Travel

It’s April 1, and while I’ve fired up the Fool Tools in the past, I’m forced to admit that this year, the joke’s probably on me.

I’m the “fool” who’s been up past 2 p.m. the last three nights trying to wrap up projects before I start a trip that only the Cloven Hooved Deceiver would approve of: car, line, security line, plane, line, plane, line, car, drop dead — a travel cycle that will stretch well past a day in length.

I’m still finishing up an article on Klamath Dam Removal for California Fly Fisher (I must be going soft; I took out all the sentences beginning with “The stupid bastards who…”).

And wrapping up a simple web project for a lodge with some connection to fly fishing.

And most importantly, I’m getting my electronic goodies packed for the flight.

In the end, I handled it the same way I do a fishing trip.

I begin the packing process with an almost monk-like, “less is more” aesthetic at work, but at the last minute, I panic and throw in the kitchen sink.

So with a 12+8-hour flights ahead of me, I figured I needed the Nook ereader (battery should last the whole travel day), the Android tablet and bluetooth keyboard (should let me write at least partway), and the Linux netbook (just in case any “real” work needs to be done while I’m gone)

The odds that working wi-fi is waiting for us in Ethiopia are marvelously slim, but in what I’ll suggest is a fit of optimism, I’m hoping to post a few little tidbits while I’m gone.

In an attempt to stave off the inevitable thoughts of suicide while on the plane, I’ve picked out and loaded a pair of ebooks:

“Imagine” by Jonah Lehrer (about creativity and the brain).

And “The Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell (I know, he investigates the mental states of successful people using anecdotal, “cocktail party” science, but I like Gladwell’s approach to these subjects.)

If things get out of hand, I’ve got some distopian science fiction in the wings (Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi).

It’s brilliant but slightly depressing work, the idea being Bacigalupi’s stories offer enough edge that I’ll be forced to realize 20 hours on airplanes isn’t the end of the world — at least not compared to the literal end of the world.

I’ll let you know how it works.

See you in the sky, Tom Chandler.

From my perspective as someone who has not been monitoring mass media headlines for almost a week, getting up this morning — and checking the headlines on my smartphone — was a little jarring:

• Police Say Neighbor Confessed in Death of Indiana Girl
• Ten Arrested in Mall of America Riot
• Fireplace Blamed For Deadly Connecticut House Fire
• Sinead O’Connor Ends Marriage After 16 Days
• Reward Offered For Lead in Missing Maine Toddler Case

I kinda wish I hadn’t looked.

Over here in Paradise, the wind has been blowing pretty damned hard every day, and even the sailboats moving along the beach haven’t bothered to raise their sails.

Pretty clearly, this part of Hawaii is not a fly fishing hot spot (you’ll never be confronted with one of those giant schools of bonefish as in the Bahamas), but equally clearly, there’s more here than meets the eye.

During yesterday’s trip to the local kid-friendly beach, I saw a lot of baitfish and what appeared to be a couple of Jack Crevalle hovering along some offshore rocks at yesterday’s beach.

(Little M went face-to-face with an unafraid-of-humans sea turtle, forever sealing her love of the great shelled beasts).

Later, the Registered Maine Guide — whose judgment you really don’t question unless you’re an arrogant fool — suggested a couple of bonefish moved through the area while he was snorkeling another pile of offshore rocks.

The beach was crowded with people and it is manifestly not a bonefish flat, but it’s proof of what I’ve long said; given enough time and a little willingness to look beyond the obvious you probably can scrape up some decent fishing almost anywhere.

When I lived in the Bay Area, I fished a small dam outlet for carp, fished the lake above the dam for crappie, fished the tiny creek below the dam for trout, fished a nearby small lake for bluegill, float tubed a couple slightly bigger lakes for bass, and was even thrown out of an apartment complex after fishing the “decorative” pond for carp.

In most cases you won’t be selling articles about apartment pond carp to the larger fly fishing media, but to let that dampen your enthusiasm is to make the mistake of conflating the health of the sport with the health of the industry.

Just because it’s not cover material doesn’t mean it isn’t fun.

One of my regrets about naming this blog The Trout Underground has been the exclusivity of the title; I moved to a place where 95% of my fishing is for trout (smallmouth bass can be found at a local lake), and while I’m happy with that that life-altering decision, the name has always felt a little exclusionary — a little too highbrow for the kind of reader I’m hoping to attract.

Trout are great fish and they’re usually found in gorgeous places, but they’re far from the only reason to pick up a fly rod.

I know (and so do you) fly fishermen who bemoan the lack of fly fishing available to them because they don’t live in a mecca like Montana, and I always wondered how much of a role fly fishing’s magazines — and yes, blogs named “The Trout Underground” — play in that perception.

Are these people whining because they’re elitists, and therefore uninterested in crappie or bass or bluegills (a perception helped along by exotic destination stories and living-in-the-mountains bloggers)?

Or have they simply never looked at the nearby browlines, or read Singlebarbed’s posts about the joys of Pikeminnows?

I don’t know the answer, but I do know it’s one of the questions worth asking, especially because others — noting the lack of commercial potential — aren’t going to.

As always, the floor belongs to the Undergrounders. My availability is limited until my return, but being grownups and all, that’s never stopped you.

Regular readers will no doubt be shocked (Shocked!) to learn that I’ve arrived in Maine alongside my loving family… but my luggage hasn’t.

I’d suggest this holds a comforting familiarity for me; my bag fails to show a good 1/3 of the time.

Everyone who’s wearing chinos on tomorrow’s fishing trip, raise your hand… (no one?)