Category Archives: fly fishing humor

Now that fly fishing is all mainstream and snuggly

I always wondered just how much the fishing angle would play if I strode up to the voting booth and was faced with the unenviable choice of Tweedledum, “I love the out of doors, some of my best friends live there” – and Tweedledee, “I love the out of doors, I fly fish there often.”

As both were generously financed by Goldman Sachs – and all other things being equal … would fishing tilt the balance ?

The Palin Infomercial

… not after last weekend.

But the publicist that dreamed this stuff up should be elected Lifetime Press Secretary, as this is the logical conclusion to a decade of reality TV, the Celebrity Infomercial.

“Infomercial” because you can’t call them candidates, as the Law requires all your opponents equal time to fidget with guns, snow, and fly fishing – and try to look polished in the doing.

It’s the same dance seen on your TV each night. Commercials with ornaments and pine trees, snow, and smiling white teethed children – only nobody dares say the C H R I S T M A S word, as the Thanksgiving turkey hasn’t been carved yet. (Part of the deal struck with the major networks when they swore never to call the election before the polls on the West Coast had closed … you can’t say “X-Mas” until turkey’s been served.)

In four years time, it’ll be Jerry Brown’s California – where they’ll prop up an aging Linda Ronstadt, slather her with ‘dark tan’ pancake ending around her Adam’s apple – prop her next to a surfboard, and let her crack wise about Sushi …

Episode 2 through 8 will feature Jerry peeling off his Birkenstocks so he can tout “green” jobs while barefooting wine grapes, then posing nest to a waving field of premier bud – while he rationalizes balancing California’s budget by exporting reefer to the rest of the lower 48, and specifically your block …

He won’t mention that his plan to balance the Federal deficit involves similar trade with most of the European Union. The Cartels will have to be content smuggling Bananas, as they’ve got plenty of foot soldiers, but they lack Cruise missiles and the half dozen nuclear carriers needed to make us take them seriously.

Then some fellow from Wisconsin will want thirty minutes on Sharp Cheddar, before yielding the floor to his colleague from Hawaii who’ll pimp pineapples and grass skirts.

Trust me, you’ll love it.

Oprah Winfrey Infomercial

Oprah Winfrey’s retiring from the little screen, can she be part of this burgeoning trend seeking office?

She’s got the docu-drama in the can, featuring fly fishing and Oprah’s Top 10 List, and most fear executive office may be one of them.

You cheered the new fly fishing movie thinking it was going to bring flocks of young folks to fill gaps in our line, how it was going to mainstream our quaint little craft into a marketing juggernaut like NASCAR, and now look what we’ve got …

Guys older than us airbrushed into health, adding to the burden of empty water bottles in your riffle.

While you’re up in the parking lot barred from the water, with those nice professionally dressed – yet unsmiling men with sunglasses examine both your fly box and your colon.

You may want to apply it the night before, for fear of spilling it on your waders

Great_White_Love Deep down I’ve always postulated the source of fly fishing’s elitism stems from the lack of goo on our fingers.

Professional Bass fishermen use artificials and barbless hooks just as we do, only they spatter and paint their offerings with everything from tobacco juice to the Scent of a Thousand Nightcrawlers.

Scent being the Unclean Thing, akin to Doe Urine, only more pungent.

Whatever superiority we feel has to have roots in hygiene. Fly fishing being the lack of anything you’d have to wipe on a pants leg, or lick off a finger, prior to eating lunch.

Unfortunately that’s all about to change.

The war on aquatic invasives has started to spawn all manner of technologies that will find a place in your vest. That goes double for anything as unobtrusive as a squeeze bottle that resembles fly floatant but is filled with fish pheromones.

“By putting female carp implanted with osmotic pumps inside traps, we predict that we will be able to attract and capture large numbers of the sexually mature male carp from reaches where the “pheromone traps” are set.”

… and because traps are inhumane, especially for large fish that love to eat flies and peel plenty of line, we’ll have to protest their deployment while applying a generous dollop of Lust in the Elodea to everything in our fly box.

It’s only a matter of time before the same process produces a raft of pheromone based ointments covering every gamefish from Jack Smelt to a Great White Shark. Fly tiers will be soaking it into the underbody, and guides will be ladling it into the boat’s wake, removing the inhibitions of most of the fish downstream, as well as any locals that depend on the creek for their drinking water.

There’ll be a great debate over whether it’s fly fishing or not, and a few whispered stories about some fellow spilling the bottle on his waders, but complete success always breeds a certain understanding among us gentlemen.

A testosterone fueled dance with Death

Plenty of 'Tude, not much to back it Just when we think we’ve got a handle on this entomology thing, we’re jarred awake with the realization that our grasp of terrestrial and aquatic science is miniscule compared to what we don’t know.

Scientists have always insisted that the terrestrial grasshopper becomes available to fish as a byproduct of high winds and awkward aerodynamics, assisted by animals grazing nearby. New science suggests the lowly and amiable grasshopper has the largest testicles in the world, and is actually taking part in a testosterone fueled game of chicken with voracious trout as unknowing accomplices.

… and explains why they persist in a similar ritual on nearly all the major interstates during hot summer months.

Compared to us less well hung humans, a male Grasshopper has testicles the size of the human abdomen, two in fact, and like most Jocks, is incredibly proud of them, despite not knowing what they’re for …

… plenty of attitude, but damn little to back it up.

While it’s tough to find out you may no longer be at the top of the food chain, it is an opportunity to add more pink sponge rubber to the butt end of them big dry flies so they ride proper.

A little Orange Visqueen would’ve been an easier sell than cleated rubber being the New Felt

ATT-Cell-coverage All them wading shoe companies and their capitulation to soft-sticky rubber soles may well rival the disaster of New Coke. A couple years spent trying to convince us they actually grip anything other than dry pavement – undone by basic science and five miles of black VisQueen.

Meanwhile, scientists at Lake Tahoe are busy laying waste to beds of Asian Clams, merely by deploying rubber mats to cover them.

… and when fabric artist Christo insisted on loaning his artistry to cleansing the Arkansas, he was promptly shot down. A selfless act blending fabric imagery with ridding the Arkansas River of invasives, misinterpreted by bible thumping local officials intent on “not having some long-haired weirdo screwing around in our river.”

The local citizenry might’ve had reservations about explaining why six miles of river had an orange streambed, not realizing there’ll be twice the questions once the bottom looks like toilet paper, and everyone is scared to go near it.

Us cash conscious lay-environmentalists would’ve gladly rolled up the orange sheet once the novelty had worn off, and redeployed it systematically until we’d cleaned everything down to the ocean. Then we’d have called the local news station and insist it was material left over from AT&T’s cell phone coverage beef with Sprint, and insist they come and remove it.

Possession of an ounce or more of farm animal is the intent to distribute

I had no idea they shed that badly

You think it’s a bloody laugh riot, what with my admission of strange yearnings and unnatural obsessions…

I’ll have you know it’s required of California residents to be leaning one way or another, and be a mite twitchy – one foot within mainstream society – and the other elsewhere, where no one dares ask and I sure as hell ain’t telling …

Especially not to the Feds.

The chase scene won’t be played out on some sterile SoCal freeway with the police cruisers at respectable distance – that “red carpet” treatment is reserved for celebrities.

It seems the majority of my readership assumes I’m responsible for most of the Satanic rituals performed in their township, and each evening I thread my way through the phalanx of stern looking suits, while I explain to your local law enforcement, “… no, I’ve never been to Three Forks, never been to Montana, and if your citizenry is afraid to walk the streets at night because of some local wing-nut, whack-job, Unabomber-type – it’s your own damn fault and none of my doing.”

“… and did either of them SOB’s look like Trigger – ‘cause I could use some more of that Golden Ginger .. Nothing, I didn’t say nothing ..”

The Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office said Sandy O’Rourke of Three Forks called Oct. 17 and reported someone had taken the tails off two of her horses and cut part of the mane from a third, The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported Thursday.

The theft came a month after Bob and Connie Riley of Dillon reported the theft of the hair from their horse’s tail, investigators said.

– via UPI.com

It’s bad enough that I’ve got the Department of Fish & Game eyeballing me from the neighbor’s roof, now I’ve got to deal with the collective ills of the rest of the continent laid at my doorstep.

Remember, I have the utmost respect for my quarry, which is why I usually sign my work …

Fly Fishing – an essay in prose and pictures

On rare occasion someone says it in such a way that completely captures the experience of fishing, from darkened early morning departure to darker parking lots and damp feet …

… and his prose is damned good too.

Take a look at both and tell me if he hasn’t got the high points for an entire season in one eloquent missive …

The Author, this time with better beer In October my father called to wish me a happy birthday, and to remind me that in all probability I now have more years behind me than I do ahead. Thanks Dad. With that in mind, I made it a point to get out on a lake somewhere before the onset of winter, and so this past Saturday I headed east into the Sierra Nevada range for a solitary day of fishing.

I’d invited my friend Neil to join me, but he declined because the weather forecast called for rain and snow. Neil is a steelhead fisherman, so I couldn’t help but take it personally, but going alone gave me the opportunity to experience the maxim often quoted by Singlebarbed: one is a fishing trip, two is half a fishing trip, and three is no fishing trip at all.

I left the house at 5:00 AM, and was on the water and fishing by 10:00. My trip took longer than it should have because someone had hit or removed the sign identifying the road that leads down to the lake and I ended up driving right past it.

This lake usually presents me with a number of mysteries,and it did not disappoint. There were fish rising and jumping and carrying on everywhere I looked, but I didn’t see a single bug anywhere on the surface. I suspected the fish were chasing midges, and so I tied one on under an indicator and chucked it out there. No luck. I rigged up my father’s old fiberglass five weight with a double tapered Cortland Sylk line and a furled leader, then tried out some new mayflies I’d recently tied, more to see how they looked on the water than anything else. I also tried a new ant pattern, as well as a new beetle pattern. No love there either.

I rigged up my six-weight with a clear intermediate line and tied on a streamer. After casting out the fly I remembered what happened the last time I fished streamers, and decided I had better put a band aid on my stripping finger. The band aid ended up sticking to itself (with my help)and I messed around with it for five or ten minutes, all the while drifting in circles aimlessly around the lake. That’s about when a nice brown grabbed the streamer and started peeling line off the reel. I got a few more bumps on the streamer, but I was never able to duplicate the unique retrieve that enticed that first fish.

Throughout the day I’d been sampling some Costco-brand beers my wife had purchased for me – it’s what all the cool kids will be drinking a year or two from now – and it was while I was watering one of the bushes in ______ Cove that I noticed what looked like a small black caddis fly squashed onto the side of my raft. I hadn’t seen anything like it throughout the day, but since nothing else had worked I decided to tie on the closest thing I had to it and give it a whirl. I hooked a nice brown on my second cast, and the fish kept hitting that fly for the rest of the day. After releasing my sixth fish, I re-cast the fly and let it sit for a few seconds, then saw a very slight ripple and watched it disappear. I set the hook and started stripping in line, but instead of the fish coming towards me, my boat started drifting towards the fish. After a couple of head-shakes the fly popped out and sailed right back towards me. I never saw what took the fly, but it must have been pretty big.

I figured that by now it had to be lunch time, so I went back to the truck and pulled out the nice big tri-tip sandwich I’d bought for Neil, and then checked the time. It was 4:10. I wolfed down half the sandwich and then got back on the lake, and after hooking several more fish I finally lost the fly, which I took as a sign that it was time to pack up and head home.

Attached are some photos. (click for a larger image)

1 Left the house at a bit after five.

2 Ran into a little snow.

3 On the lake there was some of this...

4 ...and some of this

5 Thought these would work. They didn't.

6 But this did.

7 Christened my new boat net.

8 Had a beer.

9 My new ashtray worked well.

10 Caught another fish.

11 Had another beer.

12 Caught another fish.

13 Had a drink at buddy cove.

14 Caught another fish.

15 Had a late lunch.

16 Home by nine thirty.

I could struggle for weeks and never see anything with this type of eloquence. I guess to some folks the lying and exaggeration comes natural, while the rest of us have to work at it.

Dear Izaak Walton – Costco beer is simply … so … very, working class. While we delight in keeping both elitists and purism at safe distance, we do have some standards … and that bottle must be presented empty and downstream, and with great force.

… and our thanks for letting us join your trip.

I handed out Olives and Oranges and free root canals, while you hid on the couch

NoKandyIt won’t hurt to admit it.

While them kids was bee-lining it to your place because you handed out Snickers last year, and as the train of ghosts, fairies and skeletons climbed the long flight of stairs to your darkened doorway, and while their darling little eyes looked expectantly at the door after knocking … you sent the little tykes away teary eyed and sniffling …

… while you lay sprawled amidst the carnage of candy wrappers and discarded Dots, watching football or the World Series, or both.

Likely you made an entire generation resentful; no candy, and when they’re old enough, they’ll know of your unspoken guarantee to treat their Social Security the same way.

Beast.

At least I was stand-up about my desire to trick versus treat. I didn’t hide behind drawn shades and a hot TV, I brought the badness to them Innocents and giggled in the doing.

Trick, no treat for you ..

The Pikeminnow kept knocking, each more optimistic than the next, but every “apple” held a razor blade – which turned their greed into root canal, compliments of that menacing dark shadow with the big hammy feet.

I hoped they’d bring an enraged parent back – but what few were left knew better, remembering the Will O’ the Wisp from last year, when dental work was again free for the asking.

Birdsnest Apple & Razor blade color

Olive with a touch of Pumpkin drew the greedy from under the cut banks and cut a swath through the hatchery water. A grinning Jack O’ Lantern promising sugary treats by the fistful, and delivering base metal instead.

.. and when all are clustered around that big bowl at work, where all the health conscious parents deposit their child’s haul, and inquire did I have many little footsteps on my porch last night, I’ll opt for the noncommittal, “about the same as last year.”

Proof positive that fly fishing is too expensive

They left most of the marshmellows Considering the thieves broke into the first building just to tunnel through three additional brick walls and snatch all the fly rods, I’d suggest that it’s  proof we’re spending way too much on tackle, or there’s little confidence on the Euro rebounding anytime soon …

… not that I expect the vendor community to feel guilty or lower prices any, I was merely hoping the Fed would realize us anglers should take part in the next round of quantitative easing, complete with access to the fed funds window and that tasty interest rate.

While our lending institutions are still holding the cheap cash close to the vest, our unrealistic need to own IM-6, IM-9, and IM-XVII might jumpstart the economy in time for the holidays.

The annual “I ain’t drinking that shit no more” post

There's little comparison Now that Canadian researchers have discovered that Goldfish under the influence of Prozac do not respond to sexual advances, I’m duty bound to ask how much tap water do our Northern neighbors drink before a Goldfish looks good enough to hit on?

… and aren’t we glad that fish have scruples?

Californians are known to house most of the native crazies, much of the lower 48 exports their antisocial types to the coast, where we hose them down and provide a change of wardrobe, before returning them as Presidents or members of Congress…

In other related news, British researchers now have proof that all the gender bending chemicals released into the watershed via sewage treatment – actually bend gender, affecting fish reproduction and inducing as much as a 75% failure rate.

Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) disrupt the ways that hormones work in the bodies of vertebrates (animals with backbones), including humans.

They can be found in everything from female contraceptive drugs and hormone replacement therapy pills, to washing up liquid, with the most well studied EDCs being those that mimic estrogen (female hormone).

EDCs have been seeping into rivers through the sewage system for decades and have an observed effect on fish, altering male biology to make them more female – hence the ‘gender bending’ reputation of these chemicals.

– via PhysOrg.com

All this research puts us anglers in a bit of a quandary. As many of our planted fish have been gargling EDC’s by the bucketful, imported into the watershed from numerous federal “gladiator academies” – which requires us anglers to adhere to the “Don’t ask and don’t tell” statute.

Which explains why the fish are so damn tight-lipped when my fly floats past.

My Bonefish loves Jesus

Trout Unlimited's Car Decal I suppose it’s piling on, but as absolutely every organization insists they’ve pulled out all the stops to attract youth, I can’t help but notice my yearly Begging for Dollars solicitation from Trout Unlimited, is about as marketable to youth as spinach.

… it might be a trout, but after looking closely I get more of a “My Bonefish Loves Jesus” instead.

Fish being the symbol of the Christian faith, and as most of the really talented anglers and their children are neither Christian nor god-fearing, it’s about as likely to grace a bumper as a Social Studies term paper or a root canal.

Kids love advertising, they wear slogans and maker’s mark proudly on tee shirt and bosom, status symbols all, announcing their social status without reservation.

… and none of them will be tattooing some tired old fish to their forearm.

We’d all be thrilled at some new blood, some additional exposure to our presence and ideals. But some stylish dead fish isn’t going to make the gals lust after the wearer, nor can it be “dope” gear without contemporary or risky. We’re not wooing anyone under the age of fifty-one – and then … maybe.

A bit more contemporary

It’s a bit more contemporary, but I’m much too old to be in touch with what’s really worth gracing a tee shirt. With finances and the continual prostrating for dollars, what’d be better is if the TU logo was adopted by Columbian drug lords and became “colors” for either the Crips or Bloods. With a steady stream of dollars TU might be able to fix more than a creek or two …

Lefty updates the tired old fish

Sure,  Lefty is getting pretty long in the tooth, but with the Oakland Raiders color scheme – just the kerchief and jersey sales alone might keep Trout Unlimited in the black.

Silver and Black is fourth all time in NFL merchandise sales, and while the Cowboy colors have outsold everyone else, it’s their cheerleaders that are largely responsible for that gold mine…

Save the old familiar to appeal to the fellows on the bench, snazzy won’t hurt much and may lure something other than those who’ve given twice already.