Nymph Lamp
http://www.slipperybrick.com/2008/08/nymph-lamp-illuminates-creeps-you-out-at-night/
Butt On-Asexual Light Switches
http://www.slipperybrick.com/2008/10/butt-on-protects-you-from-the-dark-with-glowing-cheeks/
Probably shouldn’t be right above the CFFR post, but light one candle..ur bulb, etc.
Gary Borger
The annual CFFR retreat will be held May 15 to May 17, 2009 on Pinehollow Reservoir at Camp Morrow. This year keynote speaker will be renowned Gary Borger. The retreat is a low key effort to combine spiritual discussions that are meaningful to everyday life, fly fishing and a relaxed environment. If you have any questions, I have posted the link. I ran into Marc Williamson at the Portland Sportsman’s Show and he said people wait until the last moment…he suggested those considering retreat sign up early. This would also be a good opportunity to not only learn about meaningful day to day living but also to learn about stillwater fishing. I am sure if you don’t have the necessary gear that participants would have you set up in no time. http://cffr.info/index.htm
First Danger: Me with a spey rod. I bought a two hander quite a few years ago. It is a Redington rod and reel, a 14′ 9/10 that loads like a telephone pole. It originally came with a Rio Windcutter and typical, I did not use it. I wanted to but stillwaters and steelhead nymphing were productive and easier. But, peer pressure abounds and I decided to try again. On advice of those more seasoned I was told to forsake the Windcutter and go with the running line and a Skagit or Scandi head. Here is the first danger of the day…me attempting to load the unyielding pole (it just does not seem like a rod) and the repetitive closeness of a large feathered object whizzing by so close as to tickle my cheek and ear. I survived this danger, but it was close.
SwittersB with a deflated D
Second Danger: Call it ‘Fly fishers meet drift fishermen in zodiac with pirate flag, ghetto blaster and lack of ettiquette’ danger. Tony and I were occupying a drift at the top of the run. Zodiac Pirate boys, we will call them that to avoid stronger words, approach from below at warp speed up through the middle of our drift and beach their craft just above us. They exit their craft, motor still running, with ghetto blaster spewing something heavy and obnoxious thereby defiling the air, just as they had just defiled our water. They proceeded to start working down stream into our drift casting slinky/eggs. Now the danger mounts. Not for me, for them. However, my son was the calmer (only slightly) and asked me to refrain from commencing my patented ‘start a riot’ rhetoric. Our looks and not so subtle mutterings pulled the ‘Welcome’ rug out from under assholes and they blasted back downstream, through our drift. Some sort of danger was averted there.
Perfect Finish
Third Danger: It is always sobering to realize that although you are within a mere few minutes from Portland on the Sandy River true wildlife experiences can be had.
Tony + Z Axis 7136-4 = Load and Launch
See the difference between casting a pole and a rod is being able to feel the load or at least sense the loading of the rod. My Skagit is 650 grains on a 30′ mainline (I can’t imagine more weight) and although I can feel the weight of casting and mending etc. I cannot feel any load to the rod and my successes are more from timing and dare I say luck. Now when I borrowed my son’s rod I noticed the following: It feels to weigh half as much as my rod (exaggeration), the casting was infinitely easier and I felt it load and launch easily. Predicaments like this are not a good thing. I know how this could play out.
Fourth Danger: $$$$$ for new spey rod
For now I will keep waving that pole around. Despite myself, I am still doing better than I would be able to with a single hander. A high, snaggy bank behind and an inability or reluctance to aggressively wade would have cancelled a single hander out except for rollcast nymphing. With the two hander, even with a pole, I am casually getting it out 70+ feet with the occasional one farther.
No fish, good day, fished ok despite the casting and other than the Zodiac crew it was not bad. Again, as I hiked back on soft sand and waded back to shore, then hiked back uphill to the rig, I am reminded how the cold, wading, slogging, arm waving, hiking takes it out of you. If I did this more, I would benefit…especially with a lighter rod.
“We’ve got some great news. A lot of Alaska is owned by you! That’s right. Alaska holds over 230 million acres of lands that are owned by you and every other American citizen. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, and Bureau of Land Management oversee management of these lands which are home to some of the most productive fish and game public lands anywhere. These lands stretch from the rainforests of Southeast Alaska to the salmon-rich streams of Bristol Bay. From the windswept islands of the Aleutian chain to the highest peaks of the Brooks Range. From the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the waters of Prince William Sound.”
http://www.sportsmansalliance4ak.org/index.html
I recently wrote Governor Sarah Palin and as a non-resident asked for her position on the Pebble Mine development. This is the response I got back:
Dear Mr. Gary Muncy:
Thank you for your email to Governor Palin expressing your concerns
about the proposed Pebble Mine. She has asked me to respond on her
behalf.
The Governor clearly understands that Bristol Bay is home to one of the
world’s greatest fisheries, and must be protected. Governor Palin
herself has participated in the Bristol Bay commercial fishery, so she
has first-hand knowledge of how important this resource is, not only to
the local residents, but to all Alaskans.
The Governor is charged by Alaskans to ensure that natural
resource development is conducted in a responsible manner that minimizes
its impact on other valuable state resources. That is one of the
reasons the state employs a Large Mine Team of experienced professionals
from all of the applicable state agencies to review, evaluate, and
render permitting decisions about mining projects. It is this team’s
job to focus on the technical merits/weaknesses and regulatory
requirements and see that the necessary environmental safeguards are in
place. Development applications have not yet been received for the
Pebble Mine, but the Large Mine Team is monitoring project activities in
order to be prepared and informed if and when proposals are submitted.
The Governor also believes that it is important not to discard economic
development alternatives for rural Alaska prematurely. Mining and
renewable resources can coexist and mineral development can provide
long-term, well-paying jobs that are important to economically strapped
rural portions of our state. The best example of this is the Red Dog
Mine, which is the major economic contributor to the economy of
Northwest Alaska.
Governor Palin will ensure that if and when development permit
applications are received for the Pebble Project, the state of Alaska
and the federal government will subject those proposals to a thorough
and rigorous permitting process that will provide multiple opportunities
for public review and comment.
Thank you once again for taking the time to share your views about the
Pebble Project.
Brenna M. Hall
Executive Office Assistant
Office of the Governor
Now, unlike many of you, I like Palin and don’t suffer from the Sarah Palin Derangement Syndrome. I support drilling in ANWR (oh my!). However, this (Pebble Mine) is an obvious departure for me from the need to develop energy resources. The Pebble Mine development flies in the face of development, much like hydro power must have seemed so obviously wrong decades ago, yet progressed to ‘normalcy’ today. The more alliances the better that can mount media awareness, public pronouncemens and legal filings. Of course, perhaps the obvious is to bring pressure upon the new President and get his and Carol Browners’ weight behind the issue. That should be easy enough…right?
B.C. government awards tenure to BP Canada for coalbed methane project (SE B.C.)!!!!
I see lots of protests and ‘sacred waters’ comments…spirituality and Native Americans aside, I don’t see direct comments from B.C. Government decision makers to these site organizers on most of the sites. Yes, yes the headwaters are important and ‘sacred’ but this decision in December 2008 to allow further exploration in SE B.C. is a critical warning sign for the Skeena’s future further North. City council’s seem powerless. The old ‘state’s rights’ concept or local power having a say is apparently as dead in B.C. as it is in the U.S. Everyone wants the Nanny State ’til Nanny says screw you!
http://skeenawatershed.com/resources/newsinsert_feb08_print.pdf
http://wildsteelheadcoalition.org/Repository/SH_article_BC_outdoors_jun08.pdf
http://www.sacredheadwaters.com/gallery/7/threats/107/p1010066
HEALESVILLE, Australia – Towering flames razed entire towns in southeastern Australia and burned fleeing residents in their cars as the death toll rose to 84 on Sunday, making it the country’s deadliest fire disaster.
At least 700 homes were destroyed in Saturday’s inferno when searing temperatures and wind blasts produced a firestorm that swept across a swath of the country’s Victoria state, where all the deaths occurred.
“Hell in all its fury has visited the good people of Victoria,” Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters as he toured the fire zone on Sunday. “It’s an appalling tragedy for the nation.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090208/ap_on_re_au_an/as_australia_wildfires
Deepest sympathies to the families, fire fighters, wild land fire fighters that have witnessed the devastation. The loss of lives and the harshness of it all will be etched in the nations’s psyche.
