Quail season closed today in Georgia. It’s a happy and sad day for many. Most of your bird guide/dog trainers will return to farming. They’re happy and ready for the change. Especially having witnessed a lifetime of misses, swearing at said misses, and profuse braggadocio over connecting on a slow bird with two or three shells. You know the type, they’re on many rivers as well. The dogs, on the other hand, must be very sad. Sure, they’ll get to practice and train throughout the off-season, but it’s just not the same as the real thing. October will be here before they know it. We all hope.

From the AP:

Spokane residents smuggle suds over green brands

Why rinse your dishes before you put them into the dishwasher when you can drive to another state and buy phosphate detergent?

This popped into my inbox a while back, but due to slackitude, I just managed to post it now. From our reader Wade:

When I saw the first pic of the beagle on the yak by Danny F., it
reminded me of my beloved fishing dog, Old Dirty Beagle, who is now
Old Dead Beagle. It was just a flicker across my memory, though, and
I moved on. Then we see the Danny beagle again today on the blog and
we know it’s time for action.

This is no shit, friends–my beagle died several years ago under
mysterious circumstances while under the care of my ex-wife in an
“accident” while I was out of the country. My grief has re-awakened,
but at the same time I honor the memory of Old Dirty Beagle by
providing thusly a photo of said pooch on the water in her beagled
glory.

Perhaps this will kick off an entire gallery of beagles on the bow.

A fine new essay in WSJ:

 Tom McGuane on the charms of guns, dogs, shells and supper. 

The author on the trail with Daisy, left, and Abby

(Photo – Andrew Geiger for The Wall Street Journal)

For crying out loud, Miles Nolte a.k.a. Gaper is not an undercover cop posing as a fishing guide, stoops. No. He is the Sausage King of Chicago. He is the Egg Man. He is freakishly tall and wears Thundercats jammies. Buy his book today.

Won’t hear two shits about the economy, AIG bonuses or more troops headed to Afghanistan.

Nor will there be mention of the dogshit that needs picking up in the backyard, a house that needs paint, Date Night or the fact that winter season’s coming to a close and I’ll be around some for a spell until the spring salmon show.

There will be brown liquour and laughter. Lots. And meat; charred on the outsides, rubbed liberally with Johnny’s Salt and a middle bloody as a hockeyfight.

The Winter Nationals, thee Bi-Annual SoulRoller Gravel Roadside Festival kicks off at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning; A time-held tradition much different than our come-one, come-all Soulroller of late Autumn. Winter camp’s always been a private party, see, invites sent by the Cap’n—the crustiest of them all. It comes in a three-word email these days and if you know, you go. Details, taken care of later.

By nightfall, I’ll expect a giant blue tarp over the sounds of DBT blazed loud outta whatever truckdoor’s closest and see, over a paper cup fulla three-fingered whisky, 3 dogs ripping around and chewing sticks while five old friends reacquaint themselves with the slow, comfortable process of regression into feral, profane critterdom. Flies will be swung and fish will be hooked over the course of the next few days. Some even landed, most likely, and a few of these greatest hits comps may be re-enacted in front of a wet, smoky campfire as the co-star attempts to stay upright on the same old chair they’ve been hauling around in the back of their pickup for 10 years now.

Though we’ve all been fishing the camp river quietly, solo, all season, and sometimes get a passing glimpse of each other as the holder of a particularly good piece tries to scurry outta sight before a friend spies them in a money tailout or little forgotten seam, this time isn’t really about about the fucking with each other for fun’s sake, the hiding out or holding cards quietly as the age-old code of the winter steelheader dictates. It’s about the years of rain and hail and numb toes, hood-up, gotta-piss-but-gotdam-this-is-a-badass-tailout-i-can’t-quit-just-yet and blown rivers and epic skunkings and days no one in their right mind would believe and never questioning why, paying homage to those years some, subtly promising each other this shit has to keep going on for the sake of both friendship and sanity, and above all, remembering though we’ve all changed, how effortless it still is to settle back into who we truly still are.

Tomorrow, fuckers. Lowhole me if you will, but know there’s a better-than-average chance I’ma pick your lame-ass pocket fulla junk. It’s fucking beautiful.

Wayne Coyne is nothing if not succinct.

After a convoluted history, the Omnibus Public Lands Act passed the House of Representatives today, with a vote of 285-140. The “Big O” has already said he will sign it into law, possibly early next week.

The bundle of 170 separate bills that make up the Omnibus represents protection for over 2 million acres of land in 9 states including increased protections for 270,000 acres of land along 82 newly-designated Wild and Scenic rivers, safeguarding over 1,000 miles of river in total.

A few of the bill’s acts in more detail:

- Passage of the Craig Thomas Snake Headwaters Legacy Act, which will designate 387 miles of rivers and streams in the upper Snake River drainage as “Wild and Scenic.”

- Passage of the Owyhee Initiative, which will create a Wilderness designation for 517,000 acres, and 316 miles of Wild and Scenic designation along the Owyhee river corridor.

- Passage of the Wyoming Range Legacy Act, which will result in increased protections for the Wyoming range from further oil and gas development.

Hell yes.

“The Clash is what U2 wishes they had become.” -Henry Rollins

A time defined by inflation, rising unemployment, global financial and political instability, terrorist bombings and insurgent warfare in Europe, the Middle East and South America. This year’s headlines also describe the headlines 30 years ago when London Calling was released in the UK. A sonically wide ranging double album that is one of the few worthy of two discs, The Clash’s third album transcended the nihilism of the Sex Pistols (as an aside, I consider them the worst band ever to escape from a dress maker’s back room) with a tour de force that provides the perfect soundtrack to their, and our, era.

From the straight ahead post-apocalyptic 1st Gen punk of the title song, the tracks deal with the echoes of the Spanish Civil War and the exportation of Basque terror techniques with “Spanish Bombs”, the down and out and don’t care to rise youth of “Rudie Don’t Fail”, while “The Guns of Brixton” provides a totally righteous retort to police brutality. “Koka Kola” and “Hateful” tackle the perils of drug addiction and distribution, and “Lost in the Supermarket” and “The Right Profile” address mass consumerism and advertising decades before Naomi Klein penned No Logo.  Finally we come to “The Card Cheat”, which to me is the emotional center of the album.

Buy it, download it, steal it, get it by any means necessary. Trust me, when your NINJA ARM resets, you’ll be glad you did. Also, don’t cheap out with those punkass speakers that came with your computer. This fucker deserves cabinet speakers. The kind with a woofer, mid and tweeter and a canvas front cover.

 Excerpted from British Columbia Wild Salmon Advocate Alexandra Morton’s article in the “Westcoaster” newspaper:

The website for Friends of Port Mouton shows a grim-faced Nova Scotia fisherman holding a fish farm protest sign.

The caption reads, “Something’s wrong when you have to fight like this just to keep your friggin’ harbour.”

He’s right.

Something is very wrong, and my grizzled-faced fisherman neighbours are standing in this man’s shoes a continent away.

While government scoffs at the science, the fact is the wild salmon are vanishing on the extinction trajectory we predicted.

As the wild salmon go, so we go….

Full article.

Link to the petition.

Put it on a Ritz

How to Catch Carp by Russell Tinsley, from the anthology Fishing Secrets of the Experts c. 1962

Canned carp is prepared buy cutting off the carp’s head, fins and tail and cutting the skinned meat into chunks.  One teaspoon of salt is added to a pint jar of water holding the fish chunks.  This is cooked under ten pounds of pressure for two hours.  The bones soften like tuna and salmon.

Spring officially began last week. That is, if one goes by dates on a calendar and hours of daylight. Yesterday, it was seventy degrees outside, it actually felt like spring. Fuzzy little kitten paws were budding off the pussy willow tree down the block and my smarter (though genetically deficient) female cohort brought the kleenex and visine out of hibernation. The town’s snow reserves had dwindled to dirty little piles hidden in dark corners. Everywhere I went over the weekend, it was all sunshine and flyfishing. Rod racks re-appeared atop campershelled Toyotas. Trailered driftboats bounced down dry streets dusty with soiled snow residue. Fly shop owners, who seemed wild eyed and twitchy for the past five months offering half price sales and clearance items to woo customers returned to their slightly superior swagger. Friends began calling me again, a habit they had purged upon realizing that they could not exercise sufficient self-control to keep from telling me (the gimp) about the epic knee deep powder turns they had just cut. I got word from Missoula that the skwalas had popped. I made plans to fish a nice mellow spring creek with flat banks and road access on Thursday. I dreamt of snouts and dry flies.

This morning I awoke to a world blasted with seven inches of wet cocaine. The icy streets of town are once again empty, all the residents having caught the powder flu and vacated for higher elevations. This week’s fishing is not looking good with magical internet prognostications of snow and sub-freezing temps continuing. Besides, my fishing partner who can get me on the nice mellow spring creek will be skiing.

I love mountain town spring, it’s like watching a scene from “Over The Top” only Sly Stallone is spring and that big ogre dude with the handle bar mustache is winter. They go back and forth but you know who will eventually win. I love waking up on days off with no idea what type of recreation awaits until I look out the window- do I put on snow pants or waders? For years I’ve listened to non-skiers wish away the last vestiges of winter so that they could move on to summer. Now, for the first time, I have to count myself among their ranks but I’m not wishing away the snow. The robins are trickling in, green shoots are pushing up from subterranean bulbs and little black stones are starting to get all hot and bothered under their rocks, thinking about crawling to shore and getting busy but I’ll try to keep enjoying what the days throw at me. This morning that meant grabbing the shovel and laughing my ass off as the dog buried herself in a three foot mound of snow and wriggled on her back ecstatically.

With commentary from Steve B

“My own tying station is not VFYD-worthy, but during a recent visit
home I noted that my dad’s desk deserved a shot. See attached.

You should make note of the custom white-board desktop, the
home-designed vice-stand (it locks somewhere in the top drawer) and
25+ years of collected crap. And yes, it’s mostly crap. My dad would
tie a fly with sock elastic and belly-button lint if he thought it
would trick a trout.

I can’t tell you how awe-inspiring it is to dig through some of the
drawers and shelves. Scary too.

Also, I should mention the bear claws. Only one is visible, and barely
at that. But there are actually two there. They’re just peaking out,
resting on the top edge of the desk. They’re right below the big spool
rack and above the orange tray. The old family dog chewed those off my
dad’s bear rug. Pop was not happy about that, I assure you.

Anyway, if you see fit to publish the shot, the desk it that of Paul
B., retired and tying daily in Maryland . The stimulators are prep for
his semi-regular semi-annual trip out west.

All the best and keep up the good work,
Steve”

Email completed puzzles to banknote@busterwantstofish.com.

We don’t care how you send it–PDF, JPG, whatever–just some kind of image file and make it legible.

The first correct one to hit the inbox gets a couple steelhead flies from banknote’s vise, plus a set of “Corporate Fly Fishing Still Sucks” and “BWTF” stickers! The next two only get stickers.

And the rest of you, well, maybe the chicks at your local hipster coffee shop will still be impressed.

Happy Spring! Newton’s law of cooling: the rate of heat loss of a body is proportional to the difference in temperatures between the body and its surroundings or environment.

If this isn’t quick enough for you, put the beers in a bucket, cover with ice, fill with water, add a couple cups of salt and stir. In a few short minutes, sing the praises of sodium.

Next time: Protractor pulls!

Lovingly rendered by Fat Guy Alex at Fat Guy Fly Fishing. Send yours to wook@busterwantstofish.com

Even on green beer day.

Let’s just skip all the fiddleshits and get right to the point.

from Paul H, South Carolina

Skwala Style