Heads up stains – pre-sales for Feltsoul’s Red Gold are available at their slick new site to promote the film, redgoldfilm.com.  The dvds will ship in early October…

Load the truck!

Nice and quiet around here, huh? The louts all went fishing and left me here with no smokes. Just got this email from Dr. T:

Take a Carp (alive if possible) scour him, and rub him clean with water and salt, but scale him not, then open him, and put him, with his bloud and his liver (which you must save when you open him)

into a small pot or kettle; then take sweet Marjoram, Time and Parsley, of each half a handful, a sprig of Rosemary, and another of Savoury, bind them into two or three small bundles, and put them to your Carp, with four or five whole Onyons,

twenty pickled Oysters, and three Anchovies.

Nice! So, say, 17 pickled oysters and 4 anchovies would what, ruin it?

Then pour upon your Carp as much Claret wine as will only cover him;

But none for you, because if you’re trying this, you’re already dangerously shitfaced.

and season your Claret well with salt, Cloves, and Mace, and the rinds of Oranges and Lemons, that done, cover your pot and set it on a quick-fire, till it be sufficiently boiled;

Centrifuge well…

then take out the Carp and lay it with the broth into the dish, and pour upon it a quarter of a pound of the best fresh butter melted and beaten with half a dozen spoonfuls of the broth, the yolks of two or three eggs,

Goddam, T! What else? Raisins? Clamatto? Acetone bath?

and some of the herbs shred: garnish your dish with Lemons, and so serve it up, and much good do you. -Dr. T.

Right. Like I’m falling for that. I’m gettin pizza.

Damn, these cottontails really bind me up in the morning.

Al Swearengen: They butt into other people’s business; and make the business of other’s their own – these bought-out, no good cocksuckers. 
Tom Mason: Nestle, you talkin’ bout?
Al Swearengen: Oh, fuckin’ big shots they are. 
Persimon Phil: Big fuckin’ shots, when they’re standing in front of you.
Al Swearengen: One in their ear from behind, I’d like to see how fucking tough they are.

The Trout Underground has a new anti-Nestle waters blog. This looks like it’s going to be a good time and if you don’t know why Nestle is a pit of vipers, I suggest you check it out.

 Wally, get the sled

While it’s true that most other fly fishing blogs were rendered obsolete on the day Buster hit the interwebs the appearance of Steelie Mike’s own blog cannot be ignored.

You see, dude’s got something like 12 kids and saves lives everyday he’s at work yet still has time to catch more fish than everyone. If you live in Northwest Orygun or Southwest Washington and you want to catch steelheads year round you better bookmark www.steeliemike.blogspot.com

for years I have relied on the “go back and get yr big brother” line, but had — tragically — forgotten its source. after viewing this, i feel whole again.

*hilite: curly’s “fly fishing” scene

Fockers, pervs, art lovers, et. al:

This round, Mingo and Mingo’s Girl went big and risked it all in this daring holding up commentary about the discontinuation of Mingo’s exhalted Battenkills.

Despite late-night calls from a sobbing, drunken Leigh and a Perk who didn’t seem phased, they allegedly begged Mingo and his lady to reconsider the decesion to look for another line holder, but their hollow pleading’s fallen on deaf ears:

The only thing left between the Mingos and Orvis was the final art, the inspiration born out of sadness and frustration.

Here, as a fuck you to corporate fly fishing, Mingo’s Girl can be seen holding up a Battenkill for the last time, yet it’s like they’re not even there. They’re gone already.

That’s no mistake. That’s art.

In this, it’s like you’re looking though real metal at something, um, bigger. Greater. Something more essential to society and the continuation of species.

Proof again, they’re laser badass artists, dammit. Provacation. It’s what they do. They make your head explode with subtlety.

Prosek / Orvis / Tweed Culture = NAMBLA  < Art without limits

Gentlemen, I give you their swan song. Best Holder Upper you ever laid eyes on:

At least one swung-fly-caught steelhead to the bank:
January: check
February: check
March: check
April: check
May: check
June: check
July: check
August: FAIL

Of all the months. And it’s not like I didn’t try, either. Maybe I left the dog at home too many times? Too much organic IPA/not enough Hamm’s? That 4wt I had along for the ride? I dunno, I’m back to drinkin’ whisky, though. Straight up.

Somewhere, around 10 or 12 years ago, my old dirtbeard fishing partners turned into steelhead guides and it gotdam’ sucks. seriously.

see, when the fishing gets good and you wanna call up your buddy to go wail on summers, talk shit and generally laugh your ass off, they’re not answering because those same buddies who used to call you to go wail on some hunch in some weird locale are looking at three straight months of solid bookings and a serious lack of sleep. being that these guys are the only operation running fly-fishing only day trips on the lower 23 miles of the Deschutes out of jet sleds, they’re in-demand people.

and for good reason. i’ll bet good money they touch more steelhead in the average day on that lower river than every guide working the Maupin stretch combined. no shit. the equation makes sense, too:

fresher fish + who knows how many upriver/idaho-bound steelhead pulling into the lower 15 miles of the D for a breather + the mobility of 150 hp. Mercury Jets + guides who respect tradition but don’t fall for convention = happy, repeat business and a lot of shit-eating grins from clients. get ‘em if you can.

busy. that’s the way it is these days, you know their schedule and they know you know it, so you mostly fish alone or with the banknote if he’s open, resigning yourself to the fact that the best you get anymore with your old partners is the shoulder seasons of early and late summer and then the winter where these guides cut back their availability, sack up to winter grit proper and turn back into the rabidly intense, steelheader critter animal motherfucker winter punishers that sit hiding behind their patient, laid-back polite “good guide”, “just a little more mend”, “Thanks, that was awesome” summer smiles.

that is, of course, with the exception of the venerable Guides Day Off where they go all feral predator.

it’s that seldom freak occurrence where someone has an open day in the middle of peak season, you know about that day, they owe you favors for some crazy shit that’s not even imparative to the point: you’ll be damned if you’re gonna let their fool ass sleep in. there’s too many weird, deep, forgotten little corners to probe.

Guide’s day off in two words: fish party.

and we partied it all over that river and into its sock drawer last Wednesday. good thing the camera ran out of batteries and/or we farmed a few more hot ones who got a little too deep into the backing, ’cause this post would have been twice as long:

PS: Sarah Palin is a ball-sucking fish poacher.

Dawn Patrol, Sunday morning:

Lots of bait and small schools of shaker blackmouth all over the place. If the big cohos are here yet there is no sign of them visual or otherwise. Fly flingers and gear slingers casting and retrieving over and over again. Nothing.

Off to my left I see a swirl, way off. Walking down the beach away from the crowd on the point I fix my eyes on the expanding circle of wave left by a fish too big to be immature salmon and too small to be a returning silver.

A dozen casts later I am releasing the second of two fat and healthy sea run cutthroat, the biggest I have ever caught.

Watch out for the Gila Monster

“The eastern sky was red as coals in a forge, lighting up the flats along the river. Dew had wet the million needles of the chaparral, and when the rim of the sun edged over the horizon the chaparral seemed to be spotted with diamonds.”

-Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove, 1985

Remember: The boss needs you, you don’t need him.