The right way to bring in the new year is with a traditional meal of carp either poached, braised, boiled, broiled, grilled, smoked, fried or fricasseed.
The annual Hajj to the holy water commences at 0500 tomorrow, and by late afternoon I will be in Trout Camp with enough long rods to make the Village People blush, more lines than a Studio 54 bathroom on a Saturday night, and as usual, more flies than a Mexican Dump.
32 hour to go until the 2012 Bbay opener, fisha. When the Gun goes, I gots 120 hours to get my Big Trout Freak on before I get dragged kicking and screaming back to the real world.
Trending.
#SpringBling.
Game on, Fisha.
While scooping out the cat box this morning, our IT intern noted a few curious search engine phrases that have landed folks on BWTF in the past couple of months.
SEARCH TERM (FREQUENCY)
Trash art (39)
Bigfoot sightings (12)
Santa weed (9)
Better not disturb mah fishing (8)
Rose Wylie (7)
London water park (6)
Bitches and weed (6)
Quotes about boys being pricks (5)
Tasteless asshole pic (5)
Yutub (5)
Bird leg (5)
Good weed v. bad weed (5)
Smartassery (4)
Meat slab heart (4)
Screaming reel alarm clock (4)
Dirty hippie (4)
Green butt piggy (4)
While we’re not really sure what any of this means from a search engine optimization standpoint, it does beg the question:
Who are you people?
They said it wouldn’t work.
They said the fish wouldn’t hit one, no way. They hadn’t heard of it, so that means it must have never happened.
They said I was messin’ up the pool with that big floppy thing splashing all over the place.
They said it was a silly waste of a day, that I should tie on a Green Butt Skunk and swing it proper instead of doing what I was doing.
“Nobody throws mice at steelhead”, they said. “Steelhead don’t eat mice, and they don’t like splashy things.”
“We been doin’ this for years, son. Listen to what we’re sayin’ to you.”
By noonish, I had 11 more reasons not to listen to them.
Good reality TV if your reception’s tuned.
‘
Wherein the loud Americans once again get all wooty. First a word from the Hideous Jabbering Head of Izaak Walton with a nakkin on!
This is all the confidence that I can put on, concerning the merit of what is here offered to their consideration and censure; and if the last prove too severe, as I have a liberty, so I am resolved to use it, and neglect all sour censures. So eat chain, haters! Let’s blow some shit up!
The Presidents of the USA
“Whoever dares to look upon them as an irregular mob, will find himself much mistaken. They have men amongst them who know very well what they are about” -Brigadier Lord Hugh Percy after returning from Lexington Green, April 19th, 1775.
Know your rights.
Pile on, open fred, catch a fish, smoke a brisket, whatever. Happy 4th.
On pins and needles once again – the now-biannual pilgrimage to the holy water commences in 4 hours, 10 minutes, and 21 seconds.
Not like I’m counting, or anything.
Rods (minus one 7133, THANKS TO THE SLACKERS AT RL WINSTON), reels, more lines than a studio 54 bathroom, flies for days, scotch, babywipes, money hat, darth vader mask, cameras, muskrat trap, bugspray…it’s all packed, and it is taking all of my dubious self-control to keep from bouncing around the room shouting the LA LA LA song for the next few hours. While skipping. Or twirling something.
You might ask, what could possibly cause me to make such a spectacle of myself, even in private?
The prospect of finny love from the Bay’s big-ass trout, that’s what.
114 hours of madness commences tonight at midnight, fellas. Game…on.
Each year, right about this time, the serious fish arrive. They slip in with no warning, no fanfare. They are here on business. They travel under cover of darkness, cloaked by the high tide, aided by snowmelt. They come in, make their appointments, and leave. They do not often reveal themselves to the casual observer, and when they do, the vision is fleeting. They come from far-off currents and seamounts, and find shelter in the wildest water. The serious fish do not seek attention.
With the onset of spring, the snowfields begin their diel cycle of melt-freeze-melt, the Morse code of which can be read in the river. The flows rise and fall with these pulses of fresh blood, and where the sweetwater slides over brine, they do not go unnoticed. The serious fish feel the pulse, and go looking for the source. The rising tide lifts them over the bar, and the night shepherds them through the meadow and into the flow, proper. They rendezvous under logjams and in backeddies, resting and regrouping. The serious fish do not dally.
The annual spring freakout has arrived, and not a moment too soon. The Game has begun. It is now time to seek out the serious fish, to hold brief meetings with them in beautiful, clandestine places. It is time to not feel bad about lying to your best friends while looking them straight in the eye. Now is the time to stock up on granola bars, red bull, 2-cycle oil, AvGas, and PBR. Hot flies become currency, and first water is the holy grail to you and your ragtag collection of knights-errant. If your affairs are not in order it is too late, for The Game has begun.
Over the next 19 days, Game-plans will be drawn up during hours of darkness, and courses of action undertaken in the still hours before first light. There will be many miles flown, boated and walked, and there will be many meetings both planned and actualized. There are many metrics with which to measure The Game, but there is only one that is relevant.
473 hours left in The Game.
He was a balding glob with a patchwork sunburn and his accent suggested Tuscaloosa or Biloxi or maybe Shreveport.
The fish were prowling up and down the beach in front of his house. I assumed it was his house because he was standing on the balcony in his grippers and leaning on the rail and scratching his balls while pointing out what we already knew.
“They’re chasin MINNERS. Can’t y’all see them clouds a bait?”
We’d flubbed the first couple of shots but the tide was still cranking and the fish were still moving in and out of the bait swarm.
“Try a little ole silver spoon, or sumpthin. They won’t eat that damn HAIR.”
There was a bust at our twelve o’clock and a big shower of anchovies.
“Here comes a nuthern…BIG BASTARD…see that big white hole in the middle of that bait…he’s smack-dab in it!”
The fly landed and the fish elevated and nosed it and turned away. The fat man laughed and swigged his beer.
We stopped to change flies and he watched us from the balcony for a bit and then he hitched up his drawers and waddled inside.
When he came back out he was gashing on a sandwich the size of a coon and we were hair-tight to one of his goddamn tarpon.
Three new scalawags have joined the ranks, you might spot them before we get around to introducing them. This is because we’re lazy and forgetful, and fishing season is warming up and we’re sorta distracted. Enjoy.
off the couch, fatass!
Maybe an explanation is on order, but well, fuggit.
America continues its apparent national quest to despoil every square inch of the continent with the plan to truck large tar sand “modules” down HWY 200 in the Blackfoot Valley of Montana. The modules are about 3o feet tall, 24 feet wide and the length of a football field. Apparently the most direct route from their construction in Korea is from port at Lewiston, ID, through Montana and on up to Canada. Due to the width of the modules, both lanes of HWY 200 will be one direction and both sides of the road will be cleared for the additional 8 feet of clearance needed.
Not surprisingly, residents of the valley, which is the location of Norman Maclean’s “A River Runs Through It”, are pissed. They formed the grassroots org All Against the Haul to coordinate opposition to the project, which would severely alter the character of the valley and negatively impact the natural resources there.
As always, when oil and money combine, you get the politicians coming out of the woodwork to defend poor, helpless Exxon Mobile,; Politicians such as Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer. Here are some choice quotes from the good Governor in a NYT article along with some commentary:
“Chlorine, insecticides and fertilizers go down these roads in trucks every day,” he said. “If they spill, they would kill fish for 50 to 100 miles.”
Yes they do, but chlorine, insecticides and fertilizers are also packaged as HAZMAT, and are limited by CFR 49 to certain amounts per transportation method, all with the goal of not spilling. Yes accidents happen, but there is a world of difference between an 18 wheeler and the transporters moving these modules.
But the large loads, he said, “are inert, like big shoe boxes made of steel. If one fell in the river, they could be cut in half or taken out whole.” Until they were removed, he argued, “fish could spawn under them.”
Well fuck, I guess that makes it all better; Although the effort to remove the giant shoebox would probably destroy a fairly large swath of habitat.
Many residents worry that the loads will block emergency vehicles, but the governor said helicopters could provide transport.
And how many air ambulance helicopters does the area around Missoula have? A quick check indicates 2 and the cost for a 56 mile flight ranges from $12K to almost $17K. Medicaid and the insurance companies are going to love this.
But Mr. Schweitzer argues that the roads are a federally financed transportation corridor. “Montana can’t up and change the rules because we don’t like somebody,”
Umm, didn’t Montana tell the BATFE to take a flying leap with the Montana Firearms Freedom Act? Oh yeah, it did:
The bill was introduced January 13, 2009 by Joel Boniek, Gerald Bennett, Edward Butcher, Aubyn Curtiss, Lee Randall and Wendy Warburton. It was signed in to law by Governor Brian Schweitzer on April 15, 2009 and became effective on October 1, 2009.
So, the good Governor is perfectly content to tell the Feds to STFU when it comes to guns, but meekly accepts the rules when it comes to limiting damage to the Blackfoot Valley. Uh-huh
Go Vote
And Slint provides the “where to” answer at YourFuckingPollingPlace.com
Contrary to popular opinion, the active ingredient is AfroSheen™ and a blowout comb.
Good for a little Wild love in the dark.
The great Friday Night Buzzer Beater, as photographed by Chou-dog.
