Been a Long Time...

...since I've seen an Eastern Bluebird, but when I woke up this morning, one was perched on the pole where we hang our birdfeeders. Kristine has seen a few in our neighborhood. I last saw them when we lived in Lansing, maybe 6 or 7 years ago. Though once common birds, the expansion of English Sparrow populations and a loss of breeding habitat (tree cavities) have made them scarce. Perhaps those nesting boxes at the Matthei Gardens and in a few people's yards are making a difference. Or maybe I'm just lucky today. I'm not sure at the moment which I'd prefer to be the case; I always aspire to kinship with nature, yet today we'll be taking a whack at the front porch project that was driving us mad just before we went on vacation.

The bluebird hopped down to the yard and foraged in the grass briefly, then flew away. I went about making my oatmeal and starting the cofee, and when I looked out the window again, the bluebird was back on the feeder pole. This time I went to get Kristine, who was in the process of waking up. When we returned to the kitchen, though, the bird was gone. I guess the first sighting of the bluebird didn't augur a streak of luck.

Days that begin with an unexpected flourish of beauty are encouraging nonethless. Most would, I suspect, if I knew where to look.

That Settles That

Yesterday: Tomorrow, though, I'm going to make a run to Cloud Creek. Never fished it this late in the season, and I've always been curious about its prospects as a hopper stream.

Well, I've satisfied that particular curiosity. I figured today would be as good as any to give it a try, since we're coming off some cool nights and recent rain. By noon I was at the stream. Checked the water temp and got an encouraging reading of 65˚. There are streams up north warmer than that now.

I've sometimes done well there casting a streamer near alders that hang over deep water, and I thought that would be a good place to target with hoppers. Apparently it wasn't. Two different hopper pattern went unmolested for the first 200 yards or so of water. When I got to a shallow pool below a log jam, I saw a couple of fish sipping something or other off the surface. They would get the skunk off my line, I was sure. Often trout sipping midges or other flies on late summer afternoons will gladly smack a grasshopper or cricket pattern. One of these did, but the hookset didn't take. His buddy wasn't going to play.

I thought some faster water closer to the bridge might be a better bet, and initially I guessed I was right. My line became tangled around the butt of my rod after a couple of casts along the first riffle, and as I unwrapped it, my leader and fly were dangling just off the rod tip. With the tangle cleared, I lifted the rod for another cast, but it was stuck. I looked down and saw a trout writhing at the end of my line. It came off quickly, but at least I got to feel a couple of pulls. All those painstaking casts to cover, and my only solid hookup came in the middle of the stream ten feet in front of me.

Now I know Cloud Creek's potential as a hopper stream. Miniscule, I'd say. One outing might not be a fair basis for judgement, but the length of the drive discourages the collection of more data. I think I'll concentrate on bass in the Huron for the rest of my day trips. Though closer to the bridge where I parked, I did see what could only be an Eprhon shuck floating down the creek...maybe an evening run is in order.

Nahh. We get Ephrons on the Huron too.

The Information Stream, vs. the Real Ones, pt. 2; Back to Cloud Creek

Storytelling and other wordy acts are as much a part of fishing as casting or reading the water. Anglers love to recount stories of catches and near-catches, or strange things seen along the water. They eagerly debate the merits of different rods or rivers. Some find a joy in teaching others to fish that surpasses that they find in fishing itself. And of course, bulletin boards and blogs allow fishheads to indulge their passion even when far from the water, or while waiting for winter to pass. It's no coincidence that more books are devoted to fly fishing than to any other sport.

Historically, most of this information sharing has occurred face to face, among friends or family members. This limited the possibility for information to be shared too widely. Before giving a tip, a speaker might look over his shoulder for eavesdroppers, or lower his voice. Pledges of secrecy might have been required before your buddy revealed the glory hole, and more than a few friendships ended because of one party's loose lips. Hard earned fishing knowledge was seldom passed on casually.

At least until the information age. With more forums and more potential hearers available, fishing conversation can go on nonstop. If one person shares a report, another may be inspired to narrate her days on the water. And electronic media apparently inspire volubility. We toss off emails and text messages without a thought, and we argue heatedly with people we've never laid eyes on. People who haven't written two pages since college could fill volumes with their bulletin board postings, or even with the postings they wished they could take back. Communication isn't just easier these days; it's more indiscriminate.

So when anglers used to keeping secrets venture into this verbal melee, sparks are bound to fly. Someone will see their hidden access point or their obscure creek become a topic of discussion among people in four states. And he, along with others simply upset at such a casual attitude toward secrets will angrily post warnings not to post things few are likely to know, or to discuss their successes in any detail. As the reports continue to flow, even with the most sensitive details omitted, some will shake their heads and announce the death of fishing, and heap scorn on novice anglers who innocently inquire about fishing conditions somewhere. Casual visitors to fishing website might conclude that the primary characteristics of fishermen are fractiousness and distrust.

It might be pleasant to return to the old days, when the fish just jumped onto your hook and no one blabbed about their catches beyond a small circle of friends. Won't happen, though. Fishermen inevitably talk about their exploits and discoveries. Some will do so on the new media, which are not going to go away. In fact, some anglers lack any other outlet. A guy on the Virtual Fly Shop board once chastised me for saying that the Hex Hatch was in full swing on a certain stream; he had fished it there himself after getting a call from a friend who lived up north, and that, he insisted, is the way things ought to be. I would agree--if I had a friend up north willing to fill me in on hatch times and hot spots. In fact, I don't really have any fishing acquaintences at all. Except for those on the net.

I don't think that's terribly uncommon. Many people fishing today (and people fly fishing in particular) didn't learn the sport from a parent or a buddy. They may not have a gang of friends who also fish. Fewer people are fishing overall, meaning less chance of finding such friends. Or they may not be able to contact their flesh and blood friends when they'd like to. On the other hand, net access is easy to acquire and available anytime.

What I think turns many (but by no means all) people to internet fishing sites is not a chance to brag or to scam some info without doing the footwork, but a desire to fill that companionship gap. One finds others to share the mania, or may pleasingly complent the 3-D fishing friendships one has. If, as Marshall McCluhan thought, television is the campfire for the global village, the internet may be the corner tavern for dispersed and isolated postmodern fishermen. Seeing fishing sites thus may offer some guidance as to what one should or should not talk about in them. (Still more to come...)

I didn't make it to the Huron yesterday. Got outside and saw my lawn well into the process of reforestation, so I spent the afernoon mowing instead of fishing. Tomorrow, though, I'm going to make a run to Cloud Creek. Never fished it this late in the season, and I've always been curious about its prospects as a hopper stream.

The Information Stream vs. the Real Ones, pt. 1

A thread on the Fly Fishing discussion board at Huron River Net has raised yet again a topic that perpetually incites debate among the wired fishing community: in an online report that may be read by thousands, how much should I share?

In the early days of internet fishing boards (say, until about 1998), reports were sometimes generously detailed. Then some people's little-known spots became very popular spots. Some people clammed up altogether. Others began giving very general reports, say the body of water and the day fished, but no indication as to what part of the water they fished. Still others would obscure particulars of the places they fished or discuss them in misleading ways. (I confess these last two ploys are standard practice on FTR; if I say I'm fishing the Huron below Dexter, I might well be in Ypsilanti, which is, of course, downstream from Dexter).

Soon, board moderators began posting warnings not to reveal specific holes. Some board participants would call repeatedly for a ban on all reports; fishing secrets, they declared, are pearls not to be tossed before board-surfing swine (an attitude which makes one wonder why they would visit a fishing report board in the first place--is there a naughty thrill in watching acts of desecration? Or do they relish an invigorating outburst of self-righteousness?).

Plus ça change...These anxieties are merely a new expression of a habit of secrecy fundamental to the character of fishermen. Compared to fishermen (especially experienced ones), the Bush administration aspires to absolute transparency. Anglers are proverbially tight-lipped about their honey holes. Many would sooner share their Visa card number than the location where they hooked and lost a shark of a brown trout. I often think that locals like to tease out-of-town fishers by giving uselessly cryptic fishing tips, or by maintaining an outright wall of silence suggesting that fishing in their neck of the woods is far better than it actually is and that you might end up at the bottom of a lake if you ask too many questions about it. If telling one tourist angler the local hotspots risks ruining them, how bad is telling people all over the world that steelhead have reached the Pere Marquette's fly water, or that Hexegenias are hatching on the Manistee below the CCC bridge?

My thought is, not that bad. There are people that feel the internet has doomed their favorite rivers to overfishing, but I think that's a partial truth at best. The above mentioned thread from HRN offers some reassurances about this. First, there have long been guidebooks and magazines directing fishermen to hot spots, and if a river has any reputation all, chances are it's been in them. A lot of good fisheries have survived their outing in print. Second, most fishermen aren't going to bother wading more than a quarter mile from an access point. If your loosely described spot is more remote than that, people are likely not going to stumble on to it. Third, fishing pressure, especially for steelhead and salmon, was on the rise long before the net came into wide use; bulletin boards and blogs haven't brought out many fishermen who weren't there already. Finally, knowing where someone else caught fish doesn't equal knowing how to catch them there yourself. Even on good water, you will still need to puzzle out techniques, approaches, the best flies/baits, etc. Fishing holes can be complex equations.

I would grant that internet reports do influence fishing pressure, sometimes for the worse, but sometimes in ways smart or lucky fishers can turn to their advantage. A hot report about a certain stream will send some people running out to fish it, and it may encourage people to take a trip there they hadn't previously planned to. But if you know a river well, you may be able to gague when the fishing is likely to be good before--or after--the bulk of reports about
it are posted. If you ignore the net and just fish when you have the time, you might stumble on to good fishing that hasn't been publicized. Certain rivers turn up more frequently on bulletin boards (sometimes moderators only allow reports on the better known rivers), and some fishermen never look beyond those; this means fewer people will be exploring the smaller, lesser known rivers, and more solitude for those who do. There are anglers who look down on those who let the web plan their trips for them, but they may do the rest of us a great service.

I don't believe we need an impermeable firewall between the river and the web. Any hope of maintaining one is doomed, in fact, because among anglers, the habit of secrecy is in conflict with an irrepressible fondness for storytelling. Of course, telling stories to some close friends around a campfire is quite different from podcasting them, isn't it?

Not as much as might appear. (To Be Continued)

I don't think I've been out of the house since I had my surgery Monday, and I'm getting antsy. May have to try the Huron this afternoon. I'll tell you all the truth about my outing, but following Emily Dickinson's advice, I'll "tell it slant."

Gum Graftee Cuisine; There is a (Yawn) in Gilead

One of the biggest challenges following gum graft surgery is eating. The basic rules are: nothing too hot or cold; nothing spicy or acidic; nothing that's crunchy or requires much chewing; nothing through a straw; nothing with seeds. The best dining options are: mashed potatoes, allowed to cool; soy milk; mashed bananas; applesauce, hoummus or baba gannouj without pita bread; cream soups or broth, allowed to cool. You can put cheese on things, but only if its melted. Then allowed to cool. Limited menu, but that doesn't bother me as much as actually trying to ingest anything on it. No matter what I eat, anything that touches the affected side of the mouth will sting. Rinsing with water immediately after each bite helps. It's also a good idea to put bites as far back on your tounge as possible.

One pleasant surprise this morning--coffee doesn't seem to bother me (as long as it's allowed to cool). I feared the acidity might be a problem, and dreaded going without. Dodged that bullet. However, I had thought this surgery would give me a good excuse for a daily bowl of ice cream. Really bad idea. The chill is painful, and ice cream isn't very satisfying after it's been allowed to melt.

My motivation for nearly everything has been deliquescing since about the middle of June. This surgery isn't helping me pull it back together.

While convalescing yesterday, I finally got around to reading Marilynne Robinson's much-ballyhooed new novel Gilead. I was underwhelmed, much to my surprise. I love Housekeeping, and on the surface, this novel has all sorts of elements that ought to intrigue me--focus on a place, religion, sorting out one's past, the mystery of others, the wonder in the ordinary. It was beautifully written, no question. But I had a very hard time taking an interest in what was happening, and I can't say I found anything terribly illuminating about it. And I hadn't started the vicodin when I read it, so I can't blame my lack of enthusiasm on a narcotic fog. Maybe I simply went in with expectations too high. What's the rest of the world getting that I'm not? Anybody else have such a reaction??

Uh Guh ma mouf huots; Screw the Cheese, Who Moved my Mouse?

Got back about an hour ago from periodontal surgery. As the Dr. promised, the Novocaine is wearing off, and I soon need to decide whether to take another Motrin or break out the Vicodin. We'll see how things go. With the worst pain expected for the end of the week, I'll try to save the hard stuff if at all possible. If I can't hold out, I've got the Dr.'s cell number to call and beg for a refill. I have a feeling my plans for some bass fishing later this week are going to have to wait.

This morning while I was eating breakfast, Pavlov (AKA, the starving cat) walked by the table with what looked like an unusually large hunk of fur in his mouth--in his old age, he's developed a habit of pulling his out. Looking more closely, I saw this hunk of fur had two legs and a tail. He'd caught a mouse, as he does about every other month.

Now, I'm glad he catches them. I hate pulling out a towell from the linen closet and finding it chewed up and covered with mouse turds, or finding an abandoned nest in my sleeping bag when I take it out for the first trip of the year. But when I catch him in the process of killing one, I feel a bit conflicted, especially if the mouse starts to squeal. Shortly after Pavlov passed me this morning, he opened his mouth, let the mouse drop and run a bit, then pounced to catch it again. I wasn't up to watching an episode of grossly mismatched mortal combat, and the mouse still seemed energetic, so I grabbed a plastic tub and trapped it the next time Pavlov let it free. I took it out on the porch and released it. It didn't seem to be bleeding or stunned, though it was quivering like a toddler on eight cups of coffee. It bolted to the far end of our front deck, then disappeared between two of the planks. I can only hope it learned its lesson about coming into our house.

When I came back in, Pavlov was wandering around the living room, apparently confused about where his prey had gone. He looked at me wide-eyed and meowed pitifully, then returned to looking carefully under all the furniture, and behind the stereo (which for some reason is a spot the mice favor for their last stands), inhaling deeply to catch the mouse's scent. He kept this up for a good fifteen minutes, sure it still had to be around somewhere. Eventually, he settled into his usual morning nap spot next to my desk, but stayed awake for an unusually long time, looking vaguely confused and dissatisfied, as if I'd handed him a bowl full of dry food only. At least he didn't seem to be upset at me in particular, a little curious as this is a cat who nurses carefully focused resentments. Maybe he expected that after picking up the mouse I would throw it back to him and play tug of war with it like we do with his other toys, and figured I'd just tossed it somewhere out of his immediate sight. Could be in his eyes I wasn't a mean stepfather, just a boring playmate.

For the rest of the week, while I recover from this surgery, I don't expect I'll be a lot of fun for anybody.

Field Report: Mich. Beer Fest.

Had a good time at the beer festival yesterday. Rode the bus down there to avoid parking and driving worries, an idea that seemed to occur to many others; the bus we caught back to Ann Arbor was filled with slighty giddy people wearing yellow festival wristbands.

Best finds of the afternoon were: Bourbon Barrel Stout and Organic Pale Ale from Founder's Brewing, the Porter from the Fort Street Brewery, and a vintage Trippel Ale from Dark Horse Brewery. What the odds are of finding these on local store shelves I don't know, but I'll be looking.

The event offered further support for my longstanding impression that the craft beer scene has a high "wacky quotient," meaning that its followers frequently are given to displays of eccentricity and whimsy (or maybe the scene simply teases out latent currents of these that we all have in some degree--beers with 10% alcohol will do that). This tendency was most evident yesterday in people's attire. Lot of people wearing T-Shirts with offbeat and occasionally obscene logos, more than a few guys in kilts, often in colors (camoflage, say) or with accessories (mesh tank tops, say) never envisioned by the Scots of old. Leather bomber helmets, sportcoats in garish colors, guys wearing beer deliverymen's uniforms...you get the picture. A lot of people seemed to have gotten temporary tattoos for the event, and one brewery was even offering them for free on site, provided you wanted one advertising their beer. There is a well-known correlation between beer and misbehavior. I believe there is one as well between good beer and odd but harmless behavior. Microbrewing may support one of the present's few strongholds of the Carnivalesque spirit, and possibly the most broadly accessible of the few there are.

Whatever the attendees wore, the scorching hot sun dictated much of their behavior. Shady spots in Riverside park were thronged by people, usually including Kristine and me, seeking to enjoy their beers in relative comfort. A few tossed their shoes away and waded into the Huron. One couple went all the way across and back, proving that yes, indeed, that portion of the river can be wade-fished safely. Maybe a project for next week.

Here and Where; 13 Wonderful Beers, er, Years

Yesterday I stumbled across a site for The Where Project, a gathering site for bloggers who write about their locales, using technology to "map" themselves, as it were. I have a feeling I'm going digging into this for a long time. I also thought the site and its blogs might appeal to some of the people who stop by here. There are city blogs, rural blogs, travel blogs, bicycle blogs...all manners of life-navigation via the internet. Check it out if you get a chance.

I understand the site is the project of a graduate student doing a dissertation on people's use of technology to relate to place. As an educator myself, I felt duty bound to assist his research, and so submitted FTR to his link list...
Speaking of things local...today Kristine and I will be checking out one of the great local events of the year, the 8th annual Michigan Beer Festival at Riverside Park in Ypsilanti. We've always wanted to go to this, but had always managed to be out of town the day it was held. This year we made a conscious effort to keep the schedule free. We should get there around 1:00--look for a tall guy on the verge of heat stroke, accompanied by a cool (in every sense of the word) brunette.

This is actually our anniversary celebration this year. The official date is Monday, but as I'm getting dental surgery then, we figured we'd better get the festivities in early. 13 years, we've made it. Guess that's the Beer anniversary, at least for us. And they say romance is dead.

Just Berried

One of the best parts about visiting northern Michigan in July or August is the abundance of wild blueberries. Most dry, wooded, sandy areas will be covered with the ankle- to shin-high shrubs, and those that get sufficient sun and water will be heavy with berries. Of course, depending on the year, those big finds may be few and far between.

This year, for instance, has been very dry in the upper peninsula, and many blueberry bushes were barren; others had a few very small berries. The first night Kristine and I tried to pick some, last Thursday, it took us an hour to harvest about a cup. Of course, the next morning, some riverside bushes gave me nearly twice that in 15 minutes. On Saturday, we took a hike along Lake Superior in Luce County and hit what, at least this season, passed for the Mother Lode. Bushes in a couple of clearings at the edge of the dunes were laden with ripe, oversized berries. Your average wild blueberry is a bit smaller in diameter than a pencil eraser, and many of the ones we found in those clearings were cranberry size. We emptied our water bottles and filled them with berries, two litres in less than an hour. This Monday, Kristine made a blueberry pie; Tuesday she whipped up a couple dozen muffins. We had blueberry pancackes for dinner last night, with enough left over for couple days' breakfasts. As if this weren't enough, our backyard raspberry vines are hitting peak production. At least through early August, it'll be raspberries for breakfast, raspberry smoothies at night, raspberry muffins, rasberry sauce on ice cream, baskets of raspberries for friends and co-workers. My tounge should stay red for the better parts of two weeks.

When I was a kid, picking blueberries was a loathsome chore. About every other week in July and August, my father would pack the family off to a commercial blueberry farm to fill bucket after bucket with fruit, which my mother would freeze for a winter of baking. Under the influence of fertilizer, pesticide, and mechanical irrigation, the bushes grew taller than me, and the berries reached the size of dwarf plums. We would pick to the accompaniment of CO2 cannon blasts intended to scare away birds, my buckets always filling about as half as fast as anyone elses. Much as I liked to eat blueberries, I would gladly have paid a bit more for our winter stock and avoided the muck of the fields and the sun, to say nothing of the admonitions to pick faster.

I don't mind picking wild blueberries at all. The harvest is often small, the work is actually harder (you seldom had to bend over to pick farmed berries), there is always the possibility of a bear disputing your claim to a patch, but these complications are leavened by the setting, and the pleasure in taking something wild, the free and tangible spillage of the sweetness intuited in a place.

Of course, if that holds no attraction, and you'd just as soon avoid bears and backache, you always have this option.

Built to Last

On Monday of last week, Kristine and I decided to visit the Old Victoria site near Rockland, MI. OV is an abandoned village that housed and provisioned copper miners during the 19th and early 20th centuries, now preserved as part of the Keweenaw National Historic Park. Some buildings from the village have been nicely restored and furnished with period items; you can tour them for $5. I was more interested in the ruins, just up the hill from the village, of a mining operation that briefly exploited an 1849 copper strike. Within about a quarter mile radius, there is a cluster of crumbling stone buildings and bulky, rusted machinery. A section of the North Country Trail leads directly thorugh the largest of the buildings, which is missing a roof and glass for the windows, but otherwise seems farily solid (in fact, anchor cables for a nearby radio tower are staked to the buidling's foundation). With trees and wildflowers growing in its corners and from a few stone vaults in the floor, it looks like a garden court. Standing in it while Kristine took photos, I found myself deeply impressed with it for two reasons:

1) Building these structures in a rugged, remote area in the mid-nineteenth century must have required extraordinary planning and ingenuity. No Home Depot up the road if you found you were missing a part or a tool. Of course, I'm sure there were blacksmiths and carpenters on site to fashion some needed items, but you still would have to calculate pretty carefully in advance what you would need to pack in, and know how to respond to inevitable setbacks along the way.

2) These things were built with care. The wooden window frames that remain in the mine buildings have been exposed to the elements and unmaintained for the better part of a century and a half--and they're still in better shape than most of the woodwork on my porch. Give them a little primer and paint, some new glass panes, and no one would know they hadn't been lovingly tended.

We were told by a guide in the village area that one of the old mine buildings just off the park site has been restored as a private home. Pretty sweet quarters, I'd bet, and possibly worth more than the little ore that mine ever produced.

Fishing (East End); John Roberts for SCOTUS?

For the benefit of the fishheads who come here, I'll skip right to the rest of my UP fishing adventures.

Last Thursday, we checked out of the Two Rivers and headed to Grand Marais to hang out by Lake Superior a bit and hike on nearby segments of the North Country Trail. I also wanted to fish a nearby river that's been stuck in my memory after one fine evening there in 1992.

The fishing that night was decent--got a few, missed a few--but I thought the stream had potential that was worth exploring further. I also thought I might have seen a cougar that night. At one point in the evening, a cacaphony of birdcalls sounded in the distance, and slowly grew louder and louder. Soon, I saw dozens of birds wheeling about overhead, a feathered cyclone sweeping toward the sunset. Then I heard a series of short, sharp grunts, something that sounded like a cross between hiss and a growl. These sounds also grew louder, and soon I could see a long, tawny mass behind the alders on the stream's east bank. It stopped there, though the growling/hissing sounds continued.

I didn't know what to do. I was a little scared, I'll admit. But I also wanted to get a good look at the thing. I stood in the river silently for a while, but the creature didn't move. Lacking better ideas, I tried to imitate its grunt in hopes of getting it to poke its head out in curiosity. The beast wasn't buying. Whatever it was let out a long howling scream and crashed off through the brush away from me.

At the time, I told myself it couldn't have been a cougar, since all authorities concurred that the cats no longer lived in Michigan. But since then some pretty strong evidence has emerged for their continuing presence here, and I have more confidence that what I saw--or at least heard--was a cougar.

My recent return there, last Friday, was less dramatic in all ways. To make a fairly short story even shorter, I fished nymphs, dries, and streamers and got one brief hookup for my efforts, a brookie that threw my Wooly Bugger on its second jump. The river was very low and clear. I did see good numbers of caddis flying, but unlike at the Ontanogon, that did not foreshadow a caddis feeding frenzy by the trout. No big cats, though a swimming beaver did pass about a foot from my left leg. Around 8:00 I decided to leave off the fishing to pick some blueberries--two bushes back at the access point were loaded with more than I'd seen on the trip to date. They were delicious on our cereal back at the motel, and I considered the morning well spent.

Note to Senate Democrats, re the nomination of John Roberts to the SCOTUS: Give him a thorough grilling and get his views and habits of reasoning into plain view as far as possible. Express grave reservations if you must (and there's probably plenty of reasons to), but don't waste your energy and your tenuous credibility stonewalling the nomination. Bush is never going to give you someone you like, and if you're going to make a big noise, I'd prefer you do it about a matter of more than passing and abstract interest to most Americans.

Fishing (West End)

As I said Sunday, I did do some fishing while in the UP. Last Sunday morning, I got up early to try the east branch of the Ontanogon river, which the proprietor of our motel said could be accessed directly behind his property. There was a trail heading into the woods behind the motel, but it soon disappeared. I bushwhacked for a while, but gave up when no sign of a river appeared. I drove instead to a town park in Kenton and fished briefly below a small cofferdam there.

The day was already getting hot by 8am, and when I dunked my stream thermometer in the river I got a reading of 70˚. This is very warm for trout, probably warm enough that I should have left the fish alone. But after the hassles of the morning, I was going to at least make a few casts before I left. I threw nymphs into the deep water below the coffer, landing one small rainbow and missing another strike

I got out again Tuesday morning, venturing to the Ontanogon's middle branch this time. I fished just upstream from the park at the bridge on M-28. There, the water was a warmish but more promising 66˚. I would decribe that section of the river as a continuous riffle, broken infrequently with deep, swirling pools. The wading is tough there, as the bottom consists of slime-covered stones ranging from plum to watermelon size, with no stones of the same size bordering one another. More than a few times I feared I was about to prostrate myself before the river gods, but got off with merely kneeling once.

Working upstream, I started with nymphs but got nothing, then around 7am I noticed a few tan caddis fluttering around. I switched to an elk-hair pattern with a nymph dropper, and soon was hooking up consistently. For a while, I was getting a trout (all brook trout this time) on about every other cast. All the fish were coming on the caddis, so I soon simplified things and cut my dropper away.
Honestly, I lost count of the fish I caught. However, all were pretty small. The largest topped out at around nine inches, and many were two or three inches shorter. Still, I thought it was a splendid morning. More testimony that the happiest fishermen tend to be those who are easily amused.

Around 9 AM, the fishing slowed dramatically. I did catch a couple more, though I made many casts before and between those. I thought I might do well if I went out with a hopper pattern in the afternoon, but I never found the time. I guess that's a project for the future. I would like to go back there, ideally earlier in the season, and maybe farther from the highway.

Did some fishing in the eastern UP too. Details to follow.

Culture Shock; Heat Shock

When we booked our room at the Two Rivers a few weeks ago, I was told we got the last room available, as the night we were arriving was the date of the "big annual music festival" in nearby Trout Creek. We planned to get to the Two Rivers late Saturday afternoon, and go to the festival at night. Although we didn't know what kind of music was featured, we figured it would be an interesting way to spend the evening.

We actually got in a bit later than we expected, as we discovered that morning in our motel in St. Ignace that Kristine had left about half her luggage at home. The trip to Kenton was interrupted by stops at several Family Dollar or Shopko stores trying to replace the clothes she was missing. Once we had unwound a bit, made dinner, and got ready to head out, it was about 9:00. And it was at this point that certain of my assumptions about culture came into startling relief. We arrived at the festival site around 9:15...to find the event over. Booths that sold crafts and promoted local organizations, as well as the beer and food tents, were being taken down. The sounds of the last of three performers had long ago died away.

When I hear the words "music festival," I think of an event that goes all day and late into the night, where diverse individuals gradually blend into one swaying, sweating tribe. Police officers are present to prevent riots, not to shake hands and show off their new cruiser. Lots of people are sitting on quilts, but no one is raffling them off. Things are a bit different at Trout Creek's Pond Fest. Not that I was expecting a Pondapalooza, but I wasn't expecting a country fair, either. I still think I would have appreciated what was there, though--if I had arrived on time. If the lady at the motel had described it as a "town festival," I think I even would have known what to expect.

The first hike we took on Sunday afternoon demonstrated my limitations much more harshly. One of the reasons we like visiting the UP is that the temperature is generally mild enough to hike through the middle of the day. In the southwest last year, we ventured out only early and late, like the rest of the desert creatures. Turns out we should have kept to that plan up north, too, since an uncharacteristic heat wave struck the area the whole time we were there--temperatures every day reached the upper 80s or low 90s, accompanied by extreme humidity. To cut to the chase, as we began the return leg of our hike last Sunday, I started feeling acutely anxious and irritated. After a long climb out of a river basin, I had to apply a great deal of concentration and effort to keep my legs moving, even though they didn't feel too tired. When we stopped for a moment for Kristine to adjust the camera case around her waist, I was hyperventilating, and when we began walking again I became so dizzy I almost fell. I didn't know what was wrong but I knew something was. As soon as I found a suitable log, I sat down, and stayed there for quite a while, sipping water slowly and munching a Cliff bar.

As you've probably guessed by now, I had heat exhaustion. This has never happened to me before, but then again I've never hiked in really rough terrain in humid 92˚ weather wearing long pants before (shorts are not a good idea there given the tick population). And, as Kristine was quick to remind me, I'm not as young as I used to be. We made it back to the car, walking slowing and stopping for rest a couple of times. I ended up drinking most of Kristine's water as well as mine. She didn't seem to have any problem, though heat generally bothers me a lot more than it does her. Even riding home, I wasn't completely out of the woods, so to speak--when we stopped at supermarket (30 miles out of our way home) to buy some gatorade and potato chips to aid my recovery, I became nauseous and bolted out of the checkout line to vomit in the parking lot (that IGA must have been so happy to get my business...). But the Gatorade and chips stayed down, and after an evening of convalescence, I was more or less mended.

Mended physically, at any rate. The emotional shock stayed with me. Among my family and friends, I have a reputation as a tireless hiker. Always the first to the top of a peak, ending up way out in front while walking at a casual pace, always wanting to go farther and stay out longer. Those days may be over, and I feel like I'm no longer the person I was, a person I very much liked being. Not that I have to be the fastest or strongest, but I feel like I have to "take it easy," to worry about what might happen if I simply follow my impulses. I'm used to being cautious about steep cliffs, thunderstorms, bears, and other external hazards of the outdoors. I've never had to be cautious about myself or my capabilities. I'm still not sure how to manage the transition.

I don't even know that I have to, yet. My fluid intake before hiking that day consisted of one can of club soda and four cups of coffee, my favorite diuretic. Had I taken in more water, I would have been fine, I'm absolutely certain.

Two Rivers, a lake, and another river.

At the moment, I'm unwinding from a week in the UP with Kristine. The trip was filled with mishaps, but fun anyway. We left last Friday and pulled back into the driveway about thirty minutes ago. Why blog so soon? Why not? It beats unpacking.

If you ever find yourself in the western end of the UP, stop for a night or two at the Two Rivers motel in Kenton (Houghton Co.). We spent the first five days of our trip there, and actually that motel was the main reason for heading across the bridge this summer. Kristine and I discovered the place on a trip up there a few years ago. We had been camping, and getting soaked by rain almost daily for more than a week. When we pulled into Kenton in a downpour, Kristine suggested getting a motel. I didn't need much convincing, and on the outskirts of town I saw a place advertising rooms for $20 a night. At the desk, I asked if the rate was really $20, and the lady looked at me regretfully and said "Oh I'm sorry sir, for two people, the rate is $25."

I don't think I've seen a decent motel room at that price in my adult life, and the Two Rivers is decent at the very least. Real wood paneling in the rooms, what looks like handmade wood furniture, comfy beds and clean linens, a stove and refrigerator in each room (handy, as there is no restaurant or grocery store in Kenton), very quiet. They have cabins, too. Of course, those low rates are a thing of the past--now two people shell out a whopping $30 a night.

There is, of course, an abundance of hiking, fishing, mountain biking, and other outdoor opportunities nearby. And not much else. Houghton, Ontonagon, and Gogebic counties are pretty close to my idea of heaven, but they are not for those who need cafes, cutting edge live music, galleries, or bookstores. The Two Rivers is not a place for people who need wi-fi, wake up calls, or more than four TV channels. Quite often, I feel I need these things, though I can't say I feel their absence greatly when they're far out of reach.

Besides Kenton, we also stopped for a few days in Grand Marais to spend some time along Lake Superior, and also so I could get a crack at a river I last fished in 1992 and have planned to fish again ever since, but hadn't managed to for various reasons (the main one being that I have a hard time getting past Grayling when I drive north). It was a good trip, and over the next few days I'll write about some of the highlights. There was some fishing, of course, though not much. Some good hikes, and some harrowing ones. Beautiful and strange sights. Wild blueberries everywhere, and thimbleberries teasing us with the first glimmers of ripening (if you can get up to the western UP in about 1 1/2-2 weeks, go and gorge). I've returned with many good memories, and more regrets that I had to leave.

Garden Progress; The Smooth Chin of Infidelity

My wildflower meadow project is not shaping up too impressively. The started plants that I put in still look healthy, and some have already produced nice blooms. Unfortunately, crabgrass is running rampant over much of the garden, in some places overshadowing our started plants. I can see few if any sprouts that look like anything other than crabgrass, dandelions, and other weeds that usually spring up on open ground. I'm still hoping for a miracle. If it doesn't come, I'm going to try again next year, hopefully getting things in the ground earlier.

On the other hand, our basil is doing splendidly, tomatoes are right on schedule, and our pumpkin vines are thriving. If even half the blossoms on those mature into pumpkins, come Halloween we're going to have enough to run from one end of our porch to the other.

Juan Cole's blog entry for today contains a link to a Reuters item reporting a truly bizarre twist to the violence in Iraq. In Baghdad Tuesday, militants shot three barbers dead for committing the un-Islamic act of shaving men clean. Apparently there have been about a dozen such incidents in Baghdad during the last year. Hard to believe this isn't fiction, something out of an absurdist drama or Thomas Pynchon novel. According to Cole, Muslim fundmentalists believe men must wear beards in honor of Mohammed, who also wore one. All well and good as a tribute, I guess, but if the practice becomes a religious duty enforcible by death, it would seem to fly in the face of Islam's adamant rejection of idolatry, perhaps embodyng the sin of shirk . At least that's one infidel's take. My knowledge of Islam is not great, but I have a suspicion that most Muslims do not see Mohammed's appearance as the most important example of his to follow.

Again

Today, NPR slipped seamlessly from an upbeat story on Britain's celebration of its selection as host to the 2012 Olympics to an upate on "our breaking story" about the Tube bombings. Hard to believe they were reporting on the same country. Is their editor on vacation?

Yes, once again we see soot-faced people streaming through the financial district of a large western city, and hear murmurs of mounting carnage. On the net calls to prayer and words of consolation mingle with howls for revenge. Me, I don't really know what to add. This is a terrible event, and the victims--with all Britons--have my thoughts and prayers. The event has stirred some thoughts about terrorism more generally, leading me to a few critical observations. I guess that's my way of dealing with things, and I hope no one will find these in poor taste.

1) The last body count that I heard was 45. It may well go higher, but the figures I've heard so far don't seem far from what terrorists might inflict on any given day in Iraq. Why the differences in response among Americans? Is today's event just more out of the ordinary, or are there other considerations that make terrorism inflicted on another one of "our allies" seem less significant?

2) One of the more common responses I've seen on internet forums is an exhortation to hunt down and destroy the perpetrators. They certainly do need to be apprehended and brought to justice. But events like this put what I think is an undue emphasis (at least among the public) on the handful of people who carried this out, as opposed to the larger circumstances that really drive terrorism. The focus on the individual terrorists is understandable, but I think that past a point, it contributes to the endurance of terrorism by making the campaigan against terror seem like hunting down a few dozen or few thousand bad guys, and stalling the creation of more comprehensive approaches to the problem. More attacks keep the attacked countries in that frame of mind, instead of thinking about changes in how they engage the rest of the world. That may not be the conscious objective of the terrorists, but it certainly gives them a boost, and more reason to attack more often.

Pray for victory, yes, and pray as well for grace and wisdom in the struggle. Pray for the bereaved, for the killed, and for the killers. God have mercy on us all.

Out of Hospital!

Brought Kristine home from the hospital about 4 PM today. She's a bit tired, but on the mend. I'm kind of the same.

Things could have been worse. The woman in the bed next to Kristine's fell ill while her husband was on a fly-in fishing trip in Canada. He had to cut the trip short, she had to lay there alone wondering which of a series of bush flights he was on.

Speaking of the wilds, guess what "soothing nature photo" was on the wall of Kristine's room? A shot of a lynx, literally, adding insult to injury.

Old, but Still Dangerous

Not long ago, I was waxing sorrowful here about my aged, infirm kitty cat. Today, he's at the head of the household shit list.

The vet told me his recent unsteady gait was due to loss of muscle mass, but apparently he hasn't lost any strength in his jaws. Last night he bit Kristine hard, leaving two deep skin punctures. She had been combing him, which he never likes, and having finished, she held out the comb for him to bite, which usually works off his irritation from the combing. For the first time in 13 years of this routine, he skipped the comb and chomped on Kristine's hand.

This happened around 5 PM, and by 9, the bitten finger was growing stiff and had swollen to twice its normal size. We drove to the emergency room at U-M hospital, where we got in and saw a doctor in less than an hour, probably a record for our ER adventures. They'd give her a shot and a prescription, we figured, then send her home. Not to be. After the second evaluation, they decided to keep her overnight for IV antibiotics.

And she's still there, probably until around midnight tonight. All this from our normally affectionate cat who until now had never bitten with more than a firm nip. I think he knows he stepped over a line. Ever since it happened he's been shy about approaching either of us. To tell the truth, I haven't encouraged him otherwise. I know I should make peace with him, but I'm a little pissed, and also a little concerned about handling him. If only I could communicate to him that if he puts me in the hospital too, it'll be a long damn time before his next feeding.

Death to Table Tyrants

There will be many patriotic appeals ringing out today, but I expect few will be as crass as that considered by Paul Krugman's column today in the New York Times, the Declaration of Food Independence on the web site of the Center for Consumer Freedom. The CCF (a trade lobby funded by Coca Cola, Tyson Foods, and Wendy's among others) argues strongly for personal freedom to eat what one likes, regardless of health or weight concerns. This DoFI casts the Centers for Disease Control and other public health advocates in the role of George III and urges the public to defy them.

An article introducing the DoFI opens with the dire concern that Far too few Americans remember that the Founding Fathers, authors of modern liberty, greatly enjoyed their food and drink -- from drafting the Declaration of Independence over pints to serving French fries in the White House. Now it seems that food liberty -- just one of the many important areas of personal choice fought for by the original American patriots -- is constantly under attack.
Really? The Minutemen went to Lexington Green to shed their blood in the cause of Super Size Fries?

The CCF further arms drive-through patriots with these "Founding Factoids":

*Thomas Jefferson served French Fries at the White House and is credited with introducing vanilla ice cream to the United States. [Next to those accomplishments, it's wonder anybody remembers the Louisiana Purchase]
* It's no accident that a brand of ice cream was named after James Madison's wife Dolly, who was known for serving the treat to her guests.
* People often ate more than 5,000 calories a day, washing their beef and pork-heavy diets down with plenty of wine, beer, and spirits.

Here's a few factoids they didn't mention:

*In the 1700s, the average life expectancy in the United States was 30 years.
* Ice cream was a rare treat for most americans prior to the advent of mechanical refrigeration, and likely was negligible as a contributor to high cholesterol, heart disease, and obesity.
*Malnutrition was common in the United States well into the twentieth century.
*The majority of Americans in early republican times earned their living by physical labor, allowing them more opportunity to burn off that bacon, butter, and beefsteak.

The CCF resents information which suggest one use the products of its members with restraint, and implies that consumption of junk food is an act of patriotism (a logical step, of course, following the post-9/11 injunctions to go shopping). They favor "letting consumers make their own choices." But the most useful choices are informed ones. I've always felt that freedom becomes more beneficial as it combines more fully with awareness (or as a more incisive critic put it, "the truth shall make you free")

A truth which further undermines the CCF's position is that the growth and market dominance of food processors like its members are significantly responsible for a diminishing range of choices about what and how we eat. For all the variety in America's food supply, it is in fact becoming increasingly dependent on a relatively small number of food processing concerns, who themselves are extremely dependent on genetically modified and chemically cultivated crops, which are the products of industries and factory farms run by, again, a relatively small number of concerns. Fewer species of crops are cultivated today than in earlier generations because large, influential processors favor those which are most convenient and profitable. We're pulling legs out from under our dinner table.

If you really want to declare food independence, grow your own. Or patronize farmer's markets or co-ops. Seek out seasonal and organic produce. Catch fish. Take a cooking class and learn what kind of simple and tasty treats are possible with fresh, nonprocessed staples.

Currently, many people see such measures as the province of elite malcontents, but in fact they are fully in keeping with lessons of the Revolution we celebrate today. As colonial Americans felt the pinch of Crown taxes, many started to make do with herbal teas from local plants instead of imported india tea, and to dress themselves with homespun cloth that was coarser but cheaper than heavily taxed linens from Europe. Honey replaced sugar as the preferred sweetener. Using such locally produced, handcrafted, or even wild goods became a political statement, as well as a concrete step toward independence from Britain's merchantile empire. Similar steps can help today's citizens gain a measure of independence from the multinational corporate empire. Now that would be a fitting tribute to our revolutionary forbears.

Fingered for Photo Filch! (Plus, a Season in Home Improvement Hell.)

If you came here between last night and late this morning, you may have noticed that Ultimate Outfitters posted a rather derisive graphic to my post from last Monday informing readers that I had taken a picture of a guy with a trout from their site. Which I had. Don't know when I'll use a guide service in the future, but if I do, I know which one I won't hire.

Seriously, I guess I'm a little foggy on what the standards of "fair use" on internet photos are. I'm not using the photos for profit, though I didn't name the source of the photo. This may become a professional issue for me, too. Not that I'm going to try to make a living off FTR, but I will soon be having students design web pages, and they will need to cite the source of a photo, just as they cite a book or magazine article. Should have saved the graphic from Ultimate Nitpickers to show what can happen when you're sloppy about these things. In fact, I think I'll post another UO photo to see if I can harvest one again.

(A spring run steelhead getting some free dental work. Do your worst, Mr. Roller.)

I do need a digital camera. But as I don't draw a paycheck during summer, funds are tight. May be back to carrying a Visa balance, at least until school starts. Which will happen all too soon.

(river logo from site of Kalamazoo Nature Center )

Another strain on the household budget is our current home improvement project, remodeling our front porch. We're replacing the screens, as well as a lot of wood. That was supposed to be something we finished over the long July 4 weekend, though the goal now is finishing before the end of summer. Money is actually the least of my worries about this. For me, this undertaking is a truly soul crushing event. Few things make me feel more incompetent, desperate, and dispirited than home repair. There is not enough Zoloft in the world to instill in me a "feeling of accomplishment about this. I barely know what I'm doing, it's easy to make mistakes, and potentially expensive to fix them. Plus, my work style clashes with my wife's. She wants these projects to look perfect. I just want to get them to be done. She'll fret over the smallest flaw in things, whereas even with the larger ones, I ask "who's going to see it anyway?"

If it weren't for her, by now we'd probably be living under a tarp thrown over our home's ruins.

(yeah, yeah, yeah. photo from the nature center, etc.)

Hex Trip '05, pt. 3

Last Wednesday I got up around 8, and made a coffee run, but instead of returning to camp for breakfast, I took a detour to check out some new river access points. While wandering though the nature preserve along Brown Bridge Pond, I saw a wood lily growing near the pond's edge, only the second I've ever encountered in my life.
By 10 I was back in camp and oddly, was not hungry. I packed up my tent, read for a bit, and still was not hungry by 12:30. But an afternoon of fishing lay ahead, so I gulped down a can of Trader Joe's bean salad before donning my waders and working a stretch of the Boardman just upstream from the campground.

This area was much like the river above Shumsky Rd., but narrower and wilder. No cottages along the banks, though many kayakers shared the water with me. Fishing different attractor dries and small streamers, I caught one brook and one brown trout, both small. By 3:30, the density of kayakers had grown to a point where fishing was difficult, so I called it quits on the mainstream and headed east to the Boardman's South Branch, just upstream from the Forks campground. Small water, but generally open enough for comfortable casting. Brook and brown trout from 6-9" inches jumped on my Adams in most pools and runs I worked. It was an ideal midsummer afternoon of fishing, in my book. Sometimes small really is beautiful.

I got off the South Branch a little before 6:00, planning to head to the nearby village of South Boardman for dinner, then back upriver to fish the hex hatch at dark. Dining options in S. Boardman proved to be limited though, even by rural northern Michigan standards. There was a diner, which was closed. And there was nothing else. I seemed to have happened upon the one town up north without a tavern. There was a large faith-based "Addiction Recovery Center," which may or may not have been a coincidence.

The problem, aside from my now acute hunger, was logistical. I could find someplace to eat in the other direction, back toward TC, but that would take me far past where I wanted to fish at sunset. I could drive nine miles north to Kalkaska, but, again, I would have to backtrack a long ways to fish. Or...I could drive nine miles north to Kalkaska, eat there, then continue eastward to fish the Big Manistee, where I had heard the hatch was still going. I had done well there in the past during the hex, and the drive home from there would be shorter as well. So it was farewell to the Boardman, back to the more familiar Manistee, with a 6" pizza at the Kal-Ho Lounge along the way.

Around 8:00, I waded into the river below the 612 bridge and headed for the spot I had fished last summer, a long bend in the main channel where the river divides among several grassy islands. The islands are a long wade down from the bridge, which helps discourage other fishermen, or so I had thought. Last year I fished three nights here in complete solitude, which almost never happens on the better-known rivers during the hex. Not this time. Around 9:00, two fishermen came wading along and set up at the bottom of what I had thought of as "my" beat. Shortly after they arrived, three more fishermen came. Two perched at the top of the bend, the third continued down and stopped about 30 feet below me. About what I'd usually expect, but disappointing nonetheless.

The bugs did not disappoint. By 10:15, they were on the water in force and good fish were beginning to slurp them down. Getting them to slurp a hook proved difficult, though. Often, once the hatch has been going for several days, fish become extremely picky, wary about jumping on the first bug that drifts over them. From all along the bend, I heard lots of fly lines swishing in the air, but no reels whining against the pull of big fish.

I was standing on the outside of a large sunken log. Fish were rising at both ends of the log along its inner edge. I would work the fish at the bottom of the log for a while, then they would go quiet, and I would cast to those above until they went into hiding. By then the fish below would be back in the game and I would return to them. I continued this pattern the whole night, scoring a brief hookup and, just after 11:00, hooking solidly and netting a 15" brown. No one around me did much better. The gentleman just below me landed one trout and lost another at the net. The rest of the people fishing that bend got blanked.

Thus the maddening vagaries of the hex hatch. These big bugs tempt fishers with the promise of normally wary big fish transformed into heedless gluttons. Sometimes they deliver. Sometimes they just don't show. Sometimes the fish stage their banquet but refuse you a place at the table. And the plans for "next year" begin brewing.

Hex Trip '05, pt. 2

The whole time I was up north this week, weather radio was predicting dire storms. Never happened, although I understand one large storm passed just to the south. It was clear and very warm the whole time. When I fished in the afternoon, I left the waders in the car and waded in swim trunks and a pair of old running shoes.

Daytime fishing at this time of year can be hit or miss. Some days you find fish responding eagerly to attractor dries or small grasshopper patterns. Others, you just get some casting practice. I used my afternoons this trip to explore some other areas of the Boardman, with mixed results.

Tuesday afternoon I got on the river at the Shumsky road access. The river is about 50 feet wide there, and runs swiftly over a gravel bottom. The water was extremely clear, so I tied a whispy 6X tippet to my leader and worked upstream with the usual midsummer searching patterns. Not a single hit. And none when I worked back downstream with wet flies. All the same, the water looked like it held some possibilities, and I will try it again at some point.

The evening was no better, from a catching standpoint. I took a position just a bit upstream from where I had fished the night before, where the river was narrower and had a bit more character (deep holes, undercut banks, log jams, etc.). There were also more fishermen out, and by 8:30 I had been boxed into a run just above a jam. I saw fewer bugs that night, and only heard one feeder. Got three hits from it, but no solid hookup. Probably a dink.

My only spot of luck for the night came when a couple fishermen passed me as they left the river. I decided to walk out behind them, since I had only a vague recollection of the trail I had followed in. And actually, callng it a trail is an exaggeration--it was more like a series of random openings in the thickets of spruce in the river bottom. The three of us did get lost briefly, an experience which would have been worse if it happened when I was alone. But by midnight, I was back in my car, minutes away from a campfire and a nip of Wild Turkey.

It seems I have to get lost in dense woods mere yards from a roadway once on every hex trip. Amazing, isn't it, that you can find yourself stalled in an opening in the brush that seems to offer no way out, though you obviously found a way in.