Category Archives: Nothing to do with Fishing

Decline in angling because fish doesn’t “taste like Chicken?”

Pigeon_ChickenWhile fly clubs focus recruitment to replace their declining ranks, and the Membership Chair attempts to lure any demographic other than aging Boomers, their issues may mirror an overall decline in anglers as a byproduct of the US population becoming “fish averse” and “chicken centric.”

Declining sales of seafood reflect a population leery of fish on numerous levels, including; elevated mercury, the pen-raised versus wild caught controversy, increased prices, and unfamiliarity with preparation.

… problems include the confusion and mixed messages surrounding claims that certain types of seafood are high in mercury, fears stirred up by organizations opposed to growing genetically modified salmon, a lack of awareness of which types of fish are healthy, and a failure of the industry and supermarkets to better promote fish. MSN Money

Couple those issues with the information (or disinformation) prevalent with environmental issues, the perceived rape of third world coastal fisheries by developed nations and their fleets of factory ships, and the uninitiated may feel the entire fishing experience off-putting.

Fisherman have always hated the taste of fish so we’re not helping things either…

Seafood company officials aspire to emulate the chicken industry, where consumption has boomed to nearly 82 pounds in 2012 from 34 pounds in 1965. If the industry can ease consumer fears and develop more convenient products, John Connelly, president of industry trade group National Fisheries Institute, said at the Boston show that there’s "nothing to preclude us from having the kind of exponential growth the poultry industry had." MSN Money

While I adore an optimist, Mister Connelly’s note above suggests there are “exponential fisheries left unexploited” that he can use to supply all those new converts with chow. I would assume seafood harvests are now in decline as all known fisheries are under harvest.

Any thoughts of explosive growth in seafood consumption should likely be accompanied with a couple of new oceans, and a continent or two.

Only if you spell his name backwards will he disappear

I remember being horrified when I found out that Mister Mxyzptlk was able to stomp the guts out of Superman despite the dizzying array of superpowers The Man of Steel possessed.

Being an imp from the 5th Dimension, Mister Mxyzptlk was able to channel bad luck to his assistance. Every time Superman attempted to thwart his crime spree, the blow would decapitate some old lady in a crosswalk, or his super-heat-vision would fry some school bus full of kindergarteners…

… and I’m convinced I am firmly in the grips of something similar …

… broke a tooth Friday on the stone part of a “stone-ground” tortilla. Saturday, “Gopher Team Six” unearthed a monstrous rock just under the grass canopy of the rear lawn, and the mower was destroyed in an instant.

Having played this game many times I realize eventually the worm will turn and my ill fortune could turn into a monstrous day afield wherein everything below the water ate everything I tossed their way …

… but hanging off that large root above the rock outcropping while negotiating the forty-five degree slope of the lake was asking too much. Just as I had maneuvered to safety my feet slid crumbled the shale below and I bounced off a big rock outcropping that mashed ribs and robbed me of breath. I did manage to retain my grip on the root despite my sudden full fetal, and gasped out the obligatory, “double f**k me” once I had enough breath …

… Swearing profusely being the aerobic form of walking off a nut shot …

Newly reminded that my streak of poor luck was in full swing and thankful I hadn’t broken another rod, I wobbled up the cliff while wheezing in pain, hoping there had been few witnesses.

Chores being dangerous and fishing being doubly so, I opted for finishing the day afield like a proper dandy, thinking the pursuit of wild flowers couldn’t manifest itself into anything worse than a bee sting.

The idea was sound enough, but all attempts to record the adventure were scuttled by Little Meat, who apparently is just that and all HAM.

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I thought orange flowers were distinctive and represented little chance of malady, he thought they needed watering …

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I thought white flowers would make a pretty picture, and he thought the 2500 pound bull needed exercise … most of that being in my direction.

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I thought yellow flowers was breathtaking, he thought it appropriate to drop deuce, fortunately for all of us, he was discrete …

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I’d throw a stick in the opposite direction and when the shutter clicked the beast was mid-frame and smiling. I think I’ll drive slowly to work tomorrow … with blinkers on …

… or perhaps pull the blinds and simply go back to bed.

Rio Tinto opts out of Pebble Mine

miningThe global mining powerhouse, Rio Tinto, will divest itself of its share of the Pebble Mine, donating its 19% stake in the project to a pair of Alaskan charities.

The Pebble Mine has been the focus of much heat and wrath among the both environmentalists and the angling crowd, given the overall region is responsible for an enormous salmon population and many attendant industries.

All that’s needed is a Toyota Prius Monster Truck

Deer_HAir_TruckAfter multi-million dollar advertising campaigns touting “tax free” zones for New York startups, how Texas is “business friendly”, Massachusetts insists, “Take a Real Vacation”, or Montana’s “Get Lost in Montana”, Michigan has entered the fray by making itself extra appealing to fly tiers …

Fly tiers … because the high dollar tourista have already been lured to larger states. The 20-something social media moguls gravitate to the Big City, the Hip Hop squillionaires insist on similar digs, leaving Michigan attractive only to us economically challenged middle class types, and the the occasional marijuana kingpin whose entourage contains a bevy of canny tax lawyers that minimize their obligation to state revenues. 

… and Michigan’s subtle, yet frugal, message makes me think that California, “the Land of Fruit and Nuts”, might be better served by the sudden exodus of me and the fluttering horde of moths that pursue my collection of animal dander.

Instead of employing the Madison Avenue’s word artists, Michigan opted to exploit its native fauna, by removing any restrictions to Steel Belted Radial season, and adopting an, “if you kill it you can eat it” bylaw governing its roads and waterways.

“While fresh roadkill like deer can be consumed, I introduced this bill at the request of several constituents who have asked to use roadkill for various purposes, such as hunting, composting or salvaging the hides,” Booher said. “This is about reducing regulations and saving taxpayer dollars.”

It’s a match liable to make other states wish they’d pandered to us more openly, given our ranks are swollen with aging and stable taxpayers with a monstrous appetite for asphalt kinetics and deer hair.

All that remains is adding a roll cage to a Toyota Prius so you can sneak up on game like Gunther Prien sliding into Scapa Flow …

Slingblade says, “Like Coors .. it’s the water”

I was asked about the pending Turkey season and what was the local outlook, and while I typically hover around fish I do cover a lot of unkempt and out-of-the-way turf, as getting to the water without being shot, bitten, or arrested takes me all over the drainage.

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This year the quarry is constrained by water, and the above turkey track still had the edges folding into the depression – meaning the bird was braving the exposed bank at midday.

Turkey being notoriously shy creatures and despite your being surrounded by a flock of 15lb birds, can get by you with nary a bush moving to show their passing.

My allergy with “No Trespassing” signs often has me bursting out into their midst without warning – as the circuitous path necessary to give the angler plausible deniability takes me into inclement areas. Avoiding landowners, ambitious dogs, and the 300 beehives I disturbed accidentally – means I occasionally have to move blindly and without benefit of friendly terrain.

… and scaring hell out of the big-arsed birds means I usually emerge with a couple of extra tail feathers given their hasty departure.

Hunt water. Hunt the path between the roost and water – and it shouldn’t be too terrible surprising if the roost tree is closer to the creek than last year.

The lack of water means the ground remains hard and flinty, so I’m not seeing the usual scrape areas they work with them big clawed feet.

The lakes I hit last week had an abundance of tracks near the water’s edge, and that means they covered 300-400 yards in the open to get there.

A canny fellow would take advantage.

We who are about to die, salute you …

The only reason I have any fishing gear remaining in the house is She hasn’t seen the carnage yet …

It was to be a tale of Good and Bad News. The Good News being she would be occupied elsewhere all weekend, and I could go fishing…

The Bad News being any thoughts along those lines dispelled by the same warning tingle that alerts Peter Parker to the menace of Doc Octopus; a whirl of tan wings trundling through the living room about the size and shape of a scout for the dreaded Great White Hackle-Slurping-Fur-Crapping moth swarm.

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Alert to the danger you rush to your tying bench knowing it to be at risk, and you’re met by the peaceful bliss of Smallville – all defenses in place, everything bagged and put away, and nary a movement from any drawer however dark and remote.

… and while in the bathroom you see another “tan Fokker” climbing for elevation and mash it gleefully against a wall.

Which leads to a check of extended storage; bags and boxes containing your overabundances that aren’t used as often, the full skins too large to fit in the drawer, the pheasant tail bags, and the sack of salt water colored buck tail, all which come up clean.

… then the third sighting and subsequent kill, and as you scrub fragments of chitin and hairy wing onto your pants leg – you know that sickening feeling that somewhere, somehow, you’re the unwitting host to a really bad infestation …

Hudson: [Knowing that the Aliens are close, Hicks and Vasquez are welding the door shut] Movement. Signal’s clean. Range, 20 meters.
Ripley: They’ve found a way in, something we’ve missed.
Hicks: We didn’t miss anything.
Hudson: 17 meters.
Ripley: [Checking the tracker] Something under the floor, not in the plans, I don’t know.
Hudson: 15 meters.
Newt: Ripley.
Hicks: Definitely inside the barricades.
Newt: Let’s go.
Hudson: 12 meters.
Ripley: That’s right outside the door. Hicks, Vasquez get back. Hudson: Man, this is a big fuckin’ signal.
Hicks: How are we doing Vasquez, talk to me?
Vasquez: Almost there.
[They welded the door shut, and stepped back away from the door]
Vasquez: There right on us.
Hicks: [Waiting for the Aliens] Remember, short controlled bursts.
Hudson: 9 meters. 7. 6.
Ripley: That can’t be; that’s inside the room.
Hudson: It’s reading right man, look!

I’d checked everything I used for storage except the Room That Has No Name, containing the unused normal household extras – a few boxes of unused books, some extra dishes, a stack of my hard fishing gear – rods and tubes …

… and opening the door was witnessing the sack of Rome, complete with scurrying hordes of insects pouring out of the crevasses and crawling onto the walls to avoid the thin light intruding on their debauchery.

… and with them went all plans for fishing, as the infestation I found in the storage room was so bad, so numerous, and so blatant, that I simply closed the door, and wadded a towel against the jamb to keep the balance of the house clear.

Gross.

The real crime is that I’m about to be banned from my own domicile unless I return to lures and bait. Past outbreaks having sensitized She Who Cares Not for Dead Things to the roulette played out on my tying bench each evening.

… and the source of the infestation not some unmarked boxes of dead animal pelts – rather a down comforter opened by a mouse to feather his own nest, then exploited by the Winged Borg to explode their population exponentially under my watchful care.

Protesting my innocence being completely futile as past sins have me so far in the doghouse as to welcome fleas, as they’ll be the only thing talking to me for the foreseeable future.

All that’s left is the porous “I love you” defense, where the Condemned foreswears a weekend of fishing for the, “I could’ve gone fishing but instead I cleaned the store room knowing how much it meant to you” defense.

While it always sounds good on paper, keeping a straight face is critical, and while you’re making the Ultimate Man-bleat-noise she’ll see some laggard squadron of the “Dawn Patrol” break out of the closet to start their death spiral in front of her … my grin will out, and my arse cooked.

And The Lord said, “Modify my killing patterns not with thy name or risk Everlasting Censure”

Reduced_DressingMy last blurb mentioned how everything was likely to arrive early, be shorter, and fraught with unrealized complications, and would require anglers to brave Nature’s adversity.

I forgot how modification of a standard pattern was a Sacred Cow and could land a naïve fellow in hot water.

Reducing a pattern to fit on a smaller hook requires considerable changes to the basic pattern, and a canny tier needs to understand the waters they just parked their toe in …

The materials and accoutrements of large hooks rarely extend to their smallish cousin without interpretation, as the physics of the smaller hook cannot be denied.

Yet the biggest issue facing an angler intent on modifying an existing pattern is not the dressing, rather it’s the inherent Magic in the dressing. Tinkering with a known killer that may be a couple decades older than you are is the equivalent of tinkering with “luck” – crucial to fishing yet largely indefinable, akin to Jungle magic.

If you change a favorite classic to reduce its shape, colors, silhouette, or weight, did you ruin it?

… and if so is goat sacrifice enough to appease an Angry God?

Most anglers would never consider something so base and tasteless, and the notion of changing the tail on an Adams’ is sacrilege. An Adam’s is perfection, a fly that dominated every environment into which it has been hurled …

While we commend your fervor, one of your biggest and earliest hurdles  in fly fishing is the understanding there is nothing special about an Adam’s or Royal Wulff, they simply enjoy the same happenstance that allowed VHS to beat out Betamax, which was a better public relations firm.

… and us fly fishing snobs can be swept up into two piles; those that insist everything you throw at a fish should remind it of what it ate a minute ago, or, the group that insists you should scare, piss off, or antagonize the fish into lashing out uncontrollably.

That first bunch will laud you if scientific rationale is part of your color and material reduction, the second will adore you if you spread a little opalescence or add an invasive tinsel.

In most cases neither group will acknowledge the other, and while they may occasionally buy each other a drink or surrender the riffle to the other contingent hoping they fail they do have much more in common than most would think.

The agree on the silhouette of bugs, their many stages, the split finger fastball, and the small of a woman’s back, but deviate on the colors, tinsels, and beads with which each must be dressed.

In short, you can tear a grand old pattern into pieces, reassemble the silhouette and colors, and you’re likely to have as killing a pattern as when you started. Add in a bit of sparkle or give the old gal a hint of color as a “tramp stamp” and you’ve not sullied the past an iota, merely given homage where it’s due.

… but if you put your first name in front of it, or use the word “invented” in the same sentence … you’re reviled by both groups, you’re an Untouchable, a Poser – or worse, a Belieber … to be cast from us like a indicator foam in trophy water.

Trout Underground victorious in Stienstra Lawsuit

lawsuitThe Trout Underground has successfully defending itself from a spurious lawsuit by San Francisco Examiner Outdoor columnist Tom Stienstra.

Mr. Stienstra took exception to the Underground mentioning his apparent 2010 Marijuana bust, and chose to flex a bit of judicial muscle, albeit a bit tardy given the statute of limitations had expired on any potential defamation complaint.

I suppose the angling version of the judge’s gentle reminder would’ve been, “ … you should’ve sued him last week.”

Anyone who’s ever relied on information provided by weather-people or outdoor columnists (present company included) should not be surprised someone was smoking something …

You can read the Underground’s initial report of the incident at the link above. Myself, I see it as a simple narration of facts reported by other news sources and have trouble with the concept of apparent malicious intent.

Thinking of the great heritage angling writing has – and the many colorful characters that have added to angling lore, the only surprise here may be denial. Amid all the flashing bulbs and stern gendarmes leading some minor angling worthy to the Hoosegow, should be an unapologetic smile and a couple of choice epithets for the press.

That’s the stuff of legend … not, “I never inhaled …”

So long as it’s smaller than us it’s worth tormenting

In this occasionally competitive pastime we’ve either heard or relied on the familiar disclaimer, “ .. despite all the fish you’ve caught the truly important thing is simply getting out in the woods and having fun.”

… which my pal mentioned to me today after the long hike in gale force winds, unforeseen cold water immersion, and obligatory bee sting.

honest_fox

Immersed to his chin in cold water and enduring all with nary a hint of complaint.

I caught two but grudgingly let him beat me to the “frog jerky”. Desiccated amphibian mashed fetchingly against streambed cobble compliments of a passing four wheeler.

On occasion I’ve mused what life would be like if I could lick my nuts like he can, naturally I’ve assumed he thinks the same of my opposing thumb and fiberglass wand.

I don’t think he’s trading up anytime soon.

I don’t blame him.

Rumors of scarcity were overblown someone else exerted a prior claim

Having just finished the National Wildlife Federation’s report on global warming, and how half of our cold water fisheries will vanish in the next eighty years, I was content that the conservation issue was destined to be hot topic for the next several decades.

If it matters, I vote for smallmouth bass as the neo-nobility …

At the same time I was equally determined to find out why my lukewarm fishery was chosen to be extincted in the next eighty minutes, and without benefit of additional discussion.

So I checked the upper river …

Upper_River439

Plenty of water, nothing appears amiss other than the constant roar of gunfire from the morning’s dove hunt. Both doves and I were content to stay on the edge of the highway and watch – while hunters blasted jays, sparrows, and starlings, as they were all “gray” and sporting a long tail, and therefore fair game.

Then I checked the park area, two miles below the dam and some 25 miles further downstream …

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… and even that was lipping full of water, fish, fellow anglers, and even cormorants.

Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize I’ve been victimized by canal diversion, rather than any drought related reduced dam flow. The water is diverted below the dam, sent through assorted farms, rice fields, golf courses, and tomato fields, then restored to the channel about five miles below the newly dewatered Dead Zone…

The same zone that used to hold all the really big fish and deep water, and now holds only big rocks and deep dust.

… and explains why repeated exposure to the water downstream makes me want to scratch body parts. It’s likely to have been treated with fertilizers, anti-fungal agents, and warmed to lethal temperatures as it drains all that boron, selenium and arsenic out of your organic veggies and into that dogleg Par 5, behind the club house.

If a Big Mac and fries is characterized by the sudden blockage and subsequent fatal aneurism, my health-conscious salad having been strained through a couple of fairways and a tomato plot suggests my doctor is advocating a slow, Zombie-esque  demise.

Which isn’t the re-invigoration he describes will result from distancing myself from the fatty and caloric, but with all the maladies I’ll be contracting from local lettuce it’s likely to make his remaining years Golden as Hell …