Dinner is a sure start to extinction

All our lives we’ve dreamt of this fish, and when it arrives we think it something beneath our refined taste buds and certainly unworthy of sport.

The fact that you continue to purchase Budweiser is testimony to your lack of tastebuds, ensuring you’d enjoy a donut about as much as a dog turd if both were glazed equally…

That’s primarily because you guys are optimists and think should you remain aloof something more befitting will come along. As a pessimist, I know better …

In 2008, Asian carp made up 82 percent of the commercial catch on the Illinois River and 30 percent on the Mississippi, according to the Illinois DNR.

– via St Louis Today

Fourteen or fifteen states gets a fish that leaps into the boat its so eager to get caught, and rather than thank Heaven for a little tawdry sport in a river that grows more coliform bacteria than biomass, we’ve got to appoint a Czar to wage war on it …

Fortunately there’s a little “out of the box” thinking left in the lower 48, and rather than turn up their nose at all this free protein, St. Louis has decided to de-bone it, grind it up, and serve it as canned tuna and fish sticks to the city’s poor.

If Obama had any real stones he’d march a contingent of Secret Service down to Mickey Dee’s and get Ronald McDonald some waders …

The real question is the fat content of raw crude

fish-sticks It would be easier if fishermen actually liked eating fish, but most of you simply enjoy torturing them and put them back instead.

By doing so, the Federal government would like you to know you’re adding to the trade deficit, depriving the US of thousands of domestic jobs, as well as propagating the notion you’re a complete prick.

That’s because they mine your Facebook page and know you scored an exotic and imported Fillet O’ Fish on your return to civilization. Ignoring domestic fish flesh in favor of adding to the nearly insurmountable debt burden your children must assume …

… yes, the very same children that flipped you off when you inquired would any of them trade joystick for some mountain air that weekend …

The Obama administration is fast tracking approvals on our domestic waters for fish farming so we lower imports of those flaccid fillets in favor of growing our own – in the heady soup of nitrogenous fertilizers and female hormones that pour out of our coastal waterways.

Michael Rubino, who heads NOAA’s aquaculture program, said expanding the area where fish farming is allowed will boost production, create new jobs and help ease concerns that some imported seafood may be tainted with industrial wastes.

* snicker

Naturally it’s the Gulf of Mexico that’s the initial recipient. Converting all those idle oil platforms and out of work fishermen into pellet shoveling fish ranches, repopulating those empty miles of taint with genetically engineered freaks capable of reproduction without cell division …

Pump a couple gallons of crude off the bottom, scratch match, and Gortons can bring the refrigerator ship alongside and pack hell out of fish sticks – breaded or unleaded … whichever they’ve contracted for …

… and we can watch them help themselves to our tax dollars when the oxygen-deprived dead zone shifts their way and wipes out the fish, the sea lice, and anything else wet …

and we do so love our Fisheries and their science

We Love Science Science suggests that it would prefer you not call an invasive species,  invasive …

Firstly, it may hurt their feelings, and secondly, given that it’s successful in outcompeting the local fare means it’s possibly superior (owning Adonis DNA), and may simply be species extincting a weaker occupant of the same resource …

In short, as history is written by the victors, it’s merely a Darwin thing, not a full fledged invasion.

To illustrate the peaks and valleys of successful science allow me to mention how a recent study in Japan illustrates how a terrestrial snail has a 15% chance of survival given their digestion by birds and crapped out after the full tour of the gastrointestinal tract …

This is the first study of its kind to show that the bird’s and their droppings are able to disperse living snails to other geographical locations. One snail managed to show the researchers that entire snail families could be transported by the birds. Not long after being ingested, one small gave birth to juveniles not long after passing through the gut of the bird.

Turn of the century studies have shown that diatoms can pass through a bird gut unharmed, given the armor of snails and their small size it’s not surprising that incomplete digestion might occur and birds might disperse a viable population outside their normal range.

In our continual battle against “Superior Darwin-esque victor-species” birds (ducks especially) may well be responsible for a portion of their travels.

Think didymo, mussels and snails …

… and for the Invasive chuckle of the week …

The Giant Salvinia is one of the more horrific invasives being battled intensely in the Southern United States. It spreads faster than daylight and completely chokes off lakes and waterways – rendering them impossible to navigate due to sheer volume of weed.

Giant salvinia is able to double in number and biomass in less than three days in optimal conditions and forms dense mats on still waters. The plant can regenerate even after severe damage or drying. The explosive growth of giant salvinia not only adversely affects the natural ecological system of the infested region, but it also causes considerable economic damage and sanitation problems.

… and has recently been found to cure cancer in humans, go figure.

I’ll wait until the AMA confirms the finding before grabbing a couple handfuls for my tub, a vain attempt to make up for all them cheap cheroots I sucked down earlier.

Wherein the Attractor resumes its dominance of fishing

Tungsten Bead As part of my latest disaster adventure in the piney woods, it’s been my custom to stop at a couple of the largest fly shops in California to restock materials and eyeball the flies offered. Those deep and cavernous bins now someone else’s responsible to keep full, so I can approach them without fear.

They’re a good indicator of material trends and tying styles as most vendors attempt to limit stock to the fast movers; flies that sell themselves many times over, standard patterns intermixed with contemporary materials and styles mirrored in our angling media.

For years I’ve been carefully monitoring the ratio of sunken flies to bead heads variants, and will suggest that bead head flies now comprise 90% or better of all the nymphs and sinking flies in these shops. Using them as an indicator for the industry at large, and I’d suggest you’re looking at similar dominance in your shop’s offerings.

There’s no more Zug Bugs or Hare’s Ears, no Pheasant Tails – but there’s plenty of each in the bead head style.

Jokingly, I’d always assumed that their path to prominence was their elimination of the need for the delicate tapered head. Most tier’s lack the skills to make that happen even if they tried, given that it’s one of the last skills mastered. That big barrel of bead makes the delicate whip finish a thing of the past, replacing tiny and precise with some heavy-handed collar of questionable integrity.

Swab a big squirt of lacquer in the cavity of the bead and call it good.

While I might be partly right, we’ve had a number of quasi-issues that lend themselves to the subject; including the National Park Service ban on lead last year, the rise of tin and antimony and its availability in most fly shops, and the dominance of “high sticking” and nymph-bobbercator fishing taught by guides hired for Fishing 101 …

While some partisans have been horribly offended at the idea that gossamer and feathery has been reduced to chuck and duck, and that proponents of beaded flies are mostly molesters of infants, not real sportsmen, what has been completely missed by pundits and our media, is the lack of supporting insect parts, and how we’ve moved markedly away from Match the Hatch …

(Big intake of Breath …)

No phase or type of Mayfly, Caddis, and Stonefly, possesses anything 4mm in diameter and smelling of shiny copper or bright gold …

… and while the pipe smoke and old Scotch ran thick at the clubhouse, you still missed us taking the boots to Ernie Schwiebert and his hoary old tome.

I’d wager that we’re in the beginning throes of the next big move towards attractors. Evidenced by nearly 100% of the nymphs sold at shops being the bead head variant, coupled with the recent dominance of the Czech nymph craze, all of which feature bright attractor colors, pinks, oranges, and reds, to depict a family of caddis nymphs that lack any such markings or color.

During the same time most steelhead flies have moved from the traditional ranges of #8’s – #4’s, have abandoned their characteristic northwest “bucktail” shape and style in favor of enormous hunks of bright feathers, trailing hooks, and palmered with ostrich strands to make the fly move and undulate like something living, yet nothing in Nature resembles its vibrant “anger” colors.

Thoughts of seduction now being a thing of the past.

… and with all those guides yelling “SET” in your ear while learning, and knowing how much effort it was to yank bobber, split shot, and beaded fly to his satisfaction – are you as an angler preferring the Sage mold of extra-fast tippy rod as a result?

Toss all those effete dry fly only types out of the mix and I’d suggest that the average fellow fishes nymphs and dries in about an equal mix. Throw in the 5% of Czech nymph devotees, another 10% of the high-stick crowd, and another 5% for those feeding the dry fly as nymph indicator, the dreaded “Two Gun” or Rake rig … and you’ve got about 60% of the crowd fishing something significantly heavier than a hook with a couple of chicken feathers attached.

A heavier fast rod would be just the ticket, knowing split shot and bead headed flies can’t be cast – but the “lob” would feel better on a fast action tippy SOB …

In short, we’ve booted His Holiness to the curb, you couldn’t tie a tapered head if you tried, and it’s no longer fashionable to be shy around Lemon-Yellow or Orange-Orange …

I really do fish in water and muck, wear waders, and fall in

airgill_shirt I took the commission without really thinking it through. I’ve never had to justify my extreme utilitarian sense of wardrobe, designed mostly to remove any fun out of shopping, with notes of Johnny Cash Black, and preference for solid colors so you can’t tell how many days I’ve worn it, or what that stain really is …

Columbia Sportswear had asked me to try a fishing/outdoors shirt, and as they were the maker of my prior shorty vest, worn some twenty years and recently retired, I agreed without thinking.

A few years spent guiding in hot weather had framed a pretty solid idea of what makes a good fishing shirt.  It had to be long sleeved, as a long sleeved shirt can be rolled up for cooling, or down for additional SPF rating, there would be a tee shirt under – so the exterior fabric wouldn’t stick to flesh if its owner was wet or sweating, and it would be a light neutral color – partly to blend in with surroundings, and partly to reflect sunlight.

Columbia’s latest iteration in outdoors fashion being the “Airgill” shirt, designed to keep the angler well ventilated and cool via numerous “gills” crafted in panels on both sides and rear of the garment.

The idea is sound, given how we move – and the nature of a light synthetic fabric worn loosely, but in practice what we do and how we do it prevents the shirt from achieving that goal with consistency.

 

Most anglers fish wet, with waders up to their chest and a fishing vest containing their flies and terminal tackle, and while I’d like it to be otherwise, in that configuration the Airgill shirt is pressed tight to the body and has no ability to ventilate.

If worn in a tucked in and belted configuration, one-third of the rib gills are obscured by pants and belt, and offer no ventilation at all.

In all I wore the shirt six times in three configurations; loose with nothing over the top, with fishing vest over the top, and the hot weather configuration – loose with vest and hydration pack.

You can guess the outcome.

Loose and unfettered was the coolest configuration, as it allowed all those technical panels to let in breeze and pass it across vast expanses of sweaty flesh.

Bound with a vest, or sealed at shoulder and mid chest with the straps of a hydration pack, removed almost all the cooling qualities of the gill areas in sides and the back, and made the shirt an ordinary long sleeve shirt.

It’s difficult to suggest the design is flawed, but ignoring the presence of waders, nets, lunches, and all the connective straps of waders and belts, suggests the designer was enamored of his technical vision, and ignored entirely what it is that fishermen do.

Perhaps if I had my tackle lying in the boat, and was stalking a fish on salt flats in an effort to get closer, with some guide whispering encouragement – this may be the shirt needed. If I’m looking to cut a rakish and technical figure in my flip-flops while embracing a pre-dinner cocktail, this may be the shirt … but if I want my monies worth on all that carefully crafted stitchery, I don’t see how that’s possible given the way we fish.

There were a number of issues with the product that I liked:

The fabric was light and absorbed almost no water. If an angler was to get the garment wet, a simple hand-wringing and the shirt would be dry to the touch. Really excellent choice of fabric, given how frequently an angler takes a bath unbidden.

Nice technical touch on the arms, allowing a rolled up sleeve to be secured to the arm in the rolled-up position. A small loop and a eyed segment of cloth inside the sleeve allows the sleeve to roll up and be secured in that position. Useful if you dip the arm in water (wading deep)and all that rolled up sleeve loses its integrity, flopping wetly against the arm while casting.

Tight weave on the cloth ensures a high SPF rating. If you feel you’ve had your limit of sun and roll the sleeve down, the dense weave ensures you won’t bake further. Manufacturer claims the weave to be SPF 50 (see commercial).

Size of the garment was true to label. With most garment manufacturers off-shoring most of their business you can sometimes get different ideas of what Large, Medium, and Small, can be – especially so given the prevalence of the metric system in many of the manufacturing countries, despite the wearing public living in foot-inches. The sizes were accurate and matched with other quality clothing.

Shortcomings of the shirt are limited to price and function.

Obligatory Vendor Sermon …

With the uncertainty of the economy, an unreliable body politic more interested in posing than accomplishing anything, with 10% of homeowners either underwater or mailing in the keys to their homes, and with 10% of the workforce idle, now is not the time to buy extraneous $80 shirts …

Why? Because clothing is always the bastard child of the fishing industry, with big city stores stocking great gouts of stylish fabrics and colors, and destination shops limited to tee shirts – the only constant being that after Christmas you can buy all of it for 70% off …

If my luggage didn’t follow me to Bogota, I’ve got an issue … but saving that, I’m not buying “fishing” shirts because with all the austerity measures I’ve taken, the pending Christmas sale coming, and my spouse’s ever-present worry about whether we’ll have jobs tomorrow, there’s no reason to purchase anything not absolutely critical to the success of the trip.

In the meantime, I’ll buy some nice long sleeved cotton shirts that lack all the technical functionality, yet just .. simply .. work. I’ll save a few bucks for the Christmas sale, but likely I’ll be sidetracked by a reel, or extra line.

Without the garment being designed for fishermen, by a fisherman, it loses much of the technical functionality it boasts – making it just an expensive long sleeve shirt for me – and a technical statement for the fellow that growls by in a bass boat, flanked by bulging tackle boxes and bigger ice chests.

Summary: I actually liked the shirt when worn outside of fishing. It was light, comfortable, and worked well in the blistering 105 degree temperatures. It’s not a “fishing shirt” however, as once you expose it to fishing conditions with vests, waders and everything else – it’s just a normal shirt.

Full Disclosure: Columbia Sportswear graciously provided me with sample shirts to wear, and has been a good sport about the endeavor given the prior article I wrote (link above) and my initial reactions to the color provided.

I have since turned down another clothing vendor as my lack of fashion sense and my inability to make small talk at cocktail parties, coupled with the fact that I really do fish in water and muck, wear waders, and fall in – makes me a poor judge of clothing.

Insensitive to food and fashion

Millions of impressionable school girls casting themselves onto railroad tracks or off bridges knowing the lack of animal remnants and the cold, bolted door of the salon – means they’re doomed to uncool, where even the prom is in doubt.

That’s PETA’s plan, who apparently doesn’t mind condemning a few hundred thousand gals to tears, in favor of saving a few scrawny chickens. I figure its a clear-cut case of age-typing, where anything over 15 has bound to have eaten McNuggets and therefore is collateral damage.

PETA_Feather_Hair_Extension

PETA’s official response to the entire hair extension phenomenon, is “a scrap of ribbon and a magic marker is the same thing” – proving that all that Vegan brainwashing has made them completely insensitive to both food and fashion.

THATSSOLAMEDUH.

Now it’s only a matter of time before a bunch of skinny guys wearing ski-masks rush The Whiting Farm’s barbed wire – hoping the press of their numbers gets them through the claymores.

Big Oil will need a couple of lodges just to house all them VP’s

A few thousand gallons of crude down the Yellowstone is merely a drop in the bucket compared to what that area may be facing. It’s called a lot of things, but “oil shale” is about the best way to describe the discovery of oil deposits that may dwarf those of Saudi Arabia … within the confines of our territorial borders …

… at last count enough to power the US for years, and might go much more, we’ll know once the latest seismic estimates are completed some two years from now.

A McDonald’s worker earns $15 an hour, given the manpower shortage, and North Dakota has no housing troubles, nor unemployment woes, as they’re in the midst of the biggest oil discovery this century, with the eastern half the state and northwestern Montana having both the Bakken and Three Forks shale formations, likened to one big gusher sitting on top of a second. Exhaust one and drill a bit deeper to tap the second …

Bakken Oil Formation

The downside being how vile and nasty all that “fracking” of native rock will be – given that petroleum recovery uses enormous quantities of water to be pumped down the well along with sand to force the oil out of all that prairie.

Continental has developed a new drilling concept it calls Eco-Pad to exploit both reservoirs. One rig will develop a 2-square-mile area by drilling eight wells—four into the Bakken layer and four into the Three Forks. Each well goes down two miles, then horizontally two miles through the reservoir. Using explosive charges, the drillers will make hundreds of holes (called “perforations”) in the pipe of each well. Then comes the hydraulic fracturing— where the well is injected with 1.8 million gallons of water and sand that props open tiny fractures in the dolomite rock to let out the oil. The “Eco” in this Eco-Pad concept? All this work on eight giant wells gets done from one spot, causing less surface impact.

– via Forbes.com

Given the West is already water-starved where’s all them new gallons coming from? More importantly, where are they going afterwards, given the post-frack oil-water mixture will be intermingling with the native groundwater and will play hell with farmers and anyone else with the courage to drink all that oil tainted brew.

Which leads to an unwelcome conclusion, just how many of them Yellowstone area rivers will be surviving un-dammed in the face of hordes of thirsty SUV’s and a couple of states renowned for voting for a lot of partisan, asinine, stuff?

The current estimates of the reserves are at 12 Billion, and while guiding and the wilderness experience offers considerable revenue, it’s most likely ends in an “m” than a “b” .

Now that North Dakota has the fastest growing economy in the Nation, like Texas and Alaska it’s probable they’ll take a shine to Stetson’s and big cigars, given they’ve got one of the smallest populations of voters – most of which are almighty thankful someone tossed a bone in their direction.

Which brings us to the issues of a couple thousand gallons of crude during high water. All that oil located in out-of-the-way locales require an enormous amount of plumbing and pipelines to move all that Black Gold to them as wants to refine and burn it.

Which’ll lead to pipelines headed in all directions, under and over rivers, and will bring most of that petroleum to the population dense markets.

It’s already the largest construction project in the US today, imagine what it’ll be shortly.

… these being the Good Old Days …

I got the message Sir, I shan’t be found wanting again

I'm in deep trouble I’m reluctant to confess that in all my collection of angling tomes, I cannot find an author admitting he was skunked completely, exploited savagely, or simply ignored by the fish despite all efforts to the contrary.

My altogether too brief visit to the piney woods – the one where I was chased out of them self same woods by some vengeful icy jet stream from Alaska, without catching a fish, while everyone else around me caught their fill effortlessly …  that was a message.

This being unfamiliar turf, and given the hoots, catcalls, and finger pointing of my dearest companions, I’ve been struggling all week on whether I should confess outright or play it coy.

I could do so publicly, where I’ll need to wordsmith all the incoming name-calling and vitriol into loving support, or privately, where I resolve to do better and then as would you fail to live up to my end of the bargain.

Fly fishing being one of many imprecise sciences, largely spiritual and not really a hard science despite the many stern faced fellows that say otherwise, rather it’s a collection of mysteries, each related to one another via mosquitoes and sunburn. Being all squishy and subject to interpretation, I can only assume that after devoting the last forty years to its practice, and after fishing three quarters of each of the two dry days allotted with nary a bite,  I’ve offended God hisself …

It weren’t flies or their presentation, nor was it the hand twist retrieve versus an overhand yank, and it wasn’t #12 being a bit too big and a #14 would’ve been the better choice.

Fishing having only one truly similar comparison, and that being our nation’s beloved pastime, baseball. Whose players respect both the mystery and superstitions that goes hand in hand with streaks and slumps.

Crash Davis: I never told him to stay out of your bed.
Annie Savoy: Yes you did.
Crash Davis: I told him that a player on a streak has to respect the streak.
Annie Savoy: Oh fine.
Crash Davis: You know why? Because they don’t – -they don’t happen very often.
Annie Savoy: Right.
Crash Davis: If you believe you’re playing well because you’re getting laid, or because you’re not getting laid, or because you wear women’s underwear, then you ARE! And you should know that!

I figure it was the grunt necessary to pull on them wading boots, and despite an angling devotee’s ability to fold space and time, the sodden midsection of a disgusting fatbody whose given up smoking being too dense to compact further and therefore resists his efforts to fold, ensuring he can’t tie his shoes without holding his breath…

Gasp. Wheeze.

… and no amount of Pendleton’s or firearms, no armload of cane tackle, no wicker creel laden with fresh cut ferns and damp fish, no welcoming fire in a log cabin can erase the stain of that sound.

Should I post a bit less, or simply be a bit scarce, that’s because I’m doing the Lord’s work … er … streamlining things.

A change of heart is fine, just drop the shoe price by half and we’ll like you again

vibram As mentioned this morning in Angling Trade, SIMMS has apparently pulled the plug on its self imposed felt ban, and will be making all manner of felt soled wading shoes for 2012.

Naturally we’ll assume that’s it’s the suddenly decreased threat of Didymo that’s the root cause of this change-of-heart, or it may simply be the recognition that angler behavior is the key to invasive species spread, and like prostitution, it’s tough to legislate morality.

Me, I think their holy oath resulted in being spanked smartly in the retail aisle, given any discussion on rubber soles amongst anglers brings great froth, dissent, and much vitriol over their efficacy. Adding additional burden has been the lack of reliable information from shoes owners, given that the same boot is mentioned both as slippery, useless, and wonderful, depending on who’s doing the pontificating.

One industry insider said it best, “Simms tried to score green marketing points at everyone else’s expense, and after they largely succeeded, now want the brown dollars to go with them…”

Nothing like the potential for a downward slide of the sales graph to make folks rethink their commitment to the Pristine.

“We know felt is not the only material that has spread invasive species and disease,” Walsh said, “but felt is surely part of the problem. At Simms, we’ve decided to be part of the solution.”

The SIMMS “solution” being to orphan your current shoe, sell you a new rubber variant that is less reliable in slime, then have a sudden change of heart, hoping us anglers follow blindly and buy another set?

Fat chance of that happening, you’ve mortgaged what faith your public had already, Lumpy.

I say SIMMS should drop their shoe price by half, allowing us anglers to purchase two pair, which will allow us to be less infectious as we can swap wet for dry, and potentially restore some of that good will we once had toward vendors.

You can get some good will…  I love SIMMS already – due to the panic caused by their earlier announcement, I scored three sets at $40 when the shops unloaded all that tasty felt  …

The return of the Tenderfeet, and how the Piney woods is saved

The San Quentin Suite Outdoor Life taught them as did every hoary sporting rag stacked in the dentist’s office.

Mark Trail lectured us from the funny pages offering woodsy advice ranging from trapping and skinning the neighbor’s cat, to shelter and fire construction; yet despite all the accumulated lore and it’s many sources,  you never passed on those skills for fear your kids would ignite the garage and hillside behind, and never realized that slapping snot out of Junior whenever he was in the same room with matches might make the poor lad a food group.

Instead, you left his education to me and mine …

Madison Avenue confused us all about the woods, equating skills and lore for carbon footprint and “green” – so you gifted the kid a Prius instead of teaching him which end of the match to scratch on the box. Now that “Lumpy” is at the mercy of the elements and unable to navigate a stack of scavenged timber and cold fire ring, have you given thought to your role in his lack of knowledge of the woods, and the paltry outdoor legacy you’ve left him?

He’s neither predator nor Hunter-Gatherer, he lies wide eyed under the stars fearful of every noise …

Somewhere among the countless hours of Babysitting via Nintendo should have been the audiobook for “Two Little Savages”, by Earnest Thompson Seaton, which would have been greeted by a curled upper lip, then hurled into some dark corner of the closet in disdain. Now that the manly arts and a cold fire pit are all that separates your seed from a hero’s welcome in the warmth of his hastily erected tent, at the bosom of Miss Impressionable Youth, whose physical attributes are rivaled only by a sofa cushion stuffed with marshmallows, whose starry eyes are only for you and the quickly congealing bag of fast food at your feet … and as them giggles slow you know all that’s required … the only thing necessary …

… is to light that log …

And after three days of watching the contents of a national park fumble with matches, showers, uprooting trail signs to burn, keeping themselves fed and the pursuit of relaxation, I can honestly say we’ve no longer got to conserve anything, if we can just keep a couple of fish wet past this generation, we’re good … live humans won’t exist in woods much longer.

I can’t say us trained woodsmen are faring much better, or at least the California contingent of that fast disappearing lot. While the campground host greeted us like long lost relatives, knowing he could count on us sharing woodsy niceties like firewood and a dry match, it didn’t leave much time for chasing fish – given the number of tourniquets applied, knives and spoons loaned, and terraforming necessary to keep the closet cabins from cannibalism.

We pirouetted like gazelles in the lake, righting sunken kayaks and rescuing drowning children, while munching on canapés and Korean Seaweed dusted with Wasabi powder, a Californio woodsy tradition. We counseled the untrained on the merits of going without showers, and how the “five minute rule” for dropped food goes double in the woods.

What with our Registered Professional Forester bringing two year old kiln dried Walnut to burn, aged Scotch, bathtub Gin, and 8 flavors of beer, and our private Chef smuggling Sweet & Sour Stew and homemade Oatmeal Raisin cookies, accented by gourmet space food whose bags contained pellets of C-4, that would ignite and heat the meal merely by rubbing the wrappers together …

Suddenly, the outdoors is cool again, and as Miss Impressionable quits her stream of complaints, as youth no longer needs coaxing to take part.

Unfortunately it’s too late, the great adventure never to be repeated, your child’s grandiose plans of seduction and heroism dashed against cold granite, and colder womenfolk, and his next conquest will be at the beach. Which is every bit as cold as the woods, but he’s forgotten his earlier defeat based on the gal he’s spied in #14, and the arms folded harrumph he’s getting from what was once your daughter in law.