The last best place money can buy...

The New York Times made it out to Victor, Montana to cover the ongoing battle over stream access rights. The current story centers around Mitchell Slough, a historic tributary of the Bitterroot. Unfortunately, Huey Lewis, a corporate rock musician/hack from the 80s has chosen to live there. His neighbors include equally repellant characters the likes of Charles Schwab, some Las Vegas sleezeball and Kenneth F. Siebel, managing director of Private Wealth Partners. (One hopes that it's a fenced community that protects us from these fanged and shameless bloodsuckers). Anyway, these folks think they now own the river. Montana thinks otherwise: Heroic Money quote from Gov. Schweitzer:

“If you want to buy a big ranch and you want to have a river and you want privacy,” he said, “don’t buy in Montana. The rivers belong to the people of Montana.”

Digression: Baseball

It is late, late July and somehow, my Detroit Tigers own the best record in all of baseball, and even my adopted Seattle Mariners have stumbled into a playoff race. An offering to the baseball gods.

Fly Fishing mags and the internet

During my (most recent) period of sloth, the entire "Dead tree media vs. the Blogs" debate has shifted over to Trout Underground -- which is fine, I reckon... I mean... they're a much better blog than we are, so huzzah! to them. Anyway, as a footnote to this discussion, I must note that the entire notion of "expert" fly fishing writers still makes me laugh. I've been a writer (Rolling Stone, MTV, SOMA, Seattle Weekly, coupla books, etc.) and editor (Boise Weekly, Dispatch, The Rocket, Amazon.com, WineX, etc.) my entire career, so I've seen an entire forest of horrible writing. However, perhaps the WORST SINGLE PIECE OF WRITING I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE CAREER came during a rude brush with the braindead editorial staff of Fish and Fly mag. Editing a piece from some illiterate Michigan steelhead guide, I simply could not fathom the utter shittiness of the writing. That the editor of this pile of ABSOLUTE HORSESHIT was even attempting to push this through the editorial process was dumbfounding.
No, I certainly don't think fly fishing mags are going anywhere -- well, a few may end up in the shitter -- but there will always be room for some -- not all, of course, but some. But one only need consider the ever-expanding voice of blogs in the popular media to see their influence. To think that this same influence would not spill over into FF media is, of course, naieve. Fly fishing blogs now exert a new pressure on the print media. That pressure, as we now see, seems to be rather uncomfortable for some. Too bad...

D. Micus goes west (photos)

Stuff we wonder about but never bother stopping at on the way to a fishing trip... Only one problem: it's too short! More Dave!

Fly fishing classics? Yeah, we got that...

Here's a great little excerpt from An Angler's Rambles and Angling Songs, written by Scotsman Thomas Tod Stoddart (1810 – 1880). David Profumo describes Stoddart thus: “ … a fishing author from the Scottish Borders who devoted his entire adult life to the sport. In his journal, the redoubtable Thomas Tod Stoddart records that in fifty years he caught some 67,419 fish (not including eels). Regarded in his heyday as the literary heir to Izaak Walton, he was the presiding spirit of Scottish fishing and was dubbed by John Buchan ‘the Poet Laureate of Angling’; these days he is largely forgotten, except for a remark that has entered piscatorial mythology. On re-meeting a childhood acquaintance, Tom was asked what he was now doing in life; a little resentfully, he replied, ‘Doing? Doing? Mon, I’m an angler.’”

You gotta be asking yourself right now... Can it get better?

"Old Lyon was in the habit of devoting the greater part of the day to the assortment of his tackle, one hour at the most being appropriated to the testing of it; and the capture of a brace of trout giving occasion to a fit of pedantic ecstasy which usually exploded in a quotation, as long as my arm, from Horatius Flaccus, or some other renowned classic. The military octogenarian was astir on his pins by day-break, up and at them, while the trout still lay snug under their coverlets. His march back to breakfast was in double quick time, and in double quick time he tucked in under his belt Tibby's ham and eggs, a relay of fried trout, scones, bannocks and wheaten loaf, with the proportional supply of milk (he abjured tea or coffee),then sallying forth, showed face no more until the verge of dusk, when in he strode with all the dignity his veteran form could muster; and, disburdening himself of his creel, shouted 'Attention' with the voice of a Stentor, emptying, as he did so, from the old-fashioned wicker-work, a dozen or two of trout so ridiculously, in point of size, unlike what we were led to expect, that Tibby, as she held out the dish to receive them, was in the habit of exclaiming, 'Ye ne'er got thae in oor Loch, Captain B. Ye hae been up the burn, I'se warrant, an' a sair day's wark ye'll have had o't."

shop geeks, BB typers, fly tiers: your evening plans have been set

hot girl. flyfishing. seattle. draw the shades this time, stud.

Tullis, Trout Underground and the blogs

As I blogged previously, the discussion regarding the dead tree fly fishing media and the pixil killing fly fishing blogs continues, both at the Fly Fisherman site and in my comments section, and while there have been both insightful comments and some moronic spit jabbering, the most enlightening comment comes from Tom over at the fab Trout Underground.
Money Quote:

I get better than 10,000 visits per month; I've got an audience, I get lots of great feedback, and I do it when and how I want.

No editors asking me for something about the latest nymphing techniques. No marketing. No worrying about what's "saleable" and what's not. No ridiculous $350 payments. Lots of pictures.

It's fun. And frankly, it's the best reflection of my passion for the sport I can imagine.

And it comes complete with a real, live community of readers who respond to my posts with thoughts of their own, something I simply wouldn't get from publishing a book.

Face it, magazines are paying next to nothing because they can. A lot of editorial work is being written for next to nothing by wannabes and those looking to make a name for themselves. That's OK, but the quality is nothing to write home about. And the range of subject matter is positively claustrophobic.

There are options for people who write. Some of us are availing ourselves of them. Doesn't mean paper publishing is dead, but like anything else, it needs to find its way in an era when how we gather and read information is changing.

Damn! 10,000 readers a month?!! Starting TODAY, we quit the slacking at AHW....

even more sports insanity

garth snow, your new Islanders GM.

jack mitchell award nominee!

in a normal world, i'd never post about NBA basketball, but i live in seattle, so what the hell. this post pretty much sums up the state of what's happening up here in a former NBA town.

OPEN THREAD!

C'mon.... get it off your chest. Rants, digressions, links, comments, questions, koans, iambic pentameter. Post in comments, please.

reminder: bobby knight is a fly fisherman

and a staunch american, apparently. i simply cannot watch this too many times.

fact: jim harrison can sleep comfortably in the bottom of a driftboat

You won't find that fact in this piece, but they are, nonetheless, doing good work at New West, a web mag devoted to... well, the west. We recently linked to a Thom McGuane interview and now, we link to a profile of Jim Harrison. Not too shabby!
Money Quote:

Harrison is slightly walleyed. Shaking his hand, if you want to look him in the eye you're not quite sure how to go about it. "My left eye is blind and jogs / like a milky sparrow in its socket...the front teeth, bucked, / but not in lechery – I sucked / my thumb until the age of twelve." Pushing seventy now, he's missing a tooth or two and his hair recalls a dandelion gone to seed, two-thirds blown clean. A man who has devoted his life to the artful and moving presentation of words on a page, the perfect reduction of emotion into a sentence or two, his own upkeep has apparently received less attention.

reading the signs

Over at Fly Fisherman, Larry Tullis asks about the current state of the fly fishing publishing industry. I've certainly got no beef with Mr. Tullis, but I find this comment to be a bit off base:

Granted, there are many passionate angling writers out there that would and do write for little or nothing just to help pass on valuable info. That doesn't help the industry as a whole when you lose those who need to see a profit from their efforts or they simply can't afford to spend their valuable time writing. Would you be more inclined to believe an medical article by a doctor or an eager amateur? If we like books and articles by industry pros, we need to support the printed hardcopy publishing industry more. Build up your fly fishing libraries and suscribe to quality magazines.

Yes, the term "industry pros" does make me chortle but the glaring omision in Tullis's post seems to be the blogosphere. Take a look at the sidebar ---> Moldy Chum, Trout Underground, Flytimes... that's the evolution Mr. Tullis seems to have overlooked.

setting dry fly fishing back at least 100 years

At least Frederick M. Halford could be an entertaining writer. This... well this (link goes to archive page, select "nympholepsy" for the gold) makes me want to buy a 500 yard spool of 8lb maxima and tie up a box of 150 deer hair sculpins -- heavily weighted! Moonbat Quote:

So what about the possessed ones? Fly fishermen are the only people in the world haughty enough to call a San Juan Worm a fly. Or a nymph a fly. It's bait! Artificial bait at that. Just because a person can afford to buy a fly rod it doesn't make that person a fly fisherman. Don't get your dander up. I know sometimes the hatches are scarce or non-existent. Maybe a person could get desperate to catch a fish. So he fishes a Hare's Ear Nymph. Does that count against him in the great book somewhere? Only the keeper of the great book knows that.

Perhaps I should be grateful the people fishing nymphs have graduated to nymphs from whatever bait they were using. Maybe they will mature and grow to enjoy the total experience of fly fishing. They might glimpse the joy and contentment visible on the upstream and dry fisher's face. They could even wonder what they are missing.

holy jesus! A MUTANT TROUT!

maybe there iis something to all this end times talk after all. here's the pic, and here's the money quote:

Don Gabelhouse, head of the fisheries division of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, said a two-mouthed fish was new to him, too.

"It's probably a genetic deformity," he said. "I don't think there's anything wrong with it."

after the rapture, will the fishing suck?

I'm tempted to register over at the rapture ready website just to ask those with a stronger cell phone connection to jesus that very question. My possible screen name? Loafs and fishes, of course.
Money Quote:

"Is it time to get excited? I can't help the way I feel. For the first time in my Christian walk, I have no doubts that the day of the Lords appearing is upon us. I have never felt this way before, I have a joy that bubbles up every-time I think of him, for I know this is truly the time I have waited for so long. Am I alone in feeling guilty about the human suffering like my joy at his appearing somehow fuels the evil I see everywhere. If it were not for the souls that hang in the balance and the horror that stalks man daily on this earth, my joy would be complete. For those of us who await his arrival know, somehow we just know it won't be long now, the Bridegroom cometh rather man is ready are not."

Thomas McGuane speaks

You've probably already seen this link on better, more timely blogs, or sites, or dead tree media, or wherever, but I'm posting the goddamn link to that new goddamn interview with Thom McGuane. Goddammit. You read it here last... as usual.

Arts AND crafts!

The July "arts and crafts" thread is in full swing at Westfly. Without doubt, one of the best ongoing threads in the flyfishing webosphere...

Digression!: Music

Woah... check out this great blog! Honey... Where You Been So Long specializes in great american pre-war blues. New gems posted every day by the likes of Poor Boy Burke, St. Louis Red Mike, and, of course, Jake Jones and the Gold Front Boys. Dig it!

a goddamn fact re. ass hooked whitey

25 percent of AHW's search hits come from the term: "soul brother too beaucoup". you can look it up in my stats, holmes...

No girls allowed -- and a half Newton!

CWUGirl, a regular poster on Washington Fly Fishing, just got blackballed on an annual fishing trip to some BC lakes. The responses are heartening -- tho we will toss Kent Lufkin half a Colston Newton Award for his diss of Burning Pram.

Damn it! Yakima River

The Capital Press is reporting that the Bureau of Reclamation has narrowed it ongoing study of possible water storage options in the Yakima River Basin -- Ass Hooked Whitey's personal stomping ground.
Money Quote:
As proposed, Wymer Dam and reservoir would be constructed on Lmuma Creek, about 1.5 miles upstream from where it joins the Yakima River. It would hold 174,000 acre feet of water that would be pumped from the Yakima in winter and spring when flows are high and not needed downstream.

Read all about the Wymer Dam. Comments, please

Thee Syd Barrett memorial post

Frankly, Ass Hooked Whitey was surprised at the attention the death of Syd Barrett recieved on the Fly Fishing BBs. The Drake has a nice post and so do the boys at Westfly. And while Barrett will be remembered as the founder and guiding light of Pink Floyd's early days, we've always prefered the more unhinged acoustic stuff found on his solo works, but whatever... If you are needing Syd Barrett info I'd suggest a trip over to the Astral Piper.

If the trout are lost, SMASH THE STATE!

Here's an astonishing post stolen from Moldy Chum: it seems Indian troops stationed in Kashmiri (some 400,000!) are decimating the trout in Kashmir's streams using explosives, chemicals and electric shocks to harvest the fish.
Money Quote:
“They were electrocuting the fish with electric wires in the water, they were using grenades and dynamite. They were destroying the stock with chemicals. Sometimes they were taking up to 50 kilos of trout at a time. That’s a lot of fish,” he said."

Somewhere in a Georgetown restaurant, Dick Cheney orders another vodka martini and chuckles.

happy 4th

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake," - Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Taylor, June 4, 1798.