FoulHooked...(how'd that get there?)

It's February 29th. That in itself is a bit of madness. But now we enter March...and things are getting just ridiculous. To me March Madness has little to do with basketball...other than I generally go Mad durning the Month of March from being bombarded with basketball coverage and discussion. F basketball. I used to enjoy playing it...probably still could, despite my complete lack of skill...but watching it or even listening to commentary makes my face bleed. No, for me, there much more important events that March signifies...all of which keep me even a little more unbalanced than usual. -Spring is fast approaching. This means 2 things: Fishing opportunities in general will vastly re-expand as seasons (trout) and bodies of water (ice and snow) both open; Good Remaining winter fishing opportunities are quickly waning, which may result in this year's attempt at winter trout a complete failure; Bad -St Patrick's Day. I'm not sure what else to say about this. La

I've heard of "cat"-fishing before, but dropping a spey in your own kid's cereal bowl seems like taking it a little far. Hell, the barb's still there, maybe he's fishing for keeps. At least I know who not to call if I ever need a babysitter. Still, it's not as bad as it seems. I know the little buggers aren't that discerning, but there's no way that's being mistaken for a sweetened puffed ball of grain meal. If some poor sucker does fall for it, he's probably better of being eaten anyway. God that looks painful ...I didn't realize cigarette smokers were such massochists. Moral of the story...don't feed your children Kix...they are addicting and will result in DayTripper eating your babies, if not your cats.

Plans are finally being solidified. I will be spending my weekend enjoying wintertime versions of this . Historically, I just don't deal with stress. Period. It helps that my life has always been fairly simple, but work and relationship pressures rarely, if ever, got to me. The past month, however, building from somewhat of a crescendo over the past year, completely dumped upon me in both personal and professional issues. What's made it even worse is a complete lack of outdoorstime(c), save to clean ice off my car and take the garbage down to the curb. Even field-time for work has been absent. Thankfully, things at work have finally taken on a more evened out pace at least. A weekend spent walking nowhere inparticular, swilling sweet distillations , building fires in the snow to talk by, sleeping on frozen wood, should just about return my mental state to equilibrium. If the weather is kind (as we know it is unlikely to be), I may even be able to throw some loops at the n

Where are these coming from? Before I had the idea to start this up last fall, I could only find a handful of fishing-related blogs, and less than five that were both interesting an applicable to me. How is it that I now have over 20 blogs in my "Outdoors" feed in Google Reader? All but 2 of those relate to fishing (generally fly); I'd like to read more general outdoor rec publication too, there just isn't enough time. I'm going to need to cut back on my work hours just to keep up with all this stuff. (At some point, I'll post them all, not right now...supposedly, "it is not the proper use of company time.")

...when planning your next destination trip. Germany seems to have cracked the code, now claiming the ability to predict weather patterns six months into the future . That's amazing seeing how we have so much trouble predicting temperature from day-to-day. "...the conscientious browser would need to mentally append "with an accuracy of 3°±2°" to the temperature prediction and realize this results in a two degree span at best and a ten degree span at worst." (OmniNerd) CustomWeather's (which owns weather prediction service www.MyForcast.com ) own data shows the best you can hope for, with a +/-3 degree margin of error, is about 60% accuracy (between 1, 2 and 3 day forcasts). Which fits with the level of accuracy for this new, incredible technology: "The forecast for this June in Germany: a 60 per cent likelihood it will be hotter than in an average year." 60% chance it will be hotter than average? Really? In the era of global warming? Vegas o

I've always had a bit of a penchant (unfounded?) for hating the southwest "boom," going back to the founding of Las Vegas (no, I wasn't around to despise it then, but throughout my life, it's never impressed me). One thing that we use to distinguish ourselves from non-humans is the ability to alter our environment (sometimes drastically) to make it more hospitable. We often seem to take pride in how effeciently we do so. In this case, we made the desert bloom throughout the American Southwest. Quite an achievement, really. LA, LV, Reno, Scottsdale, Phoenix, etc., etc., the list goes on; none of these places would be able to flourish as budding and massive metropoli over the years on their own merits. They lacked the molecule of life. No, not Scotch (they didn't have that either), water. But we fixed it. Of course, anyone with half a brain can tell you we are not nearly as effective in land transformation as we try to convince ourselves. Watering the de

Saw this guy on Colbert last night. And I thought I was alone in my ruminations on making "bugs" a larger part of our diet. Ecologically it makes sense. Physiologically it makes sense. It's already done around the world. I mean, come on . Just be careful while foraging. You might end up with more than you bargained for . Talk about a reason to go barbless...

I originally lumped this in with the previous post, as it seemed a fitting subject for how I truly got started fly fishing. But I think this subject deserves it's own post...it was kind of getting lost before. I owe somebody a large sum of gratitude, and here seems a reasonable place to put it. Growing up I was lucky enough to be surrounded by genuinely kind elders. One person in particular, a long-time family friend, is responsible for fostering my interest in fly fishing and tying. Although it took about a decade to take hold in a major way, this man provided me with a lot. Himself an avid outdoosman (fly-fisher and bow-hunter), he knew of my interest of fishing Lake George and the surrounding area with my father, who would often brag to him about our weekend exploits. One day he simply left me stunned, with the gift of an essentially complete, self-contained, fly-tying kit consisting of one (old and clunky, but useful) vise, all the requisite tools, fur, feathers, hair, thread,

It's never easy. For example; finishing projects before moving on to new ones, not putting the cart before the horse and, especially, not overextending yourself for something you dont need. I found myself pouring over tying vises this morning (not like I have the spare time to do that as it is). The DanVise is pretty tempting, especially at under $80. See, I consider tying more or less an essential part of the fly-fishing passtime (for me it's a hobby, not a sport, art, etc.). I tied my first flies years before I learned to cast them. Everyone in my generation (of tyers) must be familiar with the yellow wooley bugger. I'm pretty sure it's the only pattern they let you tie at the 1-hour introduction to tying course. I still have 4 or 5 left from that first foray (about 12 years ago) that haven't yet rusted out. Following that, I continued with some streamers and bucktails. If memory serves me correctly, my first (and still only) LLS came trolling one of my own paltry

" I’m not naive enough to think other people haven’t figured [their own mortality] out. But to me, it seems like most of the world is in denial about this fact.... So many more people out here are in such a hurry to make a bunch of money, have a big house, drive over rated cars, etc. They hate the rat race, but they are don’t know how to carry on from the sidelines. " I can't match Daytripper's way with words or clarity of vision, but I do echo his sentiments. I think we all struggle at some point(s) in choosing what is truly important , and what are just distracting us from life. The past 14 months have put me through the wringer on this one...sometimes, even when you have a handle on it, the inability to convince someone else of the same can be what gets to you. XKCD 's comic for today didn't make pondering life any easier either. Good luck. Get on some water. Got any good last-minute excuses that can get me out of work and on the stream Friday?

is receiving some local press . As it should. I need something more to waste my meager income on, so I hope to attend. As for company, Pat, I'm looking at you. Now, if we can just schedule some Lake Ontario trolling for that week, it will likely be the event of my summer.

I'm in a bit of a funk myself...I don't really see the resemblance though, beyond the scaly skin of course. Been months since I've seen a trout or so much as cast a fly, weeks since the green wave-splitter even took me for a float. May not be the worst of my problems at the moment, but some QT with my rod and some rubber pants would certainly brighten the mood a bit. So far work and weather have both conspired against me. So this weekend there are several simple solutions to these mid-winter doldrums (none exclusive of any of the others): -Get serious about tying (HA!) -Replace my rubber pants with something shiny and new -Sit, alone, swearing at some Tullmore Dew, as the level in the bottle slowly gets lower...and lower -Break out the big-shoes and get some snow under me -Head up to the VT border to feed some nymphs and buggers to Battenkill boulders -" Sort life out " -Rando trip to CT or scenic Hamilton, NY Over/Under for number of above goals achieved? 0.1, n

...why I'll never be able to live in Oklahoma. Browse around...check out the stocking schedule. Yup, OK's got their their act together. Don't ask me why I looked it up.