Stop over at Save our Wild Salmon to enter a photo contest and win a pair of Snake River Mountain Khakis pants, and support river conservation in this most endangered of our precious salmon and steelhead rivers.
Showing posts with label Conservation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conservation. Show all posts
Friday, April 23, 2010
Save wild fish and get gear
Stop over at Save our Wild Salmon to enter a photo contest and win a pair of Snake River Mountain Khakis pants, and support river conservation in this most endangered of our precious salmon and steelhead rivers.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Back into the Trout dark-ages in Wisconsin?
So much has been written about this recently that I do not wish to re-invent the wheel here.
I shall simply summarize.
Here are links to active threads and posts on the subject:
http://busterwantstofish.com/?p=1795
http://uppermidwestflyfishing.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=5888
http://www.headwatersofhistory.com/2010/04/rampant-historical-illiteracy-in-wisco.html
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will be petitioned by public advocacy during the Conservation Congress, to remove the system of special regulations on our trout streams in favor of a single five fish per day limit, effectively throwing back the clock to the dark-ages.
This proposal makes no sense on the surface, so I drilled down into it a bit.
Here is the real beef in a nutshell, once one sweeps aside spurious arguments and obfuscation.
The effort is led by several very disgruntled individuals, spearheaded by the supposed expertise of a certain rogue former DNR employee, and championed among others, by a certain former guide who has the rather dubious distinction of being banned from many internet forums due to constant inflammatory posting. The essence of what they stand for is the ability to harvest fish, especially by locals, who are represented as no longer able to fish due to restrictive catch and keep regs. Their youth and elderly can or will no longer fish argument is a mask. There are plenty of area and river sections where selective harvest is allowed, and stream access in Wisconsin is better than most any other state.
Fly-fishers have been vilified by this group as well as Trout Unlimited. Habitat improvement has been dismissed.
Effectively, this whole thing boils down to “In da good ole days we used to go down to the creek and drop a worm and catch our fill in an hour.”
The regulations which this group wishes to overturn were solidified after a drought in then late 1980s. They have allowed blue-ribbon fishing to emerge and stay. Changing the entire state to a single five fish limit effectively throws us back into the era before advanced management. The ‘good ole days’ when people could catch a bunch of brood-stock lunkers dumped in their back yard by the stocking truck, and the streams were clogged with silt, and too warm in the summers to hold trout.
Fly-anglers have pegged as elitist snobs by these guys, but it is these same ‘elitist snobs’ who every weekend, are on the streams, installing in-stream habitat improvements, bank stabilization, lunker structures, etc.
The whole bait and hardware vs. fly polarization that this group has ignited and fueled does us more harm than good. We are all stewards of the environment.
I shall simply summarize.
Here are links to active threads and posts on the subject:
http://busterwantstofish.com/?p=1795
http://uppermidwestflyfishing.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=5888
http://www.headwatersofhistory.com/2010/04/rampant-historical-illiteracy-in-wisco.html
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will be petitioned by public advocacy during the Conservation Congress, to remove the system of special regulations on our trout streams in favor of a single five fish per day limit, effectively throwing back the clock to the dark-ages.
This proposal makes no sense on the surface, so I drilled down into it a bit.
Here is the real beef in a nutshell, once one sweeps aside spurious arguments and obfuscation.
The effort is led by several very disgruntled individuals, spearheaded by the supposed expertise of a certain rogue former DNR employee, and championed among others, by a certain former guide who has the rather dubious distinction of being banned from many internet forums due to constant inflammatory posting. The essence of what they stand for is the ability to harvest fish, especially by locals, who are represented as no longer able to fish due to restrictive catch and keep regs. Their youth and elderly can or will no longer fish argument is a mask. There are plenty of area and river sections where selective harvest is allowed, and stream access in Wisconsin is better than most any other state.
Fly-fishers have been vilified by this group as well as Trout Unlimited. Habitat improvement has been dismissed.
Effectively, this whole thing boils down to “In da good ole days we used to go down to the creek and drop a worm and catch our fill in an hour.”
The regulations which this group wishes to overturn were solidified after a drought in then late 1980s. They have allowed blue-ribbon fishing to emerge and stay. Changing the entire state to a single five fish limit effectively throws us back into the era before advanced management. The ‘good ole days’ when people could catch a bunch of brood-stock lunkers dumped in their back yard by the stocking truck, and the streams were clogged with silt, and too warm in the summers to hold trout.
Fly-anglers have pegged as elitist snobs by these guys, but it is these same ‘elitist snobs’ who every weekend, are on the streams, installing in-stream habitat improvements, bank stabilization, lunker structures, etc.
The whole bait and hardware vs. fly polarization that this group has ignited and fueled does us more harm than good. We are all stewards of the environment.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Grafton votes to keep ‘historic and iconic’ dam and millpond on the Milwaukee River
Citizens of Grafton voted by an overwhelming majority (75%) to keep the dam on the Milwaukee River, and prevent the village board from using federal dollars available to remove the dam. The Wisconsin DNR has ordered the village to replace/repair the dam by 2019 in order to be in compliance with new flood control measures.
It is no wonder that the referendum passed. The wording was one-sided, and no mention was made of the larger issues of dam compliance, federal funds available, or any vision of a restored river. When the time comes to repair or replace the dam, the folks of Grafton will most likely have to pony up the funds themselves.
Too bad that Grafton is not able to envision the asset that a free-flowing river can provide to the community, wildlife, and all recreational users downstream of their impoundment.
Water quality on the river has improved so much that stoneflies have now become resident. Stoneflies only hatch in areas with oxygen-rich water that is free of siltation. Areas of the river that run wild have seen a recent return of bald eagles, nesting wood ducks, and other signs that nature appreciates the return of a restored river.
The Estabrook Dam has been open now for several years, and the water clarity downstream is the best this writer has ever observed. The lack of the seasonal opening and closing of the weir to fill and draw down the impoundment has allowed the river to cut channels in the silt backed up by the dam, and that very silt has been more or less blocked from pouring into the lower river.
The dam at Limekiln Park in Grafton is slated to be removed this spring, and the dam at Thiensville has received a new fish ladder, allowing migratory fish species such as sturgeon, bass, pike, and steelhead to ascend to new spawning waters.
All in all, our river, which used to be denigrated for its stench, is well on its way to recovery after years of being ‘managed’ by man. It is just kind of sad that the village of Grafton has refused to be part of a new vision for a restored river that already has proved an aesthetic, recreational, and natural asset in areas where it has been allowed to recover.
It is no wonder that the referendum passed. The wording was one-sided, and no mention was made of the larger issues of dam compliance, federal funds available, or any vision of a restored river. When the time comes to repair or replace the dam, the folks of Grafton will most likely have to pony up the funds themselves.
Too bad that Grafton is not able to envision the asset that a free-flowing river can provide to the community, wildlife, and all recreational users downstream of their impoundment.
Water quality on the river has improved so much that stoneflies have now become resident. Stoneflies only hatch in areas with oxygen-rich water that is free of siltation. Areas of the river that run wild have seen a recent return of bald eagles, nesting wood ducks, and other signs that nature appreciates the return of a restored river.
The Estabrook Dam has been open now for several years, and the water clarity downstream is the best this writer has ever observed. The lack of the seasonal opening and closing of the weir to fill and draw down the impoundment has allowed the river to cut channels in the silt backed up by the dam, and that very silt has been more or less blocked from pouring into the lower river.
The dam at Limekiln Park in Grafton is slated to be removed this spring, and the dam at Thiensville has received a new fish ladder, allowing migratory fish species such as sturgeon, bass, pike, and steelhead to ascend to new spawning waters.
All in all, our river, which used to be denigrated for its stench, is well on its way to recovery after years of being ‘managed’ by man. It is just kind of sad that the village of Grafton has refused to be part of a new vision for a restored river that already has proved an aesthetic, recreational, and natural asset in areas where it has been allowed to recover.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Love and Beauty vs. The maniac and the narcissist
As part of an essay examining the sport of fly-fishing, I wrote the following…
“Trout live in beautiful places, as do other fish we fly anglers pursue. Nature is simplicity and a force. We try to capture the essence of nature and the natural world in art and music, the smells and sounds in poetry. Nature and its language and silence are part of each of us. It is where we came from. To practice a quiet sport among such beautiful and diverse surroundings as mountain streams, big freestone rivers, and northern forest brooks is a privilege and our worship at our temple. Nature’s spiritualism is a large part of fly-fishing. At the end of the day, we are as likely to lock into memory the moment the sun burned off the mists on the river at dawn, as the fish we caught. This attention to the aesthetic qualities of nature leads us to care about our treasured places, and to become concerned with the forces that threaten them. There are few true fly anglers that are not closet tree-huggers, if not outright members of conservation organizations. We care because we love, and we love because of beauty. We are connected to the natural world by the footprints we leave and the loops we make.”
This is how it should be, but instead there seems to be a growing number of anglers that
worship themselves instead of nature; the maniac or the narcissistic fly-fisherman.
I take the term maniac from the excellent introduction written by Thomas McGuane for his book The Longest Silence.
Here it is:
"The sport of angling used to be a genteel business, at least in the world of ideals, a world of ladies and gentlemen. These have been replaced by a new set of paradigms: the bum, the addict, and the maniac. I'm afraid that this says much about the times we live in. The fisherman now is one who defies society, who rips lips, who drains the pool, who takes no prisoners, who is not to be confused with the sissy with the creel and the bamboo rod. Granted, he releases that which he catches, but in some cases, he strips the quarry of its perilous soul before tossing it back in the water. What was once a trout-- cold, hard, spotted, and beautiful--becomes "number seven."
I am seeing an increasing amount of this these days.
What I was trying to say in that first quote was that by appreciating the inherent beauty in nature, we grow to love it. In loving, we begin to care, to respect, and to conserve.
We worship at the temple of nature. The maniac does not care or respect, therefore the maniac does not love. He instead copulates in nature for only his own benefit and then discards the corpse. The rivers are whored out until they are no longer capable of giving a thrill. Then the maniacs move on to a new river, bragging about the number of their conquests. The whored-out river is left hollow and forgotten: unloved and used up.
You can easily tell who these people are because they are often the loudest voices out there.
The maniac is not completely oblivious. He often cloaks himself in at least a touch of environmental concern, but really cares more about becoming a rock-star than working to support the rivers. Narcissism. Love turned inward to oneself instead of outward towards nature.
The maniac is incapable of fishing alone. His friends and worshipers must accompany him at all times. Silence is his enemy. He must have his ego constantly stroked. He is relentlessly pushing the ‘F5’ key of life. The maniac lives for the moment. Neither the future nor the past exists to him. “Look at me!” he shouts.
The maniac is the opposite of the purist. In his world ‘easiest and most efficient’ often equate ‘best.’ Whatever technique gives him pleasure the fastest.
The maniac is always measuring his angling. He measures himself against others. The fish get measured and counted as well; how many, how far, and how long replace the aesthetic experience. After all, it has been said that a man without a soul cannot understand aesthetics and beauty. The maniac is nothing if not a soulless machine with a large mirror to peer into. Appreciation is limited to that mirror’s surface. There is no depth - a stark hedonistic two-dimensional world.
You will never find a maniac sitting beside a river, looking at birds, listening to the trickle of water speaking poetry. No, they are too busy running to get to the next spot. ‘The rolling stone gathers no moss’ they will tell you.
The maniac is a dead-end. He may burn out before or after the last fish is killed or suffocates in the stream. I hope for all our sakes it is the former. You will know of his passing by his rare silence.
“Trout live in beautiful places, as do other fish we fly anglers pursue. Nature is simplicity and a force. We try to capture the essence of nature and the natural world in art and music, the smells and sounds in poetry. Nature and its language and silence are part of each of us. It is where we came from. To practice a quiet sport among such beautiful and diverse surroundings as mountain streams, big freestone rivers, and northern forest brooks is a privilege and our worship at our temple. Nature’s spiritualism is a large part of fly-fishing. At the end of the day, we are as likely to lock into memory the moment the sun burned off the mists on the river at dawn, as the fish we caught. This attention to the aesthetic qualities of nature leads us to care about our treasured places, and to become concerned with the forces that threaten them. There are few true fly anglers that are not closet tree-huggers, if not outright members of conservation organizations. We care because we love, and we love because of beauty. We are connected to the natural world by the footprints we leave and the loops we make.”
This is how it should be, but instead there seems to be a growing number of anglers that
worship themselves instead of nature; the maniac or the narcissistic fly-fisherman.
I take the term maniac from the excellent introduction written by Thomas McGuane for his book The Longest Silence.
Here it is:
"The sport of angling used to be a genteel business, at least in the world of ideals, a world of ladies and gentlemen. These have been replaced by a new set of paradigms: the bum, the addict, and the maniac. I'm afraid that this says much about the times we live in. The fisherman now is one who defies society, who rips lips, who drains the pool, who takes no prisoners, who is not to be confused with the sissy with the creel and the bamboo rod. Granted, he releases that which he catches, but in some cases, he strips the quarry of its perilous soul before tossing it back in the water. What was once a trout-- cold, hard, spotted, and beautiful--becomes "number seven."
I am seeing an increasing amount of this these days.
What I was trying to say in that first quote was that by appreciating the inherent beauty in nature, we grow to love it. In loving, we begin to care, to respect, and to conserve.
We worship at the temple of nature. The maniac does not care or respect, therefore the maniac does not love. He instead copulates in nature for only his own benefit and then discards the corpse. The rivers are whored out until they are no longer capable of giving a thrill. Then the maniacs move on to a new river, bragging about the number of their conquests. The whored-out river is left hollow and forgotten: unloved and used up.
You can easily tell who these people are because they are often the loudest voices out there.
The maniac is not completely oblivious. He often cloaks himself in at least a touch of environmental concern, but really cares more about becoming a rock-star than working to support the rivers. Narcissism. Love turned inward to oneself instead of outward towards nature.
The maniac is incapable of fishing alone. His friends and worshipers must accompany him at all times. Silence is his enemy. He must have his ego constantly stroked. He is relentlessly pushing the ‘F5’ key of life. The maniac lives for the moment. Neither the future nor the past exists to him. “Look at me!” he shouts.
The maniac is the opposite of the purist. In his world ‘easiest and most efficient’ often equate ‘best.’ Whatever technique gives him pleasure the fastest.
The maniac is always measuring his angling. He measures himself against others. The fish get measured and counted as well; how many, how far, and how long replace the aesthetic experience. After all, it has been said that a man without a soul cannot understand aesthetics and beauty. The maniac is nothing if not a soulless machine with a large mirror to peer into. Appreciation is limited to that mirror’s surface. There is no depth - a stark hedonistic two-dimensional world.
You will never find a maniac sitting beside a river, looking at birds, listening to the trickle of water speaking poetry. No, they are too busy running to get to the next spot. ‘The rolling stone gathers no moss’ they will tell you.
The maniac is a dead-end. He may burn out before or after the last fish is killed or suffocates in the stream. I hope for all our sakes it is the former. You will know of his passing by his rare silence.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Rights and Responsibilities
It is happening now.
Steelhead and salmon are disappearing from rivers all along the West Coast. Some rivers are now effectively lost altogether. The storied rivers of northern California that sustained some of the greatest runs of fish in the continent are now shadows of shadows of their former selves. The Skagit and Sauk are down to the last fish. Only twenty years ago they held amazing numbers of fish. The Salmon river in Idaho that took its name from the great fish that swam six hundred miles from the sea is empty.
It is happening now.
Mankind’s legacy of development and destruction is coming to fruition. Rivers dammed, habitat destroyed, forests logged, mine tailings dumped, soil eroded, we are all witnessing the end game.
Us sportsmen have by default become the last standing protectors of wild fish. Ironic in a sense. The very people who shoot game and catch fish have become the protectors of the resource.
With the right to chase game obtained by purchasing a license comes some inherent responsibilities. The main responsibility is to become involved in the stewardship of rivers, fish, and habitat. This often does not involve much more than joining a conservation organization, writing a letter or two, or even speaking at a public meeting. Alas, it seems that this is too much to ask for many anglers. Someone else will do it… right?
One of my favorite rivers to chase steelhead has a crowding problem. If one didn’t know better, it would seem that more anglers then ever before are fishing for steelhead. Instead, it is the few remaining rivers left that offer fishable numbers of steelhead that are concentrating anglers. The rest is just a memory. See that cover shot of the happy guy holding the monster steelhead in that 20 year old book? Chances are the fish are long gone from that river. Twenty years. A blink of an eye in time. Gone. The genetics developed by natural selection over thousands of years destroyed and never to return.
Conservation is a daunting battle, and we are always outnumbered and out financed by development interests, but now and then we manage to win a few contests. On rivers all over the country, dams have come down allowing silt buildups to dissipate and fish to migrate freely, habitat is being set aside for preservation, and riparian areas are being restored.
In all forms of government there is power in numbers. People in numbers can defeat any corporate, development, or state interest, but only if we act. Apathy will get you nothing… literally.
Given the drastically declining numbers of salmon and steelhead from California all the way to Alaska, this may be the final inning. We either need to step up to the bat, or retire forever. The slogan “Think globally, act locally” should be our motto. We may not all be able to fight environmental battles in Alaska, Russia, Botswana, or even Washington state, but our efforts through local conservation organizations can reach farther than we often think.
It is happening now.
So, you have a right to fish? Now you have a responsibility too. Will we answer the call?
Only time will tell.
Tick…tick…tick…
It is happening now.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Where did it all go? Hey, check out my new rod!
In my small efforts in coalition with other anglers regarding the Dam at Estabrook, I have been both pleased with the concerned anglers coming out of the woodwork to help us, and shocked at the general complacency of fly fishermen. Many of us seem so obsessed with our toys that we rarely see the big picture.
So, I must say what is on my mind…
The Last fish…or fiddling while Rome burns.
Saturday, March 12th 2022, 9:52 am: The last steelhead in North America is caught and killed, silently.
Meanwhile on the Internet forum ‘Steelhead Central’
‘Fishinmachine’ posts: “Dude, my new ultra-switch 4 foot rod is the killa! I can whack the fur at 100 ft.! Steelhead beware…I’s a killa!
‘Speygoon’ posts: “Hey machine, way to go. What line you usin on that killa rig?’
‘Limitsout’ posts: “I caught a steelhead on the Wind River last week, it took a glo-bug I tie with glow in the dark yarn and surveyor’s tape . I call it “Obama’s Mama.”
‘Tyinsnob’ posts: “ Has anyone tried peeing on deer hair to make it more yellow and caddis like? Just wonderin?”
‘Gearfondler’ posts: “Hey, I want to start a poll. How many two-handed rods do you own. I have 246.”
Meanwhile, on the gravel bar… The last steelhead twitches once, flicks its tail, and lies silent, the life fading from its eyes.
An old man sits beside a fire in a wilderness cabin, slowly takes out a notebook and writes a haiku:
“Dozens of fly rods
Not environmentally aware
Swinging flies in empty water.”
So, I must say what is on my mind…
The Last fish…or fiddling while Rome burns.
Saturday, March 12th 2022, 9:52 am: The last steelhead in North America is caught and killed, silently.
Meanwhile on the Internet forum ‘Steelhead Central’
‘Fishinmachine’ posts: “Dude, my new ultra-switch 4 foot rod is the killa! I can whack the fur at 100 ft.! Steelhead beware…I’s a killa!
‘Speygoon’ posts: “Hey machine, way to go. What line you usin on that killa rig?’
‘Limitsout’ posts: “I caught a steelhead on the Wind River last week, it took a glo-bug I tie with glow in the dark yarn and surveyor’s tape . I call it “Obama’s Mama.”
‘Tyinsnob’ posts: “ Has anyone tried peeing on deer hair to make it more yellow and caddis like? Just wonderin?”
‘Gearfondler’ posts: “Hey, I want to start a poll. How many two-handed rods do you own. I have 246.”
Meanwhile, on the gravel bar… The last steelhead twitches once, flicks its tail, and lies silent, the life fading from its eyes.
An old man sits beside a fire in a wilderness cabin, slowly takes out a notebook and writes a haiku:
“Dozens of fly rods
Not environmentally aware
Swinging flies in empty water.”
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