A Lynn Canal Orca, gettin’ into the Olympic spirit by playing with its food.

169% awesome photography by the Ugly American – the whole sequence (and a bunch of other Überbitchin’ photos) can be found at The Admiralty Report.

Dear International Fly Tackle Dealer Show,

First, I have to give credit where credit is due – a huge amount of energy goes into creating and supporting this show every year, and for this I have to give you kudos. It is a high-profile event that showcases our beloved sport, or at least the gear that fuels the sales that fuels the industry of our beloved sport.

But here is where I am increasingly scratching my head – you seem to be honestly concerned, and puzzled, about why there isn’t more retailer involvement and attendance at IFTD. From my perspective, on the other hand, working for a major fly shop/outfitter, I truly don’t understand how the reasons could be any more obvious. But since there seems to be continuing confusion around this, I thought I’d take a moment to explain why I lamentably won’t be attending.

1) August. Really? One of our busiest months of the entire year, and I think I’m probably speaking for the majority of shops around the country when I say this (saltwater locations notwithstanding). If IFTD was held in October, heck – even late September, I’d be more than happy to attend. But the middle of August?!? Let’s be honest. There is only one reason IFTD is held at this time of year – because it’s what a small group of highly influential manufacturers wants, and retailers be damned. If you want to know why IFTD is dying a death of a thousand cuts, start not with a lack of retailer involvement (which is really only a symptom, not the cause), and instead look at the stubborn and self-absorbed dictates of this small group of manufacturers.

2) Unveiling Next Year’s Products in the Middle of the Current Season. One of the key functions of IFTD is for manufacturers to unveil new products for next year. However, as a shop that sells these products, we are still in the middle of our peak season in August, trying to dutifully sell product for this year. Honestly – do you think it helps us as a retailer when we are still trying to sell this year’s products (hopefully at full price) in the middle of our season, and you’re already unveiling next year’s new schwag, letting consumers know what will be discontinued/replaced, etc? Again, if the manufacturers would simply wait until the current season is at least winding down for the majority of us, this would make our jobs a lot easier. But again, this just reinforces the perception that when it comes to IFTD, what actually works for retailers is not a real priority.

3) Demonstrated Value. As noted above, you’re asking retailers to take time away from their shops in what is, for most of us, the busiest part of our season. By the time that we fly two of our staff to a distant location, cover hotel rooms, bar tabs, meals, and sundry other expenses (and cover for a staffing shortage in the shop back home for 5 days during our peak), we are probably looking at a several thousand dollar expense, or more, depending on the locale. Am I, as a retailer, getting a real return that at least meets my investment on this? Am I gaining valuable information I wouldn’t obtain otherwise, without such an expense? Nothing so far has convinced me that this is the case, and these are the hard pragmatic decisions that I have to make, not being blessed with an infinite budget. I’ll go ahead and say it – I think IFTD has failed miserably at demonstrating a return on investment for retailers.

Sure, IFTD is a great party and a fun time to catch up with friends and meet new ones. And the Film Fest is always a good time. And undoubtedly, some useful networking happens at IFTD. Trust me – I would really love to attend. But the only conclusion that I can come to is that retailer presence is simply not a priority for IFTD, or else the reasons cited above wouldn’t continue to be ignored. Otherwise, it amounts to not much more than some pretty costly socializing, during a time of year when I’ve got a lot of work to do, in what I continue to believe (perhaps naively) is the real heart of the industry – an independent fly shop and outfitter.

And so, in the meantime, I can’t help but continue to shake my head and laugh whenever I hear industry insiders trading ideas on how to “fix” IFTD. Did anyone bother to ask us, the retailers? Or truly take our responses seriously? Because I can tell you, it’s never been a mystery to most of the fellow retailers I’ve talked to. It’s simple – make it work for us, and show us the value, and we’ll be there. Otherwise, continue IFTD on the path it’s on, and best of luck. But please, don’t feign puzzlement if and when it goes the way of the dodo.

I’m looking forward to not hearing the phrase, “poor man’s bonefish.” Ever. Again.

I’m looking forward to this not being seen as just a short-lived, hipster trend.

I’m looking forward to someone actually giving me a legitimate definition of ‘trash fish.’

I’m looking forward to not hearing highly-biased opinions from people who’ve never tried it.

I’m looking forward to this fish finally getting the respect it deserves, on par with some of the toughest, and most worthy, game fish around.

But if none of that happens, and only a few weirdos continue to bother chasing these cool beasts, well shit, that’s just fine too.

Big props for laughs to Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer today. Like in many other states, Montana’s tea-drunk conservo-muppets have been flailing around introducing tough-guy bills like SB-112 – “An Act Providing that a Hand-Thrown Spear Must be Considered a Lawful Means of Hunting.” AW YEAH OOGA BOOGA!

This morning on the radio Governor Schweitzer said that he’ll use an “amendatory veto” on it, which will send it back to the Montana State Houses with the provision that spear hunting must only be performed while wearing a small blaze orange loincloth (with maximum size requirements, you know, for the ladies), and nothing else. The Governor seemed anxious to put this matter behind him so that he could move on to another of their stack of Frodo-fantasy bills about seceding from the United States or something. Anyway, KILLIN STUFF CONAN-STYLE IN MONTANA!

Personally, I’m waiting for the matching necktie.

Simple.

Define “trash fish.”

Go.

(submission to “Vans Trash Art Contest” by Rodney McCoubrey. Learn more here.)

“When people ask what my best work is, it’s the bus. I thought you ought to be living your art, rather than stepping back and describing it.”

- Ken Kesey

After G_Smolt’s thoroughly tasteless post advocating bead bouncing with a bamboo stick, we felt it was time to get back on track, appeal to our literate readers and pull this place out of the gutter.

But then, well, we got distracted.

Capr fishing explained:

Even dead, he can still kick Tie Domi’s ass.

“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)

“Eventually, all gutters merge into one canal, and something kind of resembling a river runs through it. The channel was cut by the Army Corps of Engineers and runs over riprap from the basement of time. On some of the riprap are timeless pieces of plastic and other detritus. Under the riprap are things best left alone.
I am haunted, and sometimes a little scared, by urban waters.”

BP Spills Coffee – watch more funny videos

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.

 ”It’s premature for any reasonable person to formulate an opinion on whether this project’s benefits outweigh the risks.”

- Bruce Jenkins, COO of Northern Dynasty Minerals (quoted from the film, “Red Gold“)

Fast forward. Reported last week in the Anchorage Daily News:

“The companies seeking to develop the massive Pebble mine prospect in Southwest Alaska have agreed to pay a $45,000 fine to the state for unauthorized use of water at their drilling sites.

State regulators said Friday they have suspended the permits for exploration at the Pebble copper and gold deposit…”

More here.

So, Mr. Jenkins, if I have this straight, your company can’t even be trusted to do something as basic as draw water from the correctly permitted sources for some comparatively small-scale drilling, but you want us to trust you with building and operating the largest open pit mine in North America on the headwaters of critical wild salmon habitat?

Not a fucking chance.

Just Go Here

Received from Buster’s friend Alex upon ascending Oregon’s Matterhorn and being showered with rocks by a goat:

“DO NOT BUY YOUR GOAT STUFF FROM THIS GOAT – HE IS A TOTAL DICK!“

If you happen to be one of those people who still have confidence that Northern Dynasty, the company behind the proposed Pebble Mine, will somehow run an entirely clean operation with no impact on the surrounding environment, or that ND’s COO, Bruce Jenkins, is truly being honest when he says things like, “it’s premature for any reasonable person to formulate an opinion about whether or not this project’s benefits outweigh the risks,” just consider that one method Northern Dynasty has proposed for disposal of its toxic tailings is to pump the waste into Lake Iliamna, and/or other surrounding lakes. For those unfamiliar with the area, Lake Iliamna is the largest freshwater lake in all of Alaska, home to the headwaters of critical salmon spawning rivers, and to the people who live along its shores and depend on its salmon runs.

On Monday, July 5th, in a vote of 6-3, the Supreme Court made it far easier for Northern Dynasty to pursue that possibility if it chooses to do so, by upholding a definition put forth by the Bush Administration to label mine tailings as “fill” rather than pollution, therefore skirting around prohibitions stated in the Clean Water Act. While the ruling in question concerned the Kensington gold mine in southeast Alaska (owned by Coeur), which had petitioned to be able to dispose of its tailings into nearby Slate Lake, it is also one method that is being considered by the Pebble Mine as well. Yesterday’s ruling makes it a much more likely possibility given that other disposal methods tend to be a lot more costly.

Damn the justices of the Supreme Court who voted in favor this ruling (Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia, Breyer and Kennedy); a ruling which undermines the very type of thing that the Clean Water Act was intended to outlaw. Far beyond merely the Bristol Bay issue, however (as if that isn’t bad enough), this ruling opens the doors to a potentially devastating amount of impact to our watersheds wherever mining activity occurs.

Read Alaskan commercial fisherman Izetta Chambers’ passionate op-ed piece on the Supreme Court ruling in the recent Anchorage Daily news.

For more on this decision, and other recent, quietly-made Supreme Court decisions which help protect corporate polluters, in the recent L.A. Times: Justices Ok Dumping Mine Waste in Lakes.

And if you’ve somehow been living under a rock and haven’t heard about the Pebble Mine, or the award-winning film by Feltsoul titled, “Red Gold,” check the trailer and learn more here.

Down goes the Yellowstone Club, and the NY Times is there to write a fawning, bizzaro obituary both for the club and its nut case owners. A case of just desserts for the ultra rich? Jealous vengence? A morality play set upon the gates of Yellowstone? A warning to other knuckleheads attempting to do the same thing in other, much less desirable settings (Yes, I’m looking at you, Red’s Fly Shop/Canyon River Ranch)? Whatever you may wish to call it, please do enjoy the wreckage, anglers!

“Some homes had private elevators, wine cellars, movie theaters and spas, and one spec house — called the River Runs Through It home — featured an all-glass passageway to the guest quarters with a heated river flowing beneath it. For a while, the club had $1,000-a-head New Year’s Eve bashes, a sommelier and concierge service.”

From our friends at Fly Talk comes this crazy ass pic:

(photo by Cliff Watts)

Yes, that’s a bird leg sticking out of a bass’s throat, and the beast still took a fly.

Read the story and more pics here.