Category Archives: Nothing to do with Fishing

The dreaded simple housekeeping post

Simple housekeeping post, nothing to shrink away from …

Item 1: Dry Fly Samples: I sent out 35 samples of dry fly dubbing to anyone who had the request to me before Sunday. As rendering the stuff into final form takes a bit of time, and I enclosed at least three colors for each of you, I had to burn weekend daylight to get it all enroute.

I have a second batch going out this weekend, for those requesting it since last Sunday. You’ll likely be getting it early next week, so don’t despair – Singlebarbed loves you (not!), tuck in that lower lip …

Item 2: Free Fly Tying class scissors for Clubs: I have another batch of cosmetic defect SixthFinger scissors that are free to any casting club that asks. I’ll include 12 sets (mixed sizes and metals) for each request to those folks that ask on behalf of their fly tying program. Emails to me (address on the “about” page at top), first come first serve. (looks like about 4-5 classes worth available).

Item 3: More travel awaits: Not content to send me to all the Northern counties of California, now I’m touring all the southern ones to boot. Posting will be affected, so you’ll have to amuse yourself with something else for a bit.

The only real difference is my refusal to shower when in the South state. It’s the knowledge that I’m wasting precious Northern California snowmelt that prevents me from using anything damper than a Towelette.

Guess I won’t get invited back – and I’m okay with that mostly …

Remember, everytime you drink POM Wonderful a Kitten dies

kitten4 I once prided myself on my understanding of Science, but this new stuff is a slow learn.

I’m tempted to look at your exam and copy your answers, as I can’t seem to grasp some of these longwinded connections …

The Greatest Estuary the world has ever known is dying, with the Delta Smelt simply a hood ornament representative of the larger ecosystem. Scientists suggest we’re pulling too much freshwater out and pumping it south, so Mssr. Resnick (owner of all the Kern River Water Bank) and his spouse (owner of POM Wonderful) call in a chit from Senator Feinstein to overturn that scientific evidence …

… then they mount a smear campaign to blame the Striped Bass as the root evil of the Delta – claiming even bass boats and small children are on their diet.

Better still, California Department of Fish & Game decides (or has it decided for them) that the bullshit press paid for by Mssr. Resnick is one of a lot of possible stressors of the aforementioned fragile drainage, and as we need to deal with ALL of those stressors equally (some being more equal than others) we should boost the bag limit on the invasive Striped Bass (itself in decline) in order to restore balance to the San Francisco Delta.

Stripers being similar to Al Qaeda operatives, faceless, non-voting, and therefore the root of all wickedness.

For February, the California Fish & Game is holding public comment on the below changes;

The basic proposed changes are as follows:

  • Raising the daily bag limit for striped bass from two to six fish.
  • Raising the possession limit for striped bass from two to 12 fish.
  • Lowering the minimum size for striped bass from 18 to 12 inches.
  • Establishing a “hot spot” for striped bass fishing at Clifton Court Forebay and specified adjacent waterways at which the daily bag limit will be 20 fish, the possession limit will be 40 fish and there will be no size limit. Anglers fishing at the hot spot would be required to fill out a report card and deposit it in an iron ranger or similar receptacle.
  • Changes to the sport fishing regulations for the Carmel, Pajaro and Salinas Rivers to allow harvest of striped bass when the fishery would otherwise be closed.

I realize that while many might shake their head at this latest outcome, this darkest of hours, it merely represents the tip of the iceberg of what’s coming.

Jobs, baby – and damn the environmental consequences. It doesn’t matter that our youth was spent placing Vibert boxes in streambed cobble, picking up litter and releasing our catch, the excesses of our middle age undid all the good we accomplished – despite cotton bell bottoms and Earth shoes.

Unfettered consumerism coupled with mortgage debt, the Great White Shark of society.

… suggesting it’s no longer appropriate for me to lug 2-stroke oil bottles and gallons of anti-freeze out of the brown water … better  I empty them into the creek to give my foe a “soldier’s death”, worthy of their tenacity and honor.

Where I was once conscious of the ecology and stepped onto the bank to make water, now I’ll simply “drop-trou“ in mid current and let fly.

The choices for us being simple. Either we aid fish evolution so it can swim up sewer pipes to inhale one or both of your ass cheeks in a single grab, or it dies a horrible death – screaming for its mommy.

… and just as suddenly we’re arm in arm with those we fear most?

Congress can’t agree on trimming a nickel from the federal budget, nor can they bring themselves to address any meaningful social issues, certainly not in a timely manner – but they’re determined to blow hell out of the Internet.

They must’ve assumed that lacking a face or political affiliation meant the Internet is fair game, yet in the face of recent public backlash, they’ve had to shelve SOPA and PIPA, the legislation meant to placate the RIAA, Hollywood, and every other media entity struggling with Internet-based change.

Senator Bob Corker (R-TEN) is proposing they do away with our beloved tax free online shopping, by introducing the Marketplace Fairness Act (S-1832) which will require any vendor whose sales are in excess of $500,000 to collect the taxes owed the state where the sale originated.

Meaning, I’ll be required to pay California sales tax at any and all “large” retailers.

SMALL SELLER EXCEPTION.—A State shall be
authorized to require a remote seller, or a single or consolidated provider acting on behalf of a remote seller, to collect sales or use tax under this Act if the remote seller has gross annual receipts in total remote sales in the United States in the preceding calendar year exceeding $500,000.

While this doesn’t seem horribly one-sided, Congress sure seems bent on eliminating any tiny perk us 99%’ers enjoy – and we’re supposed to agree with their vision under the guise of something heartwarming like “fairness.”

“Fairness” would be sending all those mortgage company execs to jail, or all the bank CEO’s, as most committed securities fraud by lying about the health of their institution while the Fed covered their hidden shortfall with our taxes. Fairness might even mean ensuring Senators and Congressmen go to jail for insider trading as I would, or giving me less jail time for downloading a pirated Michael Jackson song than you gave the Doctor that killed him …

In recent history, fairness is just bullshit word meaning “everybody but me” and doesn’t quite mean what it once did.

I’m sure the few large establishments our tiny industry has spawned will not welcome the requirements and paperwork, but it should put the “Big Box” retail names in a bit of a housekeeping disadvantage, compared to the smaller local shop.

… and it will spur some employment, given that each larger entity will have to increase the front office staff to handle the 8000 different tax rates and the quarterly filing of reams of triplicate paperwork owed each of those municipalities.

In these harsh economic times, and with our quaint little hobby still flirting with the thousand dollar fly rod, I can’t see it as a means to persuade me to  buy this year or even next. The nature of the Internet makes Europe and Asia just a UPS truck distant, and with the Euro plummeting earthward, I have a compelling argument for me to move more of my angling transactions offshore.

There is a vibrant line of fly fishing products outside the US and choices are surprisingly familiar; Rise and Echo rods are Korean or Chinese, Hardy & Greys, Loop, Mustad-Tiemco and the rest of the hook industry is offshore, Airflo lines and scads of other fly shop standbys are of non-US origin.

While understanding the intent of the legislation and acknowledging the idea was technically sound, my dim view of all this stems from the chaos that is the federal and state budgets – and how both may boost our tax rates to cover shortfalls or simply to service the national debt. Most states are already arguing over many tax increases as well as cuts in existing services to paper over the loss of property taxes, and the holes in their finances that’ll result once the federal government trims its spending.

Once all the dust settles many states could be facing a sales tax of 10% to 12%, and with the world vying for hard currency to lessen the blow to their respective economies, the dispossessed little guys may come to realize the Internet contains more than the US, just as I did.

“Our business and the sport of fly fishing depend on healthy specialty fly shops. They are critical to growth in revenue and jobs,” said K.C. Walsh, President of Simms. “This legislation will close a critical loophole that has given an unfair advantage to online retailers.”

-via Angling International, February 2012 (Issue 49)

On the surface the proposition is a noble one, but I can no longer trust my elected officials to have my best interest at heart, and therefore I trust nothing spawned of them at face value.

I kept faith with the dictionary’s version of “fairness” – continuing to pay my mortgage payments regardless of the value of my home, continuing to pay state and federal taxes no matter which Fortune 500 company was bailed out – and at no time did I succumb to the neo-fairness as espoused “within the Beltway” and the aging demigods that haunt those marble corridors.

With the fly fishing industry poised to follow Redington and go direct to the consumer, it’s certain that all the paperwork and staff needed to accommodate this new legislation is liable to cool their ardor somewhat.

Which may be why Simms joined with Amazon.com and Walmart as being in favor of the legislation. I find those entities strange bedfellows to cozy with given they’re the self-same retail giants we’re trying to keep from swallowing the local shops …

All municipalities woo the “Bricks and Mortar” companies to locate stores within their districts. Deal sweeteners like property tax forgiveness and other waivers can be agreed upon to convince retailers to erect stores and hire locally. Online vendors get no such breaks, yet will have to pay the same taxes as if they did.

Some pundits are convinced it’s the springboard for a national sales tax, others suggest it’s anything but fair, and the rest suggest Amazon and its ilk will cash in big …

I lack the answer, and outside of old fashioned suspicions will be the first to admit a lack of credibility. We’ve seen this so many times and been promised it was other than a wolf in sheep’s clothing, that I doubt the “enemy” would be in such a rush to back the bill if the legislation actually levels the playing field.

Women are fine, girls never, and pals maybe

I’ve warned you plenty of times – yet still I’m the recipient of your extended digit and pronounced raspberry. The Pied Piper of Taut Flesh keeps you thinking you can mix pleasure and sacred avocation, yet us old guys know better – we tried it and perfection can’t be improved on ..

Large fish sipping naturals, a light breeze rustling aspen leaves, the burble of cold water over slick rock, and the gasp of pent up carbonation released in a rush …

… or in the case of us oldsters … never mind.

Girls don’t mix with fly fishing. Women might – but that tired old cliché of sub-twenty year olds roasting bottom on the sandy borders of some mountain freshet, eager to share a meaningful tryst with old guys that haven’t showered all weekend, that is a complete falsehood.

Same as the notion that you don’t need little blue pills for your … um …indigestion.

Slow learner?

Bachelor Episode

– via US Magazine

Click the picture above to watch all that flesh and giggling tautness sneer at one another, complain constantly, backbite-fu, and generally piss all over our beloved sport and their Bachelor host (when he can’t hear) …

Remember, I watched it for scientific reasons, you’re the one with the penchant for complete (gag) trash.

Once a constant companion to the fly fisherman, now on hard times

hostess_twinky I expected most of the angling world to be in mourning, yet nary a mention of the possible demise of Wonderbread and the Twinkie, two of angling’s last remaining superfoods …

Hostess and fly fishing have an enormous amount of shared lore which has been lost on recent generations due to their insistence on healthy streamside fare.

Wonderbread started our interdependence on synthetics, being the first manmade material able to claim “lighter than air” and enjoying  a speedy adoption among the dry fly enthusiasts.

It didn’t matter that “lighter than air” only applied to swallowing the meal, once down it was as leaden as anything spawned of a test tube.

Poptarts and Twinkies ushered in the purely chemical era, where we no longer feared food stains on our vests and could wad sandwiches and delicious desert snacks into the smallest of pockets, there to lie dormant for an entire season.

Flat, round, polygonal, or simply mashed, Wonderbread retained sandwich content in a semi-sterile envelope that allowed sunlight and a sweaty angler to warm it to room temperature and beyond – allowing us extra miles afield without fear of starvation, food poisoning, or empty calories.

Twinkies were synonymous with the notion of the floating strike indicator, as its delicious buttery shell once dubbed, “the Golden Life Preserver of Snack Foodage”, by countless anglers who’ve gone in over their heads yet were yanked to the surface complements of the protective shroud that was Twinkie buoyancy …

Both Ray Bergman and noted outdoorsman and baseball legend, Ted Williams likened the Twinkie to a culinary abomination, yet characterized the desert as the “Bamboo Rod of Parking Area Fingerfoods.”

We all recognize that we’re supposed to fill our vests with healthy fare; 5 Hour Energy Shots, Koolaid, and Pop Rocks, but considering what we’ve built on its greasy foundation, won’t you consider buying a box simply for old time’s sake?

I’d hoped when I finally found the nuggets on a chicken, there would be a couple feathers no one had ever seen

It started out as simply a shoulder shrug, but on a whim I was quickly transported from avaricious angler looking to impress his fishing pals to investigative journalist, then onward to devout PETA flag waver …

It should have been a no brainer, how I was going to impress fishing pals by serving the remnants of a gigantic salmon, with the filets themselves proof of an unlikely miracle while fishing. Pounds of enormous, succulent fish flesh draped across the plate – as all listened open-mouthed to my tale of 4 pound tippet, running at full speed across a slippery Pacific Coast riffle, hours of screaming reels and hard fought yardage, followed by me emptying a .45 into my foe, as he made a last spasmodic move for an extremity.

The proof was to be the simple part. Six or seven slabs of salmon joined using meat glue, to make an aggregate fillet rivaling a world’s record (something I planned on pointing out during the obligatory cigars and brandy) …

 

Instead I find out the joke’s on us me, as the meat industry has been manufacturing the nuggets on a Chicken, rather than them existing in some hidden feathery place not yet discovered by fly tiers.

… and while most of the world is banning it from the table in horror, only in the US would our four star chef’s rise to the possibilities of Frankenfood, generously ladling glue into all manner of odd proteins, while charging us double for the privilege.

Makes you wonder how safe it is when the fellow cautions the reporter not to inhale.

See the Harvard School of Cooking and Chef Wylie Dufresne take your palate to new heights compliments of Meat Glue … which can be purchased from Amazon.com for $89.00 per kilo.

We’ll put up this big electrified fence in the water and see if they can swim through that

We’re safe for the moment because there’s still an occasional Field & Stream mixed in with People and National Enquirer in the dental waiting area, and it’s inappropriate to hold us Sons of the Greatest Generation accountable for our Poppa’s fixation with archaic blood sports.

… then again, all that could change in the blink of an eye …

With magazines hawking exotic venues and vendors hawking esoteric fibers and elaborate clothing rituals, there’s no question with each passing decade there’ll be less and less of us casual fishermen – and more and more of the monied “Professional” angler, even if that label applies only to Saturday and Sunday.

Which suits the younger crowd and vendor community just fine. They’ve struggled mightily to redefine the sport with Big City professionals, and like ten-speeds and blue jeans, our traditions are no longer expensive enough nor are they testimony to the agonies and suffering that pro-sports requires.

With global warming and all the critters and toxins dribbling off our streets, clothing, and tires, Mother Nature has no chance alone. That fat old bitch has had her day, and Pro-Anglers© will need newer and hardier quarry to make brief moments afield worthy of gasps back at the watercooler.

Along with the antiquated Norman Rockwell notion we’ll toss the entire environmental angle as well. What few natural species remain will be gasping in some rivulet where we can toss vended ice cubes to lower the temperatures enough to sustain traditional trout, an offering that shows fealty to those “What Came Before” and absolves the angler of all environmental guilt and his responsibilities for same …

We don’t fish the Outdoors much anymore, given the “clean room” garb we’re forced to wear to leave the pavement.

… and into this niche will fall most of Academia, whose grant monies dried up within the “Great Belt Tightening” – and we’ll get a vast crop of DNA based startups promising to restore ancient extinct species back to fenced pastures and overly warm brooks …

And after the novelty of it all wears off, there’ll be the monied crowd asking Disney staff could they take one into the parking lot and shoot the sumbitch, and do they want steaks or chops, and who stuffs a T-Rex ?

… and while we pick on hunters, given their propensity to blow acres of sunshine through everything, our monied professional fisherpeople, whose yen for extreme knows no bounds … they’ll be close behind.

Now we can flood old NFL stadiums and fish for stuff with FANGS …

It’s no surprise that a decade of unemployed scientists and the sudden dearth in academic grants would get most of the Ivy League to invent an indigenous industry that could promise to employ millions of the dispossessed.

We’ll be all smiles having applied responsible science to genetics and species restoration, we’ll be sure that all Meglodons released will be Triploids …

… which won’t save many swimmers, but by the time we realize we’re sharing the planet with a couple more apex predators, it won’t matter much.

Man of the Year is for literates, which of us will grace the cover of GQ is the real question

stanky It’s one of the great conspiracies of our industry; how SIMM’s, Orvis, Columbia, and Gander Mountain, have spent time and money marketing clothing to anglers, yet only when the catalog falls from our nerveless, napping fingers does our girlfriend insist we buy something …

We don’t tell because it would simply kill the bastards to know that only girls and hunters like Taupe.

… real Fishermen resent fashion as it confuses us from what’s truly important, warmth and not-warm-enough.

… real Fishermen resent color as it allows society to notice we haven’t changed our underwear this week.  We know that fresh undies adds precious minutes to our morning ritual and allows lesser men to get to the river first.

We’re aware society requires we cover our ample paunch, blanched soft arse, and other sensitive bits – with something – otherwise the late arrivals would bring John Law and chase us out of the best water.

But that’s all we know, yet all of that is about to change…

Imagine jeans, sweats or socks that clean and de-odorize themselves when hung on a clothesline in the sun or draped on a balcony railing. Scientists are reporting development of a new cotton fabric that does clean itself of stains and bacteria when exposed to ordinary sunlight.

Their report describes cotton fabric coated with nanoparticles made from a compound of titanium dioxide and nitrogen. They show that fabric coated with the material removes an orange dye stain when exposed to sunlight. Further dispersing nanoparticles composed of silver and iodine accelerates the discoloration process. The coating remains intact after washing and drying.

– via PhysOrg.com

I know some of the above terms are unfamiliar, so I’ll translate: “washing and drying” means … in case you fall in.

Self cleaning underwear that allows you to drop trouser for ninety seconds, which because of beer you have to do anyways, and like Jesus Hisself, all sins and indiscretions are wiped clean by modern science.

I bet astronauts get it next …

Homeland Security to Preempt Public Lands near borders

Prohibits the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture (USDA) from taking action on public lands which impede the border security activities of the Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) (Secretary). States that the Secretary shall have immediate access to any public land managed by the federal government in order to conduct activities that assist in securing the border (including access to maintain and construct roads, construct a fence, use patrol vehicles, and set up monitoring equipment). States that a specified waiver by the Secretary of certain laws regarding sections of the international border between the United States and Mexico and between the United States and Canada shall apply to all sections of the international land and maritime borders of the United States within 100 miles of such borders with respect to the Secretary’s activities under this Act.

cavity HR1505 is an interesting tidbit, allowing the Department of Homeland Security to preempt all other federal agencies and restrictions in the last 100 miles between the US and any external border.

Which implies they can rattle about in gas guzzling 4 wheel drive and two-stroke vehicles, and build a network of surveillance and roads the rest of us will quickly exploit as the quickest way to the Pristine – despite any former Wilderness or National Park protections.

I think their intent is not to make it easy for the US Border Patrol, instead are opting to restore that border to impermeable status with an injection of thousands of rubber gloved TSA agents.

All the illegal immigrants apprehended will resent being groped and fondled,  turn around and leave of their own accord.