Also, depending on what stage of the spawning process the fish are in, they are not at their best on the plate.
I'm not talking about going to the grocery store. Heck, we can buy the things in the store and they're probably only a couple of days older than what you can get. I'm talking about going out and catching the things yourself. (Damned city boys.)
Hope should have nothing to do with it, Lar.
Chuck Vance
On 29 Apr 2004 05:52:39 -0700, snipped-for-privacy@txstate.edu (Conan The Librarian) brought forth from the murky depths:
I suppose I lived in polluted LoCal too long. I wouldn't eat a locally caught fish since none of the streams were safe. I haven't been fishing in well over 20 years. Besides, costs to gear up would be the equivalent of 40 dinners worth of fish. That was a WAG, but checking online, HOLY SH*T, BATMAN! Make that 200 meals!
True. I never see myself uttering those words.
============================================================== Like peace and quiet? Buy a phoneless cord. http://www/diversify.com/stees.html Hilarious T-shirts online ==============================================================
Larry Jaques responds:
Fishing is a contest of smarts between the fish and the fisherperson. From what I see, most of the time the fish wins, which may say a whole lot about human intelligence, but probably doesn't. After all, a couple of my best friends are fly fishermen.
Charlie Self "I am confident that the Republican Party will pick a nominee that will beat Bill Clinton." Dan Quayle
money on furniture.
As for those waders, you don't need to spend that much to get really good waders. Simms is pretty much the top-of-the-line, but they offer some fine ones for about $150. (BTW, if you do buy waders, get breathable ones. Just trust me.)
Cool. Now if we can just teach you that fishing isn't about saving money at the grocery store. :-)
Chuck Vance
Thank you, Charlie for summing it up nicely.
We all have our crosses to bear. :-)
As for human intelligence vs. fish: We pay hundreds of dollars for gear, drive or fly hundreds or thousands of miles, all so we can hip-deep in a cold stream waving around a graphite stick with a bunch of feathers and fur strapped to a hook, hoping to catch something that we're just gonna put back anyway.
At least the fish has the excuse that he doesn't have any choice in the matter.
Chuck Vance
On Thu, 29 Apr 2004 10:33:53 -0500, Conan the Librarian brought forth from the murky depths:
With steelhead at $5/lb, that's a lotta 1/2 lb. meals, bubba.
I have more fun shooting than fishing so I got a nice camera. With fishing, you end up having to buy a boat, etc.
I'll email some pics of the river to you, along with Savage Rapids Dam, teeny thing that it is. I haven't driven up to the real dam upstream yet, or to Crater Lake, but spring is the time and I might be doing that on Mother's Day while everyone else is with family. (Mine is still in the Republik of Kalifornia.)
Check your email.
============================================================== Like peace and quiet? Buy a phoneless cord. http://www/diversify.com/stees.html Hilarious T-shirts online ==============================================================
FWIW, I rarely keep a fish I catch. So I don't know if I'd ever "make my money back". But that's not the point.
Ooops, for a second I forgot who I'm talking to here. :-)
Those aren't mutually exclusive, Lar. In fact, since I've gotten back into flyfishing I'm considering buying myself a decent digicam. I've got a good old Nikon F that's been my weapon of choice for 25 years, but I need something a bit more portable than that.
I don't own a boat, and I don't have any plans to buy one, but I can get to all sorts of good fishing just by walking and wading a bit. And I live in Texas, where public river access is really limited.
Thanks for the pics. That's a very pretty area. Is there much public access to the river?
Chuck Vance
Have seconds, cuts your payback in time, and fish is brain food;-) Joe
On 30 Apr 2004 05:02:48 -0700, snipped-for-privacy@txstate.edu (Conan The Librarian) brought forth from the murky depths:
OK, that's better.
I picked up the Nikon Coolpix 995 a couple years ago and adore it. (See, I can get both crowbars out at once for special occasions.)
I heard that Tejas had one river. An int'l border at that.
There are half a dozen parks in the city, a dozen more in the county, all with boat launch ramps. There are a few more public access areas but I haven't really given it a detailed look. If the water were warmer, I certainly would have. I'm acclimating, so maybe in a few years I'll be ready for that chilly dip. I think it gets up to 53F in the heat of summer. I haven't really looked into access in other cities, but the park I love best (good curve for the jet boats in the annual races) is in th ecounty with over half a mile of access from a truck-accessible rocky
I helped a neighbor cut down some madrone stumps and brought home the wood. It's now painted and will dry for eons before I can even think of carving it. (my finger is healing nicely)
I'm a Nikon man from way back, so I'll take a look at it. I want something that's small and won't go on the blink immediately when exposed to high levels of humidity. (I.e., I'm not planning on dunking it in the water, but there's a chance it will get splashed on.)
That ain't a river, son. That's a sewer.
If you want rivers, try the Pedernales, Guadalupe, Brazos, Colorado, Neches, Blanco, San Antonio, Trinity, Comal, Pecos, San Saba, Medina, Frio, Neches, Red, Sabine, La Vaca, Angelina, San Marcos or Llano.
Jet boats? Hmmm ... must be kind of hard to keep your line in the water, no?
On 3 May 2004 06:41:36 -0700, snipped-for-privacy@txstate.edu (Conan The Librarian) brought forth from the murky depths:
I haven't yet gone on the waterfall tour up here but might get a chance next weekend. The 995 worked fine at the wet end of the falls from the dam, but that was brief, maybe half an hour. I haven't extended exposure to much hummerditty.
Then why isn't it named the "Rio Caca"?
Ooooh, did you say "Angelina"? She's beautiful and dangerous. (I know nothing of your river, but the character played by the blonde in "Romancing the Stone" was like that.)
I understand that fishing is poor for the week of hydroplane racing. It's nothing like the Miss Budweiser and her Unlimited Hydro pals on the Sandy Eggo circuit, but it's fun. These are about 1/3 her size and only half the noise. (but noisy enough at 80-90mph)
Luckily, I was checking the tension in the newly-sharpened blade I had just installed when I failed to raise my hand that extra 1/16" and the tip of my left bird finger caught one tooth. It neatly ripped a 1/16 x 1/16 x 3/8" long "chip" out of the tip. I don't think I want to see what a moving chain would do to human tissue/bone. That little stunt raised my awareness and respect for the chainsaw considerably. I won't be doing that again any time soon.
The neighbor next door (to the other side) is an almost-retired lumberjack and he regularly brings in large madrone logs to cut up for firewood. I think the growing trees are absolutely gorgeous, but folks around here think of them as firewood trees. So, one of these days, I'm going to White City to see if there are any small mills around who a) work with madrone and b) who will do QSW oak. I can order QSW in lots of 100+ bf for $4.50/bf from Portland, sight unseen, the next time I have an extra $450 lying around.
That's too bad. They're like overgrown manzanita with their cocoa-brown skin showing through thin bark, and the leaves remind me of rubber tree leaves. I hadn't seen them until I moved up here, and they're all over the place. I pass a 30' specimen on my road home and it glows in late afternoon sun.
----- = The wealth of reality, cannot be seen from your locality. =
Let me know how it goes. I want something that can be carried in a fishing vest pocket. If it's awkward or bulky to carry I'll wind up leaving it home. And if it isn't somewhat water-resistant, I'm afraid it won't last very long.
I don't know what the locals call it. (Actually, to be fair, SWMBO and I spent a week in the Big Bend area recently, and it was beautiful. In some places the river actually looks more like a mountain stream than a big muddy river.)
Most of the rivers mentioned above are beautiful and dangerous. As an example, I was out on the Pedernales a few weeks ago. We had some storms in the area overnight, and I got out to the water about 8:00 in the morning. The river was up a bit but running very clear. I fished for an hour or so, and then at one point I stopped to change flies. In the time it took me to pick a fly and tie it on, I noticed a change in the sound of the river. (I thought it was the wind at first.) When I looked up stream I could see the the floodwaters as they approached. It wasn't quite a wall of water, but it looked like oil on water as the previously calm river was overtaken by the dark brown waves. It was the damnedest thing I've ever seen.
Within five minutes, the spot where I had been standing was probably five feet underwater. I read on the USGS site later that the flow had spiked from 100 c.f.s. to over 3000 c.f.s. on that morning. (And that's not even the wildest surge in recent weeks. On April 6th it went from 90 to 10,000. (Yes, that's 10K.))
Anyhow, many of the rivers are carved out of limestone and there's not a lot of vegetation on the hills arond them. When it rains the water finds the low spot and presto ... severe flash-flooding. After watching it firsthand, I can see why many folks get killed when they hit. I figured out was going on quickly and got back from the water, but someone in a canoe or just not paying attention could have been in trouble.
Let's see ... where were we? Oh yes: beautiful and dangerous. :-)
To me a chainsaw is the anti-Roy. Noisy, loud and dangerous.
I expect you'll be sharing more wood gloats with us as you live there for a while. Keep us posted (and send me some madrone).
Chuck Vance
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