A Sloppy coarse farmed fish gets the Glamour label

meryl-streepTaking all that DNA sequencing out of the crime lab and aiming it at your meat counter suggests that nearly 25% of prepared fish in meat counters are mislabeled. Steaks and fillets often lack scales fins or identifying features which allows a cheap freshwater catfish to substitute for a higher end cod.

… and earning perhaps the greatest nickname ever, our lowly farmed tilapia gets its due ..

Yellowtail stands in for mahi-mahi. Nile perch is labeled as shark, and tilapia may be the Meryl Streep of seafood, capable of playing almost any role.

Naturally the FDA will make every attempt to crack down on the practice.

… when it suits them.

While I’m skeptical if they say it’s good, I’ll always believe the brethren when they say it’s bad …

anti-mosquitoI remember his comment as if it was yesterday. “It attaches to your belt and emits anti-mosquito sound waves, keeping the bloodsucking pests off you without changing your genetic code with a generous dollop of DEET …”

Upon his return from the wilds of Alaska we were doubly quick to ask, “Well, how did the mosquito thing work?”

His reply was ominous, “I had to get a transfusion in Fairbanks, and another before leaving Sitka. Eventually I flung the contraption into the brine as we approached Seattle …

As I wander through the app store on the iPhone (which I’m testing for work), you can imagine my uncontained glee when finding an outdoor application …

Despite the risk of carrying it strapped inside my waders, I can repel all manner of bloodsucking organisms, laughing all the while as I expose my nether regions to the impotence -  until my battery sputters and dies …

Which, I’ll guess, will be about seventeen feet from the parking lot.

I can only assume that “Kids-Safe Mode” is when you’re forced to give your own life to save your children.

You get a sudden waft of hot electronics, and press the phone into the midsection of the closest child, screaming, “Bobby, take your sister and RUN!” …

Masked Dry Fly fishermen sought in bait heist

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

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

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

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

It’s the same quality education we got – at the end of a strap, mostly

The School of Knock Psychologists are thinking children learn words in some unknown and mysterious method, versus the more traditional associative pairing … see Daddy, hear the word “Daddy” – assume the looming enormous thing that smells like beer, is Daddy …

I could have told them they were barking up the wrong tree, simply because all real knowledge is transmitted by pain, not by cooing about the floor with Mom, swathed in warm blankie while reaching for titty …

Most of us learned all the really deep-seated lessons of Manhood by losing limbs, teeth, gouts of hair, and blood –and if there was baby talk it was the opposition making fun of us – just before we felt the boots in our midsection …

Same goes for fishing.

We learned what “Steelhead” were only after freezing our nuts to the tailgate, wondering why everyone was giving us the wave-off when we started removing aching body parts from them wet waders.

We learned “Barbless” knowing it was the part we couldn’t see – the rest of the hook being buried up to the shank in thick, flexible, sunburnt, neck flesh … the closest medical attention being only slightly less than the isthmus of Bataan  …

We learned about fly rods and the cost of a college education only when we found out we could afford only one, not both.

We learned friendship when our buddy loaned us his rod, and fisticuffs when we stepped on it in a drunken stupor, and he didn’t see the issue closed by sharing in our profuse apology.

With all the “spare the rod, politically correct, never a harsh word” parenting of the last couple of decades, it’s our fault if kids haven’t had the educational opportunities we’ve had, or lack the vocabulary us troublesome kids possess, why admissions to Harvard are at low ebb, and the economy languishes just above flatline…

The 100 Greatest Books in the World and a nosebleed for a diploma, it’s the “Cliff’s Notes” of an ivy league education.

Fling it upstream then mash the button as it goes by

Hovering Predator seen from underwater It was so much easier when I lived on the banks of Hat Creek and could fiddle with the fly before throwing it at the same fish I’d thrown it at the night before. If they ate it, it was success. If they didn’t, we kept fiddling with it.

With no fish visible last night I had to eat my own creation, and absent my glasses, proof of concept is casting the fly rod left handed and upstream, poking the camera into the water as the fly draws near hoping we get a couple of good shots.

At left is proof of landing correctly despite being cast forty times, the fly being soaked, yet I’ve got enough stabilization to keep the proper attitude.

The wings are in the Mayfly configuration, and as the camera lens is bisected by the water you can see the blob of upright dyed gray elk, exactly as planned.

In focus and above the waterline

At right is the view we see, the wings are dry and absent the wax I’d original used to clump the fibers a little more.

Two turns of hackle, a bit of my special dry fly dubbing, some dyed gray elk, and we’re looking at something designed from the ground up to be a really efficient killer.

What determines the best and most effective flies is not how many fish they’ve caught and where, it’s how confident the owning angler is using the fly – and whether he leaves it on for a few casts or a few hours.

As a guide I’ve heard many learned anglers mention the killing qualities of their favorite flies, I’d nod knowingly as each was completely correct in their assessment.

“I catch all my fish on the Adam’s …” – and if that’s all you ever put on – it’s a prophecy.

The fly fishing will be better now that you’re gone

This weekend I’ll be painting Didymo on them rocks with a spatula.

I’ll be the fellow whose 4 X 4 axles will be glowing white hot as I mash my way through cottonwoods and willows and into your favorite pool – there to dismount the smoking wreck while it dribbles petroleum products into the Pristine.

… and all of my flies will be tied on treble hooks.

Just a reminder that this weekend you can toss all that nose-inna-air bologna while you’re laying waste to whatever flavor of Sweet you’ve  felt threatened by … As Ms. Claudette mentions so eloquently below, everything’s peachy if you can catch a church service sometime before Saturday …

… and if you aren’t a Good Christian like me and the rest of my yellow eJournalist pals, we’ll be taking our chances with Cletus, his 4X4, and a couple icy 24 packs of Go-Girl.

We’ll be pounding your favorite riffle with “Dagwood” sandwiches made of Triscuits and alternating layers of cream cheese and Bighead Carp roe.

Suck it, wimps.

It’s okay for us trained professionals however

 Delicious and Relaxing

I figure the claim should be “a delicious and relaxing way to alter your graphite casting stroke to the pace of fiberglass and bamboo.” All the rest is just window-treatment to make the kiddies think they’re scoring a baggie absent the stern gaze of John Law.

Kids, these are your arteries …

artery

… and these are your arteries after Mary Jane’s brownies fights for your immortal soul and your LDL – and your thighs rub together when you walk …

Brownies done it

Only in California …

My gal could use a Mink coat and a big dinner too

Monroe in Mink, every scotsman's dream I remember the elevated tempers and harsh language when they contemplated NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. Senators would pound fist on podium insisting it wasn’t fair to us and how the abolished tariffs and transparent borders would benefit our neighbors much more than ourselves.

Now, I find myself in a similar precarious position, how commerce between us and the rest of the world doesn’t seem aquatically balanced, especially so with invasive species.

Them nice fellows in Scotland are pissed senseless and on a war of extinction with the American Mink, how it’s eating cats and dogs, pillaging defenseless salmon, and scarfing all their water voles …

Heaven forbid we should lose a poodle or three …

Meanwhile the rest of Europe is declaring Jihad against the American Signal Crayfish, which any sportsman knows is %$#@ freshwater lobster – requiring nothing more than kite string and a rancid chicken liver to catch all .. you .. can .. eat.

Now that all them Scottish dames has scored a coat our vermin are no longer good enough. Ditto for crayfish now that all them rich sauces have laid both French & Danes low … that red wine immunity overcome by bushels of Mud Bugs and all the butter they swizzled while sucking them down.

Meanwhile we’re dancing around Rock Snot, Rock Vomit, and the leftover ichor from forty years of  horror movies as unwanted guests.

You can’t eat them, nor can you wear them, so where’s the equity in this trade? I’d suggest that while we had the best interests of our eurotrash cousins at heart, they haven’t repaid the favor – at least not in like coin.

… perhaps some invasive Dutch Chocolate, or at least a scone or two.

Out of Coq de Leon – and you’re wondering why you can’t find Pardo?

Kater Bosworth wearing Coq de Leon , well - we might addI wouldn’t worry too much unless you tie dry flies or fish for steelhead. Your prayers of this being an overnight fad are simply not working …

The drain on fancy hackles and ostrich plumes will be growing in the foreseeable future, rather than winding down. The fashionistas have spoken and both sexes are scrambling to get on board.

The crescendo has been building from 2009, first with fringes and edging and eventually encompassing the entire garment. Hair attachments being an accessory to the larger trend, “Tribal” …

Tribes around the world used bird feather hair extensions for many different reasons such as acts of bravery and or sexual prowess, particularly for men the bigger and longer the hair feather etc.

Expensive is when you’re fashioning a dress made entirely of the oldest strain of genetic chickens known to Man. Coq de Leon can run to $0.30 per feather, but Hollywood has never been overly concerned with cost overruns or animal fashions …

We’re assured the wild birds that they come from aren’t harmed in any way. That the hair feathers are simply gathered cleaned and colored.

Best of all they assume they’re wearing shed feathers. All those Grizzly chickens, Pheasants, and Ostriches shedding feathers like a mangy pooch, so there’s little karmic damage and no blood throwing PETA mercenaries to disturb your exit should you wind up with a drawer full.

Feathered Eyeglasses by Ete

They’ve been in earrings for years, and now that Men are as keen on power fashion as the ladies, dressing for success means you need to know pecking order and men’s ties …

For Guys too ...

Don’t worry too much about the scent of mothballs, as it’ll soon become an aphrodisiac in the workplace. The power tie is raptor, baby – only food groups wear stuff that chirps.