Big Ups to the SacTown Posse and the Truckee RiffRaff Association for the good times last week. Barring liver-replacement therapy and/or a sudden, inexplicable aversion to whoop-ass good sushi and company, I will be down for the Show next year.

Things we should probably remember for next year:

If you meet a girl with a large bird tattoo, don’t ask her why she decided to get a big cock on her back.

Fro’s is too damn expensive for people in the fly fishing industry, but staying away from food that good is tough.

Regardless of your intent, “Golden Water” is not a phrase to be used in the presence of hot waitresses unless you feel the need to be known among the waitstaff as “the guy with the pee thing”.

No more than 3 tall bastards in a drinking circle.

If you get 2am taco debris all over your iPhone while Siri is giving you directions, simple 5 minute drives can and will turn into 40-minute, 5-freeway clown-car rodeos.

Karma has a way of catching up with lowholers – wait until they fall in before yelling at them.

Just because April was at that one bar last year doesn’t necessarily mean there will be hot chicks there this year.

Using awkward hand signals while vaguely referencing obscure fishing practices is not a good idea in the company of smartass fishing guides.

Thanks to JerkBait and the Loose Cannon for lettin’ me ride shotgun all week, and if I ever find my phone, I’ll make sure to get that video of the Hooters chick riding the “Barstool Bull” into your sweaty hands.

Somewhere in Texas, on a roadkill-spattered North-South state highway, there is a sign. It is a simple, modest sign, warped, whitewashed and carefully lettered with one word near and dear to my heart and an accompanying arrow pointing vaguely to the Southwest.

Just past this sign is a small camper with an awning, 2 tables, and another sign. The words on this sign are familiar as words, but as concepts they are far-ranging and can hold satisfaction or stark misery depending upon the disposition, aspirations, and general hygiene of the person or persons on the business end of the sign.

If a quick glance was all that was needed to determine the outcome, there isn’t much of a chance that this particular trailer would have much of a dog in the hunt. However, the combination of curiosity and hunger is often enough to overlook the decor and outward appearance that would otherwise lend itself well to the abattoir of your everyday teenage brain surgeon.

The ordinary cliché of  “a diamond in the rough” is an unfortunate choice of metaphor, but for a beat-down taco trailer on the outskirts of a burnt-up town, I think it will do nicely.

If you happen to be on a roadkill-spattered North-South state highway in the middle of Texas and see this sign, do yourself a favor and stop. Ask the nice man for a Taco al Pastor with everything, and while you are at it, get a bottle of Mexican coke with all its cane-sugary goodness.

You will not be disappointed.

I’ve seen what oilfield transportation corridors do to the economy and community of a region. It is a hurly-burly low-wage twenty-four hours/seven days a week service industry that does not build community. - Rick Bass, Author

The first big beneficiaries of this hijacking will be a Korean steel company hired at the expense of Canadian steel workers, and Exxon—the richest corporation in the world: the losers will be the American people, starting with us. - David James Duncan, Author

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

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 River Tay, Scotland, Aug 21 2010
After last night’s gig up in the highlands one of the staff at the joint we were staying got a little too deep into the scotch resulting in, so we heard, an offense to some ancient clan, the muttering of disagreeable oaths and inevitably, a bit of a dust up. The Royal Order of thee Hee-lund Coppers were summoned, tears of regret were spilled and some punter was hauled off to the clink. Amidst all that donnybrook sleep was tough to come by so I took a wee doze on the drive down to Crail, on the SE coast. To get to Crail, you gotta drive right through St. Andrew’s, which is where a lot of serious golf is performed. You can tell it’s a golf town by the incredible numbers of “slacks” people wear in combo with those those tasteful shirts golfers are so fond of. St. Andrew’s is “quaint” and “charming” and, just to make sure one is aware that it is also “historic” and “Scottish”, they like to spell the word golf “gowf”. Yeah, that’s fooking hilarious, Alisdair!
I woke up about halfway to the gig, outside the town of Pitlochry, just as we were crossing over a big, fishy looking river. Generally there are no signs in Scotland telling you where the fuck you are, where the fuck you are going or how long it’s gonna take you to get there, but for some reason there was a sign and that sign said, “Hey, Fuck You Thee, Here’s The River Tay And You Ain’t Fishing It.” Shit.
To make an already shitty situation even shittier, just as we were crossing the bridge there was a dude stepping into the drink with a spey rod locked and loaded. We, of course, drove right on by. God. Fucking. Dammit. As they are fond of saying over here, I was gutted.
I bribed our driver with a cold, half-eaten chunk of Steak and Ale pie that I had been saving for my lunch and we were able to pull over about 20 minutes later. We pulled into a sorta high-end subdivision and I jumped out of the car, ran down a dog-shitty path, found the river and took a pic.  If, like me, you’ve never fished the Tay before, you might be a bit surprised to find that it’s one huge fucking river. The bit I saw — which I now believe was pretty cost to the Firth (estuary) of Tay — really didn’t have any discernible features other than it’s bigness, and to tell ya the truth, it looked a lot better up by the bridge where the dude with the spey was about to battle the constant — and I mean constant — 40 mph winds.
I got a magazine-thing called “Fish in Scotland” from the Scottish tourist board the other day. The word on the Tay is that, “It is one of the best Salmon rivers in the United Kingdom, and therefore the world.” I had a chuckle and thought, “yeah… sure” But who the fuck knows. It didn’t believe it because I am incredibly bitter and to accept that a river I crossed without fishing may, indeed, be one of the finest salmon rivers in the world is simply too close to self-flagellation. I am in enough pain.
In all honesty, the Tay really could be one of the finest rivers in the world. It could totally suck. Don’t ask me. I didn’t fish it the goddam thing.
We drove away and after a while we passed over the River Earn. I only got a quick glace and really have nothing to report about this sweet little river for alas,  there are only so many rivers that I can’t fish in a day.

Dorbach Burn, Scotland, Aug 21, 2010
Just for the record, “Burn” in Scots-talk means “creek”, but remember that “burn” is pronounced “bahh-err-ne. It’s sorta like in the American west how the word “creek” is pronounced “crick”. See, despite all our differences, we have a few things in common — such as the stubborn refusal of anglers to speak in anything resembling a language that non-fishing pedestrians can understand. In Scotland, this inside baseball shit is compounded by the fact that Scottish is in no way close to the American that I’ve been speaking and listening to for the entirety of my years. Two different languages and never the twain shall meet. Fer’inst: in certain bars — uh, pubs — in Glasgow, the preferred greeting to yr pals is something along the lines of, “Ay, wood ye git ay lood ay dees coonts!” So there’s that.

The Scottish highlands remind me of parts of Wyoming in that both are jammed full of lovely bits of contented, meandering nothingness — although in Scotland the backdrop is without the crushing heft of huge mountains — tho the Scots get a bit fiesty if you refer to their hills as just that — hills. Some advice: Let it slide. If they wanna call their hills mountains, fuck it. Let them. You don’t wanna start haggling over minor shit with a Scotsman as THEY WILL NEVER FUCKING LET IT GO! The other night, right before the gig, this punter comes up to me and says, “Ay… ye know wha laddie?
I dunno, what?
“In Sco-lund, we invented coont-ra music, man.”
Rilly?
“Aye… ’tis troo.”
Read more »

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.

“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

From the skilled hands of long-time Buster compadre Jay H. comes one of the stylier ways to get to the river we’ve laid eyes on:

The box measures 40″ x 20″ x 10″, all aluminum frame/rack, bed is marine grade ply, sides are mahogany, w/3 coats of varnish, 16″ wheels. According to Jay, the whole rig weighs 24lbs. soaking wet, will carry 40lbs. with ease and parking isn’t much of a problem.

Complete wiff rod tubes, which can hold up to 3 rods each:

Extra points for the Buster sticker on the back. Well done, sir.

We were somewhere around Ashton on the edge of the lower Henry’s Fork when the drugs began to take hold. Drugs, in this case, being obscene amounts of high-octane caffeine as an antidote to yesterday’s profusion of cheap beer, the rapid intake of which started immediately following breakfast and which still seems to linger in our systems like the occasional engine pinging you get from budget gasoline. I remember saying something like, “I feel like that hippie behind the counter back in Jackson dosed my burrito; maybe you should drive…”

Day 5 of a bender – a blur of stumbling in the rain down barely existent trails to obscure sections of otherwise famous rivers, of long days in driftboats, a bass tournament, convenience store sausage and egg breakfasts, smelly gear, smellier dogs and even smellier humans, of fishing as the reason for the expenditure of every bit of energy and cash we could muster. There was a brief moment in the haze of day 4 when my toes dangled over the greasy precipice of truly seeing this thing through till it ran into the ground, however long and wherever that might take me (even if it meant Utah…), and damn the reasons for turning back. And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, which turned out to be stoneflies, all swooping and screeching and diving around the truck, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the pedal to the metal through a rainstorm toward Last Chance….