Tag Archives: fly tying humor

All that’s needed is a Toyota Prius Monster Truck

Deer_HAir_TruckAfter multi-million dollar advertising campaigns touting “tax free” zones for New York startups, how Texas is “business friendly”, Massachusetts insists, “Take a Real Vacation”, or Montana’s “Get Lost in Montana”, Michigan has entered the fray by making itself extra appealing to fly tiers …

Fly tiers … because the high dollar tourista have already been lured to larger states. The 20-something social media moguls gravitate to the Big City, the Hip Hop squillionaires insist on similar digs, leaving Michigan attractive only to us economically challenged middle class types, and the the occasional marijuana kingpin whose entourage contains a bevy of canny tax lawyers that minimize their obligation to state revenues. 

… and Michigan’s subtle, yet frugal, message makes me think that California, “the Land of Fruit and Nuts”, might be better served by the sudden exodus of me and the fluttering horde of moths that pursue my collection of animal dander.

Instead of employing the Madison Avenue’s word artists, Michigan opted to exploit its native fauna, by removing any restrictions to Steel Belted Radial season, and adopting an, “if you kill it you can eat it” bylaw governing its roads and waterways.

“While fresh roadkill like deer can be consumed, I introduced this bill at the request of several constituents who have asked to use roadkill for various purposes, such as hunting, composting or salvaging the hides,” Booher said. “This is about reducing regulations and saving taxpayer dollars.”

It’s a match liable to make other states wish they’d pandered to us more openly, given our ranks are swollen with aging and stable taxpayers with a monstrous appetite for asphalt kinetics and deer hair.

All that remains is adding a roll cage to a Toyota Prius so you can sneak up on game like Gunther Prien sliding into Scapa Flow …

We who are about to die, salute you …

The only reason I have any fishing gear remaining in the house is She hasn’t seen the carnage yet …

It was to be a tale of Good and Bad News. The Good News being she would be occupied elsewhere all weekend, and I could go fishing…

The Bad News being any thoughts along those lines dispelled by the same warning tingle that alerts Peter Parker to the menace of Doc Octopus; a whirl of tan wings trundling through the living room about the size and shape of a scout for the dreaded Great White Hackle-Slurping-Fur-Crapping moth swarm.

NukeTheRoom

Alert to the danger you rush to your tying bench knowing it to be at risk, and you’re met by the peaceful bliss of Smallville – all defenses in place, everything bagged and put away, and nary a movement from any drawer however dark and remote.

… and while in the bathroom you see another “tan Fokker” climbing for elevation and mash it gleefully against a wall.

Which leads to a check of extended storage; bags and boxes containing your overabundances that aren’t used as often, the full skins too large to fit in the drawer, the pheasant tail bags, and the sack of salt water colored buck tail, all which come up clean.

… then the third sighting and subsequent kill, and as you scrub fragments of chitin and hairy wing onto your pants leg – you know that sickening feeling that somewhere, somehow, you’re the unwitting host to a really bad infestation …

Hudson: [Knowing that the Aliens are close, Hicks and Vasquez are welding the door shut] Movement. Signal’s clean. Range, 20 meters.
Ripley: They’ve found a way in, something we’ve missed.
Hicks: We didn’t miss anything.
Hudson: 17 meters.
Ripley: [Checking the tracker] Something under the floor, not in the plans, I don’t know.
Hudson: 15 meters.
Newt: Ripley.
Hicks: Definitely inside the barricades.
Newt: Let’s go.
Hudson: 12 meters.
Ripley: That’s right outside the door. Hicks, Vasquez get back. Hudson: Man, this is a big fuckin’ signal.
Hicks: How are we doing Vasquez, talk to me?
Vasquez: Almost there.
[They welded the door shut, and stepped back away from the door]
Vasquez: There right on us.
Hicks: [Waiting for the Aliens] Remember, short controlled bursts.
Hudson: 9 meters. 7. 6.
Ripley: That can’t be; that’s inside the room.
Hudson: It’s reading right man, look!

I’d checked everything I used for storage except the Room That Has No Name, containing the unused normal household extras – a few boxes of unused books, some extra dishes, a stack of my hard fishing gear – rods and tubes …

… and opening the door was witnessing the sack of Rome, complete with scurrying hordes of insects pouring out of the crevasses and crawling onto the walls to avoid the thin light intruding on their debauchery.

… and with them went all plans for fishing, as the infestation I found in the storage room was so bad, so numerous, and so blatant, that I simply closed the door, and wadded a towel against the jamb to keep the balance of the house clear.

Gross.

The real crime is that I’m about to be banned from my own domicile unless I return to lures and bait. Past outbreaks having sensitized She Who Cares Not for Dead Things to the roulette played out on my tying bench each evening.

… and the source of the infestation not some unmarked boxes of dead animal pelts – rather a down comforter opened by a mouse to feather his own nest, then exploited by the Winged Borg to explode their population exponentially under my watchful care.

Protesting my innocence being completely futile as past sins have me so far in the doghouse as to welcome fleas, as they’ll be the only thing talking to me for the foreseeable future.

All that’s left is the porous “I love you” defense, where the Condemned foreswears a weekend of fishing for the, “I could’ve gone fishing but instead I cleaned the store room knowing how much it meant to you” defense.

While it always sounds good on paper, keeping a straight face is critical, and while you’re making the Ultimate Man-bleat-noise she’ll see some laggard squadron of the “Dawn Patrol” break out of the closet to start their death spiral in front of her … my grin will out, and my arse cooked.