Wherein we give you the first in what will probably not be a series of Buster interviews with other prestigious fly fishing media types. We flew Tim Miller and Paris Fleazanis of This is Fly online ‘zine fame out to the Buster Bunker (blindfolded, of course) to, a) impress them with how well funded we are, and b) ask the hard-hitting questions we know Buster readers expect from us. So here ya go, stains:

Q: Can you give us a little about your backgrounds and how/why TiF was conceived?

TiF: This is Fly was born out of pure boredom with the current choice of publications. We wanted to give something back that doesn’t look like it belongs in a doctor’s office. We needed something a bit more Charles Bronson, being here in NYC.

Q: Ok, let’s get down to it – so who’d you have to sleep with to get all those high profile sponsors? And more importantly – what was the kink factor? No names needed (you can PM us those), but details would be appreciated.

TiF: Well the list of who we had to bed is long and distinguished. We will not get into names but it was a lot of work and as for the kink factor — I’m sure you already know all about that.

Q: Why do you think so many of those saltwater guys are all wearing those cock-socks over their faces these days? Is this just another sad example of middle-class suburban white boys acting out wannabe gangsta fantasies? Or, do you agree, as we do at BWTF, that they’re sending a powerful message to the world about their solidarity with oppressed Muslim women?

TiF: Cock-sock: I like that. Sounds like something my dad would say. Well, we are the minority, I guess. We are not the white upper crust geriatrics of fly-fishing. You will see more and more people using them when out in 100-degree sun. None of us young bucks are looking forward to liver spots. See, if you used protection earlier, you could have prevented those. I’m not even going to comment on the Muslim part. As-Salamu Alaykim

Q: You guys seem like you’re in tight with Brian O’Keefe – can you confirm whether he is really the psycho party animal that we’ve heard about through the grapevine? Rumor has it that once, on a weekend bender, he abducted a goat, gave it a ride in a his driftboat (where they were reportedly seen blowing by prime water, lost in deep conversation), and then took said goat and a bottle of Canadian Club back to his room at the lodge, where he didn’t emerge for another 72 hours. Please comment.

TIF: Don’t mess with O’Keefe. In a future story you will see him in his younger years as a total wild man then you can come to your own conclusion about the goat. All we know is that he is a hard-core dude that you don’t want to spread rumors* about.

*Note: Spreading rumors? Us? Well, only if your definition of “spreading” includes posting things on a public blog that we may or may not have heard. Sheesh. Btw – we’re down with O’Keefe, but we’d place him on the Buster pedestal if the goat story were true. 

Q: One of the cool things we’ve noticed about TiF is the way you’ve integrated sound and video into the online mag format. Have you also considered smells? If so, which ones and why?

TiF: Thanks for being fans of TiF. We really appreciate it. Smells? You watch too many early 90’s internet movies. Actually, in Japan they tried a few movie theatres that omitted smells. The porn fans loved it. I mean fishing smells? Kind of boring, but if you have a favorite fish smell pass it along and we will try and get that going.

Well that concludes another hard-hitting piece of journalism, and we needs us a drink.

Btw, This is Fly’s blog is rated:

And we likes it.

We sent Epol out to see if he could get the goods on the Spring Ridge Club’s Annual Christmas party and posing as a waiter he got the following tape of Stupinsky, Zima, J Castlikeabiatch and The Beav

Ho Ho Ho

Update: A while back you may recall we announced the launch of BWTF Luxury Tours, providing exclusive getaways for the discriminating angler. At that time we also let slip that special fly fishing celebrities would be joining us for various legs of the trip. And so…(insert drum roll) we are very pleased to announce that two of the best-loved celebs in the fly fishing world, Mel Krieger and Lefty Kreh, have signed on for the passage from Tierra del Fuego to Tonga:

The rumor mill is abuzz with gossip that Mel and Lefty have put together a special comedy act for our passengers, to be performed nightly in the Buster Ballroom (sorry, no cameras allowed).

Don’t miss this exclusive opportunity to rub elbows with two of the most pre-eminent fly fishing celebrities of our generation!! Cabins are still available – call now!!

Dear Faithful Followers of Buster,

Let it be known that hard work, diligence and liberal use of a thesaurus still count for something in this crazy, mixed-up world. We’re not the sort that normally cares about the results of standardized testing (is anyone who’s achieved true greatness?), but we’re willing to admit our feelings were a little hurt when we found out that running BWTF through the Blog Readability Test yielded us a rating of mere “Elementary School Level,” while some of our esteemed colleagues, who don’t bother generating anywhere near the amount of original content that we do, content to simply be clearing houses for links to other stuff, rated from “High School” right on up to “Genius.” Well, being prime ministers of slackitude doesn’t prevent us from putting our kollective proboscis to the grindstone when necessary, and we thought we’d take this opportunity to let you know that recent testing irrefutably concludes we’ve been upgraded to:

YES!!!!

So dear reader, on this momentous Friday, please don’t wait till the customary noon hour to have your first hop-based beverage – join us right now in Dionysian revelry (multi-syllabic words and Greek references apparently up your rating).

BWTF is proud to announce we are powered by

Wook’s driven day and night in circles
spinning like a whirlwind of leaves.

Touch the sky y’all. ~Wallace

Thee good ol days. ~C-Love

Van Halen The Minutemen kicking the shit outta “ain’t talkin’ bout love” Dig! — awesomely posted by thee

Buster’s ultimate low holer contraption were it powered by clean-burning biodiesel, though we prolly wouldn’t try and jump the beaver dam (cause we love all beaver ‘cept Donnie). apologies for the suckass soundtrack.-bacon

go ahead… get it off yr chest… and fear not, we’ll have a “feats of strength” thread in a coupla days

Mike Iaconelli, pro bass fella, showing us the proper way to put fish in a live well. WTF….is he sleeping with the fish?

fishing + a couple of cold barley pops + watching dogs play = livin’

“…was blessed with a mixture of arrogance and stupidity that caused him to blow the boilers almost immediately after taking command. By bringing in hundreds of thugs, fixers and fascists to run the government, he was able to crank almost every problem he touched into a mindbending crisis.”

- Hunter S. Thompson on Richard Nixon from “Fear and Loathing in the Bunker”

The above could be about our current administration and almost any policy course “The Decider” wants to take, from the FCC trying to lift ownership restrictions, i.e one company owning both a newspaper and a radio station in the same market, to “slam dunk” WMD’s and the gathering threat of a nuclear Iran that apparently, according to the wildly liberal CIA, NSA, and DIA, gave up it’s weapons program, to the repeated gang rape of federal (read our collective land in the trust of the government) lands by a biker gang of lobbyists, extractive industries, passive or complicit regulators and the outright encouragement of the administration.

At least the agencies who have the charter to protect our lands must put permits up for public comment, and that is currently the only voice We the People have in the face of Big Mining, Big Timber, Big Coal etc.

Currently up for public comment is the permit for expansion of the Smoky Canyon Phosphate Mine in Southeastern Idaho, which is already a Superfund Site for selenium pollution that has leached into the ground water of the adjacent Caribou-Targhee National Forest.

Here’s what we have to do:

Go to http://www.savebiogems.org/yellowstone/takeaction take 30 seconds to fill out some basic information and add either a pre-written comment or your own opposing the expansion.

30 seconds, that’s it

Senator Mitchell, Barry Bonds, Rodger Clemons, James Prosek, Stephen A. Smith, Ben Johnson, Floyd Landis, Jose Canseco, The Decemberists, Andy Pettite, Brett Boone, Mingo, Mingo’s gal, Lefty Kreh, Sammy Sosa, Edgar Martinez, “Gandalf and Wetdog”, Dolly Parton, and Janet Jackson all unavailable for comment.

You boys are gonna have to wait for that snadwich-holding shot until next week, cause Mingo’s busy building that bigass bread festival. and besides, it looks like Mingo and his lady have returned their roots with some real, genuine interpretive fly fishing art. looks like they brought some other dude along with, too. lucky fella.

note: James Prosek would not make good, conceptually risky art like this because he’d need a lady for a model and ladies avoid guys prone to crying.

Nevermind that he looks kind of like a cross-eyed roadie for the Eagles, the Talking Jesus Action Figure has sold off the shelves at Wall-Mart this season, and is close to doing so at Target as well. “We feel blessed that the toys are now in the hands of thousands of children, teaching them the word of God,” states the manufacturer’s spokesperson, Joshua Livingston.

And really, what sums up the current state of American spirituality better?

Here’s a great little excerpt from An Angler’s Rambles and Angling Songs, written by Scotsman Thomas Tod Stoddart (1810 – 1880). David Profumo describes Stoddart thus: “ … a fishing author from the Scottish Borders who devoted his entire adult life to the sport. In his journal, the redoubtable Thomas Tod Stoddart records that in fifty years he caught some 67,419 fish (not including eels). Regarded in his heyday as the literary heir to Izaak Walton, he was the presiding spirit of Scottish fishing and was dubbed by John Buchan ‘the Poet Laureate of Angling’; these days he is largely forgotten, except for a remark that has entered piscatorial mythology. On re-meeting a childhood acquaintance, Tom was asked what he was now doing in life; a little resentfully, he replied, ‘Doing? Doing? Mon, I’m an angler.’”

Wherein we provide highlight’s from esteemed fisherman Frank Lee Schwetty’s new book, “The Globetrotting Angler: Intrepid Expeditions Through Middle Age” We will be providing regular updates of Mr. Schwetty’s adventures. Yet another exclusive feature you can only find on BWTF:

When we arrived at the river, I will not name it because I fear for the fragility of the system, but fear not as my partners and I are planning on building a multi-million dollar luxury lodge here, I quickly dismounted my pony and hurried to the bank. Before me were the rises and boils of the magnificient Mongolian grayling. I urged the porters to bring with much haste my sieves, nets and entymology texts so that I might quickly match the hatch. As I was sternly cojoling these coolies to bring my gear forward, there was the steadfast Tuki, unpacking and setting up my portable tying desk and supplies. I had barely had my sieve spread out and ready to hand it to the porters to collect specimens, when Tuki came up with my rigged 3 weight and a selection of flies, that I must confess to you, were nothing more than pieces of pine needle lashed to #16 Tiemco hooks. I was warmed by his earnest efforts, although I thought they were childish and terribly foolish, catching such a wary fish on bank detrious, but not wanting to embarass him after yesterday’s scolding, I gratefully took up the rod and proceeded to fish.

My it was amazing, I had a grayling on almost every cast. I easily had over a hundred fish day and could do no more than embrace Tuki in gratitude as the long northern twilight set in. Around the campfire myself, Tuki and the porters, celebrated such a glorious day and I made a long procession around camp dispensing t-shirts in my mirth. They had me take a drink from their local horse milk vodka, and after one sip, I assure you I was rummaging among the crates for my gin and Tom Collins mix. I tried several times to find out what insect the pine needle fly imitated, and perhaps Tuki’s limited understanding of English, a remedial class in which our guide and porter school should teach, must have prevented him from understanding nymph and emerger or even worm as he simply and emphatically replied “pine needle!” over and over again.

I must have overslept the next morning, the curse of my good friend Tom Collins, ha, as I awoke to Tuki furiously urging me out of bed and onto a horse. As I blinked my eyes open outside the yurt, I was amazed to see most of the camp disassembled and the porters and packhorses riding away to the distant west. I noticed that there was only one horse left, which Tuki quickly mounted and pulled me onto. Turning around I could see the ridge above us lined with the silouhettes of many horsemen, and they were starting to put rowels to their mounts and to pour over the top and down the hill. As Tuki’s muscalr chest moved in rythym against my back, I asked him what was happening and he said, in his strong halting english, that his cousins, the ones that had left the pack train two days before, had made a joke and driven this tribe’s goats off to market and now they wanted to play a joke on us and chase us over the steppe. I laughed at the good natured show the locals were putting on for my benefit and any worry I may have had was quitely dispelled by Tuki’s prescence (continued…)

Deer hunting has been slow, like real slow. I suspect it’s due to warm weather and a bumper acorn (pronounced eh-kern down here) crop. In fact, I have never seen so many acorns. My front yard feels like it’s covered with millions of ball bearings. And isn’t it all about ball bearings these days? This damn drought does strange things with Mother nature. Anyways, the deer have no reason to enter a food plot. And I’ve seen a few deers when I have have hunted the deep woods. But just a few. It’s been a weird season. Here’s some pics from last weekend. Co-worker’s 11 year old son took these hogs. Had a pack of 10 enter the field and took two down on two shots. Kid is riding four wheeler’s and blasting hogs while his classmates are playing Halo and Guitar Hero. Maybe there’s hope, yet.

In the Pines

 Big girls need some attention too

“Sinful frontier towns with bad reputations. Untamed mountain ranges, bears, lions and wolves. Indians. A dangerous border. Inhabitants speak with a cowpoke twang, listen to country music, dance the two step, favor cowboy hats, big belt buckles and pickup trucks. That ain’t Texas, it’s Sonora”

Luis Alberto Urrea, “The Devil’s Highway”

I’ve moved around a bit and one of the things I usually do after landing in a new place is to read up on the history of the location as a way of orienting myself. Florida was pretty brief- Ponce De Leon, the Seminole War, Flagler builds a railroad and retirees discover Miami Beach. Here’s a brief rundown of the dramatis personae that have lived within a 20 mile radius of my front door here in Rancho Merde:

John Joel Glanton, Judge Holden and Samuel Chamberlain

James Kirker

Cochise

Geronimo and his band of 38 renegade Chiricahua Apache

Billy the Kid

Wyatt, Virgil & Morgan Earp, Doc Holliday and the rest of the gang that made Tombstone a riot

Now the citizens of the Sierra Vista, just south of me, are up in arms, some quite literally, over the November 21st gun battle between rival drug gangs that happened in the parking lot of an apartment complex. Actually, it was more of an ambush of one gang by another. It ended with one dead, three wounded, including the alledged ringleader of the ambushees, who was found by police lying wounded in a nearby office parking lot. The brass at the scene was a mix of .40 S&W, 7.62×39 rifle and .45 Long Colt, and the .45 Long Colt is kind of a nice throwback to the old timey days.

Some of the newcomers are worried that things are getting worse. For me at least, the outsider looking in the context of what’s happened here in the past, things don’t seem to be getting worse, and if anything, they’ll stay the same. Before drugs, it was liquor in the Prohibition, before that men died over silver claims, Apache scalps were sold for bounty to the Govenors of Chihuhua and Sonora, and stretching back farther it was for the Seven Cities of Gold and the True Church. I don’t think this ground has had its fill of blood yet.

no lie, on December 7, 2007, BWTF took 666 hits.
no wonder i didn’t catch any fish.

Click on the thumbnail to view the Triploid in all of its magnificence