And...its dead

I think the leech is officially dead. I am leaving it up for as long as google or whomever regulates such things will allow. I suspect to someday return to the mental place that allowed me to ramble on such topics as those previously covered. But for now I am far away from that place, far far away indeed.

Until then, trust not your senses, for they will lead you astray....and the rest is up to you.

not a year

i cannot believe it is six days away from exactly one year since my last post here. i don't think i have even come to the site for 5 months.

i will be back more often.

there is shit in the river!

damn. i tried really, super hard to fish this weekend. really. and i "fished" but didn't really feel very fishy about it. see, first there was saturday, after finally getting over my guilt about leaving my wife and baby to go fishing (this subject will someday have its very own post) for a half day, i set out for a river at about 1 in the afternoon. a 40 minute drive, 10 minute stop for a license and dark at around 7 means 5 hours fishing MAX, plus steelie is along which cuts at least another 30-60 minutes out for dog management. i hightail, get there and see lotsa no parking signs at planned stop #1, stop #2 has plenty of access but i see the river, or lack of it, and realize my odds are low...at least i brought the single-hander. all that aside, i still got to fish and caught a decent trout, but that wasn't the point. it felt like a bust, much like getting amped up for a porterhouse and getting a cookie cutter feed lot grease burger instead...edible, but barely.

sunday. ahhh yes, good ole sunday. no more worries about the whole guilt thing cause kari and elsa were coming with. we got rolling at about 11:30, which, all things considered was pretty damned solid. when we made it to the river we had to spend a little time getting elsa prepped, rods strung and the dog under control, but it went well. the water was a little dirty but very fishable. kari sat down on a nice log seat to feed elsa and i went upstream to fish a greasy little tailout fulla boulders and the like. i got about ten casts in and kari gave a holler and a wave. so i reel up, head down and see the milk that is supposed to be ingested, was outgested, all over elsa's clothes and kari's waders. oh well, not a big deal, we'll go back to the car, re-group and head upstream to the original destination a little further from traffic. about half-way there i look at the river and it is a fucking mud slide, like literally, this shit was one part per million away from being mud.

we hit the highway for plan b, get ten minutes down the road and i lose all electrical power in the car, all the dash gauges are out, radio is out, heater fan is out, etc. this isn't a great thing, i thought, battery? alternator? hmmm? and then the power was back on, then off again, then on again and off and on. the whole time the car ran great, but with a 2 month old in the rig it was probably best to try to make it home. and we did, but barely. the car finally lost power at our exit, we made it up the ramp doing about 30, and i thought we were gonna have to hit the ditch, but when i pushed the clutch in and sat at the stoplight for 30 seconds i got all my power back, everything came back on. wtf? ever since, the problem has not come back, but my wipers are still slow and some other weird shit is going on so the beast is going to the shop tomorrow. hopefully, next time we try to go fishing, we will be able to fish. that would be great. wish me luck fools, i need it!

three weeks ago

forgot to post this...it was good, one night of camping, a day and a half of fishing, and three less hatchery pukes to dilute the wild genes. all removed via long rod, floating line and small fly.

Ahhhhhhhh......

I took my own advice and went fishing. It was most superbly awesome. We saw no fish, but something did make a pass at my pink leech. I was fishing for Coho and it felt like a trout, but Coho are known to sometimes be very light biters, so you never know. Nonetheless, the real highlight was that the whole crew came along. Kari put Elsa in a little sling and we hiked in to a spot mostly off the beaten path, we had a big stretch of river to ourselves and soaked it all in. We were out from about 1-7 and Elsa proved herself to be a champion of the riverbank at a mere 17 days old! Hopefully this is foreshadowing things to come...I have high hopes :) ...on to the pictures already!

Deep thoughts, by the leech

This whole parenting thing is throwing my mind for a loop. I don't have a journal, this is sorta my journal, so I am writing this here even though it is sure to piss a couple people off.

Additionally, parent how you want to parent and I will do the same, but this is my blog so I'll write what I want......feel free to criticize, I'll let you know if I change my mind.......

People's cynicism and skepticism is mind-boggling. Anything that so much as presses a finger to a wall of the happy box of existence is chastised. Where did common sense go, was there ever any? You would assume, evolutionarily, that common sense would be universal...do you think it ever was, and in which case, systematically dismembered, starting at birth, for nearly everyone? Or do some people just have it and others don't?

Having little Elsa around has, for me, renewed thought about these questions, and many more. For example, there is an obsession in our society to "control" our children, right from birth and I found myself acting out these hidden traps culture has set. Like feeding the baby on a schedule, what the hell sense does this make? If you were really hungry and someone had your next meal, but withheld it because you just ate 1.5 hours ago and they thought you should only eat every 3 hours...isn't that some form of torture? Yet I found myself pacing the house shushing and bouncing and swaddling the baby to calm her because I thought she should wait another 45 minutes for her next meal, even though she was obviously ready to feed again. It teaches your child, right from the start, that communication is worthless! Her only methods of communicating are showing restlessness, sucking hands, rooting behaviors (searching for the nipple) and finally crying, when we ignore all of these the reinforcement is that communication is completely useless!

I am very pleased that we realized this as soon as we did and not when we had a 12 year old on our hands that wouldn't talk to us because from the start she learned communication was pointless. Instinctive parenting makes sense. Also, if the goal for everyone was to create an open-minded, thinking, communicating, caring child, rather than an "obeyer", would the whole world not be exponentially better?

(note: I clearly need to go fishing.)

Bloggers: Meet Elsa Ann

at the leech we think population growth is good, as long as your DNA isn't stupid.

here is the newest fighter for the rights of native fish everywhere!

A beatdown with leftovers

I spent last weekend on an epic Oregon summer steelhead river. As expected I came home thoroughly skunked. It was a solid getaway though and much needed. It's a goofy time of year for summer steelhead in any river, as ultra hot, sunny days are generally unfavorable and it was certainly ultra-hot, and sunny. Nonetheless it was quite nice to get out on a full weekend, solo expedition...likely the last for the forseeable future. A tip, if you want to fish a lot don't buy a house and have a baby due in two months! Kinda more important things than fishing to do, and as f'ed up as that is, it's truth. (I had to re-read that last sentence at least 4 times, it kind of surprises me, but in a mostly good way).

Digress, digress, digress. I brought Steelie along for his first trip to unsaid river. He did quite well, stayed away from the road, didn't turn into a total whiney bitch when I occasionally left him in the car to fish a quick run and otherwise performed well. And even though I didn't catch a fish, the trip did leave me with lasting memories......memories still very vivid in mind, as I try not to itch the gotdamned poison oak remnants on my legs! Drats.

In Memoriam

I found out my paternal Grandfather passed today. It was expected for some time as he has been battling a pretty ferocious cancer in his spine and brain. I am writing simply to pay tribute to him as a person who treated me with utmost kindness, love and respect. I can't really speak to who he was before my memories begin, I don't really know how he treated his children or his wife or even my own siblings as they are considerably older than I. But I do remember most of the times I spent with him and he was not the type of old man to tell you what you did wrong, but one who emphasized what you did right. He always had a hug and a smile for me when I came to visit. He was always genuinely interested in the events of my life and was elated at my choice in a wife, he would always say, "you've got yourself a real keeper there, you've done well". He would say this with a fairly intense seriousness, which he didn't use often. Mostly I remember him being humorous and very quick witted. I am happy that he was able to live a full life, only cut short in spirit by the passing of my grandma 15 years ago. But from that he recovered, believing that he would meet her again when his time came. That time has now came and went and I wish both of them eternal happiness.

For Grandpa Les, 07/02/09

a weekend in pictures

wipe down of the mental slate

i swung flies for a couple hours today. it was fantastic. i even ass hooked a sucker. i stopped to take a picture of the steelie dog rummaging in the flooded brush, when i started to strip in the slack there was the no-nonsense (read: "nonsense") tug (read: "sally throb") of none other than the mighty asshooked sucker. i thought about preserving the fine specimen in a photograph, but had just re-cased the camera, and it was a sucker, hooked in the ass.

anyways, it was sunny and 75 and it didn't matter that my waders leaked and there was little to no salmon for the dog to get poisoned by and the screws i put through my wading boots to hold the soles on held, bonuses, all.

ticky tacky

we are looking for a house. given the low(er) prices, we thought we would be able to afford a nice house in really nice neighborhood, or a really nice house in a nice neighborhood. we drafted an offer a couple weeks ago, but when we got home, kari said "something's not right". so we double checked our budget....ooooops! forgot daycare! needless to say we had to withdraw the offer. so we regrouped, relooked, and its looking more like a sorta nice house in a nice neighborhood, or a nice house in a sorta nice neigborhood. this makes for a much tougher decision. we will only need daycare for 3 days a week, the "reasonably" priced (not high buck, not low buck) daycare charges 800-850 dollars a month for an infant, 3 days a week. pretty sure i followed the wrong career path. (edit.: after re-reading, i am also very glad i didn't try to be an accountant.)

anyways, we put in another offer yesterday and will know if we got it tomorrow. we aren't expecting anything, but it would be nice to be done with the madness. plus, we lowballed the hell out of 'em, we'd be sittin pretty :)

on other fronts, i went fishing about a month ago with n^2, i went 2 for 2 plus a grab and the n^2 went 1 for 1 with 2 grabs. i am savoring that day of steelheading for as long as humanly possible, which i've surpassed by at least a week. additionally, we built a trailer, just in case i finally win the powerball and can afford a shuttle, i might be able to float!

two big finds

one.....




two...

i almost forgot

i suppose i should also update on the subjects that were left hanging prior to my sabbatical....

1) i got a job!

2) some mother fucker stole my trailer the day after i called the dude that hit the trailer and told him to give me some money...suspicious, no? can't prove shit and i'm out a trailer...

3) the bloodied up hatchery steelhead pictured in the previous post was caught two days after the january 21st post in which i was pissing and moaning about not catching shit! the same week i got the job...a good week, indeed.

i'm baaaaccckkkk

i feel it is time to start writing again. i almost changed blogs, or at least re-named this one, because one thing i can guarantee you, there will be much less fishing coverage here in times to come. string leeches do more than just fish though, i mean, you need only look at its very beginnings to see that, assuredly all string leeches (at least those tied proper, with the wasckly wabbit) start their lives hopping around some pen, then go for a ride, and most then end up in a vat of dye...i could go on, but i think ya get it. i suppose i am trying to say everything is a journey of some sort. i started the blog to write about fishing and mushrooms mainly, but now find that fishing and mushrooms occupy, relatively, much less mental space than they did a year ago. first there is this....


apparently we decided the dog wasn't nearly enough responsibility, so we went and did this....


i probably don't have to explain any further...but just to prove that expectant fathers aren't all the home ridden losers they are oft made out to be, i would like to submit the following evidence....

(yes, the black line on the fish is a string leech, remember, the string leech abides!)

to sum, if you don't want to read a guy beaming about his child to be, yapping about his dog and occasionally telling about his outdoorsly exploits...then don't come back, ya hear?!?!

udder randomness, mostly

I told you some of this shit would turn around, didn't I? The dude that hit my trailer stopped by the house this evening. He lives down the road, and apparently within the neighborhood gossip chain, cause he heard my AXLE (I now realize I used the figure skating spelling in the last post, oops, my bad) was bent in the mayhem. He's broke as shit, which makes me feel a little bit bad, but he's gonna pay up anyway, cause I'm more broke as shit than him!

There has also been movement on the job front. Nothing firm, but something better than nothing.

The steelhead, however, continue to fucking evade me. I even had the boober and jig out this weekend. The pisces of shit now officially own my mind, again.

One more thing, hail to the chief!

Nice gettin to know ya George, not. Have fun in Texas, hope your a steer. Love, the leech

turn this shit around, shall we?

i can't believe it's been over a month since i've posted here. a whole bunch of shitty stuff has happened with regards to fishing, which is probably why i haven't wrote. first, i didn't get a job yet and i'm quickly approaching way too fucking long without work. second, i got skunked hard in december on the swung fly, but picked one steelhead up plugging on a cold day with good friends which was nice. third, while i was away for christmas some jackass hit my trailer which was parked out front sans boat and chained to the curb. the lock is broken, the wheel cover is bent into the wheel and the axel has a very unnatural bow to it. the neighbor saw it and got a license plate # but i just talked to the cops and apparently it was not correct. the number i gave the cops is on a car, not a truck as the neighbor described, and belongs to a couple that was in missouri when the shit went down. fuck hole, suck hole. but thats great, see, i have all this money lying around and i needed something like a fucked up trailer axel to use it on! bingo!

anyways, i hate whining. i am kind of whiner though, which sucks for me. but alas, i can feel the tides turning. soon i will have a job, and my trailer will be in working order and i will bury the hook deep into the jaw of a big fat chromer. you just watch.

a zoo of people

holy hells bells. went to the river today with kari and steelie (the no longer good luck dog) and shit was hitting the fan. i apparently didn't get the "everyone, go fish!" memo that went out last night. if i had i probably would of considered a different river option, one that say, wasn't within 30 minutes of a million or so people. it was a good day for exploring though, so we did some hiking, looked for new bank accessable water and almost found it, we were but an impossible wade away!

gladly i was able to find a little tailout that fished well and called for some line hurling. this i was seeking out cause a good friend was kind enough to let me use a burkheimer 8134 and i wanted to see what i could get out of it. it did not dissapoint. with only 15 casts or so worth of launching called for it didn't get the extended test, but i was able to find a good groove in a hurry and only botched a half handful of them. the stick performed indeed. given the state of the stock market i'm thinking i should cash out my 401k, take the tax rape like a man, pony up and get one fer myself. maybe...if i was smart i would, but i'm sort of a tight ass so i'll probably just leave it be. i do have one thing going for me though, i'm kind of a prick, so i will see how long i can overstay my welcome on the rod lend.

anyways...stay the course ye faithful reader! there will be chrome again, i promise! (someday)

shit hole

Citigroup got something like 320 billion dollars of bailout money. Now they are spending 400 million to the naming rights for the new NY Mets stadium. And still planning on laying off some ridiculous number of employees. How does that shit work? I want a bailout, bitches, and all I need is 60 bucks for a Washington fishing license and another couple hundred for gas. Where is my pie?

CORRECTION!

i saw the photo of the fat ass steelhead (picture below) on the sweatywaders blog. the first time around i wrote that the dimensions were 45x20, when in actuality that pig ass is 45" x 25". don't want to short change!

tragedy brewing on the homefront

I received new information today about the status of riparian protection on BLM lands in Western Oregon. I don't understand how this shit gets to the Governors desk without anglers hearing about it, but that is precisely how those behind this move want it.

I'll make this easier on your eyes and give you a link to a much more readable discourse on the subject than I could come up with here. My only request is that, even if you reside outside of Oregon, you follow the link at the bottom of the write-up and send that message to Oregon Gov. Kulongoski. This is much more than an Oregon issue, if you don't believe me now, you will in ten years when you try to buy a fillet of fresh fish and all you find on the seafood shelf is Soylent Green (spoiler alert: "THE SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!").

go, now: http://tinyurl.com/5gsnf4

ultra-egregiousness

received from a friend. his friend is pictured. face removed to protect from the myriad of things sure to come out of the mouths of viewers. 45" x 20" on the swung fly, good on you man with no face, good on you.

ps - clickety the picture for ultra hi def porn view

more good news

Uncle Ted conceded his senate race yesterday, I heard it on the radio on my way to swing flies for the first time in a good while. Needless to say, it was a good day.

In other news, my miracle braid (shooting line) broke yesterday. There was a small knot in the line, usually remedied by pulling the line on both sides of the knot to pull it out, this time it broke. Thankfully the skagit head wasn't lost, but it was a bit of a gong show when I tried to repair it. Most of the gong was due to my inability to recognize that the fix was easy and I tried to make it about as complex as possible. All that was required to make a new loop was an overhand knot, i.e. surgeons loop. For some reason I thought this knot would slip and spent about 45 minutes on the bank attempting alternatives. I had one decent fix that took 20 minutes to construct. I really didn't want to lose my skagit head so I cranked on it pretty hard to test the connection, breaking the line again and nearly severing my pinky finger in the process. Thanks to the cell phone and a sweet run with coverage I dialed someone who probably had some experience with the situation and he said "just throw a surgeons loop in it, you don't want to waste fishing time." As I said, I had been on the bank for 45 minutes, I probably shoulda busted out the phone a little sooner. Even with that fiasco on the books it was still an outstanding outing, the line launched proper with the big heavy stuff, the run swung magically (I'll be back soon) and, as I mentioned up top, Ted "series of tubes" Stevens is finally out after 40 long years of shitting on the environment and blowing big oils man shaft. Cheers to that.

some good news

First, Ted Stevens was found guilty of fraud on all seven counts. He faces up to 35 years in prison, but he'll probably get no time. Either way, he is officially tarnished, which is good.

The next bit of news is much more directly related to my well being. I had Steelie out hunting for the first time yesterday. I can't afford a license so I brought him along with a couple buddies for Quail and Grouse in the coast range. Mainly I just wanted him to get comfortable with guns blazing. When we started I kept him 50 yards or so from the guns and had them shoot, then moved him to within 20 yards, then within 10 feet. He barely flinched when he was up close, his ears were up and he was looking around trying to figure out what was going on. Then I threw a pheasant wing that I taped to a stick (for distance), he got all fired up and pretty much stayed that way the rest of the day. At the last spot we walked we flushed a covey of about 15 quail. 5 shots were fired and he was staring at the birds the whole time. The bank was a little steep for him to be comfortable on, but I brought him up anyways so he could see the downed birds. One of them did the dead bird wing flap and that spooked him a little, but he recovered quickly. When we were back on the road I threw the bird for him to retrieve and he did, flawlessly. Before we headed home we stopped at a spot we had seen birds in earlier. There was one quail on the road that ran into the ditch and flushed too fast to get a shot. Steelie didn't see the bird, but when he got to the scent he got super birdy and I could barely call him out of the ditch, he was determined to find that bird. All in all, an awesome first outing for a 4 month old. He is amazingly controllable already and I'm pretty excited to see how he'll hunt next season. Til then, I'll keep him busy as an alarmingly effective (so far) good luck charm for steelhead.

"Steelhead!"

Upon review of my last two posts, it was determined that I needed to go fishing. So a fishing, we did go. The camera took the day off, the lazy bastard. But that did not interfere, for the steelie dog was here (there really). Now I'm enjoying a grizzly and a stomach full of steelhead. Clearly, life is good.