The Friday Morning Furball: The Big Blog Roundup

I woke up this morning feeling like I’d been hit by a bus and dragged a few miles, and I’m not even sure why.

Still, given the absence of energy or sanity - or a finished blog post - I turn to my fellow bloggers for help.

Naturally, they don’t disappoint.

Are Male Anglers Truly Parasitic Losers?

From the Blogfish blog comes a cautionary tale about the male Anglerfish:

Since it’s hard to find a date in the deep sea, some angler fish have evolved an unusual mate-for-life strategy. Males are born with a strong desire to find a female quickly, because they can’t even eat on their own. Males search for the smell of a female, make a beeline for the lucky girl, bite hard and hold on forever.

Basically, the guys latch onto the women, their organs wither, and they become nothing more than a pair of sexual organs fused to the female’s skin.

Look Sound like any male anglers you know? Most of them? Yeah, thought so.

Make Plans, Not Jokes.

On the Urban Fly Fisher blog from Scotland, Alistair’s making plans for the start of the fly fishing season over there, complete with numbered scenarios.

I was ready to publicly ridicule Alistair’s naive optimism that any of his scenarios will come true (no fishing plan survives first contact with the trout or the weather), but he displayed exceptional sobriety when he ended his post with:

If all goes according to plan we should freeze our rocks off, catch no fish and make Tea in Mikes Kelly Kettle.

Aim low - anything else is a bonus.

Excellent. Though we have no idea what a Kelly Kettle is. Hopefully it’s not some weird British slang for something untoward. We’re just saying.

UPDATE: Click here to see a Kelly Kettle.

From the Land of Slaw Dogs

Even East Tennessee’s Trout Zone blog - where winters are hardly the fishless affairs they can be elsewhere - is asking “Is it Spring Yet?”

Judging by the several inches of fresh snow on the ground, the Trout Underground’s answer is “not here.”

Like many back east, the Trout Zone is carefully eyeing water temperature, where several days of 50 degree water seems to ignite the bugs and get the fish moving.

My friend Rich Margiotta watches the water temps like a hawk and basically lives for the spring hatches (the Quill Gordons might be his favorite), but yes, it’s still too soon.

The Rutters Aren’t Waiting

Of course, if it was spring, Ian Rutter wouldn’t be in Belize and sending back taunting e-mail messages like:

Over more permit than we could count today; no eats. Jumped a tarpon, even got it on video. Got busted off by the biggest damn bonefish I’ve ever seen.

There you have it. I’m sitting here like a dog that’s been beaten with a stick, and he’s jumping tarpon and getting “busted off” by fish big enough to qualify for expletives in the description.

Patagonia Follows in Footsteps of Trout Underground

Patagonia - the outdoor clothing giant - just launched their company blog, and because I’m quick and nimble on the keyboard, I was apparently the first person to leave a comment on the thing.

It’s hard to place this momentous happening in a historical context, but we’re pretty sure the Underground will go down in history in one fashion or another.

Maybe this was it.

In the meantime, we’d like to welcome them to the blogosphere as one of the first of the outdoor companies with the nerve (guts, cajones, whatever) to launch a blog.

Though they’re new to blogging, they apparently learn fast: one of their first entries includes a visit-prolonging photo of their “Surf Ambassador.”

Suddenly, the Trout Underground thinks we need a surf ambassador.

Good Fishy News

Via the always educational MidCurrent comes this story about the Lahontan Trout - thought to be extinct at one point but staging a comeback (anything would be a comeback after extinction).

The Pyramid Lake Paiute Indian tribe offered his expedition fish 4-feet-long. The heaviest recorded specimen tipped the scales at 62 pounds in 1916.” Craig Springer of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service tells how Lahontan trout have managed to survive the loss of habitat caused by irrigation dewatering and may even be on their way to recovery.

Visit Moldy Chum

Moldy Chum continues to find the weird and bizarre in fly fishing - so much so that we’re starting to wonder about his own tenuous grasp on reality.

In any case, it’s fun to watch.

Recent favorites include the Deadly Mayfly movie poster (featured here a long time ago, but apparently now available customized), though the Cigarette Fly runs a close second.

Less appealing to animal lovers might be the story about fishing for Taimen with a dead prairie dog as bait.

Of course, there’s always more to see on the Internet, but you’re not going to see it here.

Until my next post.

See you beat down and whipped, Tom Chandler.

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