes are as archaic and secretive as any other construct in fishing – closely guarded, and passed down from father to son.

A great method commonly used in the past in the UK was to super-glue seeds onto individual hairs on the hook and this was very effective … If you really want to exploit hemp you can produce an homemade boilie made primarily from crushed and shelled seeds and hemp protein powder, (plus a binder,) and also readymade base mixes are available from bait companies (with varying nutritional effects.)

Assuming it works, do you let the kid out so he can score you a dime bag, you’re going to run out at some point, no?

…And remember that water is lost by evaporation not just absorption, so do avoid burning your hemp and the bottom of your pan by keeping an eye on water levels and stirring helps prevent this.

Yes, careful not to burn the hemp, that would be counterproductive.

Seems like an awful lot of work and I bet them Carp would eat a brownie as quickly as a boilie – stick with the tried and true…

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A taste of the future pristine, so’s you can wax sentimental over its present

salmon_lifecycle It’s just another Brownliner saga where fellows turn up their nose and giggle about who’s got what on their waders – and how they wouldn’t be caught dead in the company of me or Roughfisher …

We get you don’t want us dating your sister, and are resigned to our fate, we were  just attempting to get you to peer over the rim of your latte’ and consider waters other than pristine.

We knew the lines would blur eventually.

… and did they ever – blurred with a vengeance. Now we’re able to enjoy the efforts of hundreds of noble salmon, while cloaked in water where we feel at home, the local sewage plant.

You can scoff at us from the safety of the guardrail – but the satisfying thump of large fish in an orgy of feeding, will be known only to the odiferous few.

The journey from Lake Michigan would have meant swimming through a shipping channel that bisects the ArcelorMittal steel mill and the BP oil refinery, then heading up the Grand Calumet River, through a shallow 700-foot stream that starts at the outflow pipe, then shooting 200 feet up a drain pipe that churns out more than 15 million gallons of water a day.

Once inside the plant, they laid eggs, which hatched into fingerlings that feed on microscopic daphnia — another creature known for dying off quickly when exposed to toxics common to wastewater — then grow and swim back out into the lake. Years later, mature fish return to the spot where they were laid to spawn again.

Baranyai, who started out shoveling sludge as a laborer more than 30 years ago, said watching the annual circle of life unfold in the unlikely environment has made him into a naturalist.

“At first, no one believed us,” said Baranyai, who sought experts to identify the species. “They said they must be carp, then they saw the pictures. Then they said we had salmon, but there was no way they were spawning here, but we had genetic testing that showed they were from the same breeding stock.

I’ll leave it to the magazines to butcher the flies we’re using, I’d be flirting with the boundaries of taste and risking my hard fought PG rating – but there’s tons of white marabou involved…

Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime

Join Now for the best seats While doling out all that cash to banks and insurance companies the Bush administration managed to find the remaining 70 million owed to the West Coast salmon fishery.

Maybe it’s my fondness for the Brotherhood, but of all the folks receiving federal aid, these lads need it least.

Fishermen have always been a proud and capable crowd, and rather than enforced idleness, what would serve the commercial fishing industry best is some of that leftover Iraqi ordinance – not money.

They’ve got the boats already, why not offload the unnecessary nets and winches – add a couple extra crews from neighboring trawlers, and go hijack some merchant shipping?

Everyone loves pirates, so why not cash in on the tanker hatch?

Middle America could enjoy a resurgent auto industry after a half dozen Nissan or Toyota container ships are met by the “Salmolian” navy and held for ransom.

We’ve got ample natural preserves off the coast to host the next “Tortuga” – throw a couple casinos on some sandy beach, add some colorful personalities wearing eye-patches and gold teeth, and it’s a poster child for self sufficiency.

Loosely allied with our government and not subject to the niceties of the Geneva convention – we could export all them hedge fund managers that were expecting to fold laundry at Club Fed, and feed them to sharks instead.

I smell a cash cow, especially with the Pay Per View royalties…

It’s the invention destined to make Catch and Release agreeable to the most hardened killer

Take a proud and noble prey and reduce it to a “turd” of shapeless fish flesh? The Wunder Boner is the greatest argument for catch and release ever devised…

Not even McDonalds has the nerve to display how a Fillet of Fish sandwich is made – with good reason, it’s liable to be as photogenic and noisy as pressure extruding a carp through a garden hose.

Freshly imbued with your day-long coaching of Wood’s Lore and sportsmanship – your proud child offers Mom the stringer, only to see them mashed into the cutting board as a sodden lump of flesh?

Why not just step on them first … and tell me you gutted the thing, or is that Sushi roll already stuffed?

Felix Lighter never laughed at MI6

jamesBond I’m thinking there’s some kind of shadow organization behind it all; some dotCom wunderkind with half the assets of the planet – some heiress with a “mad on” – some sheik or warlord sitting on a mountain of precious resources, owning enough periodicals and media outlets to wage a Jihad against anglers.

Today’s headlines are just one salvo among many..

Hitler’s favorite meal was trout.

There’s a couple dozen Bond movies with sinister organizations whose existence is enmeshed with crackpot scientists, egoists, and semi-evil women with massive breasts. World domination or “nuking everyone” is a prevalent theme, followed only by the “spaceship behind a comet” snuffing of life on the planet.

GM is “angling” for a bailout.

What bully would have the assets, inclination, or where-with-all to conduct a war-to-the-death with fishermen with only them throwing punches?

Are you guys a bunch of bottom feeders – and what sin did we commit to earn this indignity?

My youth taught me to expect sinister; back then it was the warmongering industrialist apparatchik that spawned most of the evil, but government is broke – so it can’t be them…

A “Trout Pout” is an unimaginable crime.

Something horrible is at work and we’re sunning ourselves like fat arsed Carp unaware of the Osprey’s speedy descent.

Mix Peppermint Schnapps and a case of anything and it’s extreme something

I’m with John Merwin, but having had some experience in this area, I’ll decipher the part that’s giving him trouble…

It’s entitled, “Extreme Rock Fishing” – there’s a rock, some fishing, and it’s got a Metallica riff in the background. The words aren’t supposed to be a sentence – which is why it’s so difficult to understand.

It’s extreme because it has an bootlegged Metallica song – you can’t have elevator music or a light pop tune, it doesn’t make the participants on the fringe of society, isolated … a shining beacon of light in a dismal sea of conformity.

… and when Lars finds out you didn’t pay royalties for his tune, a very conformist brigade of lawyers in his employ will bust a cap in your bottom. Lars likes his music, but likes money better.

There’s a big rock in deep water, accessible only by boat – giving the extreme-carousing fishermen a chance to hide the jug if their spouse comes looking.

Rods and detached reel are bolted to the rock so that when the extreme drinking reaches a fever pitch, nobody kicks someone’s tackle into the depths when reaching for munchies or attempting to pee.

We did this in High School, only we called it “Extreme Muni Pier Fishing.” You take two cases of beer, mix that with a fifth of apricot brandy or Peppermint Schnapps, 3 pounds of raw squid, big hooks, and a boat rod.

When the squid tasted good, it meant you’d had too much to drink.

Of course chumming was illegal, vomiting wasn’t.

… and Mr. Merwin, the rod is there to keep the “million pound test” line off the rocks. Large fish plus tight line touching rock equals severed line and the angler missing a limb when the tension is released.

It appears the fish are cranked in close by the winch, the rod is lifted so they can gaff the beast, then it’s hand over hand from there.

I think “Extreme Lawn Chair Drinking” and the extreme hangover that followed is one of the reasons I gravitated to fly fishing. Certainly, the light line and lack of weight made the battle with fish so much more attractive, but as wisdom overtook youth – the extreme rowboat bass drinking, and extreme sturgeon beer guzzling lost it’s luster.