From the NYT:

On Friday, Idaho, one of the most forested states in the country — and one of the most conservative — announced an unlikely truce. With the support of hunters, fishermen and some environmental groups, the state and the Bush administration agreed on regulatory safeguards for 9.3 million acres that had been designated as roadless areas by the Clinton administration — and thus free of commercial activity.

The compromise would leave about 3.3 million acres of the total roadless. About 5.6 million acres would enjoy similar protections, though exceptions could be made for logging in areas where fires could put communities at risk. An additional 400,000 acres would be open to all development.

More here.

And here. 

Obama/Biden: for pebble mine
McCain/Palin: for pebble mine
You: fuck you. you don’t matter.

Ladies and Gefilte Fish (drumroll)… Sarah Palin!

Discuss.

We’re nothing if not fair, so here goes the addendum piece to “Things Clients Say:”

“It’s really a mid-day fishery.” (and that’s why I’m late…)

“Yeah, my wife gets up before dawn and makes this fried chicken fresh every morning. And that’s her famous potato salad, too.”

“Cutthroats sometimes get a little picky on cloudy days. “ (Trust me, it has nothing to do with the fact that your fly is dragging at mach speed through the water…”

“If your girlfriend goes up front, it will balance the boat better.”

“Yup – upstream is the direction we came from.”

“Mend, mend, mend, mend, mend again…ok, see how you’re fly is dragging now? Go ahead and mend…”

“Well, at least we got to see lots of fish coming up today. That’s cool.” (read: you missed a ridiculous amount of fish today)

“Thanks, that was awesome.”

Have at it, Dillweeds.

P.S. – she’s a friend of ours, so don’t be an ass. Well, try not to, anyway.

so, what’ll it be alaska?

another dollar that’ll just go away? or your cultural legacy?

When you’ve tried the #14 parachute Adams, maybe even sunk to the black and red Panther Martin, and…. well, you’ve likely spent the better part of the afternoon at the bar, we give you the Cowboy Rattlesnake Sculpin Orgy. It’s primarily an attractor.

Baker’s dozen tied on request.

Pre-work beach patrol yields 5lb silver for yours truly.

7:23 a.m.: First blood of 2008 fall chinook season. 15 lbs, sea-lice, baggie for yo’ teef.

9:32 a.m.: First chanterelle mushrooms of 2008.

10:05 a.m.: First 2008 chicken of the woods.

10:54 a.m.: Found an old, giant coastal Sitka Spruce that somehow eluded the ax man, and damn if we didn’t hug the fuck outta that tree, ’cause bigass trees are fine. if you look close, you can see Double R standing next to it. for comparison’s sake, he’s 6′ 3″. got a load of oyster mushrooms on the way out, too. laser badass day, fools. so laser.

12:41 p.m.: Home, on the drowsy side of a two Rainier nap. Fridge holding fresh wild salmon and mushrooms we’re gonna chef up for dinner, and we got four more Tallboys for later. Best damn day I’ve had in months, and we’re currently six hours and three pans of applewood chips away from a mighty fine afternoon.

Northwesssssssss Hunter-Gatherer Backwoods Currency:

Show Them To Me:

I got a sweet surprise for you, you crumb snatchin’ little bastards – Wally

Wook enjoys long walks on short piers and poisoning pigeons in the park:

Fact: sometimes a spot’s so deep in the Vietnam jungle funk you know there’s no chance in hell you’re gonna land any fish you might hook there long before you even raise the thing. Still, you can’t help but put a fly through the piece anyway ’cause the spot’s just that sexy and you two have some history. Always gonna be that way.

We got us more than a few of these schnittle spots, and they’re typically Daddy’s girl sweet thangs, stacked with the awesome. This here one’s six feet deep right off the bank, no reliable footing to chase, rocks oozing snot, a wall of alders thicker than Oprah’s minge and a whitewater picket fence only 40 feet below the taking spot. When that steelhead does garwaffle your skater and start cartwheeling, all you can do is try and enjoy the asshanding for a few seconds, then snap off some sorta memory and hope it’s good enough that the boys calling bullshit in camp that night shut the hell up upon your presentation of the evidence.

We’d suspect you fuckers have a million shots like these; imperfect photos of a pretty perfect hunch paying off, so let’s see ‘em in all their misdirected glory, Bustoids.

(random images of hot Olympic track and field chicks will do, as well.)

Myth: You need to replace your tippet and leader at least once per year. The subtext being that we can’t engineer a plastic that will last longer than that.

The Reality: Doszapatos, after ripping down a 1″ dead branch that had snagged his fly: “Replacing your leader every year is bullshit. This leader is 40 years old.”

The peanut gallery asks “40 years old?”

Dos: “Yep, came from an Orvis starter kit that a friend’s dad had bought 40 years ago.”

Dos, laying it down like a puma, with the 40 year old leader

We Loves it

Friends were seen again, fish were caught, beers were drunk, snadwhich artistry was enjoyed.

I have no idea what to make of this.

14 hours to go

“Does this river circle back to the car?

“Wait – upstream is that way, right?”

“Wow – it must be awesome to just be able to come out here and fish everyday.” (Uh, yeah, I’m sure it would be, but I’ve been rowing the boat and untangling your lines all day, not fishing, if you hadn’t noticed…)

“Aren’t we going to have to start rowing back upstream soon?”

“Do you think that if we come out here again and do this, and I do my homework beforehand, that I can find an outfitter that does cheaper trips?” (asked by a surgeon, who makes a buttload of $$$, after I spent the day rowing his ass. Well, Bob, if by “cheaper,” you mean someone who’s guiding illegally, yeah, possibly. But don’t expect them to be advertising on the web. Oh, and by the way – you’re an asshole for even asking, thank you very much.)

Are we going to cross the Continental Divide on this trip? (Yup. This is the only river in the country that crosses the continental divide. In fact we’ll be crossing it three times on today’s float. I’ll tell you when so you can get a picture).

“How much should I tip you?” (This is uncomfortable. Why don’t you just give me your debit card and pin#?)

“Thanks, that was awesome.”

It starts the way it usually does on this water – with being repeatedly snubbed by fish that just really shouldn’t be this picky. But they are, and after an hour spent floating, casting to sippers along the way and watching your spinner drift right over their heads, followed by them rising to a natural 3 inches away, you find yourself at the edge of the downward spiral, questioning whether you have any idea what you’re doing; if maybe you should just stick to other things you may be nominally better at.

And then one takes and what, in your presently pessimistic state of mind, you assume to be just a foolhardy dink turns out to be a decent rod-bender. This continues to happen just often enough to feed the itch and not quite often enough to slow the Hamm’s intake, and that’s just about how you want it this evening.

And then the light hits a certain angle, the temperature hits a critical and/or Dog knows what else convenes to make the place go off like you’ve never seen it before. For the next 1/2 hour you can’t look at any given spot on the water without seeing multiple fish rising – snouts and shoulders rolling, toilet flushes sucking the unlucky into the maw. And in the rapid change from famine to feast you find that though the fish are everywhere, the fishing has gotten none the easier. You can’t see your fly. There are so many rises its impossible to know when/if to set the hook, and time and time again you raise your rod tip and feel nothing. You’re rattled to the core, fumbling knots and hooking your buddy’s hat in haste. Spent, you drop the anchor and savor the last cold one in the cooler and try to calm down.

And then, 1/2 way down a can from the Land of Sky Blue Waters you realize how fortunate you are just to be a spectator, witness to something very few make the effort to come out here and observe. And that your entirely self-absorbed agenda of catching fish is exactly that, meaningful to no one but yourself in the big picture. And more importantly, that that’s perfectly o.k. – there’s no one else around, the caddis are as thick as you’ve ever seen them, it’s almost dark, and you’re an hour from the take-out…

Scott Perl emailed me again. Scott Perl is sure a generous guy. He invites me to parties with free food. He invites me to meet and greets. He invites me to take a hard hat tour of a construction site. Just yesterday Scott Perl invited me to take a float down the Yakima River. He said, “With lodge construction moving ahead on schedule and great fishing on the Yakima this month we’d like to encourage you to book a river float with (REDACTED) and take a hard hat tour of the lodge.  On site tours will be available from (REDACTED) each of the following days in August: (REDACTED). If one of these days does not work for you please let me know and we’ll try to accommodate your schedule.

Scott Perl, we’ve heard, is having a tough go selling condo time shares on a flood plain.

Go figure.

Rest in peace, you Hot Buttered Soul Cat.

Questions that come up when you’re flipping between late night reruns on FX and ESPN