Buster Wants to Fish looks like a collaborative fly fishing blog written by some of our favorite self-described “dirtbag fly fishers” — along with a few names I don’t recognize, but will certainly come to. Their mission?
Broadcasting from high atop the Bilgewater Building in Dogpatch USA, hello and welcome. We are a small mob of dirtbag flyfishers with a web site. Weve stared at the water enough to maybe have some things to say about it. You might disagree, but here you are anyway. Did you bring beer? Weve stumbled out of a variety of regions and fallen together on the internets. Were pretty much staunch localists who are still stoked about the rivers, lakes and beaches were lucky enough to call our home waters, and wanted to get the words down before life goes and robs us of the alphabet. And we want to have a good time doing it.
“We’re Here”
There’s a lot of hand-wringing in the fly fishing industry about the “next” generation of fly fishers — namely that they don’t exist, and if they do, they’re a bunch fat-assed whiners gripping Xboxes and thinking fish and meat are something that comes shrink wrapped from the grocery store.
I always thought that was a little too convenient for an industry that was largely stuck in the 1980s way of doing things.
If it’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the new wave are out there, but since they’re unlikely to subscribe to a snore-inducing Fly Fishermen magazine or buy $650 fly rods by the dozen, they might as well not be (as far as big chunks of the industry are concerned).
That’s tunnel vision, and while it seems the Internet might as well be the empty space off the flat end of the earth for most fly fishing companies, a quick visit to the right places would set you straight.
Buster Wants to Fish would be one of those places.
It careens between the odd, the sublime and the overheated, alternating kickass fishing reports like this one or this one with bigfoot sightings and the obligatory, anthemic rage against the machine post (which loses a lot of steam if you have to find, manufacture, or prop up a machine to rage against, but by its nature, rebellion requires something to rebel against).
Put it on the old RSS Feed, and let ‘em blast away. It won’t be a boring trip.
Comments from the Undergrounders are always welcome.
See you on the blogosphere, Tom Chandler.
[tags]fly fishing, fishing, buster wants to fish, fly fishing blog, outdoor blog[/tags]
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Dammit, why does there have to be so much interesting stuff on the Internet? I’m so busy reading it all, I’m too busy to actually DO anything.
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Funny how “Salt” writes just like you, including writting a strike through line through things. I have only seen this from you. And guess who they list in their sites, all of your sites!! Purty interesting,Salt!
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It’s true! We owe it all to the global phenomena that is Tom. In fact, we likely work for him, and just don’t know it yet, as our paychecks all originate from an anonymous Swiss acct.
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I can assure you that Tom is not me, nor am I Tom, but I might be the walrus
coo coo ca choo
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Yes, I both own and run the entire fly fishing blogosphere from a curtained booth right behind the Great and Powerful Oz. In fact, I write 90% of the fly fishing blogs personally.
I owe it all to an advanced case of Multiple Personality Disorder, with Smithhammer being the personality that comes out when I flick my right earlobe.
Still, you can be damn sure I’m not this Salty guy; Orvis throws down 5% of their pretax profits for conservation purposes (I’m actually fighting a couple of those battles against folks with real moneyh), so I’m not about to use them as an elitist pinata.
Besides, I’m writing three blogs already, which is clearly 1.5 too many.
Sorry Salty. Liked it otherwise.
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No problem Tom, If I wanted to write things that were agreaable to everyone, I’d write gear reviews for Fly Fisherman.
My jab in the refernced post isn’t with Orvis per se, as you’d have to be brain dead not to support their conservation efforts, but with the anglers who look upon an Orvis catalog as a totemic “lifestyle” guide.
I find some Orvis fishing gear to be pretty solid, on average, and from a business perspective, it’s hard to fault them for diversifying their product line when fly fishing equipment is basically “niche”, but when one does select a sweater based on copy that the wool is hand beaten by Scottish washerwomen on the River Spey and the purchaser fetishizes the old English (culture not malt liquor) chalkstream dry fly only aesthetic, the purchaser is ripe for a little parody.
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Hey Tom, thanks for the writeup.
While I’m a fan of the word “anthemic”, I’m sorry that you got the impression that the “Bridge” post was some sort of call for rebellion to the disaffected flyfishing youth of wherever. If anything, my thoughts when writing it leaned more toward the abandonment of such pretenses, whether they’re held by Joe Elbowpatch or Trevor the Angry, or by the magazine editor trying to sort it all out by a deadline. Maybe I should have put more emphasis on “stop trying so hard” and “have a good time”. Oh well. Hope you enjoy it anyway.
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Salty: You don’t like my hand-woven sweater made from the wool of sheep who drank only from the Chalkstream Test? Philistine.
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I might trade you a dog bed or a leather bound bodkin for it, Patrician
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Quite a talented group. I’ve read some of their older posts on The Drake BB – well written, laugh-out-loud funny, and quite entertaining. I’m surprised SUAF is not among them.
At this point, the only question on my mind is how do they feel about slaw dogs?
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Brook: It’s been a few years since English lit, but whenever you take the time to tell us what something isn’t — and then hold out a few icons of an elitist status quo (tweed, buffed leather, etc) — isn’t that a call for a rejection of those values?
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Well, I also included blister packs and Bassmasters, on purpose. Trappings, and all that. I have nothing against buffed leather or tweed or pipes. I also own and still fish a rod that came in a blister pack. You’ve got my intent wrong here, Tom, but I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it. Sorry it was unclear.
If I was really trying to be Mr. Serious Glowery Angry Rebel Guy, I don’t think I’d put up pics of George Clinton or Wile E. Coyote in a green bat suit. I’d probably keep Karloff though. It projects plenty of goth-kid angst.
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As to the “next” generation – were out here, and I know at least 2000 of them and none of them qualify as lazy asses…however the XBox bit would pretty much be true – and we barely make $650 a month so that would be the lack of $$$ to the industry from our sector.
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Brook: Fair enough!
C3C: You’d think the air force would be using Xboxes to train you mokes how to fly (or repel the alien invasion that’s surely coming). I’ll get a letter to my congressman right away.
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Well actually, we have these things called RQ-8 Predators…that’s basically XBox Live with real-world power in the form of two Hellfire Missiles…oh and the RQ-9 Reaper just went into combat, which can carry even more of those tank killers…so ya, if you think that XBoxes should be standard issue for us cadets please DO write your congressman!
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Yeah, but will those Predators bring down an alien spacecraft?
That’s why I’m advocating for the more advanced XBox weapons system.
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Probably not…but we also have a Boeing 747 with a friggen laser mounted to it – and by ‘friggen laser’ I mean a really big bastard, not some Star Trek phaser – I think that’ll take care of most alien spacecraft…
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you’ve got to be at Colorado Springs- cool stuff C3C
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Now he’s giving away military secrets to a known seditionist and eco-terrorist (TC) – I’d say a courtmartial is too good for the man..
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Now now, I don’t have a Top Secret Clearance (yet), and they don’t tell us too much classified stuff around here – everything I’ve let this little sleeper cell know could easily be found at cnn or popular science…thanks for keeping me honest though!
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kbarton: Eco-terrorist? Try Goddamned Fin Hugger.
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Hey I’ve still got a Sega Genesis, which I guess qualifies me to defend the homeland against an invasion of 16-bit pixelated koopahs.
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Uh well…screw it, as a member of the early part of the nintendo generation it’s my duty to correct you: a “koopah” is one of king bowser’s many minions from Super Mario Brothers. Sega Genesis never produced a Super Mario Brother’s game because Nintendo owns the title. However, owning a sega genesis would qualify you to fight in an Alien Invasion, such as the one from the S.G. game “Alien Storm,” or mano y alien combat using skills developed in the game “Alien 3″ (based on the movie) also released for this system. However, I am sorry to inform you that no koopah training is available through your console.
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Damn!
My grandfather wanted to serve in WWI but he was too short for trench warfare. Now this.
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If you want to start building your SKILz, I would suggest buying yourself a copy of Falcon 4.0 – better than the actual F-16 flight simulator if you want the in the air combat, or something like Command&Conquer or Empire Earth if you’re more of a command and control type – we actually use Empire Earth here for lessons in certain classes. Additionally, I have an entire class basically devoted to using GIS systems to pre-deploy, deploy, operate the mission, and react to threats and attacks, pretty powerful software – little more demanding than an XBox however.
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I just want to say that you guys are absolutely pegging the geek meter.
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Does that mean we can join your exclusive club now Tom? I’ve been trying so hard to get in, but you kept telling me I wasn’t a big enough nerd!
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I would never say you weren’t a big enough nerd. Never.
But hell, you’re already in the club. Why pony up the $85,000 initiation fee twice?
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Tom: Can’t wait to get out of this body-cast. I badly need to fish. Paid a visit to Buster and inserted some Lovecraftian bad prose in their string. (Bored.) One of em sorta got it,
but it may have put some onto their literary hind legs. (Where’s the humor?) Got the impression I should’ve contributed something a bit more oblique, more recognizably edgy. Too cool. Jez hafta fade back into the wide open spaces of the under-underground I guess. Hell, everybody knows that Lovecraft drank with Bukowski.
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I’ll play Curly
“all the horsemen’s faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of Christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools.”
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Curly: I laughed into the void.
You should leave a question for The Hideous Jabbering Head.
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Brookie: “I laughed into the void.” Good line from Desolation Angels. The Hideous Jabbering Head is scary. Thanks for inviting me, and I’ll think of something to ask The Head.
Salty: Nice job on the prose. I coulda done as good. This kind of thing is coming back around and you’re gonna be right there man. Jeesh.
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Ah, I didn’t write that, I thought we were hacking around with name the lit
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Boy you got me on that one. But one outta two aint bad. Peace.
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