Nothing else has phased us fly fishermen, hence “legal” isn’t an option

flo_grizz The firm that I knew as “The Scourge of Grizzly Hackle”, Fine Featherheads – has apparently ignored PETA’s repeated “cease and desist” warnings about false advertising, and has drawn a law suit as its reward.

At issue was the Featherhead claim that Whiting Farms treats its roosters “ethically” rather than gleefully tearing great handfuls of  feathers out by the roots while stomping life out of the rooster. Whiting denies the denial claiming it provides spacious individual quarters for the birds who are gassed when harvested.

If memory serves someone tried that with humans a half century ago – and it was frowned on then too … “Ethical” now being in the eye of the beholder – and not so much the victim …

Us fishermen have never garnered the wrath of PETA, as we’ve always been dismissed as insensitive brutes – with nothing to be gained via class action or any other form of legal recourse.

Besides, one of those lissome young feather models probably leaned over to a compatriot and whispered the PETA negotiator couldn’t possibly understand that feathers were a fashion must have – as she was skinny and pale and wearing Earth shoes. The lawyer overheard, and threw the book at Feather-Momma and her clutch of wood nymphs.

They’re all at the mouth daring each other to make a dash for reproductive safety

salmon_sushi Scientists have finally discovered the reason behind declining worldwide salmon stocks, and the answer will both surprise and alarm …

For the first time scientists have discovered that migrating salmon can detect mammalian predators by the scent of already digested salmon in wastewater, which allows the migrating fish to determine whether its safe to move upstream.

"It’s the predator’s diet – not just its own smell – that’s alerting the salmon," explains Dr. Laura Roberts from the University of Swansea, co-author of the report published in Animal Behavior.

Otters are common predators of salmon so it’s clearly useful to the fish to be able to sniff them out.

The smell acts as an early-warning system for the fish, even when they can’t see the predator. It lets them work out the potential risk of being eaten and balance predator avoidance with other vital activities like foraging and reproducing.

… and test dives performed just outside the mouths of historic salmon rivers have found all the missing salmon milling about waiting for someone else to chance the first dash upstream.

Females eventually give up and release their roe in one girdle busting spasm – and then they all rush back to the safety of the open ocean. Wastewater treatment hasn’t been able to remove the scent of the fillet you ate yesterday, and everytime you flush you’ve reinforced the notion that upstream is instant death.

Again it’s your fault … if you’d been man enough to walk back to the porta-potty – instead of using a nearby bush, them fish would’ve bowled you over with sheer numbers.

Intercede early enough, and we can get them precious eco-votes for the price of couple of thrown rocks and a cold coke

It’s the trip every guide fears and every father dreads; how to introduce Poppa’s lifelong love to his progeny,  in a way that results in beaming children that gaze at their father in complete adoration …

… add the pressure of yesterday’s post, where at this young age we can BUY precious eco-votes for the price of a single candy bar or cold coke, and the even the most optimistic parent begins to blanch …

I call it the “15 minute rule” – add the ages of all the participants and divide by their number and you get the number of minutes you can fish without complaint.

Watch as I use my jovial fat guy powers to undo all that stern tutelage about not talking to strangers, and undermine their natural shyness around strange adults. Cringe as I swear like a sailor, and find gross things for kids to throw at their brother – while I show a couple of potential fly fishermen where “Eewww” grows, and how much fun you can have doing things your Ma would have a fit over …

My client, Garrat

Failure isn’t an option anymore, we have to package a time honored snooty old profession into something that rivals a massively multiplayer online pseudo-reality.

Which is yet another reason to celebrate warm water and the appetites of coarse fish, most of which are willing to bite anyone or anything that comes within range, and will hurl themselves at a bit of wrapped flash with a fluffy tail and a come-hither action.

Above is my client, Garrett who thought a fly and bubble pretty lame, the spinning rod and Rooster Tail not much better, and insisted on the fly rod and measured retrieve just like his Pop and older bro, below …

Kelvin and his son, Bradley

… and while he attempted to remain good natured about double skunking his older bro and his poppa, his cool handling of the voracious Brackish water Barracuda (aka Sacramento Pikeminnow), revealed his outdoors nature in the face of mano y mano encounter with a known man eater.

Actually, it was all those parental lectures on respect for elders that allows me to assist a young fellow thrust into unfamiliar and odious surroundings.

He assumes everything I say and do is gospel, and everything Dad says and does can be ignored. That gives me the upper hand in reminding Dumpling he should keep his rod tip low so he can feel the slightest nibble …

momz

Rocks_at_cars

… especially when we get to throw rocks at cars – which makes enormous metallic smack noises and with Pop urging us to further mayhem and to get wet, which is foreign to anything we’ve ever believed about adults – none of which know how to have fun as they never throw rocks at anything …

Which provides just the type of break from fishing so that we can drink Gatorade and eat “fart bars” and relax in the shade – and then try fishing some more on the way back …

Proud Poppa's smile says it all

… where both proceed to cast their own rods, hook and land their own fish, and the smile on a proud poppa’s face is a mix of relief and outright fun, suggesting the scene to be repeated many times over.

Eco-votes, baby – go get you some…

The Rise of eMAN, and decline of Nature worship

digital_man Healthy living is browsing a web page that mentions, “eating whole foods” – and as I finish ingesting a whole box of donuts, I can snicker, “I do that.”

Unfortunately the United States ongoing love affair with processed white flour, fast food, and the Internet has overcome the miracles of science, and for the first time since we’ve recorded history – the current generation (35-45 year olds) has less life expectancy than we do.

Which is a pity, because now it’s going to take so many more of them to pay for my golden years …

The downfall of Modern Man began in the mid-1800’s where advances in milling technologies allowed us all to afford processed white flour versus the coarse, nutrient laded, peasant stuff we had been eating, and our fate was sealed with Henry Ford’s automobile and its attendant technical marvels, the lack of walking and exercise, and the drive thru eatery…

I’ve always been a bit on  the skeptical side of most of the angling surveys that claim we’ve increased the number of anglers – only because most of those “victories” had us increasing less than the margin for error (typically around 5%).

We may be seeing evidence of a fundamental shift away from people’s appreciation of nature (biophilia, Wilson, 1984) to ‘videophilia,’ which we here define as ‘‘the new human tendency to focus on sedentary activities involving electronic media.’’

Those last lean years since late 2007, could be explained by more folks looking to fishing to eat free (because license sales have been down year after year), versus any real return or appreciation of the out of doors.

Yet today we are seeing a fundamental shift away from nature-based outdoor recreation. What is replacing outdoor recreation in people’s lives? A recent study of U.S. national park visitation yielded some surprising results. It found that four variables explained 97.5% of the decline in visits to national parks. These were: time spent on the Internet, time spent playing video games, time spent watching movies, and oil prices.

– via Minnesota Dept of Natural Resources

After 50 years of steady increase, per capita visits to US national parks have declined since 1988. This decline, coincident with the rise in electronic entertainment media, may represent a shift in recreation choices with broader implications for the value placed on biodiversity conservation and environmentally responsible behavior.

– via Is the Love of Nature in the US becoming the love of electronic media?

Industry pundits cling to small changes in demographics that refute the above, but I’d suggest the larger picture is the crest of a natural bubble in outdoors participation, and both us fishermen and the larger conservation-ecology movement is headed for increasingly lean times.

Evolution of Man

The Boomers before me emigrated to the Haight-Ashbury to form their perfect Utopia. When Heroin and capitalistic warmongering industry got the better of most, they fled into the woods and joined communes, wore Earth shoes, and grew dope.

Decades later when British Petroleum wants to drill clean through to China, they emerged from banks, brokerage houses, and the defense industry and voted Nature-first, leaving BP to gnash teeth and buy more lobbyists.

But when they’re gone, and we’re gone, who’ll make up that massive bloc of eco-votes to to ensure what little that’s unspoiled remains so?

While I suck up the Internet and all manner of porn with great gusto, I know my days are numbered, only because I can balance all that stolen music and free movies with fishing. Mostly because the Internet didn’t exist during my formative years and the only reliable porn was when the bachelor next door moved out and us kids unearthed tattered Playboy’s while dumpster diving.

All this was driven home as I fiddled with the lawn mower this weekend. I was pondering the larger picture – how we were the beneficiaries of generations that loved the woods, and how that may not always be the case, and out from the neighbors house comes their 27 year old son …

… he’s got the world completely tuned out; earphones on that link to his iPhone, and is texting away blissfully as he strides down the driveway. Just as both thumbs engage with the screen his feet become entangled in a couple of turns of garden hose, and he face plants with great force …

Broken glasses, he’s wiping blood from his nose while inspecting his phone for damage, then readjusts his ear buds for maximum acoustic effect and gets in his car to speed away.

Still texting … as now he’s got something really profound to tweet.

Naturally, I’m in awe. First at the desire to cocoon from any external stimulus, and despite the “not looking , can’t hear”, focus on fingers and completed text and the bloody ending … the knowledge that this is what’s speeding toward me in the opposite lane, suggests it’s not an indifference to the outdoors issue – so much as pure Darwinism.

There’s going to be a lot less of them, and they’ll be oblivious to why. Perhaps they should stay indoors, it’s so much safer for homo-sapien-digitalis.

Invasive Chuckle of the Month – Clean Boil then Butter

All those hours spent reading articles on clean, dry, and  inspect, which elevated our readiness to the angling equivalent of Seal Team Six – to defend ourselves from any hidden environmental menace, may have positioned us to be the only group able to appreciate the enormity of the latest invasion-du-jour – and act on it with all possible haste.

Them_orUSThere comes a time when duty overrides creature comforts and you wave farewell, as you respond to a higher responsibility, knowing that only the selfless actions of those like yourself can save the planet.

It appears that the warming currents of the Pacific Ocean have finally reached critical mass, allowing millions of succulent Alaskan King Crab to invade Antarctica.

Knowing that “Clean, Dry, and Inspect is no longer pertinent, rather it’s been replaced with “Clean, Boil, and Butter” – and considering Antarctica is largely No Man’s Land, it means there’s no limit to what you can eat – nor any sovereign military to prevent you from mailing the rest home …

… music to the ears of us budding Type II Diabetics.

Hat Creek trophy water to be restored to prominence?

I’m calling it the first in what I hope to be a long stream of tasty tidbits, given CalTrout has announced in their Streamkeeper’s Log that both Hat Creek and Fall River will be the recipients of some overdue ecosystem love …

Given that I lived, fished, and guided the area for a couple of decades, I can attest to what a unique and challenging fishery it used to be – how there’s no parallel for it this side of a bevy of well known Montana spring creeks, and perhaps this time we’ve learnt our lesson and are prepared to treat the creek with a bit of proper reverence …

Having spent a couple of undistinguished seasons as the CalTrout Streamkeeper for Hat Creek, with most my time pointing wardens at poachers, watching both disappear in a cloud of dust, and educating innocent folks that failed to read the forty-seven signs suggesting bait was not allowed on a “Single Barbless Artificial Only” resource, I figure a couple of cents worth of advice has been earned … just for old times sake.

Carbon Bridge, former home to fat and sophisticated spring creek fish

While the managed trophy stretch of Hat Creek is three miles long, in its historical flavor – only a mile consistently holds fish.

Sediment blown into the creek from the Baum-Hat Canal sidewall blowout delivered a watershed killing load of sediment from which the creek was never able to recover. The Carbon Bridge flat water (pictured above) and similar slow moving stretches had their life-giving weed beds inundated with a sediment load that stifled all the bug life, removed all fish cover, and the population of large fish vanished.

Hat Creek is regulated by the flows from Powerhouse #2 – and  cannot rid itself nor scour the stream bottom clean as its water level never varies. Some of the work they’re doing on the Colorado River might be worth noting – how they’re intentionally scheduling deluges from the dam to free the streambed of accumulated sediment.  Opening the dam valve and releasing water down Hat Creek’s ancestral streambed might be assisted by the spillway just above the Powerhouse, but the far bank has already eroded with emergency releases and would need to be covered with concrete or something resistant to an extreme surge of water.

Cover the far side with a protective membrane, then divert the creek through that emergency spillway that bypasses the Powerhouse and let that uncontrolled jet of water work some magic.

Hat Creek Powerhouse #2 Riffle

With fish holding in only a single mile, you’ll be doing the same with anglers, parking, and foot traffic. Once the magazines are blaring your successes to the masses touting your success with both fish and habitat, you’ll have hideous erosion issues. Muskrat burrows undermine most of upstream banks – and all those arriving anglers will be equipped with sticky rubber soles with hiking cleats – and those cleats are considerably more destructive than flat bottomed felt, and they’ll rip that soft bank out by the ton as they scramble into and out of the Powerhouse #2 Riffle.

We tore out a hundred feet of that bank using flat felt soles – cleated rubber is likely to be many times that …

The boulders and rip-rap you’ve put at the parking areas and the Powerhouse riffle is a great first step, but so long as the anglers concentrate only in a narrow area, rather than the full three miles of creek you’re offering, you need to plan for the worst possible case of foot traffic and nothing less.

Perhaps you’d consider a ban on wading anglers?

That’s a bold move.

It may be time for such drastic thinking, given that a competent caster should be able to do quite well on the open grassy plains that dominate the water above the 299 bridge.

In this day and age of wader-borne nasty, why not point at invasive species and let them shoulder the outcry and blame for wading restrictions? We’ve been primed by conservation organizations and vendors alike harping on how our collective unclean is destoying the world’s best fisheries. Copy the SIMM’s model,  claim how much you’re thinking of the future – yet you’re solving plenty of now in the process.

Just saying is all, it’s worthy of some thought.

Clearing the upper half of trapped sediment can be matched only by making the stretch between the 299 Bridge Park and the Britton Weir hold fish. You tossed a couple handfuls of pebbles into the creek years ago – and that was simply not enough. The rocks weren’t big enough to make fish linger past the six inch mark – and while it was a good idea, the ROI never materialized.

You’ve got the better part of a mile of monotone current, twelve to thirty-six inches deep without any cover or underwater features outside of bank shade. Why not down some of those dead trees that litter the area – and drag them into the creek?

Most of the forest below the 299 bridge was crisped in a forest fire a couple years ago, and while the pine was logged, the owners left all the trash wood still standing, that dead timber is likely free for the taking – and you wouldn’t have to drag it more than a hundred yards.

Decay is supposed to be as good a remedy as anything, and thirty to fifty thick pine trees trunks should anchor a lot of fish – as well as add places for your waderless anglers to fish from. Add another big crop of large rocks to trap additional debris and induce some scouring water flows and perhaps you can turn that nondescript featureless cobble bottom into something more conducive to stimulating fish life …

… more importantly you have the ability to spread all those magazine reading anglers out over the full creek, which lessens the severity of all those feet climbing out of one parking lot.

And let’s not poo-poo the “magazine effect” – as articles claiming huge selective fish were available to match wits with is what drew those  pilgrims that never set foot outside of the Powerhouse #2 riffle.

Despite their success and sophistication at taming a 12” fish that was still stunned from being caught by the guy next to them, it was the lure of “hard” that drew them – even though they lost their taste for difficult when bested by all those truly selective fatties lolling in the flat water below.

And the hardest lesson of all, that which you failed to learn last time, is that you will never be done – and you’ll never finish this project. Stream restoration is not a sprint, it’s a marathon, and you can’t blow all your cash making a brilliant showpiece – the envy of the entire state – then assume you never have to spend a dime on it again.

You will never be finished. Each success will bring more anglers that will destroy banks, fish, litter parking lots with water bottles, and crap in overflowing toilets. You will have to fund treatments commensurate with the angling pressures and perform more surgeries knowing that each of your successes has yielded some failure in your earlier planning.

There’ll be a ton of folks making a goodly living at your expense, why not insist that guides shoulder some of that fiscal burden – perhaps charging them for the right to take clients to exploit all that hard work?

Twenty bucks contribution per angler would generate enough to staff that parking lot washroom with a sommelier or washroom attendant – or buy a hell of a lot of fry …

… or fund a tank full of Rotenone, a vacuum cleaner, and a couple of chain saws that’ll be the cheap underpinnings of something truly great.

You had it right the first time, unfortunately you didn’t consider the destructive power and uncaring sensibilities of us anglers – who didn’t even have the courtesy to offer the Old Gal a towel once we were done.

There’s a reason fishermen hate to eat fish …

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 …

Fortunately “scoured by Mother Nature” is only Guy Clean

For most of the year I’ve resisted the urge to muck about on the local creek, largely for fear of upsetting the delicate balance of Nature given that once the flood receded I could only count 4 fish in eleven miles of its banks.

Then again, once I saw the hurried exodus of neighbors, hastily packed luggage crammed into idling vehicles, and the vexed expressions of those waiting in the car while [insert_family_member] went one last time, I realized in addition to being the only person home this weekend, I’d have to bring my own glass to the water, as it would be the only surface absent beer cans and a flotilla of V-8’s.

Note that new svelte-ness, soon toes will be visible

And while all those vacationers hoped to rendezvous with the Pristine, be it casino-based or Mother Nature’s Original Recipe, I strode up her seamy underbelly counting noses in sync with the measured beat of tires on bridge seams.

… and the noses were suddenly plentiful and varied, much to my surprise. All that lifeless gravel now colored with a bit of welcome algae, and host to an early morning Trico spinner fall that was twice as thick as year’s past, suggesting all those shifting tons of gravel buried much of the streambed, but has been assimilated and is home for bugs as well as fish.

Shedding last skin before spinner

I landed quite a few Pikeminnow, who have always appeared to bounce back quickly, and both Bluegill and Sunfish, even hooking a holdover bass that shook me free in a deeper pool.

Most importantly, schools of small fish are visible everywhere, and plenty of largemouth and smallmouth bass are among them. The one-inch fry of Spring have turned into the four inch minnow of early fall, and while it’s easy to miss the first, the latter are large enough to be seen at distance.

The science of stream recovery has proven to be much more valuable to the fisherman than you’d suspect. While it’s certain few have any interest in a coarse fishery, plodding all these miles of riverbank is birthing the newer svelte version, and through observation has taught me where fish go when stressed, where they linger if forced from their comfort zone, and what rate can anglers count on for the natural regenerative processes to spread surviving bugs and fish throughout a traumatized watershed.

There’s enough of the Precious left for our generation to frolic in, yet it’s a comfort to know that someone’s child will have a chance to commune with Nature – or at least her coarse black heart – once the Earth’s crust warms those few fateful degrees and trout are an afterthought in the fossil record.

Scale Magazine: European Fly & Spin eZine

Scale Magazine Logo

Another eZine entrant, this time from Germany (available in English), entitled Scale – and covering both fly and spin fishing.

They’ve got the best logo I’ve seen – considering the topic matter, and I’m a sucker for reading about someone that catches fish – instead of whining about how woeful their season has become like … uhm … me.

No whiners in Germany. Thank Heavens.

Father of the Modern Trout Bum

troutbum It’s probably the only time we’ve seen friend Chandler earnest and straight-faced as he plays Jimmy Olsen, cub reporter, to angling author (and Underground Fave) John Gierach.

Like him or love him, Mr. Gierach is the most quotable soundbyte in fly fishing, more importantly he can do so without drawing the ire of countless readers, even on worthy and contentious subjects:

Q: How do you think you fit into a more extreme fly fishing media landscape?

I’m suspicious of this trend towards making fly fishing an extreme sport. For example, on this book tour, I’m constantly asked “what do you think about the fly fishing film tour?”

I appreciate the adventure and the fishing they’re showing and technically it’s awesome stuff, but that’s just not the sport I recognize. Maybe I’m a little more invested in this pastoral stuff.

Q: That’s interesting. The video guys are trying make a living by going fishing and selling the experience, so in one sense, they’re the new Gierachs, the new trout bums — they’re your children.

I… I guess I can accept that. They’re into a counter-culture head — they live outside the mainstream.

And while I say I don’t recognize the sport, I do recognize those guys. Those are bohemian guys who don’t give a shit what anyone thinks about what they’re doing — they’re doing it for love, and I certainly recognize and understand that.

And those guys will grow up.

I don’t think I’ve seen the differences put any better, we like the young crowd – they’re like us, only the idea they might be us is so upsetting – for both parties ..

It’s a great interview, full of starch and gruff appreciation – which is made all the more endearing by Old Guys with the bit between their teeth.