Posts from the “Stupid Stuff” Category

Fingers Too Clumsy, Voice Too Loud

Posted on May 7th, 2010

I play in front of people once a year. Everybody’s drunk, the expectations are low, and the co-players are as bad or worse than me. It’s always been a dream to play a set at a dive bar, but I settle for the annual spring pike trip. The six string makes the packing list along with the tuning device for the tone deaf, and the memories of being asked to stop playing Bad Moon Rising on repeat.

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The Fallacy of the Predetermined Outcome

Posted on March 22nd, 2010

As far as I can gather the expression came first from the mouths of baseball analysts. It basically means there is no such thing as “if only,” there is only the way it is. It works, too, when the fly is presented and the fish is willing and able and the expectation is not met. If… …the knot held …the hook didn’t straighten …the fly didn’t foul …the loop didn’t tail …the wind didn’t gust …the fish didn’t miss There’s football wisdom at play here, too. Like Bill Parcells said, You are what your record says you are.

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Ditch Fishing Hero Shots Gone Awry

Posted on March 11th, 2010

Here’s a pic from the archives. The dude in camera is one of my best buds, so I blotted out his face, altered his beard to make him look Amish, and will refer to him henceforth by the code name Trey Anastasio. We ran the ditches this one time in FLA, and he caught this small yet robust butterfly peacock in super terrific spot #13, south section. Besides documenting a catch not worth bragging about, here’s what’s wrong with this hero shot: 1. It is a hero shot. Been played more than Stairway during Get The Led Out at Zep Ten O’Clock during Rocktober. 2. His attempt to mock the hero shot concept by dangling small fish as an earring is a gross miscalculation.…

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Signs of Hope and Spring

Posted on March 9th, 2010

I did not catch a carp today. No matter. I saw several, an unexpected bonus of a muni park visit. The mercury spiked to 60 degrees today, and most of the remaining snow melted away. I took the baby daughter to the park to look at ducks and swans and whatnot. Last fall I met up with Creek Addict and we hit a park pond with many similar characteristics. Real shallow with the potential for sight fishing. I never noticed signs of life in this here pond before, but I was never really looking, either. The sun came out, I dropped down the polarized. I noticed movement. We walked up to a higher vantage point and I could see them. Three or four carp…

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FLORIDA: Horse Country Rambling

Posted on March 3rd, 2010

“The pie and cake is mine to take,” –Don Edwards, Saddle Tramp There is irony in the fact that some of my best opportunities to catch native wild freshwater fish exist in manmade drainage canals designed in part to turn what is naturally a swamp into solid ground. A berm about a half mile away cordons off the real wild, the swamp water flowing southerly over limestone bedrock. But the wild creeps into the sanitized despite the best efforts of developers and trappers. Alligators show up uninvited in golf course ponds and largemouth bass make their way into every reasonably oxygenated patch of freshwater. Out in horse country, miles away from the coast, the bass are the game. In the small canals inaccessible by…

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300-MPH Torrential 8-Weight Blues

Posted on February 24th, 2010

“We’re talking about practice, man.” –Allen Iverson In the period of winter dormancy there’s a fine line to walk between considering yourself a fisherman or just someone who likes the idea of it. There are things built around it all to engage in, like the daily scanning of other peoples’ thoughts and images, and the expos. But after a while all of it stands to serve as reminder of what you’re not doing. The thing to do is dig the rod tube out from underneath the crusty Grundens, walk to the park down the street, and start flinging line in the snow. Remember some of the things you heard the old man say at the Somerset casting demo about speed not power. Having the…

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