Spurred by recent condemnations of a certain fella’s technique (in keeping with the Beatdown ethos, i gotta say nice bobber, tho), i thought it proper to chuck this up on the confuser screen for your consideration. same guide in question, same watershed.

pretty sure there’s no redd fishing here, despite the fact you can clearly see the fish laid up, again, over grapefruit-sized rock and not the small gravel substrate they require for spawning. hopefully it’s enough to prove a point that sighted fish, regardless of whether they’re paired and staging or not, aren’t necessarily spawners. as we all know, a pool can and will hold more that one fish from time to time, often of both sexes.

anyway, the camera work is pretty badass, as well. one question: why does Hickman’s mug show up in every damn video i’m seeing these days. does this guy not work?

diggit, smile, group kum-bay-ya, fellas. remember: it’s just fishing.

Delivered last week by birddog, on behalf of himself and the brothers P.

Created by Portland local Andrew Kern. Artist pics of the first burn here.

Thanks fellas, we love it.

Maybe old news to some, but I came across the Alpine River Club tonight, the western regional office in Donny Beaver’s ongoing attempt to take the US fishing traditions of access, public stewardship and general openess and pervert it into some hyper-capitalist quasi-British plutocratic privilege. Notice he’s set up shop in Colorado, where the access laws are much more favorable to landowners and schemes of this type- the property owner owns the river bottom so the highwater rule doesn’t apply and don’t even think about dropping anchor or bumping a rock while drifting through.

As an added bonus, here’s the business plan, emphasis added

Great trout properties rarely come on the open market. Our experience has taught us that the best long-term strategy is to develop good relationships with trout stream owners long-before they consider selling their property. By helping them manage their fishing assets, we are able to establish enduring bonds that help us earn the opportunity to be in the mix when a property is being considered for sale.

This is a very deliberate process and like making a fine wine, it cannot be rushed. At the Founders’ Stage of the Club development, we must have partners who appreciate the careful and subtle tactics that need to be employed to lay the foundation for enduring success. We will take our time and do it right from the very beginning.

So, the Beav found a place where the law fits his visions of the nobility fishing well away and protected from the commoners and peons. Can’t do much legally unless the laws change in Colorado, and there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of that, but while he may be sitting up in his new ranch feeling safe and secure with his new legal standing, we can affect his partners and enablers.

I strongly suggest a boycott of the following business for affiliating with the Beav:

Edit: Important info came in from Ajax- Gorsuch Outfitters is actually owned by the Beav, which is 3x the reason not to patronize them.

1.Gorsuch Outfitters in Edwards, Colorado. In fact, give them a call or an email and let them know what you think about their association with the Beav at 1-877-926-0900. Toll free makes it even easier to call now, or send them an email at flyfish@vail.net

Finally, a note of contrast between the Beav and his ilk and us normal folks. When the Alpine River Club says “teaching the next generation how to be faithful stewards of the resources with which we have been trusted”, they mean specifically their heirs who get deeded title to a river. We mean all successive generations.

Rancho Merde 7:30pm 21 January 2008

Holy shit, look at this, I’ve found the motherload of bullshit. The Pebble Mine Project’s PR page; this is golden, I can’t believe they actually wrote this and put it out on the internet.

Can fishing and mining co-exist?

In many cases, mining activity actually enhances fish habitat and fish production

No way, they’re actually trying to tell us that an open pit mine with a cyanaide extraction process is good for fish. I fucking love this, what are they smoking over there; I have to get some

Look at number 2!!!

Will tailings at Pebble be harmful to the environment?

No. The vast majority of material to be stored in the tailings facility at the proposed Pebble mine is natural. It will consist of ground up rock, water and minute traces of compounds used in the milling process

They actually think that anyone is going to buy this? “Minute traces of compounds used in the milling process”, like cyanaide and arsenic, yeah those are healthy in small doses. I should send a memo to those guys letting them know that lead and uranium are naturally occuring compounds that aren’t good in small doses either. Must have a team of monkeys working around the clock on this

[Breaking glass, dogs barking and snarling]

HOLY JESUS!!!!! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU??!!??

[Hands over a piece of paper]

No way!! they actually are using monkeys to come up with this.

[Poops on floor, humps the cat and leaves]

*flying monkey courtesey of Epol down in the boiler room; crappy MS Paint business card I claim as mine

Huh…. so that‘s what they talk about behind the scenes at Fly Fisherman…

Me and Doszapatos went up to Mike Shay’s rod shop in Congress AZ this weekend for the inaugural Desert Dirtbag Bamboo Bash. I’m pretty new to the bamboo scene and the chance to hang out and hear the makers, like Shay and Dos, talk shop about culms, techniques and the tooling used, was quite frankly, totally kick-ass. After getting my first boo this year and seeing some of what goes into making one, I’m getting bit more and more.

Some highlights of the weekend included the food- barbeque chicken with some of Dos’ homemade BBQ sauce, not that pre-made KC Masterpiece shit, venison that was as good as any cut of beef you’ve ever had. We got pretty cheuco but suprisingly, nobody made the monster walk out of the shop that night, or went into Shay’s corral and tried to saddle break a horse at 1am.

Click here to read an article about poaching sight casting to spawning wild steelhead, or allow me to sum it up for you in just one sentence:

Just look for the dark shapes paired up over their redds!

All that you can reasonably expect.

But there’s no reason to suffer. It’s supposed to be fun, right?

If this makes you unhappy, remember that it’s free, but I also offer up this consolation while remaining in the spirit of things – An Ingmar Bergman-style Sven & Ole joke, as told by the MST3K crew. Be patient (and stoic):

I went three days last week without seeing a paved road, and we traveled 20-30 miles a day. Very rare to find that East of the mighty Mississip’. Each day started with coffee and ended with whikky. A very proper place to call home for those few days.  I was a better man for it.

At Buster we strongly believe in the importance of standardized testing as the only real way to measure how standardized things are, and we wanted our readers to know that, after recently being re-tested, our blog is holding firm at:

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of our loyal readers who have provided comments for helping in our quest up the steep learning curve of fair to middling literacy. So please, order another one and put it on our tab.

And remember,

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” – G. Marx

Despite a committed public relations propaganda campaign, not all residents near the proposed Pebble Mine site are convinced that the mine is a good idea. The latest group to join the ranks of the sceptics? A seventh grade class in nearby Dillingham, Alaska.

Money Quote from one of the students: “This job will only go for maybe 50 years, while fishing could go on for more and more years.”

You should fire your PR folks Northern Dynasty, because even a 12 year old can see through your bullshit!

R. L. Burnside keepin’ it chunk-ified:

ID a violent, maladjusted teenage Thee Trouthole in this clip and win a bass boat! Excellent vid and sound from the last show featuring the originoo lineup

“Stay in school.” – Wally

“History Lesson Part II” The Minutmen (Saul-T)

The Nevilles bring some Meters and Dr. John – Hey Pocky Way/Walk On Gilded Splinters – Wook thinks a whole lot is summed up in the rimshot at 4:51.

Metadata: NSA Wiretap, executed 12-15-2007 at Ft Meade, Maryland on Craig, Larry

[Outgoing Call]

[Craig, Larry Senator (R-NOT GAY), ref after as Craig] Hello Marcia, how goes the fight in Siskiyou County?

[Armstrong, Marcia (Lead Harpy Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors) ref after as Armstrong] What are you doing calling me at the office, you know these lines might be tapped.

[Craig] Easy there, I’m just calling to see how your Natural Resources plan was coming along, well and passed I hope.

[Armstrong] Anything but, some liberal pussies started crying on the internet and the “plan” is now DOA

[Craig] Sweet Leatherman in a sling, you’re fucking kidding, right? Christ this is all going wrong, wrong, wrong! Do you know how much slush fund money from Weyerhauser went to you to push this through? Those guys are going to take it out of my ass when they find out the plan failed.

[Armstrong] Jesus Christ, breathe Larry and what the hell are you doing mentioning slush funds and Weyerhauser over the phone?

[Craig] Were you at least able to kill some fish?

[Armstrong] Are you listening to me, the plan is shelved, we can’t do anything right now. Kill a fish, Jesus you’ve gone off the deep end. What’s that oily little Beaver doing right now?

[Craig] Poor Donny, I’m afraid he’s lost it. He keeps mumbling about living at the edge where reality becomes a dream, how trout chow can’t be weighed in pounds but in bars of gold. It’s bad Marcia

[Armstrong] He’s completely flipped huh?

[Craig] Worse, at the Club’s Founders’ Weekend he didn’t even look up when Oscar Marks came out to the bunkhouse dressed as Little Bo Peep. He just sat there mumbling about the price of piano wire and if pellet fed trout weren’t worth their weight in gold, then they must be communist and how he should just aquaseal the river at both ends.

[Armstrong] Whoa, Donny’s off his rocker. I was hoping he’d pull it together to get out here and set up shop. That’s the whole reason we were trying to declare the river non-navigable.

[Craig] Right, then those bleeding heart judges who care so much about the Constitution and precedent couldn’t take our profits from us. Hold on Marcia, I have another call

[Armstrong] Sure

[30 seconds of silence]

[Craig] Well speak of the devil, Marcia I’m putting Donny on conference

[Armstrong] Donny, so good to hear from you. How are your western expansion schemes coming along.

[Beaver, Donald (Low Holer) ref after as Beaver] I once watched a slug crawl along the edge of a straight razor and live.

[Craig] That’s nice Donny; why don’t you tell Marcia about your new Arizona property.

[Beaver] It’s fantastic. I woke one morning and drove out of Phoenix and I found this, and it hit me like a diamond bullet- this is where I’ll make my fortune

[Beaver] It’s closed and so it shall stay, closed to all but me and the club. Open it will be, but yet closed, except for the Purina delivery truck and the truck from Crisco, cause you can’t fry fish without Crisco. Crisco was once living and it carries a residual soul and it imparts it soul into the fish, which have none.

[Armstrong] That’s uh, very nice Donny. Larry, Donny, I have to go to a meeting. I call you back later

[Craig] OK, bye bye Marcia

[Beaver] Marcia, who’s Marcia

[Craig] Never mind Donny

[Call Ended]

Hot off the wires from our friends at Cryptomundo comes this report of a fresh mermaid/thing-fish sighting from South Africa:

Suurbraak resident Daniel Cupido said he and a group of friends were relaxing next to the Buffelsjags river last weekend when, at about 11:30pm, he heard something which sounded like someone “bashing on a wall.”

Cupido walked toward the sound. At a nearby low water bridge, he said he saw a figure, “like that of a white woman with long black hair thrashing about in the water.”

Thinking to save her, he waded toward her, but said he stopped in his tracks when he noticed a reddish shine in her eyes. The sight sent “shivers” down his spine, yet he was pulled forward as if hypnotized….

Long known in local legend, the Kaaiman is described as a half human, half fish creature which lives in deep pools. It is white and has long black hair and red eyes:

Cupido said the figure made “the strangest sound,” like a woman crying. His mother, Dina, said the figure sounded so sorrowful “my heart could take it no more.” Her husband Martinus said their parents had warned them about the Kaaiman, but they never believed it existed.

Suurbraak tourism officer Maggy Jantjies said she knew the people who saw the Kaaiman well, and that they did not “misuse” alcohol. “It is something we have to take seriously,” said Janjies.

Now Class, Class, CLASS!!!

Epol, Smithhammer and I were kicking it down in the boiler room and decided that the fly fishing web-o-sphere is best explained with world geography. Pay attention ’cause there will be a test.

The Drake=_______; Immense resources unable to be harvested due to fierce inter-tribal fighting and strange noob initiation rituals among the natives. High mortality rate and emmigration have also taken their toll along with absent, partying administration.

FAOL=______; monocultural, with total orthodoxy to “Party” leadership demanded. Centrally directed, with a secret police force to keep the unruly in line. Unexplained disappearances are common. A favorite of some in the industry for reasons you will not question.

Primedia Family of FF Websites (Fly Fisherman, Florida Sportsman, etc)=______; a loose federation of nominally independent states bent to the will of corporate backed strongmen.

The Itinerant Angler=______; Blind Allegiance to the Dear Leader, engages in quixotic and misguided quests. Isolated and generally disregarded by the others until it hollers for attention (got taimen?)

GOTC=______; a collection of convicts and undesirables booted out of other websites. Much like its geographic equivalent, it’s more quirky and whingy than actually dangerous. Major imports are Metamucil, Gold Bond Medicated Powders and Cialis.

Salmon Crazy=______; More technologically advanced than neighboring countries. Speaks an inscrutable language and possess what can appear to be a bizarre culture of odd rituals and adopted, yet integrated fetishes. Will continue to cling to tradition long after other cultures have moved on. Commonly believed that the population suffers from a lower than average IQ, and the experts have yet to ascertain the exact reason but it may be due to high consumption of fish tainted with mercury and other heavy metals.

The Digital Fishing Guide=______; A rogue state and dangerous proliferator of devastating technology and information. Makes frequent public protestations of innocence and professes a right to conduct their research and proliferation activities as a sovereign power not to be influenced or curtailed by other actors. Must be contained, economically isolated and stripped of its offensive power.

*Expect more blank spots on the Atlas of Internet Fly Fishing map to fill as our intrepid explorers and ethnographers return from the field.

Bonus points for guessing where the intro came from…

Ahh, the Trout Bum. The myth and the reality, brought together in a fertile, co-mingling marketing tryst, giving birth and sustenance to a hot new target demographic. The young will find it an edgy, counter-establishment sub-culture to identify with, and the older will still want to fancy themselves one, immersed in the nostalgia of their youthful freedoms, before important responsibilities like payments on second homes in Jackson and Lexus SUVs got in the way. Living solely to fish, hobo-ing around in exotic locations, camp coffee more suited to chewing than drinking, rumpled chapeaux jauntily askew …who amongst the faithful wouldn’t want to be considered a Trout Bum?

And here we get to the crux of the issue – with so many people all trying to be “bums” simultaneously, how is one to differentiate oneself from the other bums, to rise head and shoulders above the rest to the elusive, elevated status of “Uber-Bum?” Well in the grand old tradition that the marketing industry hopes people will continue to buy into – by spending more money of course!!! After all, individuality is defined by your accessories, right? Anything less is communism, so just shut it right now, Senor Fishe Guevera.

So let’s take a look at a few items that will help you get a leg up on all your wannabe trout bum associates:

Let’s start off with an option that’s easy on the pocket book, the “Trout Bum” cap, at only $19.95 :

Of course, the dilemma here is – go with orange to get noticed, or de riguer olive, but risk blending in? Either way, everyone you meet will be notified of your status, without even having to open your carry-everywhere, pocket brag book for proof.

Okay, now that you’ve got the hat, let’s take things to the next level – the signed, limited edition, 20th Anniversary of “Trout Bum” by John Geirach – $75.00 (available at Alibris.com)

If our for-sale sub-culture has a Bible, this is it. But, there are Bibles, and then there are Bibles, dig? Owning the signed, 20th Anniversary copy makes your Trout Bum status unassailable. And if you still encounter naysayers snickering when they see this on your coffee table, well, it’s a hardback, so feel free to smack ‘em in the head with it. In fact, that might even give the book a little more “weathered” look, which is credit in the bank for the aspiring Trout Bum.

And last, but certainly not least, we come to the Orvis “Limited Edition Trout Bum” rod, a steal for those on a Trout Bum budget at only $1,395.

Rest assured, aspiring Trout Bum – the inclusion of these three simple items in your equipage will turn heads among those wannabe bums, who simply can’t afford the price of admission into the exclusive Bum Club. See, the bottom line here is, the days of the dirtbag eating canned soup off his tailgate and sleeping at the take-out are a thing of the past – you really want be a “Trout Bum?” Put your money where your mouth is, son.

Responding to a post on the Fly Fisherman bulletin board editor Ross Purnell denied the effect of internet hotspotting of fly fishing waters.

Where do these “crowds” come from? In many cases they are percieved but not reality. In other cases, the crowds are caused by a dramtic improvement in the number of fish in some places–PA steelhead and the striper boom of the past decade are good example–an a loss of fishing opportunities in other places–Susquehanna River where I live in PA is a good example of this.

Fishermen? What fishermen? And this from a guy whose magazine is responsible for pimping out more water than any other media in the last 20 years? Laughable.

and no, we are not linking to the post. fuck fly fishermen. seriously.

Where’s Dud? Where was Dud during the steroid era? Why are fans, the senate, MLB and Goerge Mitchell all giving Dud a pass?
anyway, here’s Dud Selig, doing what he do

“SIMPSON. – Have you ever seen any American books on angling, Fisher?

“FISHER. – No. I do not think there are any published. Brother Jonathan is not yet sufficiently civilized to produce anything original on the gentle art. There is good trout-fishing in America, and the streams, which are all free, are much less fished than in our Island, ‘from the small number of gentlemen,’ as an American writer says, ‘who are at leisure to give their time to it.’”
– WILLIAM ANDREW CHATTO: The Angler’s Souvenir (London, 1835)

note: the Brother Jonathan reference pertains to the common nickname for America/Americans at this time. Before “Uncle Same” there was “Brother Jonathan”.

We’re sure most of our loyal readers have already heard about the pending disaster otherwise known as the Pebble Mine, proposed for the headwaters of the most productive sockeye salmon runs in the world. And no, we’re not late jumping on the bandwagon here – we just want to make sure this doesn’t get forgotten about. The greedy corksoakers behind Pebble aren’t sleeping, and we can’t either - this thing has absolutely got to be stopped. TU and the Feltsoul gang are doing a 169% kick-ass job of getting the word out, and their film, Red Gold, is due to be released by March 15th. If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, check it:

Sage, Redington and Rio have recently teamed up to join in the fight as well. They’ve put together a limited-edition, fundraising outfit that includes a Sage Z-Axis 9′ 8-weight rod and Redington CD 7/8 reel, pre-spooled with RIO Gold fly line, for way below retail cost, with $200 of each sale going to TU to fight the Pebble Mine. Find out more here.

Sportsman’s Alliance for Alaska – Petition Against the Pebble Mine

And last but not least, the new issue of This is Fly has a good interview with Feltsoul about the project (pg. 63).