Oh, the modern weirdness. In the past half year or thereabouts, we’ve heard from people who “know people” who testify that a local public school has a kid who thinks he’s a cat. The school furnishes the kid with a litter box. The school in question varies by the yarn’s teller, and no one names names. But they’re sure it’s really happening, because the State of West Virginia may be Trump-central, but the identity-facilitating bureaucracy clearly can’t stop itself.
What I don’t get is how people can believe such a tale. It’s convenient to a person’s ideology, I suppose, and for some that’s reason enough. But for me, the marveling over how it’s supposed to work never ceases.
For instance, who pays for the requisite human-sized cat litter quantities? Who furnishes the litter box? Who cleans out the human waste? Surely it can’t just be a sad janitor. It would have to be someone with special health training to handle human bodily excretions. And how would the eternally pinched public schools have money for such nonsense when parents arrive aggrieved because Johnny the Cat gets more expensive privileges for his personal fetishes but *my* Johnny doesn’t get a free lunch or a free laptop or whatever?
It appears that this story is itself something of a social contagion with roots going back to Canada and Michigan, promoted by political attention seekers, of course, and variously affiliated with Trump/MAGA. And I suppose if that’s your personally identify as such, you can’t be disabused of the irreality of what it is you’d like to believe, no matter how devoid the matter is of any pictorial or other evidence…despite everyone having cell phones that they use to take pics and videos always and everywhere.
Tony Dungy joked about it on X I think 2 years ago, but then apologized. He didn't claim it was happening, but joked they should provide the student with a litter box.
Nah, it’s just from hearing the yarn that *one more time* that sent me to see what the internet had to say about it. Snopes, at least, I reckoned would have something.
But it’s that otherwise sensible people relay the story. And I’m sure they kinda/sorta want to believe it for the outrage it justifies that suits one’s political views anyway.
As I say, these aren’t necessarily people I’d think of as goofy or credulous. I can even imagine a certain degree of face-to-face pressure to believe in some circumstances. Someone’s telling you this, and you’re not inclined to want to indicate to the teller that you think they’d lie…which is why I say it’s a social contagion.
Oh, well. Don’t guess I’ll try to fix that part of what’s wrong with the world all by myself just now after all…
Part of it is that "otherwise sensible" people go along with gender ideology, letting boys who think they're girls play n girl's sports teams. That's actually fairly uncommon, and is now getting pushback from many sports authorities, but there are documented cases, like "Lia Thomas".
When people believe in some crazy things, they will believe in other crazy things.
Good Sunday morning. Happy Mother's Day to all mothers! 62 here.
Sadly, the mother of my daughter is in the hospital after falling off a ladder this week, with a fractured hip. Our daughter and I will visit her later.
I planned to buy a pot of red flowers to put on my mom's front porch for Mother's Day. I also planned to come home mid-week and go back. I also have had trouble keeping track of time.
I did not go home until the end of the week and so didn't think to buy the flowers before I left. I am going back Tuesday and will get them them.
Mother's day is always a bittersweet holiday for me. Being widowed and remarried, today is the most difficult day with which to balance my love for two different women, to whom I pledged to both my fidelity.
My favorite Mother's day was the most painful. It was Pam's 2nd as a mother, but she was in transplant ward, her third trip in, and had been there 3 weeks. A week prior they gave her the "death sentence"; her donor marrow failed. They would insert her old, diseased marrow, and once her T-cell count was high enough she would go home to die. With good luck 3-5 years, but probably 1-2. Pam cried, but an hour later set a new life goal. To walk to the end of the driveway the first day of school with her little boy, then kiss him as he got onto the school bus.
Being a Mom and being separated from your son (our healthy son had too many normal infections for him to be allowed in the ward, he only visited 4 times in five months) is tough and painful. Plus she was allowed no more than 3 visitors at a time. But the unit ward nurses loved Pam, and we commandeered the visitor lounge, which connected to the ward. Patients often walked the hallway into the lounge and back for exercise, so going in there was fine.
So on Mother's day we had a surprise party for Pam. I walked her into the lounge; she assumed I was there to keep her from falling, as she was weak from being bedridden for weeks. But as we got to the door, rather than turning around I had her open the door. SURPRISE! She was shocked. And thrilled. And her little boy ran to her screaming Momomomomomomomomomomomom; she scooped him up and squeezed him, holding him, 20 seconds later he wanted to run elsewhere, so she sat him down, and we sat her on a loveseat, me at her side.
We had cards. Janet got her one from our son, where she changed "little angel" to "little devil". To be fair, our son is very well behaved, but he is all boy and they raised all daughters. I bought her a gold chain with a "mother & child" pendant on it. She cried when she saw it. She slipped it on, and left it on for days, until the doctors wanted it off. We had cake but she could eat any, but our son ate her slice for her, to help her out. She smiled.
When it was over, I walked her back. She sat down in my lap, and fell asleep. An hour later she woke up concerned, and I carried her to the bathroom where she got sick. I notified the nurse on duty, who helped clean her up. Pam asked if she could sit on my lap again. The nurse wrapped her in a blanket, and she fell asleep for hours.
When it was time for me to go, Pam was awake, thanking me for the day, and telling me God had given me to her as a gift to endure all this, and how much she loved me.
All in all it was our best day in there. I have some pictures of the day; my favorite is her in my lap, laughing, as I give her goat horns for the picture. No matter how bad things were, we had a blessed marriage.
Katie knows a little of the story, but knows I feel guilty sharing it with her.
We're off to meeting, then off to Pam's family for a cookout, then we'll do a meal of our own tonight.
A disadvantage if this house is that there's no place to sit outside that's out of the rain. However, if the house next door is still unoccupied tomorrow, I can sit in their parking area.
We have all arrived safely. Vlad forgot his antibiotics. I'll have to call his doctor on Monday and get them to call a prescription to a pharmacy in Southport. Sigh.
When my sister was living in Texas, and I went for a visit, there were dragonflies around her backyard swimming pool. And I soon learned that they were useful, pretty, and wouldn't hurt me.
A few years ago, we had a truly *huge* dragonfly hatch here for some reason. I'd never seen anywhere near that many out and about at one time before, and the difference in the mosquito population after they'd been around for just a couple of days was quite noticeable.
I love it when they're swarming and eating. I can sit and watch them for hours. I read something a long while back about how modern aeronautical engineers can't explain how they fly. Well, they can explain it, but supposedly it goes against all sorts of accepted aeronautical engineering...and it works. It would be impossible to build something in the same configuration and have it fly because it would fly apart on start up. Too much stress. They made it work on Dune, though. The ornithopters were based on dragonfly tech.
Over here, they're caught and a thin single silk thread is tied to them like a leash, and they're kept as "pets" for brief periods.
I would guess that what works for dragonflies fails when you scale it up. Mass and volume increase faster than surface area. And organic matter is less fragile than metal and plastic machines.
I loved this article on dragonflies, thank you. Amazing creatures. As someone that likes to fly fish, I've got a few of those nymphs in my box. In the right season, it is so cool to be near a still alpine lake, watching the blue dragonflies hovering several inches over the water. Either Blue Dashers or Common PondHawks. What cool names too! The little lake will have a ton of these hovering. And every now and then.... the cutthroat trout rises out and catches the fly in the air. So cool. The snowmelt is still too heavy to fish the alpine areas, but I am already anxious to get back there. My favorite place to be.
If you like fishing content, Matt Labash’s Substack is worth mentioning. I’d still be a paid subscriber but for the need to review and cull things I wasn’t reading enough. He’s pretty funny, too.
So, unlike a certain president who never met or knew anyone of questionable bona fides, you're actually admitting you know me? Pretty bold, I must say.
I've never been one to fish, I didn't like handling the caught ones, seemed icky. But one of my favorite memories of youth was fishing.
When I was barely 12 we did a High Adventure canoe trip to Boundary Waters Minnesota. I was not supposed to go but they needed another adult chaperone, and my Dad (an Assistant Scoutmaster) agreed to go if I could go. I was small and puny, so portages were tough. But I survived it alright.
We canoed 50 miles on the lakes. Our plan was 12 miles a day of lake canoeing. It was tough on me, but I survived. On one day we stayed in camp, and my Dad wanted to get out on the water, so I went. He borrowed a fishing pole, and we caught (and released) 5 five fish. We snapped a line trying to bring in a Muskie, that was exciting. I don't remember what all I caught, but Dad told me we landed a Great Northern Pike! I earned my fishing merit badge on that trip.
My Dad didn't say a whole lot in his life, but that day he opened up a little about growing up. And I learned a lot about him. We took it easy, didn't push hard, and on the trip back I seemed to do better with portages and canoeing. When the trip was over the scoutmaster told me he was proud of me, because he knew this was a tough trip, yet I never complained. That helped keep me engaged in scouting (I became an Eagle Scout later).
If you do decide to sign up for Slack Tide, might not want to mention to Labash that you know me or have even heard of me. He'll probably up your subscription price if you do.
I've been there from the jump back in 2021 and always much enjoy his writing, though his style can get a little bit in the way of what he's *saying* on the rare occasion. Some commenters think he's been a little too heavy on the politics / Trump thing of late. There have been a couple of times I myself have wished he'd have written about something else, because while he's very good at writing satirically or sarcastically or even occasionally straightforwardly about the politics of the moment, he is so very good at writing about other things, especially odd, goofball characters and other "human interest" stuff. Not to mention fishing, which when he does it is even interesting to the non-fishermen in his comment community by what a lot of them write.
OK. Now you can mention me, and tell him that that s.o.b. Trosino gave him a plug much better than he actually deserves and is expecting a huge discount in his merch store in return for the favor. Or a fifth of top shelf bourbon of my choosing.
His merch store - or more specifically his lack thereof - has been a topic of conversation between the two of us on more than one occasion in the past. So, just tell him I'll go easy on him... he can forget the absurdly priced 4 and 5 figure Pappy Van Winkle's "Family" selections; I'll settle for a fifth of Yellowstone Select, Landmark Edition - originally released as a limited edition bottling in 2022 @ $39.99.
What he might actually have to pay for any remaining bottle of it to be found now is his problem.
I will check it out for sure. I can just skip the Trump stuff. The criticism is completely fair in most cases, but too much of it is not necessarily news - including at The Dispatch.
I have a new social group of guys that have a whisky tasting every week. At first I thought they were goobers, but now I'm enjoying their company, so maybe I'm a goober too. One I recently liked enough to order was Cedar Ridge Port Cask Rye - about $60.
I understand the frustration, it can be slow, hot (or cold), and tedious. The appeal to me is less about the fish and more about the place and time. The peace and quiet, tranquility of flowing water, the sense of time dissolving. For all those reasons, the alpine streams are my favorite. Even if the fish are much smaller, the place is just so wonderful. The spots and colors of the brook trout should be described in some book as evidence of divine creation. I'm going with my brother to Alaska in August for the big fish, and it will be fun. Still, I'm not expecting to enjoy it as much as hiking along the streams in my own county.
"The appeal to me is less about the fish and more about the place and time."
That was always it for me when it came to fishing. And hunting as well. As to trail riding on horseback, it was pretty hard to make the experience more about place and timke than the horse I was on; they both sort of became one thing.
Since what was or wasn't on my stringer at the end of the day wasn't of paramount importance, I never found a reason to disagree with that old saw about a bad day fishing being better than a good day at work. And ditto that for the other two things as well.
I gave up thongs last year. "Now I'm getting old, I don't wear underwear. I don't go to church and I don't cut my hair. But I can go to movies and see it all there.. just the way that it used to be." (Buffett - Pencil Thin Mustache)
Yeah. The river is hypnotizing, especially when you get to those deep spots where it's moving fast but not making any sound except a teeny gurgle periodically. It somehow enhanced the silence.
I always loved brookies, the colors, or anything really, but my old man was weird; he wanted browns and felt brooks were somehow inferior. More of that purist thing. When I go fishing over in Michigan, they won't eat bass. They'll only eat bluegills and feel bass are somehow a trash fish. Fish people can be weird.
Yeah. I know. It was more about how they fought. Supposedly, the brooks splashed around too much like frantic little kids, but the browns would go deep and fight like they meant it...or something...and when they'd jump, it was athletic, not like splashy brooks...I'm being serious here. That was the narrative. Like I said, the old man was weird about fish stuff.
And some complain that brook trout are not really trout - they are of the char family, which is in the Salmonidae family, but different... what.. genus(?) than trout. The distinction seems a stupid thing for a fisherman to care about, but as Kurt says, the purists can be tedious.
And heck yeah on the streamers! A fish slamming a streamer is way more fun than watching a bobber, er, I mean "indicator". And my wife thinks it's really cute to put on a scottish brogue and say "That wooly booger was wicked today!", and it is cute even if she has no idea what she's saying.
I got ruined on it by a father that thought getting up at 4am and staying on the water until well after noon was heaven. I do know how to catch fish, though. Time on the water beats most any other variable.
Also, when we went fishing we ate the fish, often for breakfast on small fire next to the stream. Now, it's catch and release, which I understand and support, but going through all the work to turn the thing loose just ain't the same.
The best fish I ever ate were prepared and cooked streamside, quite often with nothing more than a knife and a branch to act as a skewer to hold the upcoming meal over a small cook fire.
Yup. Fish is not about the recipe, it’s about the fish and how fresh it is. Even after just a few hours, the flavor subtlety starts dissipating. When it’s fresh within minutes, the texture and flavors are perfect.
Funny how that works. My son sort of enjoys fishing, but wouldn't really bother if it wasn't to indulge me. My adventure buddy that died last year was terribly annoyed his kids have so little interest in hiking / camping. But it's his own fault for making them miserable hiking when they were kids. Obviously, there is a lesson about encouraging vs trying to force a thing.
I never could figure out how long to wait before giving up on a spot & moving on. (And I fished from shore, not about to spend $$$ on a boat just to not catch anything).
There is the "right" bait for any given situation, which changes, and then identifying habitat and knowing how to present the bait. Just winging baits out into the water might make something happen, but it's a very low probability. Time of day, habitat, bait, presentation...it all matters. The easiest way to learn is go fishing with a good fisherman. It's not complicated, but it can seem that way sometimes.
Match the hatch. The mystery of that gets much clearer pretty quickly. The puzzle for me now is more likely to be: what size fly and what water column depth (if nymphing). These days I'm one of the stubborn (or stupid) guys that's dry fly fishing when the only real chance is a nymph.
Yup, that's the conventional wisdom. OTOH...my old man caught fish. I mean, he was the guy that always came back with a full creel or the biggest trout and sometimes both. His strategy was if they're feeding, they're feeding and they're going to eat whatever is put in front of them in the right manner. If it's a major hatch going on, that means presenting food up at the surface. Nymphs can work lots of times when nothing else is happening. Day and and out though, we were big on bucktail streamers, noodling them in and out of holes.
Of course, the purists gotta pure and they'll scoff at anyone bucking conventional wisdom of matching the hatch and throwing streamers. Presenting a dry fly properly and perfectly every time is a lot of time and work, but it is a rush when it gets hit. That said, any hit is a rush. My biggest and best hauls were always bucktail streamers. Muddler Minnow of varying sizes was my main workhorse. They're out of fashion nowadays, though, and I don't know why.
As a kid, I got to meet Dan Bailey in his shop. He thought the same way as my old man and was the nicest guy. Those guys working the counter in there nowadays...I don't like them. They're classic "locals down on the tourons" types. Back then, you'd hardly ever see anyone else out on the river. It hadn't become what it is now.
Thank you!
Oh, the modern weirdness. In the past half year or thereabouts, we’ve heard from people who “know people” who testify that a local public school has a kid who thinks he’s a cat. The school furnishes the kid with a litter box. The school in question varies by the yarn’s teller, and no one names names. But they’re sure it’s really happening, because the State of West Virginia may be Trump-central, but the identity-facilitating bureaucracy clearly can’t stop itself.
What I don’t get is how people can believe such a tale. It’s convenient to a person’s ideology, I suppose, and for some that’s reason enough. But for me, the marveling over how it’s supposed to work never ceases.
For instance, who pays for the requisite human-sized cat litter quantities? Who furnishes the litter box? Who cleans out the human waste? Surely it can’t just be a sad janitor. It would have to be someone with special health training to handle human bodily excretions. And how would the eternally pinched public schools have money for such nonsense when parents arrive aggrieved because Johnny the Cat gets more expensive privileges for his personal fetishes but *my* Johnny doesn’t get a free lunch or a free laptop or whatever?
It appears that this story is itself something of a social contagion with roots going back to Canada and Michigan, promoted by political attention seekers, of course, and variously affiliated with Trump/MAGA. And I suppose if that’s your personally identify as such, you can’t be disabused of the irreality of what it is you’d like to believe, no matter how devoid the matter is of any pictorial or other evidence…despite everyone having cell phones that they use to take pics and videos always and everywhere.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litter_boxes_in_schools_hoax
Tony Dungy joked about it on X I think 2 years ago, but then apologized. He didn't claim it was happening, but joked they should provide the student with a litter box.
Good rant. Just wondering what in particular set it off? Did some hoaxer in a rocking chair squish your tail, or what?
Ha! 😸😸😸
Nah, it’s just from hearing the yarn that *one more time* that sent me to see what the internet had to say about it. Snopes, at least, I reckoned would have something.
But it’s that otherwise sensible people relay the story. And I’m sure they kinda/sorta want to believe it for the outrage it justifies that suits one’s political views anyway.
As I say, these aren’t necessarily people I’d think of as goofy or credulous. I can even imagine a certain degree of face-to-face pressure to believe in some circumstances. Someone’s telling you this, and you’re not inclined to want to indicate to the teller that you think they’d lie…which is why I say it’s a social contagion.
Oh, well. Don’t guess I’ll try to fix that part of what’s wrong with the world all by myself just now after all…
Part of it is that "otherwise sensible" people go along with gender ideology, letting boys who think they're girls play n girl's sports teams. That's actually fairly uncommon, and is now getting pushback from many sports authorities, but there are documented cases, like "Lia Thomas".
When people believe in some crazy things, they will believe in other crazy things.
RE: "a social contagion"
I've heard they have something for that now called penicillin.
But it’s a viral contagion! Never use an antibiotic for a virus. Where did you get your social doctor’s license, anyway? Huh? Where?
Misfire.
Well, duh. From the Casey Means Internet School of Medicine and Practical Paganism, of course.
Edit: Or maybe it was Trump University? I get a little confused about certain things these days.
Good Sunday morning. Happy Mother's Day to all mothers! 62 here.
Sadly, the mother of my daughter is in the hospital after falling off a ladder this week, with a fractured hip. Our daughter and I will visit her later.
Ouch! I hope it heals quickly, that cannot be fun.
Being on a ladder in the first place hopefully speaks of an active life. Best wishes for good care and patience to get through it.
Best wishes for a speedy and full recovery.
I'm very sorry to hear that, Phil.
That does not sound like fun. Gute Besserung to her!
Good morning. Gloomy here.
I planned to buy a pot of red flowers to put on my mom's front porch for Mother's Day. I also planned to come home mid-week and go back. I also have had trouble keeping track of time.
I did not go home until the end of the week and so didn't think to buy the flowers before I left. I am going back Tuesday and will get them them.
Happy Mother's Day!
Thank you!
Pour les mères:
https://youtu.be/_Zu7lbhU6fk?si=QhFjy4G1m4GAr1VX
Mother's day is always a bittersweet holiday for me. Being widowed and remarried, today is the most difficult day with which to balance my love for two different women, to whom I pledged to both my fidelity.
My favorite Mother's day was the most painful. It was Pam's 2nd as a mother, but she was in transplant ward, her third trip in, and had been there 3 weeks. A week prior they gave her the "death sentence"; her donor marrow failed. They would insert her old, diseased marrow, and once her T-cell count was high enough she would go home to die. With good luck 3-5 years, but probably 1-2. Pam cried, but an hour later set a new life goal. To walk to the end of the driveway the first day of school with her little boy, then kiss him as he got onto the school bus.
Being a Mom and being separated from your son (our healthy son had too many normal infections for him to be allowed in the ward, he only visited 4 times in five months) is tough and painful. Plus she was allowed no more than 3 visitors at a time. But the unit ward nurses loved Pam, and we commandeered the visitor lounge, which connected to the ward. Patients often walked the hallway into the lounge and back for exercise, so going in there was fine.
So on Mother's day we had a surprise party for Pam. I walked her into the lounge; she assumed I was there to keep her from falling, as she was weak from being bedridden for weeks. But as we got to the door, rather than turning around I had her open the door. SURPRISE! She was shocked. And thrilled. And her little boy ran to her screaming Momomomomomomomomomomomom; she scooped him up and squeezed him, holding him, 20 seconds later he wanted to run elsewhere, so she sat him down, and we sat her on a loveseat, me at her side.
We had cards. Janet got her one from our son, where she changed "little angel" to "little devil". To be fair, our son is very well behaved, but he is all boy and they raised all daughters. I bought her a gold chain with a "mother & child" pendant on it. She cried when she saw it. She slipped it on, and left it on for days, until the doctors wanted it off. We had cake but she could eat any, but our son ate her slice for her, to help her out. She smiled.
When it was over, I walked her back. She sat down in my lap, and fell asleep. An hour later she woke up concerned, and I carried her to the bathroom where she got sick. I notified the nurse on duty, who helped clean her up. Pam asked if she could sit on my lap again. The nurse wrapped her in a blanket, and she fell asleep for hours.
When it was time for me to go, Pam was awake, thanking me for the day, and telling me God had given me to her as a gift to endure all this, and how much she loved me.
All in all it was our best day in there. I have some pictures of the day; my favorite is her in my lap, laughing, as I give her goat horns for the picture. No matter how bad things were, we had a blessed marriage.
Katie knows a little of the story, but knows I feel guilty sharing it with her.
We're off to meeting, then off to Pam's family for a cookout, then we'll do a meal of our own tonight.
God bless you Jay. Happy Mother's day to Katie!
Moving story, Jay.
Happy second Sunday in May, for all those who find things to be celebratory about on such a calendrical milestone…
Morning, all. We're having a thunderstorm.
Happy Mother's Day Cynthia!
Storms at the beach are so much more adventurous than storms at home.
A disadvantage if this house is that there's no place to sit outside that's out of the rain. However, if the house next door is still unoccupied tomorrow, I can sit in their parking area.
No covered area to sit outside sounds like a code violation to me!
Morning. The weather map looks very active down your way and farther south right now.
RE: "weather map looks very active"
Why? Is Trump at it with his Presidential Weather Sharpie again?
It starts and stops.
We have all arrived safely. Vlad forgot his antibiotics. I'll have to call his doctor on Monday and get them to call a prescription to a pharmacy in Southport. Sigh.
Gotta keep out the riff-raff.
Hope all goes smoothly. Dealing with a pharmacy where one's never done business before can be a pill.
I hope it won't be difficult. It's a common medication.
Oh, you meant this one?? 🚪
There's just no gettin' anything past the door man in this joint, I guess.
Not a dragon. A very cool bug.
When my sister was living in Texas, and I went for a visit, there were dragonflies around her backyard swimming pool. And I soon learned that they were useful, pretty, and wouldn't hurt me.
They eat so many mosquitos. Zillions of mosquitos. Possibly more than bats eat.
A few years ago, we had a truly *huge* dragonfly hatch here for some reason. I'd never seen anywhere near that many out and about at one time before, and the difference in the mosquito population after they'd been around for just a couple of days was quite noticeable.
Dragonflies are the coolest. Great TSAF.
Thank you.
I love it when they're swarming and eating. I can sit and watch them for hours. I read something a long while back about how modern aeronautical engineers can't explain how they fly. Well, they can explain it, but supposedly it goes against all sorts of accepted aeronautical engineering...and it works. It would be impossible to build something in the same configuration and have it fly because it would fly apart on start up. Too much stress. They made it work on Dune, though. The ornithopters were based on dragonfly tech.
Over here, they're caught and a thin single silk thread is tied to them like a leash, and they're kept as "pets" for brief periods.
I would guess that what works for dragonflies fails when you scale it up. Mass and volume increase faster than surface area. And organic matter is less fragile than metal and plastic machines.
"They made it work on Dune, though. The ornithopters were based on dragonfly tech."
I think it was Professor Bret Devereaux who wrote about how stupid that was on a world of sand and sandstorms.
I loved this article on dragonflies, thank you. Amazing creatures. As someone that likes to fly fish, I've got a few of those nymphs in my box. In the right season, it is so cool to be near a still alpine lake, watching the blue dragonflies hovering several inches over the water. Either Blue Dashers or Common PondHawks. What cool names too! The little lake will have a ton of these hovering. And every now and then.... the cutthroat trout rises out and catches the fly in the air. So cool. The snowmelt is still too heavy to fish the alpine areas, but I am already anxious to get back there. My favorite place to be.
If you like fishing content, Matt Labash’s Substack is worth mentioning. I’d still be a paid subscriber but for the need to review and cull things I wasn’t reading enough. He’s pretty funny, too.
https://mattlabash.substack.com/
Trosino might still be signed up and can tell you about it. That’s where we met, I think.
So, unlike a certain president who never met or knew anyone of questionable bona fides, you're actually admitting you know me? Pretty bold, I must say.
I've never been one to fish, I didn't like handling the caught ones, seemed icky. But one of my favorite memories of youth was fishing.
When I was barely 12 we did a High Adventure canoe trip to Boundary Waters Minnesota. I was not supposed to go but they needed another adult chaperone, and my Dad (an Assistant Scoutmaster) agreed to go if I could go. I was small and puny, so portages were tough. But I survived it alright.
We canoed 50 miles on the lakes. Our plan was 12 miles a day of lake canoeing. It was tough on me, but I survived. On one day we stayed in camp, and my Dad wanted to get out on the water, so I went. He borrowed a fishing pole, and we caught (and released) 5 five fish. We snapped a line trying to bring in a Muskie, that was exciting. I don't remember what all I caught, but Dad told me we landed a Great Northern Pike! I earned my fishing merit badge on that trip.
My Dad didn't say a whole lot in his life, but that day he opened up a little about growing up. And I learned a lot about him. We took it easy, didn't push hard, and on the trip back I seemed to do better with portages and canoeing. When the trip was over the scoutmaster told me he was proud of me, because he knew this was a tough trip, yet I never complained. That helped keep me engaged in scouting (I became an Eagle Scout later).
Thanks a bunch, I'll check it out. Spending a lot less time on the mothership... other content welcome.
If you do decide to sign up for Slack Tide, might not want to mention to Labash that you know me or have even heard of me. He'll probably up your subscription price if you do.
That doesn't sound encouraging :-)
I'd encourage you to check him out anyway. :-)
I've been there from the jump back in 2021 and always much enjoy his writing, though his style can get a little bit in the way of what he's *saying* on the rare occasion. Some commenters think he's been a little too heavy on the politics / Trump thing of late. There have been a couple of times I myself have wished he'd have written about something else, because while he's very good at writing satirically or sarcastically or even occasionally straightforwardly about the politics of the moment, he is so very good at writing about other things, especially odd, goofball characters and other "human interest" stuff. Not to mention fishing, which when he does it is even interesting to the non-fishermen in his comment community by what a lot of them write.
OK. Now you can mention me, and tell him that that s.o.b. Trosino gave him a plug much better than he actually deserves and is expecting a huge discount in his merch store in return for the favor. Or a fifth of top shelf bourbon of my choosing.
His merch store - or more specifically his lack thereof - has been a topic of conversation between the two of us on more than one occasion in the past. So, just tell him I'll go easy on him... he can forget the absurdly priced 4 and 5 figure Pappy Van Winkle's "Family" selections; I'll settle for a fifth of Yellowstone Select, Landmark Edition - originally released as a limited edition bottling in 2022 @ $39.99.
What he might actually have to pay for any remaining bottle of it to be found now is his problem.
I will check it out for sure. I can just skip the Trump stuff. The criticism is completely fair in most cases, but too much of it is not necessarily news - including at The Dispatch.
I have a new social group of guys that have a whisky tasting every week. At first I thought they were goobers, but now I'm enjoying their company, so maybe I'm a goober too. One I recently liked enough to order was Cedar Ridge Port Cask Rye - about $60.
I tried to learn fishing as an adult. I got frustrated. Never got the hang of it, let alone catch anything.
I understand the frustration, it can be slow, hot (or cold), and tedious. The appeal to me is less about the fish and more about the place and time. The peace and quiet, tranquility of flowing water, the sense of time dissolving. For all those reasons, the alpine streams are my favorite. Even if the fish are much smaller, the place is just so wonderful. The spots and colors of the brook trout should be described in some book as evidence of divine creation. I'm going with my brother to Alaska in August for the big fish, and it will be fun. Still, I'm not expecting to enjoy it as much as hiking along the streams in my own county.
"The appeal to me is less about the fish and more about the place and time."
That was always it for me when it came to fishing. And hunting as well. As to trail riding on horseback, it was pretty hard to make the experience more about place and timke than the horse I was on; they both sort of became one thing.
Since what was or wasn't on my stringer at the end of the day wasn't of paramount importance, I never found a reason to disagree with that old saw about a bad day fishing being better than a good day at work. And ditto that for the other two things as well.
I gave up thongs last year. "Now I'm getting old, I don't wear underwear. I don't go to church and I don't cut my hair. But I can go to movies and see it all there.. just the way that it used to be." (Buffett - Pencil Thin Mustache)
Well thanks for that.
#@*%^!! spellcheck is off somewhere goofing off again!!
Oh, wait. Here's a note... Gone Fishing.
The thing I enjoyed the most about fishing was being out in nature at some lovely fishing spots, at a river or lake.
Yeah. The river is hypnotizing, especially when you get to those deep spots where it's moving fast but not making any sound except a teeny gurgle periodically. It somehow enhanced the silence.
I always loved brookies, the colors, or anything really, but my old man was weird; he wanted browns and felt brooks were somehow inferior. More of that purist thing. When I go fishing over in Michigan, they won't eat bass. They'll only eat bluegills and feel bass are somehow a trash fish. Fish people can be weird.
Brook trout are native. Brown trout are introduced.
So, I guess the Brookies don't need to worry too much about ICE showing up, while the Browns better watch their dorsal fins, eh?
Yeah. I know. It was more about how they fought. Supposedly, the brooks splashed around too much like frantic little kids, but the browns would go deep and fight like they meant it...or something...and when they'd jump, it was athletic, not like splashy brooks...I'm being serious here. That was the narrative. Like I said, the old man was weird about fish stuff.
And some complain that brook trout are not really trout - they are of the char family, which is in the Salmonidae family, but different... what.. genus(?) than trout. The distinction seems a stupid thing for a fisherman to care about, but as Kurt says, the purists can be tedious.
And heck yeah on the streamers! A fish slamming a streamer is way more fun than watching a bobber, er, I mean "indicator". And my wife thinks it's really cute to put on a scottish brogue and say "That wooly booger was wicked today!", and it is cute even if she has no idea what she's saying.
We saw the brown trout at the fish hatchery near Brevard before it was washed out by hurricanes. They're really monsters.
I got ruined on it by a father that thought getting up at 4am and staying on the water until well after noon was heaven. I do know how to catch fish, though. Time on the water beats most any other variable.
Also, when we went fishing we ate the fish, often for breakfast on small fire next to the stream. Now, it's catch and release, which I understand and support, but going through all the work to turn the thing loose just ain't the same.
The best fish I ever ate were prepared and cooked streamside, quite often with nothing more than a knife and a branch to act as a skewer to hold the upcoming meal over a small cook fire.
Yup. Fish is not about the recipe, it’s about the fish and how fresh it is. Even after just a few hours, the flavor subtlety starts dissipating. When it’s fresh within minutes, the texture and flavors are perfect.
"Time on the water beats any other variable."
Yes. Amen.
Funny how that works. My son sort of enjoys fishing, but wouldn't really bother if it wasn't to indulge me. My adventure buddy that died last year was terribly annoyed his kids have so little interest in hiking / camping. But it's his own fault for making them miserable hiking when they were kids. Obviously, there is a lesson about encouraging vs trying to force a thing.
I never could figure out how long to wait before giving up on a spot & moving on. (And I fished from shore, not about to spend $$$ on a boat just to not catch anything).
There is the "right" bait for any given situation, which changes, and then identifying habitat and knowing how to present the bait. Just winging baits out into the water might make something happen, but it's a very low probability. Time of day, habitat, bait, presentation...it all matters. The easiest way to learn is go fishing with a good fisherman. It's not complicated, but it can seem that way sometimes.
That confirms my intuition that most people who fish learn from their fathers. My dad didn't fish, at least not when I was growing up.
The one time I was halfway successful, I was with my father-in-law, fishing for catfish in Louisiana.
Match the hatch. The mystery of that gets much clearer pretty quickly. The puzzle for me now is more likely to be: what size fly and what water column depth (if nymphing). These days I'm one of the stubborn (or stupid) guys that's dry fly fishing when the only real chance is a nymph.
Yup, that's the conventional wisdom. OTOH...my old man caught fish. I mean, he was the guy that always came back with a full creel or the biggest trout and sometimes both. His strategy was if they're feeding, they're feeding and they're going to eat whatever is put in front of them in the right manner. If it's a major hatch going on, that means presenting food up at the surface. Nymphs can work lots of times when nothing else is happening. Day and and out though, we were big on bucktail streamers, noodling them in and out of holes.
Of course, the purists gotta pure and they'll scoff at anyone bucking conventional wisdom of matching the hatch and throwing streamers. Presenting a dry fly properly and perfectly every time is a lot of time and work, but it is a rush when it gets hit. That said, any hit is a rush. My biggest and best hauls were always bucktail streamers. Muddler Minnow of varying sizes was my main workhorse. They're out of fashion nowadays, though, and I don't know why.
As a kid, I got to meet Dan Bailey in his shop. He thought the same way as my old man and was the nicest guy. Those guys working the counter in there nowadays...I don't like them. They're classic "locals down on the tourons" types. Back then, you'd hardly ever see anyone else out on the river. It hadn't become what it is now.
I grew up fly fishing and tying my own flies, with a dragonfly variation among my favorites.
http://azdragonfly.org/species/common-whitetail
Like Dragonflies ! Haven't seen any here in far East Tucson however. This map shows Arizona dragonflies. Who knew!
I hope so.
One year up north the dragonflies hatched late and the mosquitoes were awful until they arrived.
Some dragonflies have significant migrations.
Good morning. It started out at 39 but should get to 70.