August 2008

Regular Underground commenter and Dunsmuir resident Dave Edmondson is fighting an attempt by a single truly irritating individual resident of Dunsmuir who wants to regulate - or even outlaw - vacation rental housing in the town.

If you rent/fish/stay in Dunsmuir, you might want to visit his site, and then leave a quick supporting comment here.

I won’t bore you with a detailed recounting of vicious small town politics where a few gasbags are always looking to stir up trouble where there isn’t any, but suffice it to say Dave’s trying to counter of a lot of very, very odd arguments - and more than a few personal attacks.

One small example? A proponent of stringent vacation rental regulation suggested vacation rentals were ripe for use by pedophiles looking to defile Dunsmuir’s youth.

Gotta love thoughtful political discourse like that.

See you online, Tom Chandler.

dunsmuir, vacation rental,

• FlyFishChick is back: http://tinyurl.com/6pwkqy #
• Singlebarbed gets all weird on us tying a… clam fly?? http://tinyurl.com/5rkqvy #

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Leave it to Roughfish-Hugger Singlebarbed to put us on the trail of a unique opportunity to fly fish - and get paid for it.

Sure, you could become a guide and get paid, but everyone knows you’re not fly fishing when you’re guiding - you’re simply holding the hands of people who can’t fish, but have more money than you.

Besides, guiding’s a one-way ticket to an advanced degree in body piercing, courtesy clients who can’t cast.

No, my little Undergrounders - your path to professional status comes via the Pikeminnow Sport Reward Fishery, a power-company funded attempt to preserve Salmon and Steelhead in the Columbia and Snake rivers.

Sure, a few nattering nabobs will say that controlling predators across an entire ecosystem in an attempt to bolster a fading species is a one-way ticket to the environmental equivalent of the fiery abyss, but I’m pretty sure they’re just jealous eggheads who couldn’t catch a Pikeminnow if it jumped into their hands.

From the Pikeminnow Sport Reward Site:

In the 2008 season, we will pay anglers for fish 9 inches and larger. The reward will remain the same at $4-$8 for each northern pikeminnow caught in the lower Columbia (mouth to Priest Rapids Dam) and Snake (mouth to Hells Canyon Dam) rivers. This year’s qualifying tagged fish will be worth $500.

Lemme see: if all the Internet stories we read are true, then most Internet Experts Who Couldn’t Catch a Non-Virtual Fish fly fishermen could clear a couple hundred a day.

For some, that only covers the daily cost of cigars hookers and booze, but for rugged individuals knowledgable in the ways of the wily Pikeminnow (like the grubstake-seeking Singlebarbed), it’s a plan for retirement in five years or less.

I say we quit our jobs en masse and establish a Pikeminnow Bum camp on the Columbia.

It’s Friday, most of you have started drinking already, so who’s with me? (Pumping fist in the air, fight-the-power style.)

I say we can’t miss.

See you at the Pikeminnow check-in station (and I’ll be rich), Tom Chandler.

pikeminnow, pikeminnow sport reward fishery, singlebarbed, fly fishing guide, fly fishing, fishing, professional fisherman, drinking on Friday

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Here at the All Things Bamboo Trout Underground fly fishing blog, we support mainstream, traditional fly fishing values - like making up flattering stories about your fly fishing prowess after you return home.

And we’ve found just the thing to do it with: The Bamboo Tornado 51:

At $40, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than a bamboo fly rod (and doesn’t use those sticky ferrule thingees).

Plus, a bamboo fly rod only makes you cool in the eyes of other bamboo fly rod users.

This little baby will help you write the outright lies ever-so-slight fabrications that will elevate you to true Master of the Craft (if not Internet Fly Fishing Expert).

After all, a bamboo fly rod’s only useful if you can cast. If you can write (and who can’t), you can be the bestest fly fisherman ever.

See you making shit up writing, Tom Chandler.

bamboo fly rod, bamboo pen, fly fishing, fishing lies

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• Will Didymo smother eastern streams? Scientists holding breath: http://tinyurl.com/57o7md #

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As [name redacted] said when he forwrded it to me, stories like this you can’t make up.

The writer was on his way back from a fly fishing trip; the rest we’ll let him tell you:

Big Hole River Journal » Blog Archive » Nice Kitty Kitty

When I was on the way back she was still there and in the same position. I drove slowly by and just about past and she yelled at me. I stopped and she came over to the jeep and asked if I had a pair of heavy gloves. I told her I think I do in the back but why do want them? She explained to me that she was in the process of moving to Butte and had her two cats in the cab and her large tomcat panicked and got wedged under the brake pedal. I looked in side and sure enough there he was. She put the gloves on and tried to get him out with no luck. I offered to try (stupid move) and put the gloves on with full intentions of getting that hairball out of there. He got in so he should get out. I went to get a firm grip on him and a couple seconds later pulled out the shredded, claw ripped, bitten gloves. I turned to her and said I have a gun in the jeep, (just kiddin of course) She gave me this serious look and said “get it”. I told her I was just kiddin but she was serious.

The writer wisely left after learning the woman had sent a message to her son… to bring thicker gloves and a gun.

The Underground stands speechless.

It’s said that money almost always wins, and sadly, in the case of Alaska’s Ballot Measure 4, it appears it was true.

Ballot Measure 4 (Mining Initiative):
- No: 95,615 votes, 57.14 percent
- Yes: 71,722 votes, 42.86 percent

Measure 4 was aimed squarely at preventing the Pending Pebble Mind Disaster by enforcing water quality standards for fisheries.

Mine proponents (most of whom were handsomely paid for their efforts) confused the issue to the point that most voters had no idea what the measure was really about.

“This will close all existing mines” was a common - and wholly misleading - refrain, and a long list of other misdirections were similarly broadcast.

This is hardly the end of it; the Pending Pebble Mine Disaster still has a lot of hoops to jump through, and while this ballot measure may have failed, we can still keep the pressure on.

See you at a political knife fight, Tom Chandler.

pebble mine, measure 4, bristol bay, bullshit

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Poetry isn’t a staple here at the Trout Underground, and if my high school English teacher was right, it’s because I lack the genes needed to correctly interpret it.

Still, when I posted (long ago) about David Fraser’s Killing Trout and Other Love Poems, I was interested enough to dip my beautifully manicured manscaped toe back in poetry’s metaphor-rich waters.

Fraser’s a fly fisherman and outdoorsman, and not surprisingly, the outdoors occupy a high profile in most of his poems.

Interestingly, this collection of spare, direct poems were compiled over several decades, and in places, you glimpse the progression of Fraser’s life.

The result is a collection of sharp, all-literary-encumbrances-removed poems that reminded me of John Gierach’s little-seen, pre-Trout Bum Signs of Life poetry collection.

Fraser doesn’t burden his poems with overripe metaphor or literary pretense. His is the art of carving away all that isn’t essential, and the result is a series of visceral glimpses into a life lived largely outdoors:

In Canoeing After Midnight, Fraser:

There are moments under
the full moon when there are clouds
and trees, and Octobers
and warm south winds

and the broad river
kicks up and everything else
is subdued but the sounds
and I point the canoe into the wind

and I am challenging the wind
and the river when I should be sleeping.
a fool again, with one paddle, huddled
in the reeds on the far side of the river,

always traveling to that other side to rest.
always knowing there will be no rest
until I get back, the bow cutting
through the bullshit and the boredom

Killing Trout’s 35 poems range from fun to darkly observant, and a few truly stand out.

Poets and poetry fanatics will want to lay their hands on this volume - as will anyone interested enough in poetry to have dug up Gierach’s first book of poems.

This book is also the first from an independent press largely powered by its online presence, and frankly, that’s a trend I’d like to encourage.

Speaking as an absolute novice in the field of poetry criticism, I’m giving Fraser’s Killing Trout & Other Love Poems two fins up, if only because I “got” it. And liked it.

See you in the coffeehouse, Tom Chandler

killing trout and other love poems, book review, poetry, killing trout, david fraser

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• American Fly Fishing Museum honors artist Ogden Pleissner. See paintings at: http://tinyurl.com/6ed8mf #
• Mikey Weir produces college outreach video for Trout Unlimited California: http://tinyurl.com/5v44q8 #
• Looks like Anti-Pebble Measure 4 is losing in Alaskan election results. Damn. http://www.adn.com/election/story/507096.html #

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In yet another example of the Kind of People Who Probably Should Be Watching American Idol Instead of Visiting a Park, the Underground brings you the Biggest Wildlife-Related Non-Story since Bambi was released on DVD:

TOWNSEND (WATE) — A huge snake that was swallowing a fish whole startled swimmers and tubers at the Townsend Wye last weekend.

Teresa Wood tells 6 News the snake was laying on the rocks near where her family was swimming in the Little River.

Wood says “it’s unbelievable” how big the the snake was and her family won’t be going back.

What’s “unbelievable” is that a water snake - which had the gall to actually eat a fish in its own habitat (”whole” - as if a snake can eat any other way) - warrants news coverage.

Even better is the we “won’t be going back” response by the victims. I mean, who would have thought they’d find real, breathing wildlife in the wild?

As always, the snarkatorium floor is yours, Undergrounders.

wildlife, bambi, really dumb people

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• Milltown dam breaching leads to more sediment transport than originally predicted: http://tinyurl.com/6cruy2 #
• Cool and windy on Upper Sac. It’s only August, but it’s the first taste of fall up here. #
• Just off the phone with the Canon service rep. Despite owning Canon Camera since the late 70s, will I ever buy another? Not bloody likely. #

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