It’s funny how scents can trigger a stronger memory than almost any other sense. There’s a certain way of home frying chicken that take me back to my grandmother’s kitchen.

I was walking home tonight and the scent of woodsmoke drifted out of a backyard. I don’t know what they were burning, probably whatever bundles the gas station had, although I believe that it was some kind of northern hardwood.

I can remember fires built with deadfall and forest floor litter, sharing a pack of pilfered Winstons and when we were especially enterprising, some beers. The following morning, we learned about the unalloyed joy of a hangover.

A few years later would find us sitting in a rapt attention, that any of our teachers would have been jealous of, as our buddy with the older girlfriend, related his escapades.

One of my favorites involves green and red star clusters, a few dozen parachute flares and an ensuing forest fire that almost took out a housing area.

Last night while running I saw a rangy coyote loitering around a block fenced backyard. He trotted off as I got closer, only to smell a mesquite fire and some grilling meat. We all love woodsmoke.

The tour is over. Three months. More than 50 gigs in the UK and Europe. Not one river fished. Not one line cast. Not one trout grabbed up. Not a single salmon molested. Fuck. This here’s the final installment of FUKRIDF. If you’re up for this sort of misery, we’re most likely headed back in April for a whole new batch of not fishing. So what’d I learn? Well lots, really, like when you’re not fishing and being forced to watch other guys fishing one has the opportunity to practice patience. So there’s that.

I also learned that Black Bottle, a blended Scotch, is mixed only from Islay malts! For half the price of an Islay single malt, it’s pretty goddam excellent. Check it out, holmes!
–Thee

A bit of a history lesson if I may: A long time ago, well after the Romans were like, “fuck this place, man,” some British dudes were like, “wouldn’t it be a cool idea if we got together and claimed all this land for ourselves? Lord Mountbaten said, “Hey, fuck that, Im’a claim nobility and take all this land for me!” So he ran some solid gangsta shit and thus it came to pass that Mountbaten became the landlord of Southwest England. What this means for anglers is that if you’d like to fish Thee Olde and Faymous Rivere Test, you’ve gotta pay the man — Mountbatten. For the Test is, without a doubt, his river. He owns it. He runs it. His posse strung the razor wire and patrols that shit like Silvio patrolled the Bing.

All this would be fine if the Test were just some dottering and middling English trickle, but alas, from the side of the road, behind the barb wire and just out of the way of the attack hounds, Lord Mountbatten’s river looks like a pretty great stream. The Test is only about 40 miles from start to finish and it’s upper reaches are chalkstream and jammed with big fucking brown trout. I saw them as I stood on a bridge, trucks, tour busses and bikes whizzing on by. Upstream they were rising to tiny white mayflies even as a goofy lab splashed around in the water. From the looks of it, the Test is jammed cheek to jowl with trouts. You can’t catch a fish in the test, maybe it’s time to take up bowling.

There they were, dozens of trouts, all locked up, guarded and patrolled by a bunch of Royal dicknobs.

So let’s just say you’re feeling flush, or a wave of Anglophillia washes over you (Mountbatten, was after all, grandson of Queen Victoria, uncle of “Phil the Greek, a.k.a Prince Phillip and mentor of the current Prince of Wales, whose name I have forgotten.) well, it’s gonna cost ya, pal. In the UK they don’t use dollars, they use these things called pounds and to fish the Test is up to around 650 heavy-ass pounds per day. In American, that’s about 1000 bucks. Yeah, I know — a straight G — fuck that.

As mentioned, cross a bridge over the Test and you can see big browns down there swimming around. Take a walk down a riverside paths and you can scope the quaint bank-bound fishing huts. Linger for a bit streamside and the goddam history of the place is palpable. There are no dirtbag fishermen on the Test. There is no sleeping in the back of the truck. Hanging around the parking lot crushing beers, spitting dip and chewing jerky as the sun sets is probably a rather rare occurance. Lordy, what a waste of a perfectly good river.

Or…

“Who needs carp when you can have these things ignore your fly all day?”

Got a better one?*

*-My fairy godfather (or is it hairy goat father?) Wookie sez that you chumps will expect stickers and other schwag just for chiming in with your little witticisms since I gave a few away last time, so here’s the deal…you make me laugh, you get a sticker. You don’t, well…talk to the hairy one about the consequences.

The Tweed, Coldstream, Scotland/England border
Aug 26, 2010
Rod had to take a leak, so convincing him to stop along the banks of the River Tweed was a cinch. The Tweed, for at least part of its journey, forms the border between Merry Old England and Grumpy Olde Scotland. And even though Scotland is, indeed, grumpier than England, I tend to like Scotland more. Sure, the food is just as horrific and the beer just as crummy, but Scotland is funnier, more scenic and the whisky is, well, it’s Scotch, fay fook’s sake. Sounds great, huh? In fact, you may even be thinking of thumbing it out to the Boise airport and booking a cheap flight to the highlands. Well, think again, Angus. Scotland is expensive as fuck. There’s no fishing on Sunday and if, unlike me, you actually get around to fishing, be prepared to take out a second mortgage on your home.

We were heading north, up to a gig in Edinburgh, and I hopped out of the car on the English side of the Tweed and high-tailed it down a path toward the water, camera in hand. I had just crossed a gate and was 25 yards from the river when I came up short.  Ay! Fay Fook Sake. Wha thay bloody fook? But there it was, the sign that confirmed my worst fears regarding fishing in the UK — all that permitting, private water, upstream, dry-flies-only-on-days-ending-in-y business. There it was — finally — proof!

Like most right-thinking individuals, I cannot abide the notion of “private water.”  The phrase kickstarts my inner anarchist, compelling me to jump fences, deface signs (BWTF stickers are great for this, btw!) and pontificate on the internet. My indignation springs, I guess, from my general anti-authoritarian mindset. However, this was the first time I’ve been confronted by a sign marking that strangest of UK fishing regulations: beats.

This was, to me, an entirely new sort of outrage/affront/injustice and I rolled its sour taste around on my tongue. Fishing a “beat” is absolutely foreign to the constitution of a Western angler. We are built to ramble. We are inclined to strap on a pack and load it with water, cans of Rainier and beef jerky and get the fuck away from the assholes fishing right next to the road, at the boat launch or any of the various “idiot holes” found so easily along American fly water. We love taking off into the outback for the mere fact that 1) we can. 2.) well, what the hell is around that corner, anywho? 3.) i am not the type of angler who’s gonna be seen fishing with the likes of the fucking rabble. Sorry, it’s just my issue, man.

Needless to say, I was hopped up and I fairly stomped the rest of the way to the river, high off the delicious self-righteousness of it all. There she was. The great river. So much history, so much tradition. So much of our sport flowing inches in front of me. I could smell it all, mixed with the water, the grassy bank and the trees spilling pollen. She was much broader than I had imagined, but we were by the coast. It was an impossibly scenic river — castles, old rowboats, a stone bridge. Off in the distance, two old dudes sat in a boat, rods in hands, waiting. Directly in front of me, ya know– in the good water — a fish jumped. Fuck.

What were those dudes doing sitting in the goddam frog water? Just what the fuck are they thinking?  I dunno. I never know. Yet every time I see a dude fishing the frog water I think, “What the fuck are you thinking?” It’s like driving down the road and seeing a cow and not thinking “cow.”

The fish that jumped right in front of me was, of course, nice and big. I am certain I would have caught it if I had actually been fishing the Tweed, which I was most certainly not. I walked back up the bank, past that stupid goddam sign, got in the car and drove over the river and back into Scotland.

The Fucking Spey, Scotland, Aug. 20, 2010

Driving up from last night’s gig in Glasgow up to Kinloss (it’s up in the Scottish Hee-linds near Elgin) I didn’t fish the Spey. Too bad, because from the motorway, at least, it’s a swell looking river with soft green banks, a gentle gurgling gait and bits of ruined castle strewn all over its banks.

To make not fishing the Spey all the more painful,  the A95 travels along the river offering infuriating peeks every coupla miles — like when you’re driving in Montana along I-90 and are forced to gaze upon the Clark Fork every 45 seconds. My traveling companions, of course, do not give a fuck that the Spey is one of the “Big Four” Scottish fly fishing rivers. They do not care that the Spey is home to its own goddam style of fishing. They do not care that there is even a style of fishing rod called a (goddam) spey rod. I attempt to impress upon them the — you know — gravity of the situation:
“Ya know how regular fly rods are like 9 feet long?”
Silence.
“Well Spey rods are super massive, maybe like up to 16 or 17 fucking feet long.”
Silence.
“And they shoot lasers and… other stuff.”
Nada.
It had been raining buckets since we’d left Glasgow and as the Spey gradually opened up into it’s Spey-like size and shape, the goddam sun came out,  exploding the dew on the grass and tossing a spray of diamonds over the surface of the famous river like some bullshit magazine story. I felt sick. We drove right on by.

We drove right on by a few distillareies (Cardhu, Dahlwhinnie) and we did not stop to even glance at the Fucking Spey. It was infuriating, it was frustrating and I consoled myself, as always, by thinking that given a day or two, my own gear and the right flies, I could really do some damage on the Fucking Spey and show these highland hillbillies what’s what.

I’ve cultivated the ability to be really goddam obnoxious in a very short time — it’s like my “nuclear option”. I threatened destruction and finally convinced Rod, the driver, to stop for all of 45 seconds while I snapped a perfectly annoying shot of a perfect bridge over a perfect bend stood sentry by a perfect little fishing shed on the Fucking Spey. Another UK river I didn’t fucking fish.

“I believe it is the purest form of fly-fishing.”

- Daniel Galhardo, Tenkara USA

You know, Danny, I really don’t care how other people fish. Honestly, as long as you’re not raping the resource, do whatever you want. But can you spare us the sanctimonious bullshit about how, just because you don’t have a reel, you’re somehow doing something that’s more “pure” than the rest of us?

But let’s take your logic forward – if ditching my reel makes me “more pure,” then ditching all of my tackle would mean a full state of never-ending satori,  right?

I give you His Venerable Noodleness, the Dalai Jerry Wayne:

(Photo by Pete McDonald)

Regarding on offshore drilling

“And while we’re at it, let’s expedite the regulatory and permitting and legal processes for on- and offshore drilling.”—Speaking at the Tea Party conventionon Feb. 26, 2010, about six weeks before the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

“Unless government appropriately regulates oil developments and holds oil executives accountable, the public will not trust them to drill, baby, drill. And we must!” —Facebook note, June 8, 2010.

A big thanks to Palinisms on Slate for the quotes demonstrating naked political ambition and not a shred of intellectual consistency.

Yep, BP has hired Goldman Sachs as a financial advisor. What’s the over/under on Goldman helping BP declare bankruptcy to get out from under their very obvious liabilities? 

Fuckers

BP Spills Coffee – watch more funny videos

Until BP hired Dick Cheney’s former PR hack as their new PR hack.  If past experience tells us anything, it’s to expect the above presented with a serious expectation of acceptance.

By now, most of you have heard about the proposed Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay. I won’t insult your intelligence by rehashing the gory details (as provided by The Pebble Partnership) of the preliminary project report, but I would like to take this opportunity to make a few points.

- In addition to the proposed Pebble project, there are roughly 3.6 million acres of BLM land slated to become the Bristol Bay Hard-Rock Mining District. 1 million of these acres were opened to claims in 2008, the rest is closed but “pending designation”.

- According to the EPA, the hard-rock mining industry is the single largest source of toxic releases in the US.

- As of 2008, 93% of large-footprint mines similar to the proposed Pebble Project had violated their environmental standards.

- Bristol bay produces 70% of Alaska’s sockeye, worth $130 million in ex-vessel prices alone last year.

- Entering its 126th year, the commercial fishing industry and its support infrastructure in Bristol Bay represents roughly 75% of local employment.

- Alaska is still the only MSC-certified sustainable sockeye salmon fishery in the world.

- No fewer than 30 major gold handlers have spoken out against the proposed Pebble Mine, vowing to never buy gold sourced from Bristol Bay.

This isn’t just Alaska’s problem. With the BLM maneuvering to open the Bristol Bay Hard-Rock Mining District, it is now OUR problem. Instead of just wringing our hands, shouting at the television, or giving up in resignation, may I suggest a few alternative strategies?

For starters, go to the Save Bristol Bay website and sign the petition for the continued closure of BLM lands to mining interests. Shoren and company were thoughtful enough to have 2 separate petitions, one for Alaskans and one for the rest of y’all.

You can also write your state representatives to express your displeasure with the situation, and let them know that the proposed Pebble project and the opening of BLM lands to Hard-Rock Mining represent dangerous precedents in a world of rapidly diminishing wilderness acreage and critical wildlife habitat.

Support a conservation organization directly involved in the fight. The Renewable Resources Coalition, Save Bristol Bay, and the Sportsman’s Alliance for Alaska come to mind. If your the type of fella that might want a little somethin’-somethin’ to show for your monetary contributions, there are some options here…

You can get a bitchin’ T-shirt or Hoodie with the “Over Our Dead Salmon” Troll brothers print from Sportsman’s Alliance. Hoodies are $35, T-shirts are $25…be sure to indicate your size and preference in the comments box.

If you enjoy the occasional beverage, protect your fine furniture from excessive beverage-container humidity with one of these No Pebble logo coasters, thoughtfully milled by the folks at Abel Automatics…yours for the low price of a $15 donation…type “Abel coaster” in the comments box.

If you would like to announce your Uppity Mountain Hippie-ness to the rest of the corporate world, you can snag one of these cool Fish Print Ties from March Brown (scroll down, and include BRISTOLBAY on the checkout screen).  $50, with $25 going directly to the fight against the proposed Pebble Mine…Take your pick from Rainbow Trout, Grayling, King Salmon, Sockeye Salmon, and Pink Salmon. Personally, we like the Sockeye pattern.

In light of recent developments in the world of resource extraction, it’s time to stand up for the last great runs of Sockeye salmon left on earth, and one of the last undeveloped critical riparian habitats in North America.

They aren’t gonna do it for themselves.

We’ll be highlighting our Facebook page of the Week regularly (or whenever we get around to it). Here’s #1 in a series. Collect ‘em all — and don’t forget to join up!

This sort of douchebaggery should be painful.

You watch, some Saturday afternoon humanity will be wiped out by ridiculous alien invaders, and it WON’T be because they want our planet or our women or our precious bodily fluids, oh no. It’ll be because we’re bigger jackasses than them. Nice going, Skeeter.

From Monday’s Anchorage Daily News comes this fine tidbit:

SOUTHWEST ALASKA — The nation’s second-largest jewelry retailer on Tuesday
joined the opposition to development of a gold and copper prospect in Southwest
Alaska.

Zale Corp. said it will boycott precious metals from the Pebble prospect if it
becomes a mine. Zale also said it supports permanently protecting the Bristol Bay
watershed from large-scale metals mining. Pebble is situated near the headwaters
of two of Bristol Bay’s salmon-spawning rivers. Five Bristol Bay rivers collectively
support the world’s largest wild-sockeye salmon fishery.

The Texas-based jewelry giant has 1,930 stores in the United States, Canada and
Puerto Rico.

Conservation group Earthworks and partners have now enlisted more than 30
jewelers to oppose Pebble development.

Canada’s Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. and London-based Anglo American
have formed the Pebble Partnership to work the Pebble prospect. John Shively,
chief executive of the partnership, said Zale coming out against Pebble is
nothing more than a meaningless publicity stunt.

“It is pretty easy for a company to come out against buying gold that doesn’t
exist at this point,” he said. “We are years away from construction. The
people managing that company now will probably be gone. Big deal.”

Field & Stream has picked up the “big deal” comment and run, but
(surprise, surprise) the Hook n’ Bullet crowd that comments over there has
somehow figured out how to turn it into a political condemnation – as if this issue
didn’t exist prior to 2008. Amazingly enough, the comments at ADN are
startlingly lucid.

Apparently, Shively couldn’t handle the pressure of not being an asshole in the
same league as Gail Phillips and Bruce Jenkins.

Be careful what you wish for, John…

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).

Nominated for an Award from the Nature Conservancy (Fuck those assholes and their access policie$)

November 20, 2009 

Mr. Donald L. Beaver, Jr.Chief Executive OfficerSpring Ridge Club, LLC

Dear Mr. Beaver, 

Congratulations! Spring Ridge Club was selected by an independent panel of judges as a finalist in the Investing in Nature program in the Ecotourism category. 

Selecting award finalists was a difficult task for our blue-ribbon panel of judges. It is an honor of which to be proud. There was a robust field of nominees from across

 Sincerely, 

Teresa Howell Saxton

Donor Relations Manager

  And from the newsletter, Cathy Beck on a private Lake Erie trib.

 Epol fixed it though:

Merry Christmas.

When your previous venture is tarred and feathered unmercilessly, change the name and hope no one notices. Way to go, Donny!!!!!!!

“These waters, now totaling over 30 miles, are dotted across central Pennsylvania’s undulating farmland from the Delaware Water Gap to just west of the Ohio border. Mr. Beaver’s venture, Spring Ridge Club, which was brought to fruition with the help of a few Founding Members, received wide acclaim and gained momentum quickly.”

Somehow, I really doubt that “acclaim” part.

“Not only does a membership to HomeWaters Club let you cherish time away with the most important people in your life, but it also allows you to pass on the privileges of membership to your children, who can pay it forward to their children.

There are few experiences in life that transcend generations and take root as traditions—HomeWaters Club offers the chance to Create a Legacy.”

Only if your legacy consists of being a fuckstick.

Membership to the HomeWaters Club is not something decided on a whim, or overnight. It is a commitment to protect the future of fly fishing for our grandchildren and their children. It is a commitment to devote quality time to our families and find time in solitude for ourselves. And, most importantly, it is a commitment to help preserve our precious waters so that nature’s gifts will continue to flow freely.

And make a lot of money illegally closing off a public resource.

From the FAQ

6. What about plans for the future? Will HomeWaters be expanding?
In 2001, the club began with two miles and six members. Seven years later, we now have over 75 miles and 180 members. During the next decade, HomeWaters will explore expansion options into the Shenandoah Valley, the western Carolinas, southwest Colorado, the Ozarks, Catskills, Jackson Hole, Park City, northern California and Bend, Oregon.

At least now we know where to be on the look out and who should stock up on bolt cutters and chains.

And finally, found comedy!

10. Will I catch fish?
Absolutely. No “skunk” days. As close to a sure thing as you can get.