Of course it’s cold and wet. It’s March, at 5000′ in northern Idaho. And it looks like it’s probably going to get worse before it gets better. But I’m not going to fall into that over-used trap of describing steelheading as “suffering.” Please. If you think that’s what this is then you don’t really know the meaning of the word. You want to see suffering? Go spend some time in Haiti right now, my friend. Aww, did that bum you out?

I’m standing waist deep in frigid water freezing my nuts off, swingin’ a Fish Taco off a sweet new 13′ stick, and you know what? I’ve chosen to be here. I’m loving every goddam minute of it. I’m trying to figure out how to stay a few days longer. In fact, this is the weather that makes me feel alive – far more than those torpid days of summer.

So dramatize it all you want to make yourself seem like you’re enduring some super-human level of adversity, but we both know it really ain’t that bad. I’ll be coming in above you, enduring all the same “heinous” conditions that you are, on a mission with a huge, shit-eating grin on my face. So buck the hell up and keep stepping down. Or, if it’s really so bad, here’s a tissue – go take your romantic notions of suffering somewhere else, Sally.

The winter’s been long, and now Brother Glista has emerged from his lab with more mad fly designs. This one needs a name.

Make your suggestions in the comments. Help him before he kills again!

Times are tough, in case you haven’t noticed.  If you aren’t raising your own chickens, canning your own vegetables, reloading ammo, and improving fortifications around your perimeter it’s doubtful you’ll make it through the year.  Enter Langdon Cook; poet, forager, chef, flight surgeon and author of FAT OF THE LAND.  Cook takes us on a seasonal tour of the Pacific Northwest showing us the region’s bounty.  We learn from Cook that no matter how bad it gets you don’t have to starve to death – you’re never far from your next meal.  Just pick it, trap it, catch it or spear it, make sure it’s not poisonous, then cook it and eat it.

From FAT OF THE LAND

Back at the house we fillet the rest of the shad. It feels good to have a cooler filled with fresh fish and know that a box of canned shad is in my future. True, it would feel even better to have a load of salmon, but we can’t complain. Beedle has recently sold his tutoring business, and though he tries to be optimistic, now that he’s in his mid-fifties it isn’t likely he can go back to his original career, teaching high school biology. The summer is often a time of rest for educators, though this summer I expect will offer more uncertainty than rest for my friend. As I back out of his driveway I ask him what he’s up to for the dry months. For a moment he looks totally serene, without a care in the world. “Driving school,” he barks at me finally. “I’ll teach the kiddies to drive. How about that!”

***

Whole Shad, Cooked Low & Slow, Carolina Style

Deboning shad is a chore left to sinners in fishmonger hell. The lowcountry cooks of coastal South Carolina approach shad like a hunk of pork shoulder: they do it low and slow, until the bones are mostly dissolved or rendered soft. This recipe comes from fellow forager and proprietor of the Hunter Angler Gardener Cook blog, Hank Shaw, who did time on both a fishing boat and a reporter’s beat in mid-Atlantic shad country.

Shad is meaty and flavorful in a way that’s surprising for fish, so serve with mashed potatoes and a solid Chardonnay. If you have a female fish and saved the roe like any true shad lover, poach the egg skeins briefly with a dash of vinegar and a pinch of salt, then fry in butter. They brown up nicely like sausages. Serve with eggs and toast for breakfast, or with mashed potatoes and onion gravy for dinner – an American version of bangers and mash.

2 tablespoons salt

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

3 tablespoons Old Bay seasoning

1 large whole shad (4 pounds), scaled and gutted

3 yellow onions, cut into half-moons

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Smoked bacon to cover fish

In a pan wide enough to fit the shad, boil enough water to cover fish and add 1 tablespoon of the salt, the vinegar, 2 tablespoons of the Old Bay seasoning, and a few grindings of pepper. Add shad to boil, cover, and turn off heat. Let shad steep for 20 minutes.

In an ovenproof dish that is also large enough to hold the shad, add the onions, sprinkle the rest of the salt and Old Bay seasoning over them, and then pour in enough water just to cover the bottom. Place the shad so that it rests on the onions; make sure the shad does not sit in water. Cover the pan and put it in a 200-degree oven for 4 1/2 hours. After the second hour, and then after every hour beyond that, check to see that there is still water in the pan.

After 4 1/2 hours, uncover, lay the bacon over the shad, and broil until the bacon is crispy, a few minutes. Serves 4

Zane Lamprey is a hometown boy with a travel TV gig called “3 Sheets,” and with a name like Zane Lamprey, he really oughtta be a fisherman. Zane gets to travel around and get drunk for the show, and it occurred to me in the course of reading this that it’s really not all that different from most fishing trips. This interview sounds like almost every riverside campfire conversation I can remember, and I can only assume it’s because you’re all a bunch of demented drunks.

Seriously, we need a little help here. More to the point, thee venerable North Umpqua needs your help again, and it’s more important than we’ll ever be.

What it is I’m talking about: Scott and Dude, meet Gagger:

In a nutshell, handsome, forward-thinking, cognitive All-Stars like your badass selves signed petitions, wrote letters and spoke up on behalf of not harvesting what’s left of the wild North Umpqua winter steelhead here in Southern Oregon for the last two years because you’re flat out just ultra smart and have crystal balls that see futures.

As opposed to those few locals crying foul that they can’t kill and keep each of the majestic fish they land, bag them up and re-discover said majestic fish and an important part of the Northwest identity all white and burned three years later in the bottom of their chest freezer, right under the soup bones and jelly they never used either.

Worthy of mention, also, is that the North Umpqua wild winter steelhead are the last pure genetic left in the Umpqua system, having never had to compete with swimming hatchery hot dogs and risk diluting their gorgeous genes. For more on the issue, check out our friend, critter and salmon legend Jay Nicholas speaking exhaustively on the issue of the North.

Recently on the tail of poor hatchery fish returns to a system that’s also been extremely low from lack of rain, locals have again been making noise about the lack of harvest “opportunity” above all, pressuring fish managers to re-open the kill of wild winter steelhead. We can only imagine threats of a more aggressive hatchery program aren’t far behind—something both science and common-sense says would be a crime and disaster.

So let’s fuck some stuff up, shall we? Together, let’s call the district bio in charge of all this and, for once in our lives, let’s be nice.

Let’s thank her for two years of fantastic fishing and general hope for the future of wild fish in the North Umpqua system. Let’s kill her with true kindness and stoke about the new no-kill regs on the North Umpqua and how you feel that’s created real opportunity to pass something critical onto our kids. All it takes is one call that lasts about one minute, ’cause when I called, this lady was seriously blown away I was thanking her, didn’t know what to say and sincerely was happy for the call and got off the phone. She sounded foxy, too; South Oregon cougar foxy.

Her name is Laura Jackson. Her digits are: (541) 440-3353 ext. 247. email is: Laura.S.Jackson@state.or.us

Talking points:

-You signed the no-kill petition.

-You like and support the current management program of no-kill on wild North Umpqua winters.

-You value the catch and release wild fish, because science says wild is the future of our fisheries.

-You feel this creates true, sustainable opportunity for both future generations and the local economy.

-You are free Friday night, she’s a cougar fox and you are ready to plow.

All joking aside, one call. One minute. Four talking points and an optional fifth. All good. Let’s try this and see what happens. Can’t hurt.

Also, report back in the comments section on Ms. Jackson’s reaction to your niceness. I’d be curious to see how she handles repeated support for the no-kill regs.

*Props to Crump for the heads up on this.

Via Moldy ChumBy the way, what the hell is going on over there? Today alone I saw what looked like a 3/0 through some cat’s hand and a shattered toenail. Put that shit below a page break for those of us enjoying their first cup of joe.

There seems to have been a fair bit of righteous indignation evidenced on less-worthy blogs out there recently over the introduction of Idylwilde’s new bobber, the “Sindicator.” Let’s start by getting one thing straight – we’re hard pressed to think of a more ridiculous thing to get your panties in a twist about than the “intellectual property rights” of a friggin’ bobber. I mean, what more evidence do you need that you are a pathetic dork who needs to get a life? Put down your role-playing dice and go wet a line for chrissakes.

And, normally, we’d be perfectly happy to stay out of something as utterly ruh-tarded as this and let it pass. But there’s one thing about it all that finally prompted us to put on our due diligence hats - you see, in all this teeth-gnashing and general uppity-ness and rush to snap judgment, no one seems to have thought about actually talking to Idylwilde and getting their side of the story. Radical idea, eh? Naw, far better to simply milk the melodrama and watch your coveted hit count go through the roof, right?

Enough. As loyal Buster readers have come to expect from the best info-tainment source on the planet, we decided to once again differentiate ourselves from the competition by getting off our lazy, blogging asses and going straight to the source to talk to Zach Mertens, Proprietor and Chief Instigator of Idylwilde:

1) Seems like you’ve been taking a few hits lately over how awesome Sindicators make the user in this whole drama surrounding BobberGate 2010. First off, how did you find yourself in the trapped air business anyway?

Yeah, I have been a target recently. There are some people that seem pretty fired up about their bobber brands these days.  Unfortunately no one has “reported” on why Sindicators have arrived in the market place.  You are the 1st publication of any kind that had contacted me and asked why Idylwilde made this decision.

It all started when I contacted the Brian at Westwater products about 2 years ago now, to see if Idylwilde could become a distributer of his Thingamabobbers.  At the time Idylwilde offered a couple different kinds of poly indicators and it seemed like Thingamabobbers would be a nice compliment to the existing line.Brian was very enthusiastic about being associated with the Idylwilde brand and being able to leverage my rep. network to increase his distribution with the pro-shops.  I made it clear that I was not willing to invest in the distribution of his product if he intended to also make my 3 main competitors distributors as well.  Brian agreed and we struck a handshake deal that Idywlilde would have the Thingamabobber distribution based on Westwater not selling to the agreed upon 3 competitors of mine. For all practical purposes an exclusive distribution for Fly Companies.

The business relationship seemed to be going along fine.  Dealers liked it because they could call up to order flies and get their bobbers refilled without having to make a call to yet another vendor.  Our reps were getting more placement and things seemed like they were on the upswing with our partnership. This past summer, just as I was about to go to print with my catalog, I was told that Westwater products had struck a deal with one of my competitors.  The deal was that the competitor would help finance a new mold for a smaller Thingamabobber that would more easily be tied onto a fly directly.  (At this time Dreamcast flies was taking existing sizes and tying them on hopper patterns and such).

As you can imagine I was extremely surprised to hear about this new deal being made behind my back.  My first reaction was to call Brian and he in fact confirmed that he had made this deal with a competitor of mine.  His argument to me was that he was not extending Thingamabobber distribution to this other company but rather striking a deal for a “fly tying component”.  So Thingamabobbers that are on flies were apparently not part of the deal. Seems like he forgot that his current partner was a fly company.  I could no longer trust the relationship and the fact that Brian wanted to “honor” his deal already made with my competitor led me to the decision to discontinue moving forward as partner in business with Westwater.

Brian to the end felt there was no conflict of interest or violation of our agreement.  He wanted Idylwilde to continue to carry the Thingamabobbber and asked what it would take for me to keep going.  I responded that I would might consider keeping his product in my catalog if he would be willing to make all Thingamabobbers available to us (meaning the new smaller size).  He needed time to pray on that decision.  After a few days of (I assume praying) he called me back and said that he would not be willing to go back on his word / agreement with my competitor and that was it.

In the end it was Westwater that went behind Idylwilde’s back and created his own problem.  Had he not done that Idylwilde would happily be going along honoring the original agreement and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. In the process of distributing Westwater products I had killed the sales of my existing indicators.  My dealers also found other sources for the product could not be depended on to have them in stock.  At that point Idylwilde threw all of our R & D sources at bringing to market our own trapped air technology.

2) I’m guessing that, being the professional company which Idywilde is, there was plenty of research that went into whether your ground-breaking trapped air technology would violate any existing patents and/or the Geneva Convention and/or any other longstanding international treaties. For our well-traveled audience, are there any particular countries that they should be aware of, within which this new level of awesomeness may violate customs regulations or be considered an illegal weapon?

Countries where being awesome is frowned upon will most likely bar the import of Sindicators; this would apply to most communist or totalitarian states.  Kim Jung Il would not want visitors to his country to be awesome.

So your readers might want to keep that in mind as they prepare for their next fishing trip.As most people are aware, packaging on Westwaters product said “patent pending” on them.  Our legal consul looked up the patent and found that the US government had soundly rejected Westwater’s claim of a patent based on the fact that they had not invented anything.  The fly fishing public was already attaching indicators through a hole and then inserting the indicators through the bight created by doubling over the line.  Bobbers were invented long ago so no luck there.  In fact if you look at any large boat that anchors up they use a trapped air device with a loop just like the Sindicators.

3) At the end of the day, do you think that bobbers are really at the root of the drama here, or is this really about certain petty personalities being intimidated by the whole new level of awesomeness that the Sindicator represents?

The latter.  I mean who wouldn’t be intimidated by a competing product that made the customer more awesome?

There are a couple things at play here that I believe have caused this ruckus. People that broke the story wanted to create a conflict for entertainment purposes.  There was no attempt on anyone’s part to collect any facts before they declared Idylwilde guilty. Friends loyal to Westwater feel that Idylwilde is some huge corporation and have framed this as a, “David v. Goliath” type thing.  Unfortunately Idylwilde is not some huge corporation or else I would be off fishing somewhere and logging in to check my bank balance every day and would have one of my minions conducting this interview.

So in the end I think it is fear of competition that has created such anger.  I don’t see what the big deal is. If a dealer or consumer wants to support Westwater products then they should.  No one is putting a gun to anyone’s head saying, “Sindicators are here now, if you don’t make your customers awesome we will shoot you.”  It’s a free market economy buy and support what you want.

4) Any last words for the drama queens out there?

I have a list of unique Idylwilde flies that we brought to the market place that are now being tied by competing companies.  Where are the drama queens when Idylwilde product is copied?  I don’t spend a lot of time losing sleep over it because dealers support us based on the quality of the flies we deliver and the dependable fill of their pre-season orders.

Figured the guys at Westwater might be a little bummed to have some competition after so many years of having it to themselves.  The rest of it I think is a big joke, as no matter how you frame the side you are on, it still just comes down to “fighting about a bobber.”

Me, I don’t have any energy around fighting about bobbers with fly fisherman. My energy and time is better spent figuring out other ways to make my dealers, and the consumers who use my products more awesome!

And there you have it, sports fans. Now how about you go put all that pent up energy into saving native steelhead and trout and healthy watersheds instead? K? Thx.

Dear Asshat Who Low-Holed That Sweet Tailout From Under Me Yesterday: Yes, you’re a pinner, and there’s no doubting the effectiveness of your floaty toy and sac antics. But you’re also a thoughtless inconsiderate slob of a toolshed no matter what gear you’re using. As for not being thrown in the drink, you’re welcome, but I hope that when your wife picked you up later she promptly punched you square in your stupid face. She looked like the type. Anyway, now your backside gets to enjoy a moment of interwebs fame with a juvenile bit of Photoshop fun. Here’s the original, have at it, savages (you can post yours in the comments using html, but keep them under 800 pixels wide, or you can send them down the email hole).

There’s something to be said for casting, not just as a means to deliver your
fly, but as an end unto itself. The well-executed cast provides a measure of
satisfaction all its own, a tiny reward, and in some cases the only direct
gratification from an otherwise fishless day.

“Catch any?”

“No, but I made some good casts.”

Some days, under the direction of my Inner Geek, I leave the flybox at
home and go fishing for the perfect cast. Alone, sans fly, hours are spent
in this seemingly ridiculous undertaking on an otherwise perfectly good
body of water. Cast, strip, cast, listening to the rod, letting the lay of the
line tell the story of my idiosyncrasies. Cast after cast, feeling coarse
imperfections here and rough motions there, grinding them down on the
stone of repetition and oiling them with memory.

“How’s fishin’?”

“Dunno…I’m just casting.”

The combination of immutable physical laws and barely controlled chaos
often results in unexpected beauty, a loop of unusual sharpness and
symmetry sailing out across the waters. The setup, the pull, all the
moments preceding the cast are mentally played back in the hopes of
catching the nuance that led to this fleeting state of grace. With time,
these events become more frequent, but the quest for the perfect cast
never ends.

“C’mon, lets go!”

“…Just one more cast.”

There’s something to be said for casting.

Tie on one or two of your best chironomid pupa patterns and rig up an indicator so that your flies suspend just over the bottom, cast out, watch and wait – bobber fishing. At best it’s non-stop fish catching action, one slab trout after another, pure evil genius madness.

The chironomid faithful fish from prams and use depth finders, thermometers, stomach pumps, bug nets, fish nets and a color-c-lector. The rest of us stillwater geeks fish from whatever floats, tie on a black pupa and a San Juan Worm and call it good. If that doesn’t work right away crack a beer, have a twist of tobacco and fire up the hibachi. Spend the day eatin, drinkin, spittin, and fishin – you probably deserve it.

Shot 20 blocks away from my house in Portland’s Mt. Taber Park. Epic badassness.

Always nice to hear where your head’s at, fella. Hope to see you soon. Actually, please stay up there in Washington until at least May. Please.

And while you’re at it, get you some mojo.

Just cuz you’re in a drifter doesn’t mean you can’t do a little motorboatin.’ Jamie Briscoe unveils a new creation on the Madison.

(To the tune of “Gin n Juice’, and with apologies to Snoop D-O-double G)

…So much drama in the LBC,
It’s kinda hard bein’ Gee ess em ow el tee
But I some how, some way
Keep fightin’ the mine each and every single day.
Can I show a little movie, for the G’s
And give a little talk as I breeze through…

On the road again, currently in Long Beach CA at the hugeness that is the Fred Hall Tackle Show,
raising awareness for what we all stand to lose if the Proposed Pebble Mine is allowed to be
developed. Thanks to the efforts of TUCA chair Drew Irby, the Long Beach Casting Club has
granted us the use of their fine clubhouse for a showing of Red Gold on Saturday, March 6th,
at 7pm. If you haven’t seen this movie and you live in the area, now is your chance to come
out and see what all the fuss is about. Red Gold is a documentary in the best sense of the word,
as it allows folks a chance to see the importance of Bristol Bay salmon from several different
angles as well as allowing the proponents of Pebble to speak their piece. All in all, a good use
of an hour out of your life, especially to see Peter Andrew tell folks in no uncertain terms that
there will be “no net loss here”, or to listen to the unrepentant smugness of Northern Dynasty’s
Bruce Jenkins.

I’m gonna bet that the club wouldn’t mind if you bring a beer or two, and I can probably rustle up
a bag of chips and some salsa…

Come on out, Fisha.

Sorry bacon. Next time I’ll just put it on video mode.