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.
Powered by ScribeFire.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
If you hadn’t mentioned my Mother while you was laughing – them “guaranteed Pikeminnow Killer” flies would still be $1.59 …
Now that Mom’s involved – call it $9.33 each (includes your bamboo blueline discount).
(Quote)
You brownliners have no sense of
humorcommerce.You should have written the “How to Fly Fish Every Day Of Your Life and Still Retire to a Yacht Jammed With Bikini Babes” e-book “information product” and sold it for $79.99 each.
(Quote)
I think I’ll start filling the freezer with California pikeminnow. Once (if) gas prices drop, I’ll pawn them off as Columbia River natives and finance a new bamboo rod.
(Quote)
KB, don’t forget to tack on the $1/fly roughfisher excise tax. That jerky isn’t going to buy itself.
(Quote)
Hmmm…. Best as I’ve found, the way to end up with a million dollars in fly fishing is to start with two million.
(Quote)
Dunno exactly how I came across your article, but I liked it. Very well written and it seems pertinant. Did you quit? LOL (Pumps fists in the air)
(Quote)