Options in the face of legislative unrest, or how to avoid becoming an unwilling economic patriot

soles After a couple of decades on studded Weinbrenner’s, the felt sole started slipping off. Disappointing but understandable given I had used the boots hard over many seasons.

With laces and uppers intact the thought of resoling the boots crossed my mind, but getting new felts alone wouldn’t have worked, everything below the instep needed replacing.

Some time later, and quite by accident, I stumbled across a company that resoles wading shoes (all makes and models) and refits felt soled boots with Vibram’s Streamtread sole, should you wish to get additional use out of the uppers.

That led to a search of other companies that perform the same work, which also took me to the Simm’s website that lists additional cobblers, and I got an quick education on the subject.

I would think that those states that legislate rubber soles would find many thousands of anglers with relatively new felts that would prefer to convert than buy new …

… and then there’s those economic patriots that would rather pay full retail a second time …

Nice to know an option exists.

Is this going to be a stand up fight or another bug hunt

I’ve always claimed foul on much of the environmental sciences simply because the message is so often co-opted as to be meaningless. This being an election year and with “rightsizing” re-entering the economic vocabulary, and every candidate eager to claim credit, it’s about time science was devolved into something we could all understand …

Like mixing blown V-8’s, tow ropes, massive quantities of alcohol, and pump shotguns so we can denude both banks of the watershed of buildings and citizenry.

Obama’s Czar didn’t accomplish much beyond obfuscation of the issue, making impatient Illinois lawmakers plot to remove Big Government from natural resource protection, insisting us outdoorsy few can hold the breach into the Great Lakes via an impenetrable barrier of beer cans, dove loads, and cordite smoke …

Last week, Illinois Rep. Dave Winters (R-Shirland) introduced a bill that would amend the Fish and Aquatic Life Code, allowing registered gun owners in the state to shoot Asian carp "with a shotgun off of a motorboat in the Illinois River beginning with the 2013 licensing year."

– via The Huffington Post

Just Add more beer and full auto to the picture

While wrinkling my lips at bullshit science, I’ve always applauded Darwinism, and can only wait with great excitement as Youtube boils over with videos of screaming water-skiers, holes blown in boats and passengers, and bumper-to-bumper bridge traffic sprayed with all those leftover lead #8’s …

We interrupt our normal drivel to remind you that your season depends on a wee bit of courtesy

Singlebarbed’s role as consciousness for the greater good is simply too much hypocrisy to bear without giggling, yet I’ll wear this ill fitting garment long enough to remind you today is Valentine’s Day, and how most of your season depends on some small courtesy shown Them as Waits at Home …

Scientists agree there aren’t that many fish in the sea, and the Human Race depends on your ability to think outside your own miserable existence and set things right …

Today, all the B-Grade trash bloggers will be featuring acres of taut flesh whose boyfriends are scared of losing them, therefore will be shown courtesy and tokens of esteem. Reminding them how a little leniency regarding; abandonment of home, responsibilities, and children – not to mention coveting bamboo, barbless hooks, or the Out Of Doors, is always repaid with interest …

morethanwife To hell with hard-bodies, we know all the best gals hate fishing, mostly because we made them so.

Valentine’s Day is like a Full Dress Atlantic Salmon fly. You lack most of the materials and rarely practice their techniques, but recognize that each step builds to a larger chorus, and each mistake, however small, can never be hidden by any subsequent step.

Which, after considerable effort, yields a fly worthy of framing and ensures many pleasant hours afield without fear of the axe handle upon your return.

She has raised your kids and seen the skid marks in your undergarments, it’s time to give the poor lass her due.

A towering bouquet of posies at her work can be augmented with a small card from “Raoul”, or “Esteban”, even better  … “Thor”, mentioning how last night was life altering and how the discarded pieces of her wardrobe have been left with the guard at the front desk  …

She’ll have the card snatched from her grip and will suffer interrogation at the hands of her pals, be forced to reveal every last detail of imagined indiscretion, which will elevate her stature to “bad girl” – the envy of the homebody biddies.

She’ll smile knowingly and claim, “ … why I never, there must be some mistake …” – and you get the next month free to chase steelhead … after you buy her dinner and wince through two seasons of The Bachelor …

… don’t yawn, not .. even .. once.

All they’ll remember is the flash of the bulb and your fresh breath

While you were giggling at my Wintergreen-Spearmint fly floatant and head cement, making me the butt of parking lot humor, you may want to know why – so you can backpedal frantically …

There are a number of compounds that can be used to effectively sedate fishes, including compounds commonly found in human foods (e.g., eugenol and similar compounds found in clove, wintergreen, spearmint and other essential oils) and over-the-counter oral pain relievers (e.g., benzocaine).

-via the American Fisheries Society

The first couple of casts disperses precious oils into the current above my quarry, soothing that rush of “fight or flight” endorphins my pear shaped shadow and thunderous feet have invoked.  Depending on size and depth, a couple lifesavers plunked into the fast water above ensures everything below enjoys complete serenity as they lift off the bottom to inhale my artificial with obvious relish …

Doublemint

Over time recreational use gives way to addiction, and a stick of Doublemint and the saliva lingering on your clinch knot brings anything of heft upstream at a fast trot.

Just don’t mention it to your kid, he’s still willing to smoke anything.

You know you’re in Northern California when …

As our travels send us further South to the water consuming counties, we change our spots and adopt all the proper ritual to make us indistinguishable from the locals.

Upon our return we notice small things common to the water-bearing provinces that simply don’t manifest themselves in the cold stone canyons of urban California …

NorCalGas

As I came back through Silicon Valley and the Mothball Fleet, I noted all manner of dirty brown drainages filled with industrial solvents and castoff silicon wafers. A fellow could spend quite some time learning the area – but only after finding waders that didn’t melt in the combined effluent.

I did pull over and admired Solyndra’s empty parking lot. It happened to materialize out of the pre-dawn gloom and I needed to … eat lunch.

Screw the beaming children and barking dogs, fish scrambling in fear is charged with emotion, and I’m glad to be back …

But everyone has a firm handshake and wide white-toothed smile

three_StrikesIt’s usually something commonplace like unfiled taxes or an out of wedlock debauch that tumbles presidential hopefuls back to earth, mostly because  candidates can’t lie like us anglers, instead they crumple into sobs at the first hint of adversity, and we’re forced to watch some tearful confession while his wife stands grim lipped at his elbow.

Us sportsmen are experts at judging moral fiber and could shorten the field quickly if they’d give us a couple of debate questions, but they won’t –given there are too few of us remaining to matter.

Our environmental organizations dispute this notion – suggesting the outdoors crowd commands respect in both Executive and Legislative branches of government. Simply the threat of us taking our votes elsewhere causes senators and congressmen to blanch openly, given their fear of arousing the Sporting juggernaut.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Most of Congress fears us camping on their lawn, knowing that our delight in not showering coupled with our penchant for blood sports, would give us free reign to trap and eat stray cats, ornamental Koi, homeless people, or anything else that investigated a crumbled Twinkie sprinkled with lawn clippings, and the waiting Punji pit below …

Proof is in Texas’s Governor Perry, who prior to mounting his ill fated Presidential bid, signed an anti-crime package making it illegal to lie about a caught fish’s length and weight, a fact that might have put him at odds with that sporting vote, had he not forgotten … uhm, that third, uhm … stuff, first.

While a few fly fishermen have graced the Oval Office, most notably Grover Cleveland, Hebert Hoover, and Teddy Roosevelt, it’s been a long, dry spell since Jimmy Carter, the last angler that proudly ate what he caught.

No thanks to us, it appears the drought will continue.

Fly Fishermen, there’s one born every minute

It should come as no surprise that despite my antisocial behavior – my fondness for bathroom humor, my shortcomings of hygiene and as an angler, I am a middle manager of little distinction.

While my peers are hiring sub-20 year olds that giggle a lot and show acres of leg, I’m the curmudgeonly sort that violates all the important federal statutes on hiring and discrimination by selecting anglers only …

…

Question 7) List the fourteen steps of the Software Development Lifecycle in alphabetical order, backwards and in Klingon, or the classic dressing for an Ausable Wulff.

Question 8) Where do you see yourself in five years, and if there are big fish there, would you tell me?

…

Mostly because world dominance starts with a steady job, and the only employees instinctively punctual are fishermen.

… because you don’t tell a fellow you’ll pick him up on some darkened street corner at 0530 and arrive late …

As with all my new hires there’s that rough patch where we get from angler to f-l-y  f-i-s-h-e-r-m-a-n. Not because I’m some kind of evangelical prick – so much as we can communicate fully. Both of us can use the same language, one of naked greed and accumulation.

So I’m delivering The Sermon, “… you won’t mind that rods cost a thousand dollars and waders are eight hundred … “ – when I’m brutally interrupted by a look of outright scorn and that 80’s standby, “…whatchoo talking bout, Willis!”

I realize that it’s not simply sticker shock, my new pal has already been introduced to the snooty form of fly fishing and been sorely used. Ascots, smoking jackets, and someone that insisted all other forms of fishing were unworthy.

To overcome this additional fear I’ll need to adopt that extra-soothing quality in my voice – that silky tone that has you checking your wallet and hindquarters for fear someone has his hand there …

“ … and flies are about the same as top-water plugs or swim baits, and all the really good bass fodder like Scented Flame-tailed Purple worms with the Gelatinous sparkly stuff have a fly fishing equivalent …”

And as my newfound pal is lulled into thoughts of warmth and safety, he mentions that along with his new Bass kayak he’s bought, he  just plunked down fifty bucks for an airbrushed, broken-back rainbow trout plug that he hasn’t dared try because he’s scared he might snag something and lose it …

Black_Dog_baits

Which throws me into a fit of cost-concious outrage, “Fifty Bucks, FIFTY BUCKS? forasinglefugginbassPLUG? Fifty gotdamned dollars for six ounces of balsa and a few Korean trebles?, OhMyFugginGawd, that’s simply insane – does your wife know about that (and does she have a sister that’s equally gullible?)…”

Which simply proves any perceived gulf between types of fishermen is utter BS, there’s one of us born every minute.

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.