California Trout Scores Grant From Stonefly Winery, Orvis – And We Inject a Pirate Theme?

Because there isn’t all that much good news going around these days, I thought I’d take a break from our dorsal fin photography program to throw a little “happy” into the mix.

You might recall that a couple years ago, Orvis, the National Fish & Wildlife foundation, and a lot of fly fishermen threw down bigtime to help fund CalTrout’s McCloud Redband trout recovery (to the tune of $120K).

Now California Trout – that zany group of coldwater privateers fighting everything from the looming extinction of salmon to the corporate mega-sleazes nice folks at Nestle – has scored yet again.

This time it’s at the hands of StoneFly Vineyards and Orvis, who will be forking over 5% of StoneFly’s net wine sales to CalTrout’s eye-patch wearing, parrot-equipped pirate crew.

Sure, me buccos, if asked, we’d suggest CalTrout use the money to leave the online marketing stone age behind, but at the Underground, we’re not going to let our pet marketing peeves get in the way of the really important stuff, so here’s the scoop from the press release:

The StoneFly Prize is a fisheries conservation initiative jointly sponsored by The Orvis Company and StoneFly Vineyards. On a yearly basis, 5% of total net wine sales will fund conservation and restoration of North American coldwater fisheries. California Trout, the first recipient of The StoneFly Prize, has worked for decades to fight for and improve the health of wild trout and steelhead waters in California

zzzzzz… What? Like you, I needed powerful illegal stimulants to make it even halfway through the typically sleep-inducing press release, but the news itself is good.

The economy is putting a stranglehold on more than a few of the conservation and environmental groups around the country, and unlike those overpaid wall street screwups fuckups goddamned criminals folks, there are few bailouts for non-profits.

All this comes at a pivotal time for many of California’s coldwater species, especially steelhead and salmon.

And – having done a bit of it myself – I can say with some authority that fighting large corporations and entrenched water interests is a lot like sticking your head in a vise and turning the handle until everything goes black, then waking up and doing it over again.

Their resources seem inexhaustible and yours seem pitiable, yet the fight continues (like one tiny pirate ship against the entire British Navy), only now CalTrout has a few more bucks to fight with.

Ahoy, mateys. See you at the bench vise, Tom Chandler.