From James R. in the PNW

Send yours to salty@busterwantstofish.com

walk like Jesus

Starting in ’09 the folks at Native Watercraft will be offering a paddleboard for “stand up paddling, shallow water poling, or sight fishing.” What? A fly fishing paddleboard? Why not? I don’t know if this thing actually works well to fish from but it looks like a stealthy way for getting around on the flats.

Buster approves of this kind of out of the box thinking and would like to see more of it from the rest of the industry…

- fly rods that won’t be catastrophically weakened if they get nicked by a beadhead
- a Boga Grip that floats
- high pressure propane tanks, seems to me that there’s room for lots more propane in most tanks
- float tube speedometer
- spey rods with built in hand warmers
- why stop with the gummy minnow? lets see some flies with propellers on ‘em
- strike indicators made out of whitefish swim bladders; totally sustainable, organic as hell and biodegradable
- Drake Magazine Swimsuit Issue
- who needs a full length waterproof zipper when you got reverse-osmosis waders?
- spey lube (they’ll buy it trust me)

For Doszapatos

Who knew? The Garr Anglers’ Sporting Society, that’s who!

While we at the Buster are worldwide, quasi-omniscient and proficient in several disciplines of hockey fighting, sadly, we admit to have never stood knee deep in the mighty Skeena mainstem, nor have we rocked loops on waters revered; the Copper, Kalum, Bulkley, Babine, Sustut, Morice, Kispiox etc., etc. and so forth. We’re not rich dudes like the peoples over at Moldy Chum. Yet.

Still, in the worst, deepest darkest of winter steelhead days, when nothing goes even close to right, no fish come to our swinging flies, our balls are cold, life off the river’s kicking us in the shorthairs and we feel like blowing our own heads off, we find solace in the very idea of Skeena Country.

To many, the Skeena represents the dream. To pack the dog, eight sets of heavy socks, two cases of Trader Joe’s Organic Dinty Moore, grab a fistfull of stout graphite, hitch the boat and point the truck north to critter out feral and steal back a few weeks of the soul time regular life sucks out. To spend enough days dirtballing somewhere you fully get in tune with the rhythms of the rivers, say fuck all and live life proper and fully, not just in the here-and-there capacities, feel the stoke, nurture the stink and party down with a few  giant, wild, perfect steelhead. hell. fuck. yes.

That is, unless the British Columbia Ministry of Environment has their way with their new Angling Management Plan.

From Opposeskeenaamp.com:

“In essence, this plan spells the end of freedom for non-resident anglers to fish where, when, and for as long as they want. The plan proposes river specific regulations that would likely require anglers to enter a lottery for licenses months before the fishing season. It also proposes to limit anglers to 8 days on a given river, and would probably limit them to a single river at a time. The ability to explore, avoid high water, and make decisions on the spur of the moment would be gone. In addition, on some rivers, non-resident anglers would be unable to fish for all or parts of weekends.

This Angling Management Plan is not yet law. It can be fought.”

I, we, urge you to literally take 10 seconds out of your busy day, click here to quickly learn more and sign the petition against this. Not only does it affect anyone who’s ever dreamed of an unguided Do-It-Yourself trip to Skeena Country, imagine the sustainable tourism dollars the entire Skeena Valley could lose at the expense of a few selfish Smithers guides who just want a little more room for their clients. Newsflash, dickhead guides: Tough economies always lead to an increase in poaching. 

The Skeena is essential and one of the last remaining, road-accessible strongholds of truly authentic steelhead culture. After all the camera crews pack up and leave and take their boxes of Green Drakes back to Bozeangeles, it’s our hope there will continue to be campfires burning the midnight soul somewhere within that valley, ringed with a few quiet real steelheaders you’ve never heard of and never will, who’ve managed to set up their lives for a few weeks off in fall, to gather somewhere special and experience a magic extremely personal. It’s that kind of place.

We thank you kindly, and as a token of gratitude, comment back here once you’ve signed the petition. One random badass wins a sweet Rio Baseball hat to cover up your awesome, giant, generous melon. Unused, even. I think.

From the North Carolina News Observer comes this great story:

Fishing party rescues dog a mile from land

“Dean Lamont is a professional fishing guide, plying the waters around Cape Lookout. Depending upon the season and local conditions, Lamont guides anglers to red drum, speckled trout, false albacore — whatever species presents the best opportunity.

He can add Labrador retriever to the list.

On Nov. 8, while guiding Tim Wilson of Raleigh and Shingo Mutoh of Durham, Lamont and his party caught (and later released) a yellow Lab more than a mile from the nearest dry land….”

**This just in from our “Rage to Riches” department**

Some of you may recall Gaper’s fine “AK. Chronicles” contributions to The Drake website a while back. And if you’re like me, you’ve probably had more than one mishap trying to balance your laptop while on the shitter. Well, some savvy publishing types (Departure Publishing, a new project by Tosh Brown) have wisely decided to immortalize all that laser awesomnality in book form. Check out their site and sign up to win either a free copy or the opportunity to offer your couch to Gaper.

Congrats, Gaper – couldn’t happen to a Suckier guy.

In a landmark ruling on a battle that has been ongoing for more than 20 years, the Montana Supreme Court has ruled that Mitchell Slough in the Bitterroot valley is a public access stream. “Big deal, you say – I never fish there anyway.” Well, you selfish prick, this type of ruling has the potential to affect access issues in other areas, including maybe yours.

From NewWest:

 ”With a 54-page ruling, the Supreme Court deemed the waterway a natural stream, which means access to it is protected by Montana’s stream access law, which is among the strongest in the country…

The case, which has been watched closely across the West as a crucial test of stream access law, has been a long-running extravaganza of protests, celebrity, and political maneuvering but more than that, it has been a spur for complex and often heated discussions on water rights, landownership, what’s natural and what’s not and most of all, how to square the values of the Old West with the demands of the New. “

Full article here.

From Agua Fria Alchemy in Phoenix

Send yours to salty@busterwantstofish.com

Zee camo-painted slough-vette, she is stealthy no?.

From Carter S. in the South

send yours to salty@busterwantstofish.com

Justin Townes Earle – Your Biscuit’s Big Enough For Me:

The Blues Brothers – Rubber Biscuit:

• 2 cups flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons shortening
• ¾ cup liquid (all milk or half milk and half water)

1. Mix dry ingredients and sift twice.
2. Work in fat with fingertips or cut in with two knives.
3. Add the liquid gradually, mixing with a knife in a soft dough.
4. Toss on a floured board, pat, and roll lightly to one-half inch in thickness.
5. Shape with a biscuit cutter.
6. Bake in hot oven (450-460 degrees F.) twelve to fifteen minutes.

Spike Jones – Pass the Biscuits, Mirandy

your retirement probably paid for this

Single Barbed reports on another bailout plan. In this case its the Yellowstone Club – super exclusive country club resort for the ultra rich and famous – asking the State of Montana for a $5 million loan to pay its employees and to run the lifts on the club’s private ski hill.

There’s more here.

WTF?! Are we now expected to subsidize the privatization of wilderness?

From Rick in Denver

Send yours to salty@busterwantstofish.com

fishizzle

Only nut jobs and crazies fish during the winter around here. Oh sure, I’ll go out and swing flies for steelhead once or twice. I might even make a trip over to the Olympic Peninsula. But the winter steelhead runs are getting smaller and the fish are harder to come by. Besides, it’s cold and wet out.

For better or worse (worse, it’s sad really) winter is the season for watching fly fishing DVDs. Oh yes, me and Baby sprawled out on the living room floor eating bananas and pretzels, drinking from our own little sipper cups, living vicariously through fly fishing celebrities. ’tis the season.

Here we go…

secret tarpon

Released by Howard Films in 2007, Location X is supposedly a documentary about a secret tarpon Valhalla that only a handful of anglers know about. The film makers are vigilant about keeping the locale secret going so far as to blur out license numbers on boats and coordinates on GPS screens. They even make the guide wear a mask. The “world class” anglers featured in the film are blindfolded, presumably until they are turned over to Guide X and set out for the flats. It’s a shallow premise (pun intended) which I don’t believe for a second. I did appreciate all the pretense though.

I’ve never fished for tarpon and probably never will but it looks easy enough. The sports handily catch lots of giant tarpon which I suppose is the idea, the spirit of Location X. The cimemopography is excellent which is probably a piece of cake too, in Tropical Saltwater Fishing Nirvana.

The sports are; a Welshman who guides for bonefish in the Bahamas, a girl fly fisher from Orygun and a honest to goodness tarpon guide – who shows his face – from the Keys.

As far as I know Guide X plays himself, a role that he totally owns. “Be patient alright, be patient,” he tells the Welshman. You can almost hear him add ‘STFU, I’ll tell you when the fish get here’ under his breath.

location x fly

It was the X Fly that almost stole the show. A fishy looking fly similar to a Toad the X Fly is tied with strips of foam instead of poly yarn. X swims tantalizingly just beneath the surface, tarpon go ape-shit for it. I bet bass will go ape-shit for it too so I’m gonna tie up some small X-Flies this winter. I’ll keep you posted.

“I think there’s many Location X’s out there, anyone can find their own Location X.”
- Guide X

Sovereign words from Guide X. Sadly, some fisherman these days don’t believe that there are any more secrets out there. They complain that the internets and the national fishing magazines have spilled all the beans. Location X reminds us that there is plenty of secret-water out there yet. Buster adds that much of that water it is probably closer to home than you realize.

Nothin’ but the Dog in me!

* Aye, the dogs is in, but the rivers is blown.

Dear PETA,

A friend of mine recently told me about your brilliant new campaign to encourage kids not to go fishing. It’s called “Save the Sea Kittens,” and for those who aren’t familiar with it, I couldn’t possibly do any better than using your own words;

“People don’t seem to like fish. They’re slithery and slimy, and they have eyes on either side of their pointy little heads—which is weird, to say the least…

Of course, if you look at it another way, what all this really means is that fish need to fire their PR guy—stat. Whoever was in charge of creating a positive image for fish needs to go right back to working on the Britney Spears account and leave our scaly little friends alone. You’ve done enough damage, buddy. We’ve got it from here. And we’re going to start by retiring the old name for good. When your name can also be used as a verb that means driving a hook through your head, it’s time for a serious image makeover. And who could possibly want to put a hook through a sea kitten?

Please take just a few moments to send an e-mail to H. Dale Hall, the director of the FWS, asking him to stop promoting the hunting of sea kittens (otherwise known as “fishing”). The promotion of sea kitten hunting is a glaring contradiction of FWS’ mission to “conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats.”

Ya know, I can just picture the PETA brain trust, sitting around on their brightly-colored yoga balls (chairs are bad!!) and dreaming this up, while practicing their breathing exercises. And you know, I have to give you points for creativity. Really, I do mean that, because there is a certain part of me that can appreciate subversiveness, even while I totally disagree with the agenda. This is truly a new level of absurdity, even for you. Which brings me to the point, and I’m going to keep it simple – quit fucking with our kids, dammit. You have absolutely no goddam right to teach children that a FISH is actually a SEA KITTEN, do you hear me? What’s next, teaching kids that chickens are really guinea pigs from another planet? You are doing our children a complete disservice by teaching them this drivel, and I’d add that you’re also painting yourselves as utter fruitcakes, except you’ve been excelling at that for a long time.

Fishing is such a cruel, horrible thing is it? I leave you with the sage advice of David James Duncan;

“Fishing is cruel indeed. Eating is cruel, often as not, for those of us who don’t digest sand and gravel and live off of other life-forms. It is also “extraordinarily cruel” that this interview is being powered by electricity that is wiping out migrating salmon and dumping mercury and sulfur on North America’s waters and children and pregnant women. And it is extraordinarily naïve to think that anyone is going to want to protect ecosystems and natural processes about which they have no firsthand experience or knowledge. Read “Last Child in the Woods” by Richard Louv or Gary Paul Nabhan and Steven Trimble’s “The Geography of Childhood” on the separation of children from nature, and you might find it more reprehensible to sit here staring at a screen, or to drive a car, or to watch network TV, than to take a child fishing on a wild river.

The fact is, those who have actually saved rivers and fish species have tended to be the fishermen and women who love them. Those who saved wetlands have most often been duck hunters. And so on. There is a mystery here that has to do with the words “love” and “sacrifice.” This mystery has served the world well. Jesus caught, killed, cooked, and served fish to his disciples after the resurrection. I can’t tell you how at peace this leaves me about my fishing.

Lord Byron felt as you do and condemned fisherfolk in his poetry. He also infected a large swath of Italy with gonorrhea. Fingerpointing is dangerous for all of us — me most of all!”

And no, I’m not providing a link to your dumbass campaign, because the last thing I would want to do is up your hit count.

Spent a couple of days on Lost Keys Creek.

A quick musical celebration from Los Blancos: