Eat More Brook Trout

Confirmation...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 16 Nov 2014 08:18:00 +0000

Editor's note: Yes, this is a fishing blog (not that I've given it the maintenance or the TLC it truly deserves of late--and perhaps this post will explain that), but sometimes it's wise to focus on life behind the fishing. The reality. Fishing is an escape for some and for others, like me, it's a God-damned necessity. But reality... the life we live when the fish aren't watching... sometimes it deserves a good examination. So here goes:

I remember sitting across the room from my therapist. She had listened to me--to us--for some time, and I could tell something was different about this visit. She was finally going to pull it out of me. I was going to have to be honest with her. And with myself. It had been months in the works, honestly. But it was also the moment when a decision went from "Good grief, am I going to this?" to "I don't think I have a choice." We had talked about communicating more clearly. Being more thoughtful. Being better parents. We talked about how we fought... how we argued. How we hurt one another.

We talked a lot about overcoming a loss of trust... betrayal. Full-on Biblical "Thou shalt not..." Ten Commandments shit.

But now, it was just the two of us. Me and the therapist. Her diplomas declaring her eligibility to help me with this heady shit suddenly made sense to me. She looked me right in the eyes and made a profound statement.

"Sometimes, we're just done."

Then she leaned in. With her forefinger, she slipped a wisp of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. She exhaled, looked at the floor, and then lifted her eyes to mine once again. She seemed almost as uncomfortable as I felt.

"Are you done?"

That was about 18 months ago. It seems like an eternity, now, but it's not, really. My "post-married" life really began right there in that 10-by-10 cluttered office of a very thoughtful, very compassionate woman who, in reality, awarded me with a second chance. And today, I see it as an award. A fucking trophy. Pin that medal on my chest, baby. I earned it.

"Yeah," I said. "I'm done."

And then I sobbed. I put my face in my hands, and I let the tears flow. I grieved for my lost love, and pulled the plug on 20 years.

Since that day, I've come to value the love of my children more than I knew was possible. I've come appreciate the difficulty of having to do things without the traditional help a partner often brings to the table, and I truly wonder at the generosity of those who come to my rescue because they see that I am worthy of rescuing. Perhaps most importantly, I've come to realize that I'm no shoo-in for Father of the Year. Some of my long-standing, long-held opinions of myself faded quickly and I realized that this decision to move on ... to be done... had far-reaching impacts of the nuclear variety. My kids survived the blast, but the shockwaves have been noticeable, palpable. They hurt because of what I decided to do, but they both understand. Happiness is a work in progress, and sometimes, shedding the anger and the resentment that comes at the tail end of a failed marriage... well, that's the necessary evil. To feel better eventually sometimes means you have to feel pretty shitty in the short-term.

But then it was exciting. I learned that I was desirable. Attractive. I regained some of my lost confidence. I found a tenuous grip on my mojo, and I held onto it. No, I'm not perfect... I'm no "catch," so to speak. But I'm someone worth getting to know. I got lost in the simple maintenance of a ruse. A farce. A façade. And now, I'm real. A little raw, perhaps a bit unrefined. I still think fart jokes are funny, and occasionally, I'll piss on the rim. I might be a "fixer-upper," but I have a strong foundation and a good frame.

Today, it all makes sense. Today... this day... I know that being "done" is truly liberating. That the Kryptonite doesn't work any longer. That I'm impenetrable. That no matter how hurtful the words and the deeds, I am immune to derisive resentment and unfiltered anger.

The insanity of what I once did because I thought I had to--not because it made sense--is gone. I have clarity. Understanding. The cosmic "meaning of life," while still unknown, doesn't seem like it might always be so. And I have people who love me spotting me. It's been a tough lift at times, but I haven't dropped the bar yet.

I am OK. And I'm going to be just fine, damn it. Just fine.

A Treasure is Trashed

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 29 May 2014 22:01:00 +0000

A liquid drain opener bottle sits in the sargassum on South Padre Island.

There's a perfectly usable Weber kettle barbecue grill resting amid a modern-day midden heap on the beach ready for the taking--it's right around mile marker No. 4, just north of where the road out of town ends in a trashy dunescape on the Gulf side of South Padre Island.

Apparently, the folks who abandoned it didn't need it anymore. They also left a gently used camp chair and all of their garbage, presumably from a Memorial Day weekend on the island. They just bagged it up and decided they didn't have room in the truck to take it to a Dumpster in town. Since they left it, every raccoon and coyote and jackrabbit has pilfered through the refuse, creatively spreading it across the sand and sargassum. There's a motor oil bottle here. A six-pack ring there. Is that a bottle of liquid drain cleaner?

The only ingredient missing is the the weeping Indian standing atop a dune and surveying the makeshift landfill. There are apparently no consequences for litterers. No incentives to stop it. No precedent to follow. There is garbage everywhere. Not just a Coke can here or a stray water bottle there. It's everywhere.

And it's gross.

Now, a case could be made for much of the refuse coming from the Gulf of Mexico itself--currents and tides being what they are, it's certainly possible that a lot of this trash migrates up from Mexico, like the tarpon that run along the Texas coast this time of year. But it's pretty obvious, after a walk out on the South Padre Jetty at the south end of the island, that the cans and bottles and dirty diapers have been deposited in situ by folks just too damn lazy to pick up after themselves.

I adore this little slice of Texas. It's a wonderful, almost-tropical stretch of the Lone Star state that feels completely unique. It has island town charm, tourist trap kitsch and a stretch of blonde-sand beach that can be as pretty as any in the country. But it's not. Because it's trashed. Every vista a visitor might try to enjoy is spoiled by refuse. Every camera frame is tarnished by rubbish.

This didn't wash up on the beach.

It's so bad, so putrid, that I'm wondering if the cause is lost. The city of South Padre Island, over Memorial Day weekend, launched it's "Treasure It, Don't Trash It" campaign. It's not working. In fact, I believe it's worse than I've ever seen it, and I'm a frequent visitor. The garbage is a disgrace to the city and to Cameron County.

When I was growing up in the 1980s in East Texas, the state launched its famous anti-littering campaign--it featured legendary guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughn strumming out a few priceless licks and uttering in a menacing voice, "Don't mess with Texas." Apparently the campaign never achieved any traction on South Padre, where littering appears to be the norm, not the exception.

There's plenty of blame to go around for this travesty. City officials have done a poor job keeping their beaches clean. County officials should be embarrassed. And, frankly, the people who visit and treat it like a landfill should be ashamed. I know, if I wandered off the beaten path on public land near my home in Idaho and discovered such a mess, I'd be angry and embarrassed. The "Treasure It, Don't Trash It" campaign is a bust.

What's the solution? A friend of mine who lives in the area pointed the mayor's house out to me--it's a palatial bay-side estate that gets the best views of the Laguna Madre sunsets every evening of the year.

"He's always had money," I overheard someone say. "But I think he won the lottery, too."

Fresh off a fly fishing hike into the island's backcountry that consisted of wading the sand flats north of town and then humping it over the dunes to the beach where the bulk (but not all) of the trash is located, I looked at my friend, and I said, "If I won the lottery, I'd make sure there isn't a scrap of litter on this island."

Fresh litter.

And, at the moment, with images of Styrofoam cups and plastic water bottles and Mylar balloons still still fresh in my head, I meant every word of it. No, I don't expect the mayor--or the county leaders--to dip into their own pockets to clean up this mess, but, as a visitor to this place, I'd sure like to see some common-sense enforcement and an effort to clean up after the slobs who aren't motivated enough to clean up after themselves.

Or how about this? Threaten--and mean it--to close beach access to vehicles. There's no way in hell that a barbecue grill, a camp chair and cubic yard of waste made its way to mile marker No. 4 without the help of a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Keep the vehicles off the beach, and I'll wager the garbage problem gets a lot easier to handle.

Too much effort to clean up after yourself?

And, frankly, how much is "too much" to spend on cleaning up the beach? Is it unreasonable to expect this very simple, very basic service from local governments?

Maybe this will help. It'll be awhile before I come back. I can chase reds and specks along the Florida Gulf Coast, or in the marshes of Louisiana, where trash isn't lying around like pickup sticks. I can walk the beach at Pensacola. I can fish from the jetty at Port Aransas. I can take my business somewhere else. Somewhere cleaner.

The city's new Convention and Visitors Bureau Director, Rachel Flores, needs to know that selling her new home to visitors would be so much easier if the resources were allocated to clean up the trash that's piling up on the beach, along the bay and on the jetty. She should know that people who don't live on the island still love it dearly, and that it kills many of us to see it in this sad condition today.

Above all, she and her fellow city and county leaders should know that we have options. I will choose to go elsewhere until the folks in charge of leading their community step up and address this problem.

The island is a treasure. But it's tarnished. It's trashed. I can't bear to see it this way again.

Keeping public land in public hands: Good politics, good business

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 06 May 2014 17:34:00 +0000

Peter Metcalf

Editor's note: This piece originally ran at WyoFile.com, and is republished here in accordance with WyoFile policies.

By Peter Metcalf and Ann Morgan
Theodore Roosevelt, one of our all-time great presidents, famously embodied the “conserve” in “conservative.” He set aside some of our country’s most beloved public lands, including the Grand Canyon, Muir Woods and Chaco Canyon, and created the National Forest and National Wildlife Refuge systems.

The hundreds of millions of acres that belong to all Americans are critical to fish, wildlife, watersheds and the economic powerhouse of outdoor recreation, which produces $646 billion in economic benefit annually and supports 6.1 million jobs. In the tradition of Roosevelt, Jay Norwood “Ding” Darling convened hunters, anglers and other conservationists in a kind of “big-tent” gathering – the first North American Wildlife Conference – and created the forerunner to the National Wildlife Federation in 1936.

Roosevelt and Darling were among the first in a long line of Republican conservationists to conserve irreplaceable natural treasures and lands that have shaped the American identity and help drive the economy. Unfortunately, some GOP leaders seem eager to dismantle our heritage of public lands, which are open to all Americans and are managed for multiple uses.

At its winter meeting, the Republican National Committee approved a resolution endorsing proposals to turn our public lands over to Western states that want them. And some states are lining up to claim the lands, despite recognized constitutional prohibitions against such land grabs. Utah, for example, has given the federal government until the end of this year to transfer nearly 20 million acres or be sued.

Members of Congress have sponsored bills that would mandate increased logging and drilling on public lands regardless of environmental and economic harm and force federal agencies to sell arbitrary percentages of public lands. In March, the House passed legislation that would undermine any president’s ability to use the Antiquities Act, which has been used to preserve such significant historic and natural sites as the Statue of Liberty and Arches and Bryce national monuments, later upgraded to national parks. Because of these extreme proposals, organizations and businesses, including Black Diamond, are joining forces with the National Wildlife Federation to urge the Republican National Committee to honor an important American legacy by rescinding its misguided resolution on public lands.

The RNC is clearly on the wrong side of this issue. Surveys show it. Economic reports show it. Public sentiment shows it. The 2014 Conservation in the West Poll, a bipartisan survey by Colorado College, found that nearly two-thirds of the voters in the Rocky Mountain region consider themselves conservationists, and most agree that public lands are an essential part of their state’s economy.

Photo: USFWS

Figures on the economic benefits of public lands back up the survey’s findings. The Outdoor Industry Association reports that in addition to the annual $646 billion contribution to the economy, outdoor recreation generates nearly $40 billion in annual federal tax revenue and roughly the same in state and local tax revenue. Hunters and anglers spend at least $90 billion a year, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The total spent on all wildlife-related activity, including wildlife watching and photography, was nearly $145 billion in 2011, or the equivalent of 1 percent of the Gross Domestic Product.

Business and gateway communities took big hits during last fall’s government shutdown and closure of national parks and other public sites. An Interior Department report estimated a loss of $414 million in visitor spending compared to a three-year average. Businesses also recognize the value of public lands and the lifestyle they offer in terms of attracting top employees and deciding where to locate, as a 2012 survey by the Small Business Majority demonstrated.

We call on the Republican National Committee to embrace the party’s conservation roots and support the public lands that provide so much and that help our western communities to thrive and make this country the greatest on earth.

Peter Metcalf is the CEO and president of Black Diamond Inc., based in Salt Lake City. He co-founded Black Diamond Equipment in 1989. Ann Morgan is the executive director of the National Wildlife Federation’s Rocky Mountain Regional Center and a former state Bureau of Land Management director in Colorado and Nevada.

Baja Remembered...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 04 May 2014 21:04:00 +0000

Hard to believe it's been just over a year since Mike Sepelak and I bathed in the Baja sun and no small amount of middle-shelf tequila. But it has. And I miss it.

Chasing Grayling

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 04 May 2014 18:12:00 +0000

Editor's note: This piece first appeared in Hatch Magazine.

In a day when all the fly fishing rage seems to be centered on salty critters that induce screaming reels and stylish expletive “bleeps” in one of the hundreds of new-era videos sucking up bandwidth these days, the essence of the craft seems to have gone south. Literally and figuratively.

Oh, I’m part of the problem. Believe me. I dig the flats and the fish that swim them. But it’s spring up here where we can actually tell a difference between the seasons, and my thoughts are shifting from bones and permit to chasing lighter fare in places where, when summer finally does arrive, it’s damn near over.

Places like the Alaskan interior, where the sun is shining now and pushing snowmelt into the region’s many rivers. And in those rivers, under brown, rushing waters lined by birch and alder, one of the most game of fly fishing targets is busy pair up, ensuring anglers yet another generation of wonderment.

Arctic grayling might be the perfect dry fly target, and while our nation’s creative fisheries managers have done their level best to bring grayling to the masses in the Lower 48, the most reliable American destination to catch this gorgeous cousin of the trout remains Alaska. And perhaps no other river in the Last Frontier is more identified with grayling than the Chena.

Not the Chena as it flows slow and deep through Fairbanks, but the Chena as it meanders through the Chena River State Recreation Area east of town. The river never wanders too from the Chena Hot Springs Road, making it wonderfully accessible to anglers in a state where the best fishing is often the hardest to get to.

To the casual eye, the Chena along this stretch looks like a classic Western freestoner—it’s pocked by riffles and runs, and downed birches and black spruces add character and depth to the stream. It looks … fishy.

And the river’s residents—those feminine yet bold grayling—are almost always in the mood to slash at a dry fly. And maybe that’s what makes grayling so attractive to the typical Western fly fisher. They behave a lot like our beloved rainbows and cutthroats (in fact, in the Missouri River drainage of Montana, grayling are native and evolved alongside west slope cutthroats—but their numbers are, sadly, diminished), and the waters they inhabit feel … familiar.

But, from the sail-like dorsal to the shimmering silver scales, the grayling is as worthy a target as any of its salmonid brethren—perhaps more so. Here in the Lower 48, a truly large specimen is a rarity, but the in Chena, a 20-incher is common, and on light tackle, the fish’s life force is admirable. That it’s not the most discerning of top-feeders shouldn’t dissuade the particular angler from chasing it, for the waters it occupies must be among the coldest and cleanest on the planet for it to thrive.

And that simply means that, when chasing grayling in waters like the Chena, one need only look around to truly appreciate the wild heart of the fish that swims there. The vast birch and spruce forests of the Alaskan interior shelter moose the size of rhinos and critters much more imposing, like grizzlies and black bears and packs of wolves that roam the woods, sliding in and out of the trees like ghosts, always on the heels of prey. And it all happens under the shadow of Denali, that is visible from nearly any reasonable stretch of high ground, hundreds of miles to the southwest.

Where, on clear and brief summer nights, the northern lights flash brilliantly along the horizon. Where bush planes dot the daylight skies. Where waters slice unimpeded and untarnished through a truly wild landscape that, today, is much like it was before Alaska became the source of dreams for Russian fur traders and European miners… and wandering, wide-eyed fly fishers.

Perhaps that’s the beauty of grayling. The fish represents a reminder of Alaska … of what once was, even in the relatively pristine rivers of Montana where the fish remains native, yet perilously close to extinction. Or in Michigan, where it is, indeed, a lost cause.

It’s doubtful, on a good day, that most fly fishers will find the grayling a terribly challenging target—in seldom-fished waters, they might be the anglers best friend. A high-floating Adams or a gaudy Royal Coachman will no doubt bring these opportunistic feeders to the surface, and they’ll even hit streamers seemingly too large to fit past their smallish mouths. Nymphs, too, can be particularly deadly. In short, they’re hardly choosy, often mindless and usually the easiest fish in the stream to catch (perhaps that explains their relative rarity in their Lower 48 native waters?)

But that’s not the point. I like to think grayling are proof that, left to its own devices, the land and its waters can provide all that’s needed for its creatures to thrive. That, perhaps with effort, some of the places these fish once swam could once again teem with grayling.

For now, though, it’s the waters like the Chena that give refuge for this worthy fish. May these waters always flow clear and clean … for the grayling and for the anglers who cherish them.

My Land

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 20 Apr 2014 15:49:00 +0000

Eric Parker of Idaho points an assualt rifle at the feds. Photo courtesy of Reuters.

It seems I own a little stretch of Bureau of Land Management real estate about 80 miles north of Las Vegas. And, as luck would have it, you do, too.

Cliven Bundy owns a share, as well, although he's taking more than what's due. In fact, for the last 20 years, after refusing to pay grazing fees to the government, Bundy has been taking from my land--he's been grazing hundreds of head of cattle on my land and hasn't paid a grazing fee to do so. For perspective, the grazing fee that Bundy would owe under 2014 rules is $1.35 per animal unit (cow and a calf) per month. It's a scam--these fees have been too low for too long.

Yet Bundy can't be bothered to pay even this pittance for the use of my land. Or your land. Our land. Instead, he appealed to the extreme fringes of our society--those places on the political spectrum occupied at one time by Timothy McVeigh, before he bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City, or Ted Kaczynski, during his Unabomber spree. Or Claude Dallas, when he executed two game wardens trying to bring him to justice for poaching on public land in the Owyhees (you know, our land).

And, good grief, did the fringe-dwellers show up.

Those of us in Idaho are particularly proud of one Eric Parker, who's photographed lying prone and aiming an assault rifle at government agents through a crack in a concrete barrier (enjoy the bare light bulb treatment, Eric--you have it coming, you friggin' genius). The feds--the caretakers of my land--were sent in to remove Cliven's trespassing cattle. Parker claims he's from central Idaho (don't they all?), and he and dozens of other "patriots" showed up in Nevada to essentially defend an outlaw. The courts have spoken. The feds have spoken. But Cliven Bundy continues to run cattle on my little stretch of desert paradise, and he still hasn't paid a dime.

'If these guys can show up, aim rifles at the feds and spend a day reveling in bumper-sticker idealism, why can't I or anyone else wander on down and harvest some beef that's illegally grazing on our land?'

Wisely, to avoid dusty, bloody rerun of Ruby Ridge, the BLM backed off--the cattle they had rounded up were turned loose. The freaks won "The Battle of Bunkerville" without firing a shot. I lost--my land still has Cliven Bundy's cows on it, and my caretakers still haven't seen a dime for the privilege, despite court rulings saying the rancher and melon farmer owes the BLM about $1 million.

I wonder, then, would it be against the law for me and others with a taste for beef to wander on down to our Nevada landholding and remove the trespassing cows ourselves? Contrary to popular belief, even folks from the reasonable middle--or perhaps a bit left--on the political spectrum know where to aim a 30.06 for a kill shot on a large ungulate. If these guys can show up, aim rifles at the feds and spend a day reveling in bumper-sticker idealism, why can't I or anyone else wander on down and harvest some beef that's illegally grazing on our land?

I've read with general disgust the extremist views of these so-called patriots (even U.S. Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada called them such--a treasonous statement for a sitting lawmaker, in my opinion)--they're whining about the usual stuff, like an oppressive government overreaching its authority, warning the rest of us that Cliven Bundy is just the beginning... that the government is out to get each and every one of us.

Government, frankly, is what makes a society civil. And our government, when adhering to its founding principles and its constitution, largely achieves the modest goal of maintaining civility. You want a milquetoast federal government? I know a little country on the eastern border of Russia who'd love to have you and your AR-15 right about now.

But the nerve this whole thing hits with me, of course, is the notion that one man's use of public lands is more important than another's. And Cliven Bundy and his scraggly, cheat-grass-fed cows are but a single, insignificant example of land use run amok. It blows my mind that these assault-rifle-toting zealots will show up in force to defend an outlaw but they won't lift a finger to help stop a poorly-conceived, ill-fated drilling and fracking plan that all but trashes vital winter range for mule deer and elk, and threatens irreplaceable habit for trout in Wyoming or Colorado. That, too, is happening on my land, and I'm not very happy about it. It impacts me and people like me who truly know what to do with a high-powered rifle... or a fly rod.

Cliven Bundy on his soap-box. Photo courtesy of The Huffington Post.

The difference, I suppose, is that Exxon-Mobil pays for the privilege of trashing my land. Cliven Bundy? He can't be bothered to adhere to the rules of a civil society. He can't be bothered to pay the bargain-basement rate the BLM charges to run cattle on my land. Or your land. Our land.

He called in the extremists and made a spectacle out of the public lands management system that, while perhaps not perfect, has given so much to Americans willing to appreciate the notion that, by right of birth, this land belongs to you and me. It's ours to enjoy. To fish. To hunt. To camp. And, for a price, others can log, or drill ... or run cattle. For a price.

Pay your fees, Mr. Bundy. Or get your cows off my land. And tell your friends of political convenience to crawl back into their basements and save their powder for the day when an unjust government truly does come calling. You're an outlaw, not a hero.

God help us if we somehow can't tell the difference.

Hiatus

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 17 Apr 2014 04:58:00 +0000

It's not like I've just been hanging out watching on-demand episodes of Homeland or binge-watching House of Cards. I've been busy.

The day job is changing--for the better--and keeping me on my toes. And I did finish my last book for your reading pleasure. But mostly, I've just been swamped. That likely won't change, but if I've learned anything, it's that this part of my life--this little writing project that started about six years ago and never truly ended--is a necessity. It's prescriptive therapy--like an anti-depressant or a knee brace. I can function OK without it--for a time--but in the end, I'll return to it, and just as often stare into the blank space of the WYSIWYG editor than I will actually write something.

I've had a few little projects in the works--the book is one, obviously. I've crafted a few things for my friend Chad Shmukler at Hatch Magazine. And, of course, I'm spreading the gospel over at the TU blog, where we've literally been saving the world, one trout at a time. But this... this purely self-serving endeavor meant for all eyes--or none--seems to pull me back in. Even if it's just to read some previous posts or wade through the spam comments (Boost Your Bust? Really?) and delete the pablum left behind by the trolls.

I've been able to fish a bit. I hit the Henry's Fork for an afternoon a week or so ago, visited the surprisingly fishy mountain streams of north Georgia earlier this spring and I traveled south to Ascension Bay in February, where I caught my first permit. And my second. And my third.

I can't promise that "I'm back," or anything, but I'd like think I've arrived at a place in my tumultuous existence of late where I might be able to pop in--and pop off on a few issues--with some sense of regularity.

Until then, enjoy the fishing.

Thankful...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 28 Nov 2013 18:24:00 +0000

Perhaps inspiration is found in the bottom of a jug of homemade apple pie cocktail (thank you, Wisconsin), or perhaps it's just the season... but I felt compelled to sit and craft a tried-and-true post for the holiday.

Today, I'm thankful for...

Fishing buddies...

My friends. A little social network time this morning convinced me that spending a holiday like this alone is done purely by choice. Just a few lines of text, some kitschy winks and smiley-faces, and I felt fulfilled... loved... appreciated. Thank you for that, my dear friends. Happy Thanksgiving.

The Rockettes. Whew. It's hot in here.

My kids. They're here with me this morning, and we're cooking and watching TV and YouTube vines and eating stuffing and breakfast burritos and ... let's just say I'm grateful. Beyond grateful.

Cold water. No cold water, no trout. No trout, no joy. Thank God for melting snow, upslopes and blizzards.

Brookies

Bonefish. Challenging. Discerning. Lightning fast. Drop dead gorgeous (after a fashion).

Brook trout. I'm always thankful for brookies. I thank God every time I pull one from clear water and soak in the rich colors alive with a force that I cannot explain.

Salt water. I live in Idaho. But a year without sand between my toes and the taste of salty spray on my lips is year poorly lived.

Fishing buddies. They're more than friends, for they forgive the vices that grip me and help me embrace the passion I have for the pull at the end of the leader. They provide wisdom, offer patience and forgive weakness. They enjoy the little things, and understand the magnetism of water.

Family. They're far-flung. They're weird. They're wonderful. Some of them are even Republicans. But I love them, and I'm thankful for them. And I've made them each provide me with a notorized copy of their birth certificates. You never know.

Public lands

Public lands. May they remain so, for coming generations. And may those who wish to trash them gain the wisdom needed to see their value. They belong to you. To me. And even to those--bought and paid for--who would see them traded for short-term gain.

Fiberglass. Our grandfathers had it right the first time.

Hopper season. If I need to elaborate, you need to get out more.

Bob Clouser. Thanks for the minnow, my friend.

Hatch pliers. They saved my finger last summer. Close call.

Dean's Blue Hole. Thanks Sam Root for the photo.

Dean's Blue Hole. It's pretty intimidating to stand in three feet of water at its edge and cast over a chasm that drops 663 feet into the blue.

That special place on Colorado's Crystal River where my grandfather and I once stood and caught countless fat rainbows within shouting distance of one another. In all my years on the water, that day ranks at the top. I miss my grandfathers... both of them. They taught me to fish. They taught me about the water. Those are gifts I can never, ever repay.

Ladyfish. Underappreciated. Big-eyed. Beautiful. Acrobatic. They frolic in the surf. They cruise the flats. They dance and shimmer. I'm enamored.

Jungle perch. When walking past a sign that reads, "Freshwater crocodiles have been known to injure people," you better come away with something. And a jungle perch is something, indeed.

Kayaks. This little craft is is the portal to the salty backcountry, where mangroves drape over dark water and shelter critters that crush Clousers and mangle 15-pound leaders. They're quiet. The run shallow and they squeeze into the tiniest of openings.

Dolly Varden

Dolly Varden. These salty char of the north country never lose perspective, nurture a surly disposition and navigate among fish much larger than they are in order to eat and thrive. They're a worthy game fish and should be treated so.

And, finally...

Wilderness. Without it, we're not reminded of how things used to be, and how magical this place was before we razed and honed and progressed. There's more of it than we know--we should protect it. Forever.

Florida's Dirty Little Secret, Part 4

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sat, 02 Nov 2013 17:48:00 +0000

This is the fourth and final post in a series focusing on the ecological issues facing the coastal estuaries of southern Florida. Read Part One here, Part Two here, and Part Three here.

Tourists watch dolphins hunting fish in San Carlos Bay.

The boatful of tourists watched with sheer glee as a pod of bottlenose dolphins frolicked along the edges of the Intercoastal Waterway. The big mammals put on quite a show, breaching regularly, sometimes completely coming out of the dark, tainted water of San Carlos Bay.

Jim Martin, a lifelong conservationists, and the conservation officer for Pure Fishing, joined me and a handful of folks on the dolphin-watching tour, an offering given to attendees at the American Sportfishing Association Summit, conducted in October on shores of the bay.

Martin, who speaks passionately about issues impacting the environment--particularly as those issues impact fishing opportunity--remarked on the color of the water, and noted that, if something isn't done to remedy the frequent influx of untreated fresh water from Lake Okeechobee, this bay and others like around south Florida could be in real trouble.

"People ask me all the time how much this bay can handle," he said. "The answer is, how tightly can you stretch a rubber band? Eventually, it's going to break."

Later that week, I listened to Martin give an empassioned plea to members of the sporting media gathered at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership Saltwater Conservation Summit in Key Largo.

"The people in D.C. don't understand the issues facing our estuaries, and because of that, they don't care," he said. Sportsmen, he continued, need to demand appropriate conservation funding from the government to address the issues facing Florida's estuaries, and vital inshore habitats all along America's coastlines, simply because they have an economic impact on local regional economies that cannot be ignored.

As Martin put it, sportsmen and women need to get involved and let the decision-makers in D.C. know that they can trash our habitat and our opportunity "over our dead bodies."

Drastic? Maybe on the surface. But as I and a host of other members of the press learned in October in south Florida, the situation is quite dire. The issue at hand--releases of untreated "fresh" water from Lake Okeechobee tainting coastal estuaries in the Caloosahatchee, Indian and St. Lucie river drainages--is truly frightening. This year alone almost 800 endangered Florida manatees have died in the polluted estuaries, likely due to the die-off of sea grass caused by the polluted discharges. Manatees have taken to eating toxic algae instead of their traditional foods. Of course there will be repercussions.

The underappreciated ladyfish is one of many inshore fish that depend on
healthy estuaries.

These estuaries are also vital nurseries for redfish, snook, tarpon, sea trout, jack crevailles, ladyfish and other prized gamefish that inshore anglers target. And, according to the ASA, inshore fishing in the fastest-growing segment within fishing, in general. In Florida alone, more than 3 million anglers ply the state's waters, and the vast majority of them, at one time or another, chase saltwater fish in the estuaries and from the beaches.

In 2011, according to an ASA study, fishing had an economic impact of more than $8 billion on the state's economy, and it was responsible for about $1.2. billion in state, local and federal tax receipts. In comparison, the industry that benefits most from the water releases into the estuaries--Big Sugar--contributes about $2 billion to the state economy.

As I said in a previous installment in this series. It's a no-brainer. It's not even close.

But the challenge isn't so much proving that recreation fishing deserves a more prominent seat at the table. Instead, it's finding a way to play the game by a set of rules we likely need more help with. While Big Sugar contributes millions every year to political action committees and candidates--and spends millions more lobbying for the status quo--the recreational fishing industry does precious little.

Martin, who represents the interests of Pure Fishing, the world's largest manufacturer of fishing gear and equipment and the company behind brands like Abu Garcia, Berkely, Pflueger, Penn and Shakespeare (add in the recent purchase of Hardy-Greys, and the company now has a significant footprint in the fly fishing world, too), fully understands the dynamic that exists between intact habitat and quality fishing opportunity.

"We make Gulp," he said. "Of course we want healthy fisheries."

Credit the ASA with being very active in conservation issues--the organization does its share of outreach to Congress, and it, like Martin, understands that habitat and opportunity are intrinsically linked. But there's just no money--at least no money spent--on behalf of the industry to "play the game" according the rules by which giant lobbies like Big Sugar play.

In short, if Big Sugar continues to buy the votes of politicians and spend millions lobbying in D.C., while the ASA and other organizations simply sign letters and shout into the vacuum about the injustice of it all, we're lost.

Spanish mackerel.

Yes, the system is failing us. As anglers, it's clear that we have the numbers. We have the data. We have the impact. But, unless we start putting the money where our mouths are, Big Sugar, Big Oil, mining, ethanol, coal--the industries that quietly spend money in D.C and in congressional districts from coast to coast to protect their fiefdoms--we're going to lose our resources, both fresh and salty.

Our fishing will suffer. So, too, will the opportunities of coming generations, who may never know the joy of catching a snook on a fly in the shadow of the mangroves, or watching as a lightning-fast Spanish mackerel snares a clouser on the rush of an incoming tide.

Habitat. Opportunity. Money. It really is that simple.

In order to win under these rules, we have to play the game.

Florida's Dirty Little Secret: Part Three

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 02:03:00 +0000

This is the third in a series of posts focusing on the ecological issues facing the coastal estuaries of southern Florida. Read Part One here, and Part Two here.

A spotted sea trout breaks up a slow day of fishing in San Carlos Bay. The
bay is influenced by excess water discharges from Lake Okeechobee,
which turn the water brown and add pollutants to the estuary.

It's fashionable, among sportsmen and women, to point fingers at others when it becomes obvious that our fishing and hunting are suffering thanks to degraded waters or lands. Certainly, it's true that some who use our resources leave them in a state that makes our pastimes less productive, and it's perfectly all right to identify the causes of the problems that trash fish and game habitat and hinder our opportunity.

But unless we act, we're just a bunch of whiners. It's a tough pill to swallow, but it's true. Complaining about a problem without offering a solution just makes for shrill rhetoric. It's unproductive, to be sure. For more, see: Congress, United States.

I have a good friend who once explained to me how, traditionally, sportsmen engaged in politics, particularly when it came to natural resources issues that impacted their opportunities afield.

"If one day, you told a bunch of hunters that they had to wake up the next morning, report to the firing squad and be executed, they'd bitch and moan all night long," he said to me. "Then, the next morning, they'd dutifully report, and stand stoically in front of the firing squad to be shot dead."

In south Florida, where the Indian, St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee river estuaries are being pushed to their ecological limits, largely by the polluted discharges from an overtaxed Lake Okeechobee, and where, at the same time, the Everglades are literally dying of thirst, the folks who are arguably the most affected need to quit the whining and start acting.

The unnatural discharges operated by a maze of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers locks and levees are so polluted with agricultural runoff from south Florida's agricultural district (largely the cane fields grown by Big Sugar) that, once they make their way into the coastal estuaries, they turn the normally emerald green water into fetid bays and dark brown lagoons. The influx of untreated "fresh" water kills seagrass and other native vegetation and likely contributes significantly to unnatural algae blooms, toxic red tides and the general malaise associated with polluted water.

Just this year, 769 endangered Florida manatees have died in these estuaries.

Bottlenose dolphins hunt the artificially murky waters of the
Caloosahatchee River estuary recently. The estuary is polluted every
summer by overflowing water from Lake Okeechobee that's untreated and
directed into the river by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Keep in mind that all of these estuaries are the nurseries for some of the most-prized gamefish in the country--redfish, snook, tarpon, sea trout, and the like. These fish are targeted by millions of anglers every single year, and they are the source of billions in retail spending and tax revenues for the region.

According to the American Sportfishing Association, retail sales and the "ripple effect" of that cash influx total $8.6 billion in Florida alone. Recreational fishing pays over $2.7 billion in wages annually ... in Florida alone. How many jobs does that account for? More than 80,000. Tax revenues for Florida and the federal government? About $1.2 billion.

Let's compare that to the overall economic impact of Big Sugar in the state of Florida.

According to a University of Florida study updated in 2002, Big Sugar's cash receipts exceeded $800 million a year through the 1990s and into the early part of the last decade in Florida alone.

"When the multiplier effect is taken into account, the Florida raw sugar industry generates gross sales of over $2 billion in the state and creates several thousand full-time equivalent jobs in Florida," the report reads.

The American Sugar Alliance doesn't break the numbers down by state--at least not publicly. But, according to its figures, eight refineries and 22 mills in the four states that grow sugar cane (Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana and Texas) provide 42,000 full-time and indirect jobs. Remember, those employment figures are spread over four states.

So how on earth does Big Sugar protect its little fiefdom in Florida, especially when it's clear as the water should be off the coast of Sanibel Island that sportfishing in Florida is much more valuable--it's not even close--than sugar production?

Big Sugar spends a fortune lobbying in D.C. and Tallahassee, and it doles out political contributions to PACs and individual candidates like saltwater taffy on Halloween.

For instance, American Crystal Sugar, one of two Big Sugar companies in south Florida, spent $2.3 million lobbying Congress and the Florida Legislature in 2011 and 2012, and during the 2012 election cycle, the company reported campaign contributions to PACs and candidates totaling $2.2 million.

U.S. Sugar, a smaller company but one of significance in the region, spent almost $400,000 on lobbying in 2011 and 2012, and contributed more than $700,000 to PACs and candidates.

All to protect the status quo and keep those ill-conceived locks and levees operating. Not only does this network of waterways keep the vast cane fields from flooding during the summer rainy season and irrigated during the winter dry season, it contributes to a situation that keeps about two-thirds of the natural water flows from entering the Florida Everglades (the Tamiami Trail does a number on the 'glades, as well, but at least there's a plan in the works to help alleviate this problem).

What does the sportfishing lobby spend on this issue? How much cash have we coughed up to fix this fixable tragedy and protect south Florida's irreplaceable estuaries? How much cheddar is our industry spending to protect the habitat and the opportunity for the 3.1 million anglers who plied Florida waters in 2011 (numbers provided by a recent proprietary study done by the American Sportfishing Association)?

According to an Opensecrets.org search, the American Sportfishing Association raised $13,000 during the 2012 election cycle. And it spent $9,000 of it. How much of that was spent in Florida? A whopping $1,000 was given to U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, a Republican from Pensacola.

To be clear, this is not a criticism of the ASA or of sportfishers in general. Consider it, instead, a wake-up call. We can bitch and moan until the sun comes up about this and a host of other ecological disasters in waiting, but until we start playing the game the way the slick, monied folks at Big Sugar play the game, there's no incentive on the part of Florida's state or federal elected officials to change one damn thing. There's no incentive to treat polluted water. No incentive to filter much needed water through the Everglades, as nature intended, and away from our fragile estuaries that are literally on the brink. No incentive to protect the places that make our fishing happen.

In other words, we might as well go ahead and stand in front of the firing squad.

Next: How powerful can we be? Is there good news?

Florida's Dirty Little Secret: Part Two

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 30 Oct 2013 14:04:00 +0000

This is a second in a series of posts focusing on the ecological issues facing the coastal estuaries of southern Florida. Read Part One here, and Part Three here.

You've heard of Big Oil. The Big Three from Detroit. And, of course, the Big Lebowski.

But have you heard of Big Sugar?

I have to admit, until I spent some quality time chasing saltwater fish in southwest Florida recently, I

An osprey surveys the stained water of San Carlos Bay in southwest
Florida. The bay turns brown when unnatural discharges of polluted
water are deposited by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' diversion
project to protect sugar cane crops during the summer wet season.

hadn't. But, as I paddled the stained waters of San Carlos Bay and fished the chalky water off the beaches of Sanibel Island, it became clear to me that Big Sugar isn't as sweet as it sounds.

In Florida, this industry is source of great pride, particularly among those state and federal lawmakers who collect significant campaign contributions from companies like U.S. Sugar and American Crystal Sugar, or the collective lobbying group, the American Sugar Alliance.

For those living along both the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts of southern Florida, though, Big Sugar is a Big Problem.

This heavily subsidized industry is largely the cause of one of the most egregious environmental problems in the Southeast, and if you're a saltwater angler from Florida, or someone who travels to the Sunshine State to chase inshore trophies like snook, tarpon and redfish, you might already know the havoc Big Sugar wreaks on the state's southern estuaries.

Each summer, during the rainy season, an artificially limited Lake Okeechobee (its capacity has been continually reduced for well over a century to support cane fields to the south) would overflow if not for a complex network of Army Corps of Engineers locks and levees that channel tainted water into the Indian, St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers. Eventually, these polluted rivers dump into their estuaries, where the frequent surges of "fresh" water turn otherwise healthy coastal habitat into brown, fetid bays and lagoons ripe with rotting sea grass and unnatural algae blooms. In the St. Lucie River Estuary, water quality can be so bad thanks to these discharges that people are warned to stay out of it entirely.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers locks send excess (and polluted) water from
Lake Okeechobee into the Indian, St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers and,
eventually, their estuaries, to protect cane fields south of the lake.
Photo courtesy of the Sun-Sentinel.

Ideally, this runoff would head straight for the Everglades, perhaps the greatest natural "filter" in North America. But in its present condition--ripe with fertilizers, nitrogen and phosphorus from the cane fields and the agricultural runoff from the Kissimmee River agricultural district to the north--even the Everglades would have a hard time processing this water. And, as noted above, what was once the River of Grass is now a massive sugar cane plantation. Today, thanks to these diversions and other challenges, including a road across the 'glades--the Tamiami Trail--that essentially acts as a dam that holds back water, the Everglades only get about a third of the water they once did. This means that only a third of the water is filtered through the reeds and grass of this diminishing national treasure and deposited--clean and clear--into Florida Bay, near the northern reaches of the Florida Keys.

And, frankly, this is the way Big Sugar likes it. Every year, the industry coughs up millions in campaign contributions and lobbying expenses to ensure it can continue to conduct business as usual. This spells eventual doom for the estuaries of south Florida, and for the multi-billion-dollar recreational fishing industry that thrives when the water's as emerald green as it should be. Every year since 2000, American Crystal Sugar spent between $300,000 and $600,000 on candidates and lobbying--in 2008, the company puked up $2.1 million, and that average has jumped to over $1 million every year since.

Here's the description of American Crystal Sugar's campaign finance and lobbying profile provided by OpenSecrets.org:

American Crystal Sugar is an agricultural cooperative founded in 1899 that produces and processes sugar and sugar beets. The company has for decades maintained an active political action committee, routinely spending between $300,000 and $600,000 each election cycle through the early 2000s. In recent years, however, American Crystal Sugar PAC expenditures have grown exponentially, reaching $2.1 million during the 2008 election cycle. The company's PAC generally directs more of its money to Democratic candidates than Republican candidates. Also in recent years, the company has increased its federal lobbying expenditures significantly, spending between $1 million and $2 million in 2008 and 2009.

This New York Times photo shows the U.S. Sugar refinery near Lake
Okeechobee in south-central Florida.

U.S. Sugar, a smaller company, but still a major player in Florida politics, spent $700,000 on candidates during the 2012 election cycle, and about $400,000 lobbying elected officials in Washington and Tallahassee.

Most federal Congressional candidates who accepted direct donations from ACS or USS cashed checks ranging from $5,000 to $16,000, and others took in funds from the American Sugar Alliance and other PACs that received contributions from the two Florida sugar giants.

Big Sugar pays to protect the status quo. But here's the kicker: you, as an American taxpayer, pay to support Big Sugar. How so? Well, Americans pay about three times the global price of sugar thanks to a federal farm program that limits imports of cheaper sugar from other countries like the Dominican Republic and Guatemala. Additionally, this program allows sugar companies to accept taxpayer-backed federal loans, and, should the price of sugar on the open market fall, these companies can repay these loans ... in sugar. Sugar the government must then sell at a loss or pay to store.

It's a sweet racket, no pun intended.

You can see why the industry fights so hard to keep things just like they are. Not only can it repay cash loans to the government in the form of an abundant commodity it has complete control over, but taxpayers also pony up the operation costs of a complex drainage system that keeps cane fields dry during the wet season (and wet during the dry season), all the while bearing no official responsibility for trashing Florida's estuaries that, if you did the math for the value of recreational fishing alone, would be worth much, much more than the sugar industry to Florida's economy.

How much more? Stay tuned. More to come.

Next: Fishing vs. Sugar. You'll be surprised.

Florida's Dirty Little Secret: Part One

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 29 Oct 2013 14:38:00 +0000

Note: This is the first in a series of posts focusing on the ecological issues facing the coastal estuaries of south Florida. Read Part Two here, and Part Three here.

Tarpon Bay in the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sanibel
Island, Florida.

With each pull on the kayak paddle, I realized that, despite the abundance of life that calls Tarpon Bay home, something wasn't altogether right with this world. Decaying plant matter--likely dead seagrass and other native marine vegetation--hung suspended in the brackish water beneath the craft, and my paddle would disappear altogether once dunked in the drink.

I'd been hearing about this situation for the better part of a week before I took to the mangroves in search of salty fish--it's an odd dilemma facing both the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts of southern Florida. There's simply too much fresh water entering the estuaries down the Indian, St. Lucie and the Caloosahatchee rivers. And, frankly, the word "fresh" isn't exactly accurate, either.

The water, tainted overflow from Florida's famed Lake Okeechobee, is artificially diverted into these rivers by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rather than allowed to enter the Everglades (which sorely needs the fresh water). About 150 years ago, the process that drained much of Okeechobee and the northern reaches of the Everglades to make room for agricultural development started. Today, this former swamp is the sugar capital of Florida, and cane fields now dominate the landscape rather than the River of Grass that once filtered much of south Florida's runoff before depositing just the right amount of clean, fresh water into Florida Bay at the northern end of the Florida Keys.

Today, when Lake Okeechobee exceeds it's artificially limited capacity (usually during the summer rainy season), the Corps, through a system of diversions and locks, sends the excess water--and all the nitrates, phosphorus and fertilizer in it--into the estuaries on either Florida coast. The normally emerald green waters of these coastal oases turn dark and foreboding. Stained. Brown. Dirty.

Bottlenose dolphins hunt for fish in the tarnished water of San Carlos Bay.

As this tainted water finds its way down the rivers and into the estuaries, the victims are the ecosystems these coastal bays and lagoons nurture ... and everybody who treasures them. These estuaries are vital rookeries for countless coastal birds. They are home to the endangered Florida manitees that graze among the seagrass and the mangroves. They're home to thousands of bottlenose dolphins that feast on the fish that call these waters home.

Oh, yes, the fish. These estuaries are the nurseries for prized redfish, snook, sea trout, tarpon, drum, mackerel, ladyfish, jack crevailles and dozens of other species that draw the attention of many of the 3.1 million resident and non-resident anglers who fish Florida each year. These fish, according to a study commissioned recently by the American Sportfishing Association, account for some $8.6 billion in retail sales and other fishing-related expenditures (hotel rooms, restaurants, gas, groceries, etc.), more than 80,000 jobs and well over $1 billon in state, local and federal tax revenues.

Just this past week, releases into the estuaries were scaled back--the summer rainy season in south Florida is nearing its end. Now comes the dry season, when Lake Okeechobee will begin to recede and--you guessed it--the Corps of Engineers will work like mad on behalf of the sugar industry to save every last drop for crops. The estuaries--bloated and brown most of the summer by tainted water--will get precious little fresh water until the rains come next summer. Then, they'll get too much.

It's feast or famine for the coastal estuaries of south Florida, and while the solution to restoring balance to these vital ecological and recreational wonderlands seems simple--and it frankly is, assuming the political will can be mustered--powerful interests stand in the way.

Next: Who's to blame for this mess?

Beginnings

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 13:28:00 +0000

It's been a while. And much has happened. I'd like to apologize for my hiatus, but it would be disingenuous. I'm not sorry... I needed a break to focus on other things.

It's funny, too, because this endeavor was a "thing" in our marriage. A distraction. An interruption. Proof that I could find time for something I loved, and proof, to some, that I loved other things more than I should have dared. I fought for it. Clung to it. Depended on it.

And then I stopped. For almost two months, I stopped. Cold turkey. And, honest to God, I have no idea why. I guess, as I look back, it just didn't feel right to spend the time writing about fishing when our lives were crumbling like old stucco.

And crumble they have. But the facade is almost gone, and what's left is ... new, unfamiliar and a little scary.

Life awaits. Let's see what's out there.

Old Time Radio and the Elusive Bonefish

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 22:10:00 +0000

Conrad as Marshall Matt Dillon

Years ago, when I worked as a journalist on the North Coast of California, I got into the habit of falling to sleep to the sounds of old-time radio.

Stan Freberg—a Radio Hall-of-Famer—hosted a nightly show on one of the AM stations we could pick up in remote Eureka, and my sleep began to depend on tinny voices blasting from the clock radio on the nightstand. Half-hour series like “Our Miss Brooks,” “The Life of Reilly,” “Boston Blackie,” “Dragnet” and my favorite, “Gunsmoke,” would put us to sleep, often before we could get through an entire episode. It was comical for a while—a novelty (I think it would be akin to my 11-year-old son putting his Xbox aside and taking up a game of River Run on the old Atari 2600).

Now, it’s no longer a novelty. It’s a necessity for sleep, and thanks to the Google Play Store, my phone is chock full of mp3 files—I’ll wager I’ve listened to every Gunsmoke episode ever recorded. Twice.

What does this have to do with fishing?

A couple years ago, I spent a blustery week on the flats of The Bahamas’ Long Island—the weather was miserable and the fishing was slow. I had never hooked a bonefish before, and when the week expired, I still hadn’t. I watched a few being caught, but took solace in the fact that the wind and the rain made for slow fishing among the experienced group of anglers.

My friend Kirk Deeter, I recall, caught a bonefish while listening to his iPod—I don’t recall the music,

Georgia Ellis was radio's Miss Kitty.

but I remember thinking that such a distraction might be just the ticket to prevent me from thinking too hard… from consciously working too hard against the wind with my hapless trout-fishing fly cast. Overthinking… overanalyzing anything in the sporting realm tends to add complexity to an endeavor, and by the end of a long and frustrating week, it was clear that I let the details that accompany chasing bones on the flats get in the way of actually fishing.

When I made it back to the Bahamas a year later, my phone contained not a single musical track. But it

did have about a decade’s worth of Marshall Dillon’s adventures with Miss Kitty, Chester and Doc filling up its mirco SD card. I borrowed a pair of Disney earbuds from my buddy Marc Payne—who had borrowed them from his daughter back in Tennessee—and I hit the flats of Long Island with “a U.S. Marshall and the smell of … Gunsmoke.”

William Conrad—who later gained a buttload of weight and played the fat man in “Jake and the Fat

Man”—blasted his way through those earbuds and through the streets of Dodge City, and I was sufficiently distracted to become, over the course of a week, a fairly competent bonefisher. I didn’t overthink my cast or my double-haul. I walked stealthily and I zoned in on fish that a year before I had no hope of seeing.

And I listened along as Marshall Dillon foiled “the killers and the spoilers” with regularity. As Dillon and Chester beat back crooked gamblers, rustlers and murderers on the Kansas frontier, I honed my skills on the quiet flats of Long Island.

Now, as I fall asleep to the raucous sounds of a gunfight in the Alafraganza, I wonder if, when I get back to the flats, I’ll need those earbuds again, and a dose of old-time radio.

You know... I'm not about to take that chance.

Distracted enough to catch this guy...

This Land is Your Land...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 21:20:00 +0000

The vintage DeHavilland Beaver skittered away into the slate-gray Southeast Alaskan sky, leaving us with a short hike around a small isthmus to the mouth of the remote creek. The drum beat of the tell-tale rotary engine grew distant and faded altogether as we geared up and readied for the walk along the shoreline to the mouth of the unnamed sweetwater stream coursing out of the rainforest. In the salt, staging pink salmon frolicked and jumped from the water, their short lives arriving at the beginning of the end.

Here, a short plane ride from busy Juneau (there were five massive cruise ships at the dock and thousands of tourists milling about downtown when we took off from the airport) and yet hopelessly out of touch with civilization, we landed on our very own piece of real estate. Mine. Theirs. Yours.

Ours.

Alaska's Tongass National Forest--all 17 million acres of it--belongs to each and every American by right of birth. It's bounded by the sea on the west and Canada on the east, and it has about 300 million owners, only a few of whom will ever have bother to set foot beneath its lush, green canopy. It's like owning a small share of West Virginia ... only this land is virtually pristine... untouched... untarnished... unspoiled.

No offense to West Virginia, of course. All of the Tongass' mountaintops remain intact and hopefully will for generations to come.

But I don't take that for granted. The Tongass is a giant fish factory that literally spills over every summer and fall with all five species of Pacific salmon, as well as Dolly Varden, an ocean-going and charismatic char, steelhead, sea-run cutthroats and even small populations of rainbow trout. It's salty depths are littered with prized table-fare like halibut and rockfish, and lightning-fast salmon sharks chase kings and cohos in the green waters of the Inside Passage.

It's this fishy recipe that hangs in the balance. And Trout Unlimited is out to protect that balance... to keep the Tongass healthy and functional... to keep it like it is.

Years ago, swaths of the Tongass were razed during clear-cutting operations that targeted the

rainforest's unique old-growth timber. Some islands in the Tongass--like Prince of Wales, for instance--are still targeted for timber sales, despite the shaky economics of the industry these days, and the potential impacts these sales can have on the vibrant and economically vital commercial and recreational fishing industries in Southeast. In the Tongass, it's all about water--salmon need clean, cold water in which to spawn, and irresponsible timber harvests, and the construction of the infrastructure that goes with them, have impacted streams to point where spawning and rearing habitat for salmon is literally smothered by sediment.

TU is approaching this challenge from a very pragmatic perspective. The organization has identified 77 intact watersheds in the Tongass that, if left as they are today, will produce salmon and trout for generations. It's proactive conservation--the kind of work that can ensure a future for both commercial and recreational fishers while allowing for the responsible harvest of timber where such activity is economically, environmentally and culturally feasible.

As we rounded the point and hopped on a bear trail leading upstream into the rainforest, we noticed the little creek was choked with pink salmon. And there, lurking beneath the four-pound salmon were wily Dollies, awaiting the bounty that would surely come their way when the short-lived humpies, fresh from the salt, got down to the business of spawning. The Dollies are opportunistic feeders, and any unlucky salmon egg that works loose from the gravel will likely find its way into the belly of one of these voracious and aggressive char.

In the mud along the stream, fresh brown bear tracks told of the hours just past, when these big omnivores likely chased these very salmon around this very stream as the fish surged upstream on the last high tide. Above, the annoyed chirps of a dozen bald eagles reminded us that we're the visiting anglers, and that everything in this forest lives and dies with the fish at our feet.

And the same could be said for Southeast Alaska. Communities ranging from Juneau and Wrangell to Petersburg and Ketchikan all depend on the annual returns of salmon to the rivers and streams of the forest. Left alone and managed wisely by science-based regulations, salmon will return year after year to these waters, and we'll have the chance to catch them ... and eat them.

So long as their spawning and rearing waters stay intact, that is. You can help decide its fate by staying apprised of TU's work on the Tongass 77 campaign and the effort to keep the Tongass whole.

A little help? Remember... it's your land, too.

Special thanks to RIO Products, Fishpond and Tenkara USA for helping TU shed some light on this important issue this summer.

Angry Birds...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 23:12:00 +0000

In line for take-off ... and about to start dive-bombing
bonefish anglers.

It happened in a split second, and I'm sure it was karma jumping in to kick my ass.

For four straight days while wading the flats off of Deadman's Cay, we'd been hounded by nesting gulls--it's understandable that the screaming, squawking, black-headed birds would be threatened by us as we walked quietly among their nesting islands in search of bonefish, and I think it's understandable that, after a time, the birds began to drive us nuts.

In a fit of frustration, as a maniacal gull dive-bombed me and spooked a sizable school of bones headed my way, I took a half-hearted swing at the bird with my 8-weight ... and connected. It was a glancing blow, and I immediately felt terrible for doing it. The bird flew off unharmed--if a bit startled--and I shouldered a pang of guilt for the rest of day.

My guilt didn't stop the birds from harassing us (and I suppose, in their eyes, we were harassing them), and I wasn't the only one to report back to the lodge each evening with tales of gulls diving uncomfortable close, or of gulls flocking overhead and spooking the fish were we stalking.

My kingdom for a 20-gauge.

Preparing to attack.

Near the end of the fourth day at Long Island Bonefishing Lodge, a gull took umbrage as I approached the apparent "no walk zone" along the lee side of a little mangrove hummock in the middle of a large, open flat. As I walked quietly, scanning the clear water with the fly in one hand--a size 6 pink puff--and the rod in the other, the gull dive-bombed me and smacked my upright 8-weight Mystic. The vibration yanked the fly deep into the meaty flesh of my left index finger, well past the barb (and no, I did not crimp the barb).

With a curse I'd be ashamed to repeat, I screamed at the foul (fowl?) bird for its brazen attack on an innocent bystander. Then I looked at my finger and realized this wasn't just a little poke. The fly was in there, and good.

The end result. Don't mess with Angry Birds. (Thank you, Sam Root, for
the great photo)

I knew right away that this was a bit more serious than other fly-in-the-flesh experiences I've endured throughout my years spent fly fishing. It it easily the biggest hook I've taken--before this experience, I managed to hook myself in the arm with a size 12 Chernobly, and I once took a size 14 Adams in the back of the neck. Those all came out relatively easily.

I clipped the fly from the tippet, reeled up and started walking back to the boat, where I knew there was a cooler full of ice that I could use to numb my finger and maybe yank the fly out of the flesh.

But, every time I touched the fly, the point of the hook would move deeper into my finger and send a wave of pain shooting up my arm and then down my spine. With each tinge, I'd break out in goosebumps. And, barehanded, I couldn't muster the strength the pull the fly out without passing out in the process.

After a bumpy ride across open water back to the lodge (and with each bump, the pain would shoot up my arm) with my hand immersed in a bag of ice, I walked into my room and was greeted by Marc Payne, who sympathetically offered to try to pull it out. Then he saw the hook deeply imbedded into my finger and thought otherwise. In fact, I think the sight creeped him out a bit.

I grabbed my favorite pair of Hatch pliers, gritted my teeth and yanked on the fly stuck into the cold flesh of my finger.

Spots appeared across my line of vision as I put the pliers to work. I heard an audible "snap" and then leaned into the vanity counter next to the sink to keep from hitting the tile floor. I looked down at my finger. I'd managed to remove the fly, and blood was flowing freely.

Relief.

Thanks Andrew Payne for the bandage... you're a life-saver!

Marc did turn out to be helpful, after all. His son, Andrew, had given him an Angry Birds first-aid kit to take with him to the Bahamas, not knowing, of course, that it would be hid Dad's buddy who would need it. It was fitting, of course, to spend the next day wearing an Angry Birds bandage on my left forefinger, given that the wound was induced by a temperamental gull.

Needless to say, I gave the gulls a wide berth over the course of the rest of the week on Long Island. And I'll never again walk the flats with a fly in my hand.

They're Angry Birds, after all.

Digital Pulp, Part Two...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Fri, 05 Jul 2013 18:55:00 +0000

Years ago, when I was working as the city editor of the Times-Standard in Eureka, Calif., my wife and I rented a house with a view of the Pacific over Humboldt Bay.

That we first had to overlook the cemetery and suck in the fumes from the Louisiana Pacific pulp mill was trivial--and to be expected when our combined annual salary afforded other luxuries, like case upon case of Kraft mac and cheese from the local Costco, or dollar movies from the local rental joint (the first time we went to the store, we had to step over the chalk outline left on the sidewalk from the previous night's murder investigation--seriously).

But after a time, it was the odor from the LP plant that tarnished the otherwise spectacular vista over the ocean. It smelled like boiling cabbage cooked in a ripe outhouse. It was foul. And with prevailing winds coming in off the water, the rendering pulp out on the spit between the bay and the blue water delivered it's aroma right through the screen door.

The door remained closed most of the time.

Pulp in megabytes. Can't beat the price.

But pulp isn't always a bad thing. Consider the second edition of Pulp Fly, now available electronically throughout the web (OK... that's a tenuous segway, but I've been dying to use the cabbage-and-outhouse description for years). With discerning fly fishing writers and marketeers like Bruce Smithhammer and Michael Gracie behind this second edition of the project, we might well be looking at the future of the craft. Let's face it ... writing about fly fishing is as old as the pastime itself, and there are scores of worthy communicators out there who have stories to tell. Via the Pulp Fly franchise, identifying those writers and conveying their words to the masses is much easier than it was, even just a few short years ago.

I loved the first edition, and I was honored to be asked to contribute to the second. The challenge to writers was to step outside the box and to push our comfort zones. After years of writing newspaper articles, features and editorials, and years more spent crafting press releases and doing the occasional blog post, I took the challenge seriously and crafted a short story about an angler seeking solitude in a remote Alaskan hideaway only to find that he wasn't the only two-legged critter wandering the bush.

Other fantastic writers contributed to this second volume, including one of my favorites, Erin Block, and others well-known in this incestuous little world of fly fishing media. Consider the opportunity to read the words of gifted photographers like Tosh Brown and Alex Landeen, or the chance to look behind the curtain into the minds of writers like Tom Reed and Will Rice, and you'll see that this second volume is a fitting sibling to the first.

Oh, and it's super cheap. Given that its only delivered electronically, it'll only set you back $6.95. Small price to pay for the chance to read some of best fly fishing writing around today.

Recovery...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 15:54:00 +0000

Marooned for three days...

After a long week of relentless bonefish angling on Long Island in the southern Bahamas--and that's an accurate adjective--we thought it would be worthwhile to spend a few days in Nassau to let the trip sink in and to relax with a few glasses of rum punch.

And my miles ticket to the Bahamas took some alchemy to accomplish--flying out on a Wednesday was really my only option. So here we are, steps from the beach and steps from the outdoor tiki bar.

Chillin'.

I did spend a day here on New Providence with "Bonefish" Simon Bain, the only official bonefish guide in Nassau and the keeper some of bonefishing's best-kept secrets. In the eight hours or so I spent with Simon, I saw some of the biggest bonefish I'd ever laid eyes on, and I hooked a behemoth that would have come to hand if not for a faulty tippet knot. I'm guessing 10 pounds. Seriously. Without taking a flight some distant island.

But my buddy Mike Sepelak and I also ventured up and down the beach in front of the Coral Harbour Beach House and Villas (we were lucky enough to be afforded the beach house, where the deck literally touches the surf at high tide. Not too shabby). We cast flies from a rock spit just down the beach, and Mike hooked and brought a massive bonefish to the bank in a nearby navigation channel (it came unhooked and escaped into the deep before we could get a picture).

The Bahamas... Where everybody is happy to see you! Some residents
just express their pleasure in different ways.

We did exactly what we wanted to do. No schedule. No (for the most part) internet. No phones. We had sketchy Bahamian cable TV, and I nearly squished a terrified tree frog that apparently found its way into the beach house and then into the toilet through an open window. We ate conch burgers and ordered in a pizza. We had a few beers, but not too many. And we engaged some of the friendliest people (and four-legged critters) I've ever had the pleasure to meet.

It was a vacation to recover from the previous vacation, the details of which you'll read in the coming days.

But today, as we await Otis, our trusty cabdriver and his $30 fare to the airport (I know, right?), we've both commented on how it's time to head back, to get home to reality. And I'm looking forward to being back in Idaho, with my family and at my desk where the focus will shift back from bonefish and their awesome power and speed to trout and the cold, clear waters they need to survive and thrive.

Here we come. Back to reality. But stay tuned... I think you'll see much more from both of us about this amazing adventure we both experienced in the tropics.

Sweet Redemption

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 23 Jun 2013 14:41:00 +0000

The deck at Long Island Bonefishing Lodge, The Bahamas.

A little over a year ago, I stood on the deck of the Long Island Bonefishing Lodge overlooking the endless flats that extend into the Atlantic and off toward Cuba. I carefully tumbled a glass of good aged rum into the salt--my sacrifice to the fishing Fates.

They didn't answer. The wind and the rain continued, and a fruitless week spent chasing bonefish came to an end. I was skunked. Humbled. Fishless.

I was reminded by the gang at the lodge that bonefishing--especially the variety we were doing, where anglers fish solely on foot in the "do it yourself" spirit--is truly difficult. It's advanced fly fishing, where everything has to come together. The wind, the sun, the tides... even those maddening Fates ... all have to work in concert to ensure success.

Maybe the Fates listened after all.

Markk Cartwright, fly fishing
guide: "Welcome to the club."

I shouldn't feel so bad, they said. With the weather we had--overcast skies and wind that would have wrapped Marilyn Monroe's skirt around her neck and rolled her off into the deep--we faced long odds on the flats. But it was just salve. I was wounded. My pride took a serious blow that week--one that I never truly recovered from.

But you can earn some redemption... you can reset your fishing axis. Sometimes it takes a simple change in attitude. Sometimes it takes another trip to a remote Bahamian island where bonefish swim and taunt trout guys like me from afar. Sometimes, you have to hop a plane, suffer through a cross-country red-eye and then climb aboard a shake-and-bake
commuter to a little airport in the middle of nowhere.

Sometimes, as my favorite Caribbean troubadour might say, you have to change your latitude.

So I did.

Fish on. Many fish on.

Redemption.

Ashes

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 19:06:00 +0000

A glimpse of the perfect place.

There's a little creek that feeds Sumner Straight at the northern tip of Prince of Wales Island. I'll never utter its name, save for in the instructions I'll leave behind to my children to be opened after I'm dead and gone.

Those instructions will put them on the island in late August, when the silvers are running and the Dollies are colored up. The words will direct my kids along the karst road system of the island to a bridge over this small, watery paradise, and they'll simply read, "Walk downstream from the bridge a couple hundred yards until you find a gravel bar. Spread my ashes there and douse them in a pint of Jameson. Then, go fishing."

This little piece of Alaska is sacred to me. There, amid the last run of summer humpies and the first showing of salt-fresh cohos, I'll rest until the fall rains flush the creek and carry what's left of me out to the cold, gray Pacific. I don't need a headstone. I don't need a burial plot. I just want my children to know their Dad had a place where everything felt just right, and I want them to experience it for themselves.

I first visited this little stream in the summer of 2004. It was a borderline junket--a lodge in the area was pondering the notion of offering its clients fly fishing trips along the island's road system in addition to its self-guided saltwater fishing for salmon, halibut and a host of other game fish that swim in the cold waters of the Inside Passage. Its owners, who live here in eastern Idaho, invited me up to be the Guinea pig.

A big Dolly from the Tongass.

For the price of a plane ticket to Petersburg and a short float-plane ride to Point Baker, I got to motor along the Prince of Wales Island road system for a week solid, fishing every creek I crossed and taking notes for the lodge owners. I reported back, dutifully, both my successes and my failures--and there were plenty of the latter, particularly for a guy who'd never before been to Alaska, let alone chased salmon and char under the canopy of the rainforest.

But I was enamored by this country. It was so ... green. So lush. So alive. The sicky-sweet smell of dying salmon mingled with with smell of wet cedar and some pretty lively black bear shit, creating this olfactory overload of life, death and renewal. Anywhere else, the odor might turn a stomach. Here, it smells like ... Heaven.

I've been back to that little creek a few times since that first visit, and I've explored its course for miles, both upstream and down from the bridge. Bear trails line its banks making traveling the stream somewhat simple, yet just unnerving enough to keep the hair on the back of my neck a bit bristly. I've come face-to-face with several of its black bears, and I've been scolded by bald eagles for invading their fishing waters. I've spooked black-tailed deer from beneath giant yellow cedars, and walked across the stream atop massive spruce trunks that have collapsed under their own weight and crashed to earth.

I've discovered solitude in this American temperate jungle, this little slice of the Tongass National Forest. I've witnessed life just as its supposed to be in this tiny corner of Prince of Wales, and I think it ought to stay that way.

A clear cut growing back as a single-species forest.

But the rest of the island is far from pristine. It's been heavily logged, and the road system, with its perched culverts and muddy runoff doesn't do the island's streams any favors. Patches of second-growth timber are usually single-species thickets and so thickly overgrown that the locals call these patches of woods "dog hair."Wildlife can't navigate through the tiny tree trunks, and sunlight can't hit the forest floor, where it can nurture massive ferns and huckleberries the size of your thumb. And before this growth matures, frequent rains simply drain into the creeks and streams, carrying unfiltered sediment into the waterways on which salmon, steelhead, trout and char depend for spawning and rearing.

Prince of Wales might be the perfect laboratory. We can see what the land and the water should look like. And we can see where past industrial practices have left behind their scars.

As it should be.

There's an effort afoot, though, to keep the Tongass whole, to keep its waters clean and its salmon coming back year after year. I'm grateful that I get to be part of it, albeit a small one. This year, Trout Unlimited, along with its sponsors--Fishpond, RIO Products and Tenkara USA--will host TU's annual blogger tour on the Tongass, where a handful of writers, photographers, filmmakers and bloggers will have the opportunity to see the Tongass in all its glory. They'll have a chance to fish in some of the most pristine fish and game habitat left in the world... and they'll have an opportunity to see what happens when things go terribly wrong.

I'm fortunate to know a slice of the Tongass that still functions as it should... that still sees the thousands upon thousands of pink salmon pushing their way upstream to spawn. I know the Tongass and its brilliant char, decorated in orange and green and blue. I know the Tongass and its silvers and chums that can spit a fly with little effort and leave you humiliated beneath a canopy of deep green.

I hope you'll follow along next month, when the tour puts boots on the ground in Juneau. And I hope you'll find a way to contribute to the effort to protect the Tongass, its fish and its people for generations to come.

Most of all, I hope you'll find your way to the rainforest, and I hope you'll cast a fly under its canopy. Every angler ought to do it at least once.

And, frankly, that's the experience that hooked me--casting a fly to vibrant char in a place almost too perfect to comprehend. And I hope my kids, burdened by my ashes, will one day see and feel the magic of the Tongass, where we can say our final goodbyes and know that, for one moment in time, everything was just as it was supposed to be.

The Baja in Pictures... Download Numero Uno

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 21:06:00 +0000

As many of you know, my buddy Mike Sepelak and I paid a visit to the East Cape of the Baja in April for some saltwater fly fishing. What you might not know is that we're also both on an upcoming tour to Long Island in the Bahamas. I figured it would be a tragedy to fail to share more of the photos from the Baja before I returned from the tropics again and started uploading photos from the Caribbean.

Here are a few shots from Mexico... more to come. Enjoy.

Sunrise over the Sea of Cortez, Spa Buena Vista, Mexico.

Getting ready...

The north wind... bad for fishing.

The Mexican look-down.

Morning surf.

Sierra from the panga.

Shrimp tacos...

Small jack crevailles... how can something this small fight so big?

Gear Review: The Redington Link with Rise reel

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:45:00 +0000

The Redington Link

For a guy who lives on the edge of the Rockies here in eastern Idaho, I've become something of a saltwater junkie. When I leave for the Bahamas in three weeks, it will mark my fourth salty destination over the course of the last year.

I've subjected myself to a crash-course in saltwater angling, and while I clearly have a lot to learn, I've come to the realization that nothing--and I mean nothing--beats good equipment when you're chasing fish that, with a bit of effort, can run the average angler into the backing... several times. When that first salty critter hammers a Clouser, you immediately know that you're not chasing brookies in some backcountry haunt.

This is big boy fishing.

So, before I left for a recent trip to Mexico, I asked the good folks at Redington to send me the company's top-of-line fly rod and reel outfit--I have some gear that's saltwater worthy, but we were to chase roosters and jacks in the surf, and, frankly, my level of confidence in my own sparsely used gear was pretty low.

Redington fired off a 10-foot 8-weight Link accompanied by a corresponding Rise reel. Taking the advice from a friend of mine with years of Baja experience, I asked RIO Products for both a quality saltwater floating line, and for something with a bit of sink for the surf. The company sent both a floating line that would be great for bonefish and its Tropical floating/intermediate hybrid line with a clear 340-grain sink tip.

The Link

First, some history.

I've fished Redington rods for quite a while. Years ago, when I worked as a journalist, Redington rods sold at a price-point I could actually afford. And, for small-water trout fishing here in the Rockies, I found them more than adequate.

When I purchased a Redington 7-weight travel rod and took it to Southeast Alaska for my first-ever salmon-fishing experience, the rod split a ferrule on the first fish I hooked. Granted, this was years ago--but impressions like that are hard to forget.

So, with lots of water under the bridge, I figured I owed Redington another shot, and this trip to Mexico offered a good excuse to ask if I could see what the Link could do.

I'm glad I asked.

I guess the best compliment I can offer up is this: This isn't your grandfather's Redington.

I found the Link to be a solid rod--and at 10 feet long, I really liked the help it gave me and my somewhat shaky double-haul to clear that first line of breakers on the beach. It's a bit heavy, but consider an additional foot of graphite, and that explains it. Lined with RIO floating-intermediate line, I had no trouble casting the entire spool of line (and that's rare for me). It was smooth and responsive, and it picked up line from the water--even with the intermediate sink-tip--without any trouble.

The Link is also something the Redington rods of old were not: fast. It was ideal for longer casts to specific fish, and it loaded quickly, which made it easier to forego the false cast and put the fly in the water. In fact, I received a rare compliment from my fishing buddy Mike, who actually said he learned a bit about distance casting from watching me put the Link through its paces.

(For clarity, I'm not sure if that really means I'm getting better at this saltwater thing, of if Mike was just being nice because I did all the driving.)

The Link I used lists at $379.95, and remember, this is Redington's premiere rod. The price-point is still reasonable, and that price is more than fair for this heavy-duty piece of fly fishing equipment. I suppose, if you're a veteran saltwater fly fisher, you might want to look into the truly pricey models out there, including some from Redington's sister company, Sage. But for me and my handful of saltwater trips (if I'm lucky) every year, the Link is more than enough to satisfy.

One side note: The four-piece Link comes in a handsome rod case that, just coincidentally, was long enough for a thirsty fly fisher to reach the one low-hanging coconut in the palm tree just outside the hotel room. After a couple of good whacks, the coconut fell right into my hammock--minutes later, its milk was coupled with OJ and tequila--over ice--for a refreshing tropical concoction I've yet to name. I'm thinking something like the Baja Tranquilizer... I'll come up with something. The good news? The Link's rod case is plenty durable--I think I'll leave the dried coconut milk on it, just to show the fine folks at Redington how versatile a fly rod can be in pinch.

The Rise

I found the Rise to be a solid companion to the Link--it's nothing fancy, but the large arbor helped with line retrieve, and it is solidly constructed. The reel and the extra spool Redington sent my way came in a handsome metallic blue, and I had no trouble with it after a week of fairly constant fishing.

Reels for saltwater fishing are much more important than they are for traditional trout angling, and it all comes into play when you make contact with fish. While neither Mike nor I managed to catch a rooster, I did manage a small jack from the panga one afternoon, as well as a feisty sierra that tugged plenty hard. The drag system on the Rise was up to the task.

The Rise retails for $189.95--a good price for the periodic saltwater angler

The Line

The RIO Tropical floating/intermediate line with the clear tip was ideal for the kind of fishing we did, so long as the weather stayed on the warm side. It's a tropical line, meant for tropical temperatures, so when, on the first morning, temps were in the 60s on the Panga, the line was quick to stiffen and tangle, frustrating many a cast.

Once it warmed up, though (and likely once we stretched it a bit), the line shot through the guides like a stick of butter. I intend to put this line--and the RIO bonefish line--through its paces on Bahamian flats in a few weeks. I'll report back with a more thorough review toward the end of June.

The RIO Tropical F/I retails for $79.95.

Author's note: Every review on saltwater fly fishing gear should come equipped with a "care and feeding of saltwater fly fishing gear" disclaimer. First, when you're done for the day, thoroughly rinse your gear in fresh water. The salt goes to work eating even the best of equipment. Thankfully, our host resort, Hotel Buena Vista Beach Resort, has a freshwater shower that's ideal for rinsing sandy feet and salty gear, right there on the beach. Second, just because it's heavy-duty gear doesn't mean it can withstand a ceiling fan or a head-on march into the trunk of a palm tree. Be careful--break your rod down between outings if you can.

Now's the time...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 09 May 2013 18:48:00 +0000

Comment and help save Bristol Bay.

The EPA has released its updated watershed assessment for the Bristol Bay watershed, and it says exactly what you might think it says: Pebble Mine would endanger the drainages irreplaceable salmon runs, and put 14,000 commercial fishing jobs at risk in the process.

Now's the time to comment on the assessment and let the EPA know that American sportsmen and women aren't about to stand idly by and watch one the world's greatest treasures be trashed forever.

Pebble Mine, you'll recall, would be the largest open-pit mine in the world, and the multi-national conglomerate of corporations that wants to construct it would dig it in the headwaters of Bristol Bay, the world's most economically vital salmon system.

Common sense says this is the wrong mine in the wrong place. Greed and the desire for short-term gain says the gold and other heavy metals buried beneath the permafrost more than excuse the mine's construction. I suppose if you're sitting in a high-backed leather chair in London or Johannesburg counting the profits before the mine is even approved, the latter might make sense, especially if you've never gripped a fly rod, or dreamt of casting to the massive rainbow trout that depend on the millions of sockeye salmon that migrate up the watershed every summer.

The Bristol Bay drainage is an American icon. The lands and waters of this amazing place are truly wild, and most of them belong to all of us, as a birthright.

Don't stand by and let our resources be turned under for short-term gain. This place deserves better.

Tell the EPA to put a stop to this nonsense once and for all.

Sunburn...Unburn...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 08 May 2013 18:13:00 +0000

You know when it's happening, but if you're busy gazing into the emerald green waters just off the beach of the East Cape of the Baja for roosters and jacks, you don't really care.

I got cooked on the beach during my recent trip to the Baja. I got cocky. I got careless. I might have gotten melanoma--only time will tell, I suppose.

But there's a modestly happy ending. Purely serendipitously, I got an e-mail from Rachel Wepler, who reps for the product Unburn. The timing was ideal--I knew the Sea of Cortez sun would eventually get the best of me, and I figured having a bit of sunburn tonic couldn't hurt. I hit Rachel up for a bottle of the product and it arrived just in time to make it into the travel bag.

And I'm glad it did. While some sunburns are too far gone to really treat with topical ointments like Unburn (the blistered mass of goop that was once my right foot became evidence of that), the ointment--which is 25 percent lidocane--did the trick to take some of the pain away from a burned face and scorched arms and legs. It helped cool the skin and I know it helped make sleeping easier for the first couple of nights after incurring the careless injury.

So, thanks Rachel, for shipping me the bottle of Unburn--I'll buy my next bottle with no regrets.

Promises...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 07 May 2013 20:22:00 +0000

Mike with the first of several triggerfish.

For me, the good thing about making vows about fishing is that I can qualify them. You know... "If I catch a roosterfish, I'm stripping down and running into the surf."

If...

Now, for clarity, I think I'm a fairly solid fly fisher, all the requirements that come with casting to saltwater critters aside. Put me on a trout stream, and I'm in my element. Put me on the beach, and my now-serviceable double-haul will stretch a fly line adequately. Put me in the bow of a boat, and I'll put a fly generally where I want to put it, within reason.

But I'm not going light your hair on fire--just because I'm passionate about something doesn't mean I'm some kind of tournament pro.

So, deep down, I knew that my chances--on my first shot at them--of actually catching a roosterfish were slim. Hence, the naked dive into the Sea of Cortez was likely not going to happen. And, trust me, that's to the great relief of all those within eyeshot.

Trust me.

It wasn't for lack of trying--I had my shots at some roosters and some big jacks. And I would have fulfilled my vow. Hell, I'm not the one who would have to look at my own white ass as it trundled into the salt. That would be somebody else's cross to bear. We just couldn't convince the bullies of the Sea of Cortez to show more than a casual interest in the flies we put in front of them. Maybe next time.

On the prowl for the fabled "rooster."

But we did have a close call. And for a time, there, we were convinced that Mike had managed to hook and land a small rooster--and there was no size requirement. A rooster is a rooster is a rooster.

But it was my vow. That's why I was so impressed that Mike opted to be the one to follow through on it.

It was toward the end of our six-day stay on the Baja--we'd caught some fish and we were enjoying an absolutely amazing experience in a place I'd happily revisit. In fact, as we drove back to the airport on our last day, it was all I could do to not simply toss my passport into the desert and disappear from the world.

But that's beside the point.

For a good couple of hours, we were pretty sure Mike had managed to catch a roosterfish.

We were casting into the modest surf, just up the beach from our host resort, the Hotel Buena Vista Beach Resort. Action wasn't non-stop, but it was the best we'd experienced on the trip. We were pulling in small pargo, cabrilla and what I now know to be the paper-thin (and really cool) Mexican look-down. We had some hits from some ladyfish, and we both managed to catch what we initially thought were giant needlefish, but later determined to be the trumpetfish (again, very cool).

About an hour into it, I heard Mike shout.

"Rooster!" he hollered over the sound of the surf. "It got one... a rooster!"

Mike's "rooster."

I immediately reeled up and rushed over, camera at the ready. And there, on Mike's tippet, was what I would have described as small roosterfish--maybe three pounds, soaking wet. But it was a rooster.

Wink. Wink.

We took copious photos... we high-fived each other. It was good to know that two wandering trout anglers could venture down to the East Cape of the Baja and that at least one of us could tie into a fabled roosterfish, never mind the diminutive size and what Mike called the "pretty lousy" fight.

("It flopped once, and then came right in.")

Mike released the fish and, to his credit, immediately started to disrobe. It wasn't the most graceful strip-tease, and he's painfully pale under his fishing clothes, but the son of a gun should be proud. I was proud of him, by God.

Into the sea he went.

That evening, as we showed our host, Phillippe Valdez, photographic "proof" of Mike's conquest, Phillippe was ... diplomatic.

On his way into the drink...

Celebrating the conquest of the mighty African pompano.

"I'm sorry, my friend," he said, looking Mike in the eye. "But that is not a roosterfish."

Come again? The comb? The vertical bars?

Well... what is it then? For what odd-fish did Mike strip and swim?

Phillippe didn't know, suggesting that the fish was some sort of hybrid between a rooster and something else--the product of some ocean-borne orgy. In fact, we never did find out what it was, not until we were home for a week. Mike posted his findings on Facebook--an African pompano.

Well... I'll say this. If I ever catch an African pompano, I'm stripping down and running into the surf.

If.