Category Archives: humor

Thinking outside the Lakes, the charismatic solution to a double invasive

We're here to make things different, kinda It’s akin to Ponce De Leon traveling up the isthmus of South America and into Mexico lured by the tales of a city of gold. Surviving disease and pestilence, angry Indians and ritual sacrifice – and with the payoff in sight, he sees the dust of Sir Francis Drake making off with everything.

Much is being made of the Great Lakes being unfit for man nor beast, and with Asian Carp poised at the gates, it appears scientists are suggesting the Quagga Mussel ate everything already.

But Fahnenstiel said that if carp evade electronic barriers and reach the lake, they’ll probably find so little nourishment they’ll either go back or starve.

– via Cleveland.com

Mother Nature being the poster child for adaptive processes, the Silver Horde turning around may not be in the cards, every culvert headed east or west is an option, yet them voracious plankton eaters may surprise us and develop a taste for clams.

It won’t be the first time the Great Lakes had to be restored completely, and as little can be done about the ballast water / invasive issue, short of retrofitting everything flagged in Liberia with ballast treatment, we may want to consider taking a page from Aliens …

… nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.

Then again, despite the renewed interest in atomic power, radioactive waste, and domestic energy independence, the fission cloud may drift towards Montana, or Canada – and the result even more fish in peril.

So I propose a less intrusive option, one that won’t cost the taxpayer a farthing.

We’ll simply drop the problem in BP’s lap, as they’re charged with “making this right” … Toss a couple of freebie drilling leases into the package, write off the Gulf as toast, then let them demonstrate their willingness to make amends by laying a protective blanket of crude over them mussel beds.

…open the locks wide, let the phalanxes of Carp through, then drop match.

Sure, there’ll be a couple of seasons without steelhead or salmon, but if California can do it, can we ask the Midwest for less?

If corporations read newspapers we might see a little synergy

Dear McDonalds Management,

fofdollI was at a loss when I found out the New Zealand Hoki had made the Endangered Species List. It’s not front page news as the name is unfamiliar to most, but you and I know it as the fourth fish  used in your popular Fillet O’ Fish sandwich.

You started with Halibut whose price thankfully prevented their extinction, but you’ve mostly eaten the other three.

On the chance you might be interested in a bit of positive press, I thought I’d bring to your attention a white meat fish that would fillet nicely, and may garner you a mention in a “green” vein, rather than the traditional, “Ronald McDonald, Corruptor of Youth, Pied Piper of Saturated Fats and Red Dye #3.”

More importantly, the Asian Carp – a.k.a Silverfin, Kentucky Tuna, etc., is available in virtually limitless numbers, reproduces unlike anything we’ve measured to date, and is available domestically. You can employ US citizens, most of which have lost jobs and homes and could use the work, plus achieve all kinds of Brownie points with the Obama administration and six or seven states – and all at the same time.

It sure does, you don't even change the slogan

That kind of positive press is bankable, and any corporation would give both McNuggets for a crack at enhancing their brand in such a positive manner.

It should be relatively easy to find a series of spices and deep fry methodology that will replicate the unnaturally firm texture of your Hoki offering. Asian Carp being a freshwater fish might be a bit softer – but nothing you couldn’t fix with a touch of Portland cement.

The marketing possibilities are endless.

If there’s any environmentalist backlash, or Greenpeace inserts a schooner between you and the Great Lakes – you may want to consider the Frankenfish – but you have to kill it two or three times before it stops moving…

Most would be thinking Zig Zags

The Zig Zag Man I’d  assumed “leave the dance with them as brung you” was an unspoken truism, yet it doesn’t hold for the  Madison Ave crowd who are abandoning us fishermen in favor of the prime 22-30 age group.

Despite the century old tie between beer drinking and fishing, the self-styled “King of Beers” figures youth will abandon sour energy drinks in favor of sour tapwater – a flavor common to most American beer.

…and to cement the deal they’re even offering free beer as a come hither – which may be an act of quiet desperation,  if you can’t sell it you might as well give it away.

Us recently deposed anglers apparently have moved into craft-beer, our maturity alerting them newly-refined taste buds that waving a sprig of hops and barley over laundry water doesn’t make a compelling beverage.

… doubly horrific is that Budweiser would abandon fishermen just as we were about to return to their bosom. Now that we’re aware of the ecological impacts of bottled water and how much we’ve missed the tinkle of broken glass.

To appeal to the under-30 set that has ignored the brand — but is a prime consumer group for beer — Budweiser will unleash its biggest-ever national free-sample effort in trendy bars and eateries. The campaign begins Monday, with the slogan “Grab some Buds.”

… which assumes the younger element still has enough disposable cash to do trendy, and hasn’t already been laid off.

The 9% decline in Budweiser inhalation mirrors an identical plunge in angling participation. Rather than acknowledge the Recession or rampant unemployment – Budweiser may be compounding their problem by alienating droves of their staunchest supporters, or at least those outside of NASCAR.

Little doubt the board room was giddy at the understated elegance of its latest slogan, however, chances are they overlooked that most of the blue states would reach for Zig-Zags instead of the aging and tawdry King of Beers.

Brand consultant Robert Passikoff has serious doubts about Budweiser’s effort. “They’re in trouble because they don’t know how to talk to consumers,” he says. “They no longer know how to create an emotional bond.”

It’s an emotional bond if you have to sweep up behind those Clydesdale’s surely enough, but an aging wagon with a Dalmatian isn’t going to pry the Monster energy drink out of Junior’s sweaty grip.  

“Grab some Buds” is pure lowbrow, but as the advertising types have chosen the vernacular, we might lure some youth into the sport with, “Grab some Buds and Rods” or “Tie-stik is Monster Bud” – perhaps bringing hordes of youngsters to expand the coffers of our  angling organizations, or at least those adventurous enough to print the tee shirts.

Fly fishermen are compensating for something, certainly, our rods aren’t fully automatic, belt-fed, or both

All I had to do was read any of my past posts to recognize “I don’t measure up”, yet PETA had to send me a zinger just the same …

compensating_something They’re on the warpath, and with the death of the UK’s famous “Two Tone” carp, PETA erected a billboard to chastise local anglers …

I’ve often wondered whether dry fly purists weren’t compensating for something, but I hadn’t trod the masculinity route. I’d left it at thinking these were the kids whose Ma cut the crusts off their PB & J, and they still had a chip on their shoulders.

PETA delights in bearding the prophet, nearly as much as we like laughing over their latest protest. This episode is no exception, featuring the debut of DoAnglersHaveSmallRods.com – which hosts a test to determine whether the water is both … cold … and deep.

I don't quite measure up

Finding out about my shortcomings doesn’t redden my cheeks a bit. What’s really going to be funny is when “Casper Milquetoast” knocks at my door to borrow a power tool, and he gets an abacus and a scratch awl to repair his roof.

“Yo, Casper, looking a little damp there, Sweetheart. Is that madam’s chamber pot you’re emptying – Wow, I bet she is pissed, huh?”

Sure doesn’t sound like guts and entrails

Yea, we're really going to mourn this Sure it’s morbid, but knowing all of the scientific hijinks involved haven’t you wondered what they were going to call it?

… a leading producer of functional, sustainable Tilapia biomass …

With the Food & Drug zealots insisting it has to respire to be called “fish” – and the animal welfare crowd insisting it has to have a heartbeat to be an animal – and hence possess a soul, and with consumers adamant that it has to be boneless to be real food,  Madison Avenue has to come up with some catchy new phrase to describe the contents of  fish-like substance.

On the surface, it’s brilliant.

Note how weak it sounds when added to, “ %$#@*, that noxious bath of chemicals you’ve leaked into the water has nearly destroyed the Tilapia Biomass!”

Widows and orphans don’t exist with “biomass” – as it sounds too much like, “eww, hope I don’t get any on me ..” Now we can stomp life out of whichever species tastes best, without mourners or anyone protesting.

Love it.

Test: tilapia biomass, widows and orphans, real food, madison ave,

Introducing the Salmon Pout: Why fly fishing for Carp is the new Purism

In our Bold New World department comes a Salmon angler’s dream, an Atlantic salmon that eats year round, reproduces like a New Zealand Mud Snail and grows twice as fast as real salmon.

The only problem is the damn thing has to be taught how to swim.

Ocean Pout or Conger Eel

You grab a gene from a Pacific Salmon, add a couple more from the Ocean Pout (or Conger Eel, at left) mash the syringe into an Atlantic Salmon egg, and watch the magic happen…

Once you cull the progeny for misshapen ogres and hunchbacks – and fillet what’s left, you’ve doubled your seafood production and the consumer is none the wiser.

As the FDA faces unthinkable hurdles trying to regulate these test-tube fish, producers exploit loopholes in food laws with great glee.

But AquaBounty says FDA cannot legally obligate the fish producer to label the product as anything other than Atlantic salmon. Anything else is voluntary.

–via AOL News

On one hand I’m not so sure anglers will lose out in the mix. At some point a couple of extra genes may produce a scrappy opponent that will provide great sport when planted illegally in a backyard pond, or even the kitchen sink.

As most fishermen rarely eat their catch, we won’t care too much when some lab coat wads a big needle up Mother Nature’s finest, we can no longer afford the outpouring of cash for a weekend-long pilgrimage to the Pristine, or the gear necessary.

AquaBounty says it has launched a “blue revolution,” which brings together biological sciences and molecular technology “to enable an aquaculture industry capable of large-scale, efficient and environmentally sustainable production of high quality seafood. Genetically altered trout and tilapia are the next to be offered up to the nation’s fishmongers.

Once trout hits the aquaculture cross-hairs we’ll see some plaintive bleat from our conservation organizations and the IGFA, but they’ll be steamrollered into quiescence because of the larger issue, world hunger.

If we know we’re headed down this path, the next Theodore Gordon may be the fellow that grows a boutique fish purely for the sporting crowd. Throw a little bluegill genes into some Bluefin tuna, and squeeze the result into something colorful, yielding the Gangsta Trout.

Able to swim at a reel screaming 40MPH, can sheer a seven weight in a single jump, and feeds on Asian Carp, Zebra Mussels, and small children.

Lipstick on a Pig Trout

In light of what is about to occur, I see the Carp crowd having the last laugh, “sure, the water is tepid and the fish have Roman noses, but at least they don’t share any genetics with a Snickers Bar…”

Genetic salmon, Ocean Pout, Conger Eel, Heath Ledger, gangsta trout, asian carp, IGFA, bold new world, aquaculture, fish genetics, carp, fly fishing

All those lectures delivered by stern biologists go unheeded after it earns a nickname

… and while the tabloids make great fun over the adventure, the biologists grind their teeth in frustration.

How to get the invasive message across to a public that flushes pet alligators down the toilet, tosses piranha into the Old Swimming Hole once they outgrow the Goldfish budget, or toss that Boa Constrictor into the brushy area where everyone walks their dog – as it would be cruel to dispatch the oversized SOB now that it strangled the neighbor’s cat.

… then again, it makes an awesome, albeit controversial addition to some fellow’s life list. A story that’ll fetch free beer for months on the retelling.

I can’t help it if your finger freezes on the third tap of flakes feeding your child’s pet – that lumpy orange behemoth in the video would make any fellow question his forthcoming liability.

… as for flies, I’d think an emergent Cheetos would be just the ticket.

Monster goldfish, invasive species, fish flakes, Cheetos, goldfish flies, frustrated biologists, fishing for goldfish

Wherein we propose a modification of the 3rd rule of outdoor storytelling

It’s the Third Rule of the sporting fraternity, in the retelling of any feat of sporting prowess, add two inches (or a half pound) in case your audience has heard this yarn already …

Adherence to the 3rd Rule ensures your friends and neighbors never tire of your oratory – you never repeat yourself either forgetfully or pedantically, and you must go fishing a lot.

I was in mid sentence, and that 6” black bass was now 14” – weighed about thirty six pounds, when a tremendous crash echoed above, a pale lightning bolt descended from the Heavens striking the 8” tree limb above me – and as I scattered for cover, impacted my truck in precisely the spot I’d vacated …

owned

  … suggesting that even the 3rd Rule of the Sporting Fraternity has limits, and as He had heard the story enough times, was sending me a quick warning shot to restore the straight and narrow.

Me, I figure I’ll need to add six inches (and two pounds) to each retelling, so He doesn’t recognize the story as one already heard.

Full Disclosure: That Bass, was all of six inches, honest.

… and that branch was 16” if it was an inch – a veritable tree trunk even ..

Tags: The Man, warning shot, outdoor storytelling, fish stories, complete falsehood, born again

The solution to an age old angling problem

WatchedAllNight The guys were all at a fish camp. No one wanted to room with Bob, because he snored so badly. They decided it wasn’t fair to make one of them stay with him the whole time, so they voted to take turns.

The first guy slept with Bob and comes to breakfast the next morning with his hair a mess and his eyes all bloodshot. 

They said, “Man, what happened to you?”

He said, “Bob snored so loudly, I just sat up and watched him all night.”

The next night it was a different guy’s turn. In the morning, same thing -hair standing up, eyes all bloodshot.

They said, “Man, what happened to you? You look awful!”

He said, ‘Man, that Bob shakes the roof with his snoring. I watched him all night.”

The third night was Fred’s turn. Fred was a tanned, older cowboy; a man’s man. The next morning he came to breakfast bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

“Good morning!” he said.

They couldn’t believe it. They said, “Man, what happened?”

He said, “Well, we got ready for bed. I went and tucked Bob into bed, patted him on the butt, and kissed him good night. Bob sat up and watched me all night.

Tags: Outdoors humor, fishing

Teetering on the brink always brings out the best in us

Smoked Salmon Vodka Known  galaxy-wide for our sympathetic stewardship, us Homo Sapiens having the accidental good fortune of eating everything above us on the food chain,  so what do we do with an inferior species teetering on the brink?

… do we pause and reflect, right innumerable wrongs, or merely gash ourselves over our lack of foresight in the indiscriminate use of pavement?

Never.

We find even more novel ways to eat the few remaining survivors, or grind up the heretofore inedible beaks, feet, gristle, and unmentionables – to make even tastier things that require us to kill even more …

Coarse fish point and laugh when they see that silvery salmon smolt wandering around befuddled – still woozy from the long bumpy truck drive, and sick from the toilet flush down the long corrugated pipe into fresh water.

“Dude, the ocean is that way, you’ll know because the water tastes like crap and there’s twice as many tampons … but I wouldn’t worry too much because you’ve got to get past that bigarsed concrete wall with the screen that sucks you into the whirling death machinery.

If you make it you’ll want to hug the far side near Antioch, otherwise you’ll get sucked to LA along with all them trash-talking Stripers, who’ll probably pimp you out to them largemouth in Lake Cachuma or Castaic – and you’ll be spending your best years selling crack on some dimly lit weed bed … if they don’t eat you outright.

… or you could take the red pill – that salmon egg over there, and wind up mashed and forgotten in a Styrofoam cooler with empty beer cans and leftover Cheetos … Sure, it’s cannibalism of a sort, but at least you won’t get the Screaming Blue Shitz from all that Ag chemical in the valley.”

Naturally, a few of us decry that wanton exploitation of such a precious resource, but only after we’ve caught our fill and want to preclude others from matching our war stories …

Mmm, looks like deer berries

… so we can make another couple of million paving some marsh so’s we can sell salmon donuts, that use parts even the vodka crowd blanch at  …

Pampered and fed at the hatchery – head filled with nonsense about superior and noble, and some greasy-fat Pikeminnow fills them in on their destiny … you’d think we’d have the courage to do that.

Tags: salmon, smoked salmon vodka, salmon donuts, they were so thick you could walk across their backs, stewardship