DEP investigates spill at gas well site in Washington Co.

“…the spilled condensate was discovered last Thursday by a township employee inspecting a gas pipeline facility nearby. The spill had run into Bigger Run Creek, a tributary of Raccoon Creek. He had no information about whether fish or aquatic life were killed, but cleanup crews placed absorbent material in the creek on Friday.”

Hey Front Range – maybe you should have wondered where the water was going to come from before you approved all the rampant development of the last couple decades? Just sayin’…

Fly-Fishing Industry Threatened by Congress, says AFFTA chair Jim Klug. They’re shocked, I tell you, SHOCKED!

It’s been awhile since we’ve given away any free shit. Comment #69 wins this never worn, never seen Buster Prototype hat from the bacon_to_fry_collection*. Be the first on your river to sport this bad boy. We’ll also throw in some stickers. Limit three comments per reader.

*Hat courtesy of one fine Tennersee Truck Stop

Towanda Creek is a small Susquehanna trib in northern PA. It’s a put & take trout stream at its upper end, and becomes more of a smallmouth thing later on. There’s a thousand streams just like it, maybe you know one or two.

It already suffered from low summer flows before the hydrofrackers moved in and started drawing water off to mix with sand and salt and proprietary chemical brewskis to make fracking fluid to be injected into their gas wells. Thousands of gallons of water are used for this, and it’s gotta come from somewhere, and in July you can just hope they leave enough for the fish.

Fish find ways to survive low flows. Well, some of them do anyway, at least for a while, we hope. But now there’s been an accident at a gas well near the headwaters, and words like “uncontrolled”  and “blowout” and “emergency” are being used to describe the spill of fracking fluid that swamped the well site and dumped into poor Towanda Creek. Shares of Chesapeake Energy Corporation, named after the bay to which their vomitous oopsie will ultimately flow, are up 3%. Way to go, pricks.

Recently it’s been brought to my attention (several times) that fly fishermen tend to be backstabbing, petty, vindictive, self-righteous, and downright misanthropic (and not in the good way). This is not in reference to the fly vs. gear fishing dichotomy, we’ve all heard that story and the narrative is both deeply ingrained and repetitive. I’m not going to pick up that rotten salmon and try to revive it.

Lately these conversations that I’ve had (both electronically and in real life with actual beer and inarticulate grunting pauses) have been about the venom that we fly-fishermen seem to have for one another. For a group of people that cultural and linguistic theorists would lump together in a singular “Discourse Community”, we sure do seem to hate one another, and I am as guilty as the rest of you. Think about it, how many times have you wished brutal bodily harm on the guy who got to that one hole you’ve been dreaming about before you did? How many curses have you flung (either under your breath or at the top of your lungs) at the boat that cut you off just as you were getting set up for a productive bank? How many of us have heard and told the stories of stream-side fist fights or (at least here in Montana) drawn firearms?

For me the bile rarely manifests in riverside confrontations; that’s not my style. Besides, when I’m actually fishing it’s pretty hard to piss me off.  I tend to get all itchy in the crotch when it comes to the things that happen around the making of money in relation to fly-fishing, especially in the writing and publishing arenas. I particularly spend far too much time (both in my head and out loud) bitching about people “in the industry”. I do this either to their faces, their inboxes, or just to other people that I happen to know (or have some sort of magical internet connection with).

Currently I’ve been talking a whole lot of shit about a guide/writer who seems to have made it his mission to sell out some of the few secrets that remain in this heavily fished part of the country. The truth is that I think destination writers are the scourge of the artistic earth. In my view they are either lazy or lacking in actual talent and so they have to get their work published on the strength of a little known resource rather than on the merit of their wordsmithing. Usually I verbalize this in a less tempered and more reactionary way however, criticizing the person’s worth as a human being rather than even attempting to see the world from his or her perspective. The thing is, I know this guy, he’s a nice guy. I don’t want to “eat his children” as Mike Tyson once said, and I don’t actually think he’s “a pathetic meatpuppet with the articulative capacity of an ocelot and the dental hygiene of a camel” as I said to a friend about him last week. But I do wish he would shut the fuck up and stop writing about the places that guides fish when they’re not guiding. There’s a reason that we don’t take clients there.

A certain industry magazine and I had a falling out last summer when they wrote up the two shops in this area that I think are solely interested in pimping out the fisheries and making the money. I wrote an overly dramatic and long-winded email to the editor who responded by essentially telling me to calm the hell down. He went on to say (quite politely) that I should be careful about where I deposit my excrement considering that we are all trying to eat off the same table. It was the same advice my father gave me when I was a freshman in college and I slept with two girls who both lived on the same floor that I did (sorry Dad, but it appears that I’m not that quick a study, I’m getting the same advice about proximity of shitting and eating 15 years later).  I was probably making way too much out of nothing, and introducing a whole lot of negative back-talk for no good reason. Perhaps the editor was right. I have no right to stand in judgment, but yet I judge all the same. We all draw our lines in the sand according to our interpretation of morality–”Across this line you DO NOT!”–it’s just that mine happens to be the right one.

None of this is new ground. I’m not saying anything original here. If there is a point to my rant, it is to say this: I lament the anger that I feel toward all those other fishermen, especially the soulless industry types (who are in actuality generally really nice guys) and I realize that I have no justification for it, but I feel it just as strongly and just as viscerally as ever.

So for those of you who will curse my name this coming year: I salute you. As a good friend of mine used to say (it really was his mantra), “we’re all assholes, every last one of us”. Amen, and fuck you.

Post Script– Please do note that I didn’t actually mention any names in the above narrative. That’s gotta be worth something, right karma? RIGHT?

Rock Creek is under attack by the same sort of internationalist cocksuckers that have no reserve when it comes to bending over the very landscape for a quick fuck and a buck in places like Bristol Bay, Chetco River and so on.  You needn’t worry about the buck, pilgrim.

Read the fuck on.

And yes, you are correct to assume that the cocksuckers have the bond by now.

A challenge to Montana’s Stream Access Law working its way through the State Legislature. Yep, Anglers are rightfully opposed.

The hilariously named Idaho Governor, Butch Otter, gets all foamy and sad over new federal regulations to protect the bull trout. He should go cry on Larry Craig’s shoulder. Also, the Idaho Reporter gets my nod for “best headline”.

In “not at all related” news, 1 in 5 anglers had to either cancel a trip or stop fishing an area due to access problems.

In good news, Florida FWC drafts rule to make bonefish a C&R gamefish protected from harvest.

From The Bay Daily:

Law-breaking on the water is so common that 43 percent of the active watermen in Maryland were charged with violating the state’s commercial oystering and fishing laws in 2008, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources figures quoted in the report.

 “It’s a severe problem,” aquaculture specialist Dr.Donald Meritt of the University of Maryland says in the report. “I don’t like to use the word ‘poaching,’ because ‘poaching’ gives it almost a sportsman’s connotation, and it’s not. It’s theft.”

I’m in a bit of rush, so I’ll follow up on this later.

Enemy of Clean Water and the Santa Rita Mountains Jamie Sturgess, VP of Rosemont Copper 

I’ve written periodically and somewhat haphazardly about our own local pit mine, the Rosemont Copper mine, which will be gouged into the east slope of the Santa Rita Mountains. Despite the economic downturn and the attendant plunge in commodity prices, which I hoped would be a death knell for this project, Rosemont is  barreling full steam ahead. Last week, Rosemont had a full on propaganda blitz in town and the linked article is full of great mis-information. Of course, the aptly misnamed VP of Sustainability, Jaime Sturgess, (falsely) claimed that Rosemont would fully recharge the aquifer to compensate for the mine’s water draw to conduct cyanide heap leaching.

However, his most honest statement was that “[w]e’ve known right from the get-go that we had to have the best approach and the best way to communicate it so people would allow us to open a new mine.” Which means, “we really had to figure out which package of bullshit you wanted to hear so we could blast open a moutain range, draw down the aquifer, dump cyanide in what water remains, and best part of all, skip town when the price of copper drops.”

Due to the 1872 Mining Law, if the price of copper drops, the Candian company Rosemont gets to declare bankruptcy, shutter the mine, lay off the locals and leave it to someone else to clean up the mess. That’s what Jaime Sturgess neglected to mention.

Personally, I’m waiting for the matching necktie.

The Pebble Limited Partnership CEO has called those who oppose development of the Pebble Mine, wait for it, “Legal Terrorists” (Video Link)

It’s official- if you believe in clean water, sustainable living and protecting America’s fisheries, both commercial and recreational, you are a terrorist. Words have lost all meaning now.

A big hat tip to Headwaters for the video link.

Just lobbed across the wire from the TU AK security bunker somewhere on Douglas Island…

National Geographic December 2010 article on Bristol Bay

While you are there, take a look at the Photo Gallery that goes with the words.

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.

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

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.

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.

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).