Category Archives: fly fishing humor

While I’m skeptical if they say it’s good, I’ll always believe the brethren when they say it’s bad …

anti-mosquitoI remember his comment as if it was yesterday. “It attaches to your belt and emits anti-mosquito sound waves, keeping the bloodsucking pests off you without changing your genetic code with a generous dollop of DEET …”

Upon his return from the wilds of Alaska we were doubly quick to ask, “Well, how did the mosquito thing work?”

His reply was ominous, “I had to get a transfusion in Fairbanks, and another before leaving Sitka. Eventually I flung the contraption into the brine as we approached Seattle …

As I wander through the app store on the iPhone (which I’m testing for work), you can imagine my uncontained glee when finding an outdoor application …

Despite the risk of carrying it strapped inside my waders, I can repel all manner of bloodsucking organisms, laughing all the while as I expose my nether regions to the impotence -  until my battery sputters and dies …

Which, I’ll guess, will be about seventeen feet from the parking lot.

I can only assume that “Kids-Safe Mode” is when you’re forced to give your own life to save your children.

You get a sudden waft of hot electronics, and press the phone into the midsection of the closest child, screaming, “Bobby, take your sister and RUN!” …

It’s the same quality education we got – at the end of a strap, mostly

The School of Knock Psychologists are thinking children learn words in some unknown and mysterious method, versus the more traditional associative pairing … see Daddy, hear the word “Daddy” – assume the looming enormous thing that smells like beer, is Daddy …

I could have told them they were barking up the wrong tree, simply because all real knowledge is transmitted by pain, not by cooing about the floor with Mom, swathed in warm blankie while reaching for titty …

Most of us learned all the really deep-seated lessons of Manhood by losing limbs, teeth, gouts of hair, and blood –and if there was baby talk it was the opposition making fun of us – just before we felt the boots in our midsection …

Same goes for fishing.

We learned what “Steelhead” were only after freezing our nuts to the tailgate, wondering why everyone was giving us the wave-off when we started removing aching body parts from them wet waders.

We learned “Barbless” knowing it was the part we couldn’t see – the rest of the hook being buried up to the shank in thick, flexible, sunburnt, neck flesh … the closest medical attention being only slightly less than the isthmus of Bataan  …

We learned about fly rods and the cost of a college education only when we found out we could afford only one, not both.

We learned friendship when our buddy loaned us his rod, and fisticuffs when we stepped on it in a drunken stupor, and he didn’t see the issue closed by sharing in our profuse apology.

With all the “spare the rod, politically correct, never a harsh word” parenting of the last couple of decades, it’s our fault if kids haven’t had the educational opportunities we’ve had, or lack the vocabulary us troublesome kids possess, why admissions to Harvard are at low ebb, and the economy languishes just above flatline…

The 100 Greatest Books in the World and a nosebleed for a diploma, it’s the “Cliff’s Notes” of an ivy league education.

The fly fishing will be better now that you’re gone

This weekend I’ll be painting Didymo on them rocks with a spatula.

I’ll be the fellow whose 4 X 4 axles will be glowing white hot as I mash my way through cottonwoods and willows and into your favorite pool – there to dismount the smoking wreck while it dribbles petroleum products into the Pristine.

… and all of my flies will be tied on treble hooks.

Just a reminder that this weekend you can toss all that nose-inna-air bologna while you’re laying waste to whatever flavor of Sweet you’ve  felt threatened by … As Ms. Claudette mentions so eloquently below, everything’s peachy if you can catch a church service sometime before Saturday …

… and if you aren’t a Good Christian like me and the rest of my yellow eJournalist pals, we’ll be taking our chances with Cletus, his 4X4, and a couple icy 24 packs of Go-Girl.

We’ll be pounding your favorite riffle with “Dagwood” sandwiches made of Triscuits and alternating layers of cream cheese and Bighead Carp roe.

Suck it, wimps.

My gal could use a Mink coat and a big dinner too

Monroe in Mink, every scotsman's dream I remember the elevated tempers and harsh language when they contemplated NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. Senators would pound fist on podium insisting it wasn’t fair to us and how the abolished tariffs and transparent borders would benefit our neighbors much more than ourselves.

Now, I find myself in a similar precarious position, how commerce between us and the rest of the world doesn’t seem aquatically balanced, especially so with invasive species.

Them nice fellows in Scotland are pissed senseless and on a war of extinction with the American Mink, how it’s eating cats and dogs, pillaging defenseless salmon, and scarfing all their water voles …

Heaven forbid we should lose a poodle or three …

Meanwhile the rest of Europe is declaring Jihad against the American Signal Crayfish, which any sportsman knows is %$#@ freshwater lobster – requiring nothing more than kite string and a rancid chicken liver to catch all .. you .. can .. eat.

Now that all them Scottish dames has scored a coat our vermin are no longer good enough. Ditto for crayfish now that all them rich sauces have laid both French & Danes low … that red wine immunity overcome by bushels of Mud Bugs and all the butter they swizzled while sucking them down.

Meanwhile we’re dancing around Rock Snot, Rock Vomit, and the leftover ichor from forty years of  horror movies as unwanted guests.

You can’t eat them, nor can you wear them, so where’s the equity in this trade? I’d suggest that while we had the best interests of our eurotrash cousins at heart, they haven’t repaid the favor – at least not in like coin.

… perhaps some invasive Dutch Chocolate, or at least a scone or two.

Out of Coq de Leon – and you’re wondering why you can’t find Pardo?

Kater Bosworth wearing Coq de Leon , well - we might addI wouldn’t worry too much unless you tie dry flies or fish for steelhead. Your prayers of this being an overnight fad are simply not working …

The drain on fancy hackles and ostrich plumes will be growing in the foreseeable future, rather than winding down. The fashionistas have spoken and both sexes are scrambling to get on board.

The crescendo has been building from 2009, first with fringes and edging and eventually encompassing the entire garment. Hair attachments being an accessory to the larger trend, “Tribal” …

Tribes around the world used bird feather hair extensions for many different reasons such as acts of bravery and or sexual prowess, particularly for men the bigger and longer the hair feather etc.

Expensive is when you’re fashioning a dress made entirely of the oldest strain of genetic chickens known to Man. Coq de Leon can run to $0.30 per feather, but Hollywood has never been overly concerned with cost overruns or animal fashions …

We’re assured the wild birds that they come from aren’t harmed in any way. That the hair feathers are simply gathered cleaned and colored.

Best of all they assume they’re wearing shed feathers. All those Grizzly chickens, Pheasants, and Ostriches shedding feathers like a mangy pooch, so there’s little karmic damage and no blood throwing PETA mercenaries to disturb your exit should you wind up with a drawer full.

Feathered Eyeglasses by Ete

They’ve been in earrings for years, and now that Men are as keen on power fashion as the ladies, dressing for success means you need to know pecking order and men’s ties …

For Guys too ...

Don’t worry too much about the scent of mothballs, as it’ll soon become an aphrodisiac in the workplace. The power tie is raptor, baby – only food groups wear stuff that chirps.

How many can you produce a year, and how painful is the extraction?

Sure I get death threats, and when I mentioned household pets there was a brief spike over the weekly contingent of, “if you tell them about Lake X, or stream Y, or if your shadow darkens my refrigerator ever again, I’ll  …”

I was unfazed at the outpouring of hatred when I claimed the household tabby was a disgusting invasive and why Jihad was necessary. Most of the email was scented, so I’d obviously touched a nerve somewhere.

Now that some lass is making jewelry out of cat fur and it’s going viral,  sending every female cat lover screaming to purchase them by the gross, I’ve got an even better idea …

Cat fur necklace

Let’s make hair extensions out of them …

It’s okay, it’s a fly fishing lifestyle thing

Me? I punted.

All that bold talk about being desperate and braving inhospitable water flows and bone numbing chill was for show. As soon as the feminine half sped away, I did the cursory check of flows, 8K when fishable was 4K, and opted for “Tarzan’s New York Adventure” and the oodles of brownie points that would result from removal of the encroaching wilderness from the backyard.

… and while the sweat dripped off and the precious fly tying fingers were put in harm’s way, scratched and clawed, blistered and bloody, my thoughts drifted to the whole lifestyle fashion conundrum.

Naturally, the email soliciting me to adopt some oyster pink scarf to go with my matching golf visor gave me the damn creeps. Logos do not prevent clothing from announcing errant sexual preferences no matter how good the artwork.

Singlebarbed_Flats

Yours truly is only capable of modeling sinister unfortunately. Old World style, shipped straight to me from Afghanistan. What it really needs is a big ORVIS logo across the brow, it’ll give the Seals something of contrast to aim for …

Print my nymphs in Powerbait

I think most of the sporting fraternity would readily admit that they’re waiting on only two pieces of technology. Surely a lighter over and under would be a delight to own – as would a nine foot fly rod that could throw itself, but if you really want their research priorities it would boil down to the Star Trek broach – that you slap when you tell Scotty to beam you up, or the “Earl Grey, hot” matter-transmuter that Picard uses to summon hot tea and old Hardy reels …

We’ll have to wait a bit longer to be atomized and reassembled, but the burgeoning field of “3D Printing” should have the capability to crap solid objects out of the ether …

… so long as there’s plenty of “ink” in your printer, maybe even a fly rod or two …

printed Chocolate cookie

As we’ve already got our expectations for junk food flavor set as low as possible, you can imagine how Madison Ave will insist on your 9 PM telly being dominated by flavorful and steaming, lush rich colors – and while your forebrain will warn you as you swipe the debit card through your computer, it’ll be too late.

… the flaccid, greasy, thing is already winging its way to you, burping itself into your outstretched hand …

It’ll be a bold new world when you press the “Dozen Adam’s” key … and I’ll be glad I’m able to skip the sodden result …

Does a slammed door mean landed or released?

Natural Beaver on Sunday April 24I think it necessary to occasionally give the gals credit for putting up with us. While I’ve changed the names to protect the innocent, rest assured this conversation is merely one scene among many …

(I call it “Kiki’s Guide to landing Keeper Wimmen, Fly Fishing Edition.”)

At my domicile, each time “Herself” arrives from travel she has to tiptoe around all manner of obscene things I’ve drug in from the out-of-doors. As she reacquaints herself with her surroundings, tiptoeing over the experiments in the bath tub, rotting flesh in the fridge, unknown lint and feather dander flitting about gaily, yet it’s taken in stride knowing someday all these fly rods charged to her credit card will be a one way rocket ship to wealth and infamy, and Oprah … not necessarily in that order.

Yes, I may have to kill and eat this one …

Fade In:

Natural Beaver Wed 27th 3% solution[Pointing at the sink] “Uh, what’s this? – can I throw it away?”

[Mock Terror as he rushes to defend] “No, that’s the experiment I’m running to see how many days it takes 3% Hydrogen Peroxide to remove the natural colors of a piece of beaver. I need that for a post next week.”

 

[Pointing at the Floor] “What about that (wrinkles nose)?”

Copper and Skins [Mock Terror as he rushes to defend] “No, that’s me attempting to make copper mordant so I can use that big bag of onion skins you asked about last week, how I was going to write a post on natural dyes and the number of different colors possible from pillaged onion husks.”

[Cross Arms on Chest] “Okay, surely I can throw out the smelly thing on the plate!”

[Mock Terror as he rushes to defend] “Only if you want to go hungry, that’s your dinner, Cupcake …”