It was an involuntary wince when I felt the resistance to my pulling an armload of fishing tackle from the back of the rig. Instinctively I’d bowed like a tarpon angler whose seen his quarry come airborne on a taut line, yet the crack of rod tip impacting something in the bed as it released lacked the rattle of broken –  yet sounded violent enough to trigger a burst of self loathing and profanity.

Only a dental visit makes an angler more repentant … a dangling fly and momentary sloth meeting something damp, oversized and heavy, with a prized rod thrust into Harm’s way and an armload of supplies making its peril invisible.

I got lucky, the overly loud snap of tippet and accompanying violent reverb off the truck bed merely disrobed half a snake guide of thread, and altered the tip top from spherical into ellipse.

… which didn’t slow my swearing any, just made the muttered epithets blanket North America, rather than the World at large…

After a year reacquainting myself with fiberglass, and my renewed pleasure causing me to move numerous rods from the back of the pile to the front, I could scarce afford to start trimming their number with carelessness.

Especially since I’d made the mistake of cracking a catalog and asking myself, “what’s the latest generation of glass going for?”

A house payment, Natch … silly question.

… and whether it’s got a couple of vowels or simply a consonant preceding “glass, “ it’s alternatingly a sharp intake of breath or a headshaking giggle.

After viewing a couple of contemporary catalogs, I figured the “S” meant “Super” or “Superlative” – yet just as quickly changed to – “Stupid”, “Simple” or possibly its owner merely a “Spendthrift”.

“Sudden Chastity” being part of the Mean Old Guy mantra, as we knew a good rod lasts a lifetime and saved the old gear, only occasionally upgrading our tackle with more fashionable contemporary fodder. Naturally, once heeled we feel free to comment on others and how their manhood comes cheap …

Yet from my Ivory pedestal, as I attempted to straighten what was now a damning ellipse, I realized its source was just as damning, as this was proof of my Urban Urchin youth, the unloved pristine Fenwick Feralite, Model FF807, that I’d spied in a curbside dumpster along with a worn Mad Magazine (Issue #50).

The gay colors of the comic book cover had me teetering precariously on the lip of the dirty container, brushing aside rancid can goods, broken lathe and plaster, and with comic in one hand, spying the cork grip of someone’s failed attempt at Gentile …

I ignored the angry screams from the second floor, figuring the same spinster was likely the cause of the rod owner’s premature death, and he wouldn’t mind my repurposing his tackle – nor my thumbing nose at his spouse.

Now some thirty years distant (and suddenly blushing from snooty commentary), I find this rod proof that I was never “to the manor born” – rather I was an ardent gutter snipe angler intent on killing stuff smaller than me.

… which is why I prefer sub-hundred dollar glass from eBay, and never turn up my nose at the creek’s bountiful offerings, including bullet riddled teapots and free shorts.

… and here I was thinking the Jigglicious video was the penultimate found thing …

Today being “National Hoody Day” we thought we’d stray outside the boundaries of begging for trout stream protection (from an unfeeling and uncaring mob), to throwing our massive weight behind larger social issues …

… and you’re right, they do look pretty sinister.

A first ever glimpse of real dinosaur feathers preserved in amber.

… right before they’re chipped clean and served with Chardonnay, intertwined with some minor celebrity’s bangs via salon on Rodeo Drive …

Us Californio’s have always been eager to promote fads that make you recoil in discomfort, violates your personal ethics, or makes you trod wantonly across lines that are rarely crossed …

… and if it looks or smells nasty, then we’re doubly sure to export it to the rest of the planet. As both coasts have embraced Sushi for some time, it’s only those members of the 46 red states betwixt the two oceans that needs to watch the below …

For your dining pleasure, a little soy sauce and we have reanimation …

… something about salt and nerve endings – works swimmingly with frog legs and an unsuspecting girlfriend you’re looking to shed which are only half as nasty, hence the lesson in international cuisine (without mentioning IHOP).

There’s a reason most fishermen hate eating fish, damned if I can remember why though …

I’m giggling while reading a tirade on whether hair extensions and hippie chicks should be mutually exclusive, and though both are taking a considerable beating, the unthinkable occurs to me …

Fly tiers and dry fly fishermen are the only folks complaining over the loss of Grizzly hackle. Dry flies being tougher to tie than bead-headed-anything suggests my loyalties could be purchased …

Is it possible that the dry fly, and the idolaters and devil worshipers that exalt them above all else, are the source of angling’s bad press and should be cast out so they can lie with snakes and vermin of like (base) nature?

Sure it’s archaic and harsh, but there’s considerable evidence to support such a fanciful conclusion.

Think of all those distant relatives gazing at you in hushed expectation as you open your Christmas gifts, and how you’re forced to gush superlatives over; cut glass highballs featuring Cahills and Adams, ties festooned with March Brown and Fanwing Coachman, and cute but useless leather coasters featuring Humpies, Elk Hair Caddis, and the Rat Faced McDougal.

… most of which will never grace your fly box, you’ll never fish nor recognize, other than it’s something lacking the familiar bead head, and therefore sinks like crap …

All you really wanted was a slot car set, a new rod, a subscription to the Drake, or an AK-47 –  but Grandma is a couple of time zones away and the nice man sold her them drink coasters instead …

Think snooty old guys and their down-the-nose grimace when shown newly purchased composite rods, synthetic flies, and plastic creels. Think clubhouse shunning and the coldest of shoulders should you mistake the lowly Caddis as a viable food group – equal perhaps, even to Mayflies …

Think chickens raised in isolated airless closets, their only companion being the curses of Mr. Whiting, and the promise of dismemberment in a  cloud of downy agony…

“We are informed that you visited the conditions in which the roosters are confined and killed for their feathers,” wrote PETA Foundation General Counsel Jeffrey S. Kerr. These conditions include confining roosters to solitary cages stacked one on top of the other in noisy, windowless sheds until the birds are finally gassed and skinned. Mr. Whiting admits that he and his workers abuse the birds, even hurling them across the barn.

– via PETA

Surely it’s rarified turf belonging to ancient Field & Stream issues, pipe tobacco, rough hewn porches, toddies, and Ben Gay, none of which has survived to present day – being the yuppie Outdoor accoutrements of your Dad, not the 5 Hour Energy crowd of today.

As we’ve been dismantling the equally sacred “Match the Hatch” mantra for some time, I’m thinking it may be time to purge the fedora, aromatic pipe, Mr. Aberchrombie and Mr. Fitch, and the notion that visible is more cultured – when it’s merely suited for those whose reflexes rival a Mastadon …

I remember reading of Milk Fed Veal, never again was I able to look a calf in the eye.

Times change, and the old ways are rethought or simply discarded. Now, I simply idle in the parking lot while Ronald McDonald stares at them soft brown eyes before clubbing the little prick senseless.

I’m not so sure it wasn’t a rogue band of dry fly purists that assaulted the local bait shop, making off with a 100,000 maggots. Given the meager supply of dry fly hackles were nearly exhausted due to rampant hoarding of trendy hair stylists, and with the season just underway, it was likely a spur of the moment act of desperate men.

It could have been PETA, but maggots are neither adorable or expensive, ensuring there’s little interest in a bill board campaign or simple martyrdom – as plenty can be scavenged from the periphery of the local roadbed.

The clue is all eight of the bandits beat off the proprietor and throng of angry fishermen with golf clubs … which is damned suspicious in anyone’s book …

Eighteen holes is obviously lacking that sweaty primal-thing, where you can squeeze the life out of something smaller than you …

I’ll go along with TC’s latest discovery …

… guy hair extensions …

Connecticut officials side with US Fish & Wildlife scientists in the belief that the once fearsome Didymo, or Rock Snot as it’s more commonly known, is largely harmless to both insect populations and fish in infested streams.

It’s a win for the fish regardless of whether you believed rubber soles exonerate us of all sins or no …

Didymo has had a negative effect on water bodies in New Zealand, creating large mats on the bottoms of rivers and affecting the food chain. Although the algae has been found in the Northeast, the same effects have yet to be seen in New England, Aarrestad said.

“Colleagues [in Vermont] have assured me that the devastation was not what they’d seen on the other side of the world,” Aarrestad said. And in New Zealand, “there is no scientific evidence demonstrating negative effects on trout populations.”

*Peter Aarrestad, director of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection’s Inland Fisheries Division (and those are my boldings)

All of which makes the articles in the Maryland media that much more humorous. My personal favorite skipped the wading issue entirely, suggesting Didymo was spread by angler’s feet … which suggests the Missus will insist we keep our socks on while in bed.

Now all that remains is for the two groups to get their stories straight, as the US Fish & Wildlife article was written by New Zealand scientists who claim they also saw little damage to their insect populations contrary to the Connecticut excerpt, above.

It’s certain that no one wants to alter any of the watersheds visually or otherwise, but someone in the conservation community needs to alter their sensationalist fear message to match the the facts as they emerge …

For a more formal treatment of  “Didymo as potentially benign”, see the always wonderful Turning Over Small Stones .

A confirmed sighting of Didymo sent thousands screaming from Hartland Connecticut, as the West Branch of the Farmington rose out of her ancestral trench and descended on the town without warning, sending a massive algal backlash through two zipcodes and an isolated Dairy Queen.

Casualties are streaming in from the countryside while the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) closed all thoroughfares south of the Riverton Bridge.

Casualty lists posted here.

Considering all the misinformation the Maryland media has published in the last two weeks, they earned this.