Big Ups to the SacTown Posse and the Truckee RiffRaff Association for the good times last week. Barring liver-replacement therapy and/or a sudden, inexplicable aversion to whoop-ass good sushi and company, I will be down for the Show next year.

Things we should probably remember for next year:

If you meet a girl with a large bird tattoo, don’t ask her why she decided to get a big cock on her back.

Fro’s is too damn expensive for people in the fly fishing industry, but staying away from food that good is tough.

Regardless of your intent, “Golden Water” is not a phrase to be used in the presence of hot waitresses unless you feel the need to be known among the waitstaff as “the guy with the pee thing”.

No more than 3 tall bastards in a drinking circle.

If you get 2am taco debris all over your iPhone while Siri is giving you directions, simple 5 minute drives can and will turn into 40-minute, 5-freeway clown-car rodeos.

Karma has a way of catching up with lowholers – wait until they fall in before yelling at them.

Just because April was at that one bar last year doesn’t necessarily mean there will be hot chicks there this year.

Using awkward hand signals while vaguely referencing obscure fishing practices is not a good idea in the company of smartass fishing guides.

Thanks to JerkBait and the Loose Cannon for lettin’ me ride shotgun all week, and if I ever find my phone, I’ll make sure to get that video of the Hooters chick riding the “Barstool Bull” into your sweaty hands.

I’ve cut back on my own tracks. I haven’t done that before, moving back to place I left previously. Last spring I moved back to Florida and in so many other ways, I started right back where I was a few years ago. I came back for a job and a future I thought I could predict. I have the job, but the future, as it will, has changed from what I thought it would be. My wife and I split up and I’m moving out. I’m rebuilding a life from the bottom up again and wondering what I’m doing half the time. Eight years ago, I was in the exact same spot, and there are times where I lay awake and wonder how I got here again. I have some great friends, one in particular, who has been there for me through this whole experience. There are times where I don’t know how I’ll ever say thank you in a way that conveys the depth of that appreciation. That particular friend is now going through her own hard time. I’ve tried to be there for her and tried to offer the same support and help that she has offered me. In the end that is all we can do for each other. Be there with a hand and a kind word and an open ear. Sometimes I feel like I am stumbling around, not sure of what I’m doing. I’m about to turn 35 years old, and I don’t know anything more than when I was 5 years old.

Hey Front Range – maybe you should have wondered where the water was going to come from before you approved all the rampant development of the last couple decades? Just sayin’…

Kirk Deeter of Fly Talk makes a few fly fishing predictions for the coming year. Most of them are reasonable enough and will probably come to fruition but it’s #3 that catches my attention.

Fly fishing will see successful competitions happen that will actually promote the sport. Only they won’t revolve around trout. (We tried, but it’s hard to find a fair and legitimate format; one-flies are for fun). And they won’t revolve around bass. (That market is already cornered, and the bass people don’t want us). It’s going to revolve around carp fishing with flies. Just you watch.

I admit that I like this idea. For years now the wife has been bugging me to get a second job and being a pro carp angler on “The Tour” sounds good to me.

What if?

Lots of sites going dark today, WordPress included, but we figured since it was already a bit dim (and musty) around here anyway, we’d just post this.

(btw, image totally ganked from somebody on the intarwbz without permission)

And this just for clicks.

Hi no time here’s your card k merry stuffis ok bye.

…are they gone?

While hatchery steelhead may be the new Zebra Mussel, there is no denying the fact that they are tasty morsels from the sea. Scourge or no, they go well with just a shake of salt and pepper, splashed with the slightest amount of Olive Oil.

This, of course is the end game – before all of this, you will have played your fish with speed so as to not build up any bitter lactic acid (or to release it mostly free of those same acids, be it a wild fish), and landed it in expedient fashion. Regardless of the fact that it is seen by some as the devilspawn and a plague upon Northwest watersheds, dispatch it with efficiency, dignity, and respect, preferably using the time-tested “driftwood shampoo” method. When your fish has been rendered inert, remember to pop at least one gill arch to bleed it out…sweetens the meat, you understand. Keep it in a cool, moist condition, free from the damaging effects of wind, sun, and spilled drinks.

Once back in your domicile, allow the fish to lie in state in your fridge for 24 hours – the folks who eat fish straight out of the sea and claim it is better are unwashed heathen, and not to be trusted. Once it has gone through rigor mortis and has subsequently slacked out, reduce it to its component parts. If you do not know how to achieve the beauty that is the boneless fillet, allow our friends over at AFFG to show you how.

Introduce your steelhead to its new friends – olive oil, salt, and pepper. To put any more on it is to dilute the taste of years in the ocean, to cover up the nuances that make it what it is. After a brief stint on foil over the medium-hot flame of your grill, bring your fillet in and pair it with a good rosé, accompanied by a light mango salsa.

The next time you go fishing, do yourself and some Wild Steelhead a favor -  kill a hatchery steelhead.

Silver and Gold from Yukon Goes Fishing on Vimeo.

Combining the two things I like most; Montana and a mean techno beat.

Somewhere in Texas, on a roadkill-spattered North-South state highway, there is a sign. It is a simple, modest sign, warped, whitewashed and carefully lettered with one word near and dear to my heart and an accompanying arrow pointing vaguely to the Southwest.

Just past this sign is a small camper with an awning, 2 tables, and another sign. The words on this sign are familiar as words, but as concepts they are far-ranging and can hold satisfaction or stark misery depending upon the disposition, aspirations, and general hygiene of the person or persons on the business end of the sign.

If a quick glance was all that was needed to determine the outcome, there isn’t much of a chance that this particular trailer would have much of a dog in the hunt. However, the combination of curiosity and hunger is often enough to overlook the decor and outward appearance that would otherwise lend itself well to the abattoir of your everyday teenage brain surgeon.

The ordinary cliché of  “a diamond in the rough” is an unfortunate choice of metaphor, but for a beat-down taco trailer on the outskirts of a burnt-up town, I think it will do nicely.

If you happen to be on a roadkill-spattered North-South state highway in the middle of Texas and see this sign, do yourself a favor and stop. Ask the nice man for a Taco al Pastor with everything, and while you are at it, get a bottle of Mexican coke with all its cane-sugary goodness.

You will not be disappointed.

A must visit for anyone who has read any works of Cormac McCarthy:

http://yelpingwithcormac.tumblr.com/

“The man laid there in the village square for three days and nights and took no food and spoke to no visitor. The older villagers said that the man should not have eaten the taco and no sane man would do so and the price of such folly was known to all.”

Not for kids. Kids are smarter:

Believed in some primitive cultures to contain properties similar to sildenafil.

They said it wouldn’t work.

They said the fish wouldn’t hit one, no way. They hadn’t heard of it, so that means it must have never happened.

They said I was messin’ up the pool with that big floppy thing splashing all over the place.

They said it was a silly waste of a day, that I should tie on a Green Butt Skunk and swing it proper instead of doing what I was doing.

“Nobody throws mice at steelhead”, they said. “Steelhead don’t eat mice, and they don’t like splashy things.”

“We been doin’ this for years, son. Listen to what we’re sayin’ to you.”

By noonish, I had 11 more reasons not to listen to them.

Good reality TV if your reception’s tuned.

‘

Hey settle down. Tonight it’s the complete Guy On A Buffalo saga from those scamps at The Possum Posse, featuring bears, bushwhackin, reprisal, orphans, straight-up cougar maulins, wolves,  creepin coyotes, raccoon dumplings and revenge. You’re welcome.

Guy On A Buffalo

Episode 1 (Bears, Indians and Such)

Episode 2 (Orphans, Cougars & What Not)

Episode 3: Finale Part 1 (Origins, Villains & The Like)

Episode 4: Finale Part 2 (Rehab, Vengeance & What Have You)

Break yo gun onna STUMP!

Richmond Fontaine – Lost in the Trees from Gary Lundgren on Vimeo.

Ricmond Fontaine’s latest release The High Country takes everything that is hopeless and dark and psychotic about life in the commercial forests of the Northwest and records it in yonder can.  It’s one of them high concept albums so you gotta listen to it from beginning to end.  After you do that once you might want to shoot yerself in the head, don’t do it! The High Country gets better every time.  Give it a listen if yer settin out for steelhead country alone this winter.

“Venezuela president Hugo Chavez’s policy of nationalising strategic private businesses has taken a new twist with his announcement that his government will expropriate hotels and holiday homes at an upmarket Caribbean resort. The president plans to turn Los Roques, an idyllic archipelago of deserted beaches of perfect white sand with swaying palms and dazzling coral reefs, into a state-run getaway for his country’s urban poor.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/chavez-to-seize-homes-and-hotels-for-the-poor-on-idyllic-los-roques-2367385.html

The worldwide fly-fishing community responds with a collective statement:

“This type of aggression will not stand, man…”

Threat to thousands of sustainable fishing jobs prompts fisherman, Alaska Natives to take their story to the Lower 48 beginning Oct. 17;
Tour will highlight proposed Pebble mine’s threat to fishing jobs, Native way of life

Seattle – Alaska Natives, commercial fishermen, sportsmen and seafood processors are heading south on the Save Bristol Bay Road Show to raise awareness and build support for protecting Bristol Bay Alaska, which is threatened by the proposed Pebble gold and copper mine.

The mine, potentially three times as large as the largest current mine in North America,  would threaten the headwaters of Bristol Bay, putting thousands of fishing  jobs at risk, along with a Native way of life that has existed for centuries. The real gold in Bristol Bay is the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery, a sustainable resource that returns year after year.

In six cities, commercial fishermen, Alaska Natives, sportsmen and seafood processors will highlight the economic risks posed by the mine. The Road Show will also feature a screening of the award-winning documentary, “Red Gold,” delicious Bristol Bay sockeye prepared by local chefs, and locally produced beers.

Melanie Brown, an Alaska Native and commercial fisherwoman, and Ben Blakey, of family-run seafood company, Snopac Products, will travel to all of the cities as featured speakers, sharing the importance of the region as an economic engine, source of jobs, and resource for food. In each city, the program will also feature sportsmen, fishing guides or commercial fishermen, whose livelihoods depend on the clean waters and sustainable fish runs of Bristol Bay. More than 12,000 jobs depend on the commercial salmon fishery in Bristol Bay, along with more than 1,000 jobs related to sport fishing and countless other businesses.

The Save Bristol Bay Road Show visits the following six cities:

Seattle: Monday, October 17, Leif Erikson Lodge, 7 p.m.

Portland: Wednesday, October 19, Bagdad Theater, 7 p.m.

Corvallis: Friday, October 21, The Arts Center, 7 p.m.

San Francisco: Monday, October 24, Temple Nightclub, 7 p.m.

Santa Fe: Tuesday, October 25, Center For Contemporary Arts Cinematheque, 7 p.m.

Denver: Thursday, October 27, Oriental Theater, 7 p.m.

For information, please visit: www.savebristolbay.org/roadshow

The Save Bristol Bay Road Show is coordinated by the Save Bristol Bay campaign, part of a broad, bipartisan, national coalition that supports protecting Bristol Bay and its natural resources from the severe risks of massive-scale development, including the Pebble Mine.

The Road Show is sponsored by the generous support of companies including Tiffany & Co., ExOfficio, Icicle Seafoods, Orvis, Sage, and Chef’s Collaborative.

Speakers are available for interviews and briefings. Speaker photos and bios available upon request.