If they only ask your name when they mention a mailing list, you’re shopping at a Mini Big Box

Big Mean Old … and while the mini Big Box’s are squabbling over table scraps, along comes the Dragon and ate ‘em all up …

Cabela’s Incorporated, the World’s Foremost Outfitter® of hunting, fishing and outdoor gear, along with the Federation of Fly Fishers, announced today plans to offer industry-leading instruction for beginning fly anglers at 13 Cabela’s retail locations – and online – starting in May.

– via PRWeb.com

My take on all the SIMM’s drama suggests the big fly fishing vendors have cast their lot with the Big Box fellows already, they’re simply waiting for the right time to tell their “old girlfriends” they’ve had enough. But that’s okay, as we knew they were “for profit” companies and how loyalty, tradition, or sentiment, finds little purchase in the boardroom.

Earlier I’d heard Cabela’s was testing a new kind of mini-store, that smacked of the neighborhood variety, smaller sized to make inroads into smaller markets, the last bastion of the little shop.

Cabela’s Outpost stores, designed for efficiency, flexibility and convenience at around 40,000-square-feet, will open in markets with less than 250,000 people, bringing the same quality products and customer service for which Cabela’s is famous to hometown markets too small to support Cabela’s popular next-generation stores.

– via MarketWatch.com

(40,000 square feet is half their normal store size – KB)

Deep down I’d have to say our community essentially asked for this outcome. A fractured and contentious group, selling a luxury hobby into the face of Great Depression II, unwilling or unable to band together, leery of the Internet, change, and each other – until the big assed mean Dragon ate them all up …

At least it will give me someplace to wander through when Sweetpea is at Walmart …

For a few Gift Cards more …

Now that Maryland has reinstituted last season’s Snakehead bounty, gifting anglers a $200 Gift certificate from Bass Pro Shops for each kill, most of the state is likely mulling dumping their day job and becoming a Bounty Killer in the image of Clint Eastwood ..

As always, your friends and family won’t understand, and they’ll huddle tearfully on the lawn as you back your boat out of the garage. They missed the earlier fireworks where you hurled your paper hat into your ex-boss’s face, an underemployed-desperation job you’d landed when your first career imploded due to the housing crisis, and while fishing is undoubtedly more honorable than manning a drive thru window, after you earn every fly rod, every reel, and every accessory possible for your too-stuffed vest, can Bass Pro really put food on your table?

While their catalog boasts 600 items containing the word “food”, most appear to be things you sprinkle or spray so you can lure Bambi into rock throwing range, and the rest are best served as ingredients for a still, in the vain hope fermentation might improve its flavor.

… although their Ass Kicking Jelly Beans might serve as stellar breakfast food …

Which has always been the knock on voucher bounty, once you’ve stuffed your garage full of the complimentary American cheese, your interest wanes for your real mission, which is killing invasives.

… that and your landlord is less than thrilled when you offer two thousand yards of Dyneema and four gross of motor-oil flavored twisty grubs for another month’s rent.

Unlike the awesome cash bounty placed on my beloved Pikeminnow, which has made the papers each year – given the $4 – $8 bounty paid for each corpse larger than nine inches. At last count over 3 million fish had been removed from the Greater Columbia drainage.

What’s a little Yellow Dye #3 among friends

yuck We ignore charities only because our readership doesn’t know the first thing about the social graces, joining the Human Race only long enough to cash the occasional paycheck.

It’s not that we’re some form of hideous beast, merely we spend our weekends with lost causes. If it’s not the fish then it’s the watershed suffering, and while we’d adore curing cancer we know all the fly fishing traffic in the world would stand around expecting the other fellow to pay. Most blew their check on new graphite, what’s left of that paycheck can’t find each other in the same pants pocket.

Which is why most social niceties are reserved for outside the Intertubes. I get to keep the pages free of orphans, puppies, and lost causes, while donating a sawbuck or some time at work.

Instead, I’ll focus on baked goods, as any charity worth its salt knows it can pry dead presidents easily once a mug of coffee begins to look lonesome on the desk, and the rumor spreads of sugar in the break room, where Lemon Bars sleep at night – and cupcake frosting is fingerprint free.

… what they don’t know is that my preference for the rare, “Antarctic Lemon” is not because of their enhanced flavor, rather its the only plausible explanation on why my Lemon Bars show a faint tinge of Blue Dun.

I was tired and thought the pot on the stove was the Lemon filling.

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Just another thick envelope between gentlemen

Science for Hire Most of my giggles have been the irrational kind but it’s nice to see that the “we’ll tune Science for pay” phenomenon isn’t localized to the US or an election year …

While us Californian’s dicker over whether Striped Bass are the root of all evil, and while federal scientists determine whether the Delta should be sucked or flushed southward, our esteemed pals across the pond are enduring their fair share of neo-science for hire.

To wit, a scientist aligned with the farmed fishing industry claims us anglers have simply killed too many wild salmon, in the process removing too much genetic diversity from the population, and therefore a kind of “genetic drift” has lead to an indolent population of fish that prefer Twinkies and energy drinks. *

“We, at Callander McDowell, think that…the loss of genetic material rather than being the result of one big accident has been the repeated loss of genetic material from the rivers over the last 150 years and possibly even longer. This loss is due to the rise in recreational angling for salmon, whereby anglers take home their catch. Each fish kept and consumed is one more part of the genetic jigsaw that has gone missing. Even in recent years, the loss to the gene pool continues despite attempts to stop it through the introduction of Catch and Release.”

-via fishnewseu.com

The core of the issue being how escaped farmed salmon can interbreed with native stocks and weaken the population with their test tube genetics. As in the US and Canada, numerous ills have been blamed on escaped fish and their ability to interbreed, despite the industries efforts to contain their slippery crop.

Recent information on hatchery fish and their effect on wild populations would suggest that the progeny of fish that thrive in a concrete canal where pellets of food are shoveled in their direction, might not survive very well in the wild.

Hatchery fish themselves could be having an impact, too: recent studies have found genetic and behavioral differences in hatchery-born and wild salmonids. Hybrid offspring of hatchery and wild fish may have a lower chance of surviving and reproducing than purely wild offspring do.

– via the NY Times

Most anglers would acknowledge our collective sporting carnage. We’ve enjoyed driving great distances to scenic venues so we can kill many millions of fish. The fishing industry has taken it a bit further with large nets and electronics, and what they didn’t get has been doomed by the rest of us and toxic runoff from industry, cities, and attachment to fossil fuels.

I’d think moderates and liberals would have as much trepidation about believing Science as conservatives, given how much of it that makes the papers has been bought and paid for …

* I get to add some knee jerk half assed flavor of science too …

The social , gregarious fish are simply too precious to “one hand” or lift out of the water

largemouth_glasses Our study involving largemouth bass provides the
first direct experimental evidence that vulnerability to
angling is a heritable trait and, as a result, that
recreational hook-and-line fisheries can cause evolutionary
change in fish populations.

– via Selection for Vulnerability to Angling in Largemouth Bass

A twenty year study on Largemouth Bass yields an eye-opening conundrum for anglers, as the research suggests that Bass pass the likelihood for being caught from one generation to the next.

A 20-year study, led by University of Illinois research David Philipp, provided the first direct experimental proof that vulnerability to angling is an inherited trait.
Beginning in the 1970s, Philipp and his colleagues tagged and released largemouth bass in a pond in central Illinois. Some fish were caught up to 16 times a year. But when the pond was drained in the 1980s, they found that 200 of the 1,700 bass that were tagged had never been caught.
From that stock, the researchers bred groups of "high-vulnerability" and "low-vulnerability" bass. Then they stocked those fish in the same pond and repeated the experiment. Through three generations, the offspring stayed true to the parents’ tendencies.

– via Red Bluff Daily News

Years ago, US anglers took great exception to the practice of killing wild trout that was common on managed water in Europe and the UK. Angling restrictions required the fish be kept, as the prevailing theory was, “once it’s felt the hook – it’s not likely to eat an artificial again.”

The document mentions that Rainbow Trout have been used in similar research but fails to mention any conclusions of their use as subjects.

While the above conclusion is limited to Largemouth Bass, if it were to hold for most gamefish, then killing fish that take any fly, lure, or bait, ensures only the antisocial, cagey fish are left to breed, thereby ensuring that the fishery is ruined for us beer drinking vacationers …

Of interest is the description of the Largemouth’s vision, it can see about 50 feet with a resolution quality of about 10% that of a human.

Several lure companies have come out with highly touted lures with intricate paint patterns designed to imitate baitfish. But many of those baits proved to be a disappointment and never did sell the way manufacturers hoped they would.

The problem? They might have been too accurate.

Too much realism can make the bait invisible to prowling bass, based on distance and diminished vision quality. A bass might miss the movement should the lure be at sufficient distance (water being murky) whose camouflage was simply too good to be detected.

"The bass uses its eyesight and lateral line in combination when it is feeding," Jones said. "The lateral line is very effective in feeling local disturbances one to two body lengths away."

The full research paper was published in 2009 by the American Fisheries Society, and is available in PDF.

Now that we understand all those “red-state conservatives” no longer believe in Science, we can go down there and kick some tournament ass.

I learnt it at Singlebarbed, who teaches all the truly important fishing skills

Lying If you’re like me you read some sites to teach you how to fish, some that teach where to fish, others show flies, leaders, hints & tips, and then there are a rare few that instruct you in the proper way to hold a dessert spoon while fishing …

Today however, I’ll break with dispensing the usual mix of hot air and horse manure to teach you how to pick your next, Best Fishing Buddy.

How you can tell the real McCoy from posers that starch their Sage hoodies, and iron their SIMM’s …

…  corrugator supercilii, one of the three muscles of the eyelid that helps wrinkle the forehead, and depressor anguli oris, a mouth muscle that is associated with frowning. In liars, they detected subtle contractions of the zygomatic major, a facial muscle linked with masking a smile, and full contraction of the frontalis muscle suggestive of a failed attempt to seem sad.

-via Msn.com

Knowing how fly fishermen love immersing themselves in Latin, I figured you’d want the unvarnished version of how to spot the best Liar.

… rather than backpedal insisting you’d never countenance a best pal stretching the truth even slightly, consider that fishing is a mixture of catching and not catching, and the best liar is likely to induce consistency in your take, which will raise you in the eyes of spouse, siblings, and community.

Which, eventually leads to you being able to go more often as you’re “successful” and everyone loves a winner.

anguli

With your newfound knowledge of where and how to fish, and how to spot a lying, cheating sumbitch, you can now frequent your favorite fly shop and ask them important questions like; “when is your next Whiting shipment”, and “do you have any Grizzly necks in the back room?”

If you get a tell-tale twitch of any of the three muscles above, take a pair of pliers to the thumb on his casting hand …

Not fit for Man nor Fly, but I’m all smiles

I’ve always postulated that the only two groups that are always unhappy with the weather are farmers and firemen. Both think it’s too dry or too wet, and either the crop is a loss or the woods are ablaze …

Normally I’d have my lower lip pooched, regaling you with how I was all set to feed voracious brown-water cockroaches all manner of hideous and colorful flies, only the weather interrupted the festivities and I watch sullen as Chocolate Milk circled the drain where my beloved creek used to be …

Instead I’m all smiles.

Chocolate water means enough rain fell in the last two weekends to soak into the ground, with a bit left over to raise the creek nearly a foot.  A bit of extra water into the lake above means something to pizzle into the creekbed come August, when daytime temps break 100 degrees, and what fish are active compete with tomatoes for a hint of cold water.

This winter was a pale mockery of normal, and rather than watch my creek drained and dried for the second time in three years, I’d rather some life sustaining trickle was released from the reservoir above when it’s needed most.

I photographed this same stretch last year, where the foreground oak was underwater to its lower branches (see the Before and After pictures).

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An industry of Bums, Vagrants, and A-Number One

Our bum is the best bum When I worked in fly shops I was surprised and unsettled at the “us versus them” culture. Somehow my working for “Shop A” meant I couldn’t refer customers to “Shop B”, as my coworkers quickly taught me they were unworthy, mostly stereo and car salesmen, criminals all …

Then when I started guiding, I was told the same held true for guides. Both groups were grizzled, weather-beaten, and smelled bad … both tied flies and fished as often as the other, both had a quick smile and a firm handshake, yet it was explained our guides practiced the One True Religion – and them other fellows were Pagans and idolaters.

Eventually I ascribed this uneasy state of affairs to the natural discomfort one feels when seeing another angler on a stretch of water you had to yourself. How their sudden appearance brings cities, work, laws, debt, politics, the stock market, and everything else you’d fled Friday afternoon … with them.

Not holding with conventional wisdom, I nodded vigorously when the list of our merits and their shortcomings was recited, then tried to stay clear of any Mason-Dixon line, real or imagined.

Entering the work force I cast aside the angling industry as one of many childish things of my youth, and found that in the company of doctors, lawyers, plumbers, and steamfitters, some small vocational distrust existed, but nothing on the scale the fly fishing industry boasted.

In fact, antisocial types were frowned upon, and I had to unlearn habits developed in the fly industry, like drying my sneakers in the lunch room microwave, or dipping the same chip twice after idly clipping my toenails.

Perplexed, I filed this workplace oddity away as one life’s many unknowns, and was glad that in my new career I wouldn’t have to worry what the carpenter next to me thought of my nail hammering abilities, or whether the hygienist working nearby loathed the way I scraped teeth …

… and with my many weekends I hovered around the sport and its many facets and noted that while things around me had changed, this part of fly fishing hadn’t budged.

… so I’m on the Internet reading about fishing in Europe, and am jarred when some fellow lights into a minor fishing dignitary for the placement of his sunglasses. Either they were of the wrong type, were worn at a too-rakish angle, or someone was a poser – and they’d seen him at some show, and he was rude and …

Enough.

I’ve rethought my earlier idea, and have a different theory. Instead of us versus them, the issue is we secretly resent angling professionals and anyone making a living in the angling arts, knowing that if we chucked all our responsibilities and opted for the fish bum lifestyle, our bum would make their bum look civilized in the comparison.

A “bum” is the only vocation that requires no credential or course of study. A “fish bum” is therefore just a fellow with the courage to dump his job and its mindless toil, jettison the Old Bag and her brood of kids, and drop out of society.

… we’d be a better bum than the guy whose article dominates the fish mag we’re reading, better than the guy clicking through the slide show above us on the podium, and more believable than the nasal fellow who needs a bass boat to make his bum film-worthy.

Which is why we insist we’re alone on the One True Path, knowing the other fellows secretly miss their latte, still covet 401K’s, their toothbrushes, and the approval of society.

Liberal Menace responsible for most fishing ills and the Economy

liberal_moron … and I do so in good humor, despite blood rushing to my cheek, as I’ve been called “liberal” about as often as the Fair Sex has called me, “fat”, “disgusting”, or “slovenly.”

I’ve always associated the “Liberal” tag as nothing more than describing someone that lives on the coast, or resides in a “blue” state – which pretty much amounts to the same thing …

An analysis of 36 years’ worth of polling data indicates that confidence in science as an institution has steadily declined among Americans who consider themselves conservatives, while confidence levels have been at steadier levels for other ideological groups.

-via MSNBC’s Cosmic Log

But after all the research is complete and opinion weighed, can we blame those untidy DNA fragments that emasculate our steelhead and salmon on us, the liberal menace?

Meaning, us liberals, and our unswerving devotion to science, are the root cause of fish hatcheries and therefore responsible for the “put and take” philosophy espoused by State and Federal wildlife agencies?

Say it ain’t so, Babe!

So what does this mean for the role of science in setting national policy? "In a political climate in which all sides do not share a basic trust in science, scientific evidence no longer is viewed as a politically neutral factor in judging whether a public policy is good or bad,"

Which explains why so much of the Science of late has been either Good or Bad, with little in between. Nor does it bode well for future efforts to set aside unspoiled pieces of Pristine, given those listening are ignoring a lot of the evidence and testimony, assuming it’s no longer impartial.

Hard times coming for conservation organizations, whose message will resonate with us coastal types, and simply be “more liberal BS” for the warm states.