7. Shit-talking golf, NASCAR and the NBA.
It is well known that fly fishermen consider themselves superior beings engaged in a consecrated, holy act of communion between themselves and nature. What isn’t as well known is the level of disdain they hold for other sports, hobbies and past times that don’t include long drives, ridiculously expensive equipment and a massive ration of bald-face lying. This disdain manifests itself in the unlimited amount of shit talking fly fishermen do in regard to other activities.
While there are a few bewildered souls who attempt to serve two masters and take up both fly fishing and golf, for most anglers there is a long, deep seeded hatred for the game and the players. This is odd to the outside observer because both sports share a clubby whiteness, the air of wealth, the comfort of exclusivity and a bloated notion of “history.” Regardless of their obvious similarities, fly fishermen somehow consider golf a “rival” and refer to golfers as duffers, putt-putters and ballwashers.
Fly fishermen and especially “troutsmen” hold a special contempt for NASCAR. Indeed, it is a sport they truly love to hate. The thrill and joy a fly fishermen experiences when shit talking NASCAR is something to behold. Fly fishermen consider it a sport populated by appalling creatures the likes of hicks, the middle and lower classes, bait fishermen and those from the South. Even worse, NASCAR fans drink domestic beer!
Even though fly fishing is a sport with limited athletic requirements, fly fishermen will never admit that NASCAR is a “sport” — ever. Indeed, if a fly fisherman is not shit-talking NASCAR, he is not talking about it.
Fly fishermen need NASCAR, of course, it fills them with the sense of superiority that is their lifeblood.
Fly Fishermen are also openly contemptuous of the NBA. While most fly fishermen have actually never even seen an NBA game, it is rumored among the fly fishing community that there are actual minorities in the league.

Ever wonder why notorious water thief Donny Beaver is such a dick?

Doggonit.

Jack of all trades (master of none), close personal friend, West Seattle native and Alaska fishing pioneer G_Smolt has kicked off a new project. Alaska Fly Fishing Goods is the place to start if you are even thinking about fishing in AK.

So we’re gonna give some of their stuff away. Callers number 25 and 50 will each get a $20 gift certificate from AFG. You know the rules, no more than three comments per person, no comments twice in a row. I’ll do the counting.

Remember Alaska Fly Fishing Goods: Always Outnumbered But Never Out Gunned.

“All America lies at the end of the wilderness road, and our past is not a dead past, but still lives in us. Our forefathers had civilization inside themselves, the wild outside. We live in the civilization they created, but within us the wilderness still lingers. What they dreamed, we live, and what they lived, we dream.”

T.K. Whipple, Study Out The Land, University of California Press, 1943

Here’s a little jewel I stumbled across today. It’s a Buster favorite, Richmond Fontaine, performing in Amsterdam.

Recent scenes from the Snake:

Les Claypool wets his frizzle fry on the S. Fork of the Snake. Who knew?

(Partial view of the Lavender Pit Mine, Bisbee AZ)

The battle over the Rosemont Copper Mine, proposed for the Santa Rita Mountains, has moved from the theoretical arguments- environmental, tourism, quality of life impacts- to the practical: Water. The mine’s yearly production goals of 220 million pounds of copper, 4.5 million pounds of molybdum and 2.7 million ounces of water will require 1.6 billion gallons of water pumped out of the aquifer. Augusta Resources claims that they will do this mine right from an environmental standpoint, which would be a first in the history of mining.

Local residents in Patagonia, Sonoita, Elgin and unincorporated areas around the mine site are extremely concerned that the mine’s pumps will drain their wells. The mine already has several test wells in operation, and local residents are saying that their well water levels are dropping. Also, residents are concerned that water quality will decrease as Augusta is planning to use CAP (Central Arizona Project) water as their offset. CAP water is diverted from the Colorado River and is of a lower quality than local groundwater. Plus there is no guarantee that CAP water will even be available. They are also worried about mine tailings polluting the aquifer long after the mine is closed.

Augusta counters that no wells will go dry, and that they are planning to replace 105% of groundwater used with CAP offsets. However, the area has no aquifer recharge station, so Augusta is planning on sending CAP water to the town of Marana, which is about 60 miles away. Asked what the plan is if there are no CAP offsets available, the mine reps answer that they will work something out.

This whole water plan smells pretty bad. If the mine believes operations won’t drain local wells, why are they purchasing CAP water as an offset?

Here’s a podcast from KUAZ that covers the above pretty well.

John-Alex Mason & the Pea Vine Line – Locomotive

Grateful Dead – Buffalo ’89 with Brent – Man Smart, Woman Smarter

The Satellite of Love – Cosmic Freight Train:

It would appear Mingo and Mingo’s Girl have been “hard’ at artwork and rocking an appropriate late April Holding Up theme these days, as evidenced by the well thought-out color palette witnessed here in their latest installment: Circular Motifs; Large Arbor Interpretation #57.

Damn refreshing and quite timely, given this week’s art mirrors the budding, busting foliage commonly seen along many of our favorite waterways in both color and vitality. These two, they’re so on top of it lately and proof that If the art is lost, smash the gotdam Buster!

As always, the World’s Best Holder Upper holding stuff up as only she can:

This heater/brass knuckle/ginsu combo is on loan from our very own Hideous Jabbering Head of Issac Walton who once employed it in the felling of the legendary (but alas, now forgotten) “Bisquit Beast”, a mysterious creature given to startling fleshy young matrons enjoying picnics upon the chalkstreams of Old Blighty. More info here

The generation schedule on the river was off, the boat was put back up, and plan B was put into motion. Hit up a little local named [redacted] Creek. I haven’t been on it since last May due to drought. It’s a sandy bottom beauty that holds probably my favorite fish, the Redeye bass. I rarely catch them over a pound, but they jump like a tarpon and fight like a mothascratcher. They hammered our popping bugs all day long. Perfect for the two-weight. Oh, …..and we wet waded.

ranch creek

Claire is my favorite wife. I’m not supposed to make that sort of distinction but there it is. She’s young, never asks me about work, and takes my boots off at night. But none of that adds up to a hill of beans really. There’s a special place in Paradise for Claire because she let’s me go fishing.

Claire’s house is on the edge of town just ten minutes from the Big River. Supposed to be that during summer you can catch big ‘bows there if you throw ‘em a mouse fly. I mail ordered two mouse flies last year and fished ‘em every night for a week. I didn’t catch anything but it was worth a try I suppose. Otherwise summertime fishing takes place in the big pool by the railroad bridge. I go early in the morning when the trout are sipping dead mayflies . The rest of the year I walk the banks and look for rising fish.

To be fair I should mention that my other women are good wives too. Healthy babies, pretty looks and common sense, they’re fine women by any measure. Raylene for one, grows a big garden at her house and keeps chickens and swine too. There’s always good eats at Raylene’s.

Rocky Creek starts high up in the mountains west of here but I like to fish the stream where it flows through the hill country before it joins the Big River. The blue olives start to hatching before the runnoff. Caddisflies emerge later in the spring. One year I even got to fish the big stoneflies before the water got too big to wade. After the runoff it’s morning duns and evening caddis until fall.

Come fall I fish a meadow stream that flows through a ranch further up the valley. Even after the hottest summers that creek holds enough water to bring a run of brown trout up out of the Big. Fifteen years ago I asked the old rancher if I could fish the creek sometime and he said that’d be alright. I’ve fished there every September and October since. Mostly I’ll fish a grasshopper, either wet or dry it usually don’t matter. If it’s been cold I’ll swing a wooly booger through the riffle water, that works too.

Believe it or not Claire don’t like to eat fish, lets me go fishing but won’t eat the fish I catch. Won’t cook ‘em either. I don’t question it though, I know better by now. For fish dinner I have to go Marta’s. Marta hates it that I go fishing and makes it her mission to salvage the time I wasted catching fish by cooking them up into a fine meal. I ain’t supposed to say so but Marta is my second favorite wife.

It has been described as one of the worst dam disasters in U.S. history – on June 5th, 1976, the Teton Dam, on the Teton river in eastern Idaho, a $100 million Bureau of Reclamation project, collapsed, killing 11 people and wreaking nearly $1 billion in damage. At the time, a number of groups, including Trout Unlimited, attempted to stop construction on the basis that the site was geologically unsuitable (the rock is porous for chrissakes), asking for more thorough environmental studies to be completed. The court dismissed the complaint, threw out the request for an injunction and construction went forward. The dam collapsed before the reservoir was even full:

More here.

Cut to the present, and Idaho Governor Butch Otter and the Idaho Dept. of Water Resources, who just approved $400, 000 to do a “feasability study” on rebuilding said dam. Some would say the previous disaster was a feasibility study, dontcha think?

After numerous years of lower than avg. rainfall, it’s true that eastern Idaho agriculture needs water. No argument there, and I eat potatoes as much as anyone. But I can also tell you about all the times I’ve been driving by vast fields on downpour days and seeing massive amounts of water still being irrigated, the result of a “use it or lose it” mentality.

Prior to approving another potentially disastrous, certainly absurdly expensive project, how about we take a hard look at the realities of water multi-use, develop a management plan that encourages efficient use of OUR water, and rewards irrigators for conservation, rather than encouraging over-consumption and placing agriculture above all other needs? How about we also look at what else that water sustains, like a healthy population of native cutthroat?

Link to a recent article in High Country News.

If you live in eastern Idaho (or western Wyoming) and want a chance to voice your opinion, Friends of the Teton River has invited Dave Tuthill, Director of Idaho Dept. of Water Resources to discuss water issues in Driggs, on April 24th, 5:30pm at the Driggs Senior Center. This will be an opportunity to ask Mr. Tuthill questions about the study and make your opinions heard. Please RSVP to amy@tetonwater.org, or call FtR at 354 – 3871 so they have an accurate idea of the number of people attending and can plan accordingly.

Dear NBA,
I hate to get this note off on a bad note, but fuck you very much. Steal the team from Seattle, give it to some duplicitious Oklahoma oil bandits and claim it was our fucking fault? Please.
Although, NBA, I must admit, we’ve been drifting apart for years. Looking back, I guess it started in the mid-to-post Jordan era. All of the sudden, NBA, it felt like we didn’t know each other anymore: superstar calls, the two man game, no defense, over-expansion, zero ball movement, no imagination, guys in high school playing for some team called the Charlotte Hornets, the half-assed lack of intensity and blood on the floor, souless corporate advertising masquerading as spirit. What happened NBA? These are “the best athletes in the world”, right? Where did the passion go? Where did the soul go? Where did the love go?
It’s not like I gave up on the game of basketball. I’ll still watch Coppin State vs Eastern South Dakota Tech at 1am on a Tuesday, but I wouldn’t walk across the street to piss on you if you were on fire, NBA. It’s just so… sad, what with your playoffs starting this weekend and whatnot. But I just can’t summon the effort to give a shit.
So, yeah, this is goodbye, NBA. I can’t say I’ll miss you, but at this point, you don’t even care do you?

From the Pelican state…..another pretty decent gator gar. This thang would shit a Taimen. 

Avoyelles Parish, LA  

6. Seething resentment couched in fraternal jocularity

Fly fishermen go to enormous lengths to appear friendly, care free and generous. Nothing could be further from the truth. While it may be true that fly fishermen spend much of their time in beautiful, wild places, in the sunshine, well away from the responsibilities of the workaday world, they are often very conflicted beings. History, combined with the alleged ethics of the sport dictate that they exhibit a friendly facade, but underneath they are a deeply suspicious, cynical and resentful breed. To wit:
If you catch more fish than a fly fisherman, he will slap yuou on the back with a hearty guffaw and remark upon your wonderful luck. Deep inside, he has already convinced himself that your are an unskilled hack who just happened to get lucky.
If you catch a larger fish than a fly fisherman he will offer an earnest congratulation and ask what you caught it on. Internally, he is digging for infomation, convinced that your quarry was somehow ill gotten.
Your new equipment will be dismissed as junk, your latest angling vacation will be derided as a “third world sex tour”, tales of your past angling exploits will be dismissed as absolute fictionalized  horse shit. Yet through it all, the fly fisherman will smile, may offer you a beer and even engage in angling related small talk at the boat ramp, but in the back of his mind he is thinking you are an asshole.

Sonny Landreth – Native Stepson

John Mooney – Come On In My Kitchen

It’s something called the “black cab sessions” — an artist climbs in the back of a london taxi and the results are filmed for our perpetual enjoyment. A good notion, and an even better idea when the dude in the back of the cab is Bill fucking Callahan (a.k.a. “Smog”). This is one of his two-chord wonders called “river guard”. There’s a moment right at the end when the cabdriver asks Callahan the name of the song, Callahan replies and the driver relishes the word in his mouth… “river guard” he repeats, as if whispering the name of a saint or a holy place. “fantastic” he whispers.

If you’re not familiar with them, Save Our Wild Salmon is a nationwide coalition of conservation organizations, commercial and sport fishing associations, businesses, river groups, and taxpayer and clean energy advocates working collectively to restore healthy, sustainable wild salmon to the rivers, streams and oceans of the Pacific Salmon states.

This summer they’re taking their act on the road, across the country, to heighten awareness about the dismal plight of our wild salmon, and particularly the urgent need to remove the four *@&#ing dams on the lower Snake, which have led to the demise of some of the largest historic runs in the lower 48.

You can find a list of the towns they’ll be visiting this summer, and a lot more, here.