I knew it wasn’t going to relaxing or easy, but cramming the Fly Fishing Retailer Show into my life has done some seriously unpretty things to my schedule.

I’ve got loads of reporting yet to do from the show, including a piece about the industry as a whole.

Plus, I spent most of yesterday running around the mountainous tribs feeding the Upper McCloud, checking out CalTrout’s McCloud Redband habitat restoration projects. If you’ve never walked a restoration project with a bunch of real fisheries professionals, it’s worth the time.

You’ll learn things you never even thought of, including the bazillion ways even a small stream can get wholly screwed up by humans, cattle, and even old, old roadbeds.

One long section of a tiny trout creek evidently “captured” an old road years ago, and instead of the tiny little streambed it was meant to be, it became a 20′ deep, 150′ wide gorge with almost no insect life or suitable habitat.

How you go about turning it back into the tiny, meandering stream is a real lesson in physics. Stay tuned for more.

Plus, The Burnout

I’m just going to say it; life has gotten very, very busy lately, and I can always spot the symptoms of “overload” in my writing. Like a tire with a slow leak, it goes a little flat at first, but if you keep driving, you’ll end up running on the rim in no time.

This is my way of saying you may or may not be hearing much from me over the weekend, so don’t assume the United Airlines Secret Police snatched me.

With any luck, I’ll be catching up on the various bits of my life, and maybe even fishing a little, which hasn’t happened all that much as of late.

See you on the crazy river, Tom Chandler.

p.s.– Don’t forget to take the Underground’s Magazine Reader Poll. Or I’ll sic the United Airlines Secret Police on you…

[tags]fly fishing, mccloud redband trout, redband trout, caltrout[/tags]

Posted in Underground Entertainment.