Salmon Crash Looming?

Salmon populations in Lake Michigan may be on the verge of collapse, according to an article by Eric Sharp in yesterday's Free Press. It's happened to Lake Huron salmon already, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before their bretheren in Lake Michigan went the same way.

I'm not terribly upset by this. As I've said before, I'm not a huge fan of salmon fishing. But population crash or no, the salmon aren't going to go away entirely. And this does raise the possibility of significant changes (for the better, IMO), in how the fishery gets managed.

[W]hen the Lake Michigan [fisheries] committee makes a decision next month, Michigan likely will cut chinook plants by more than 25%, and the other states will make smaller reductions..

It's a fair question whether even those are needed.

Lake Michigan gets an annual plant of 4.3 million chinooks -- 2.3 million in Michigan, 1.5 million in Wisconsin, 300,000 in Illinois and 250,000 in Indiana. But half of the chinooks in the lake aren't hatchery fish. They're produced naturally in Michigan rivers like the Pere Marquette, Manistee and Muskegon. In Lake Huron, natural reproduction accounts for 80% of the fish, nearly all of them from Ontario rivers.

An Illinois angler at a public hearing on this issue suggested that Michigan stop salmon plants entirely. "Michigan would still have lots of salmon because it gets so much natural reproduction," he reasoned, "and it wouldn't hurt the rest of us who need stocked fish."

Not a bad idea, I think. The state would save a bunch of money, fish populations would come under control faster, and the fishery would be healthier, at less risk of hatchery-borne diseases. River conservation (and enforcement of snagging laws) might become an even higher priority for the state.

These ups and downs in populations are a natural process by which species adapt to environmental conditions. It may be an opportune moment for fisheries managers and fishermen to do a little adapting too.

Wands of Mass Destruction; The Man Who Saved Brad Pitt (and taught him how to fish!)

The Orvis company makes some nice fly rods, but periodically markets them as heavy weaponry. A while back, they introduced a line of rods under the name Trident. Guess what image appeared in ads for those--yep, a submarine thrusting out of the water like some colossal robotic trout rising to inhale a caddis. Not exactly in line with that idea of fly fishing as a quiet, genteel pursuit steeped in tradition and bordering on a spiritual practice (which they appeal to elsewhere in their catalogue). But apparently the rod was developed from graphite polymers originally created for military applications.

They're at it again. I got a new catalogue from Orvis yesterday which introduced their new Zero Gravity series rods. Where did these originate?

Zero Gravity rods are light, nimble, precise, and powerful but extremely durable. Sound like technology the military would be interested in? In fact, the technology behind the Zero G is military in origin, translated for use in fly rods by specialists in composite technology with high-level United States Defense Department security clearances. It was developed to increase the maneuverability, lifting power, and forward speed of helicopters like the Apache and Blackhawk II, while at the same time increasing blade durability and longevity. It’s safe to say that millions of tax dollars, yours and ours, have already gone into the research and development of this technology. We’re just putting it to different use!

Featured below this text in the hard-copy catalogue is a photo of a Predator drone aircraft in flight.

To me, this is a confusing juxtaposition. I like to go fishing to get away from the stresses and menaces of everyday life. I would never have dreamed that a trip to the river might become a plunge into the heart of the military-industrial complex. These allusions to overwhelming deadly force seem very much at odds with the basic strategy of fly fishing, which is to harmonize with and imitate parts of the fish's environment. It's a stoop-to-conquer proposition, not a matter of imposing terms.

But I suppose some NeoCons fish (Dick Cheney, for instance), and Orvis needs to reach them on their level. Why not go all the way, and emblazon the butts of these rods with some of those bellicose slogans that airmen paint on planes or missles, like "Death From Above!"

I know that most of the fishing gear we buy these days involves complex technologies, and is every bit as much an artifact of global capitalism as the car I drive to the river. There aren't too many villagers in picturesque huts turning out graphite rods and machined aluminum reels. But I think fishing can stand as a counterweight to the values that drive our economic and political life, and even in catalogue ad, it's a bit creepy to see it purposefully conflated with that life.

Last week, the man who was the fly fishing consultant for the film version of A River Runs Through It died in Montana. Judging from his obituary, I'd say his was a life pretty well lived, and least of all because of his brush with celebrity.

What can Brown do for you? (Answer: Nothing, but it's not his fault!)

You can take the man out of office, but you can't take the official out of the man, as we learn from ex-FEMA director Michael Brown's testimony before Congress yesterday. Looking back on the Katrina debacle, Brown admitted that a lot of things went wrong--with other people.

According to a
New York Times report, Brown said "I very strongly personally regret that I was unable to persuade Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down, get over their differences and work together. . .I just couldn't pull that off."

And...

At one point Mr. Brown testified, "My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional."

Of course, even if Louisiana's shortcomings were the root of the problem, how would he have recognized them if he hadn't recognized that the administration he served was dysfunctional from day one?

Bayou State voters also have to shoulder some of the blame for the crisis: Mr. Brown, in comparing the responses of the various Gulf states, said: "I can't help it that Alabama and Mississippi are governed by Republican governors and that Louisiana is governed by a Democratic governor. That's not an issue with me." He went on to say that "I didn't have a problem with evacuations in Mississippi or Alabama," adding, "They were doing it."

Guess it's never too early to start campaigning for a new job, eh Brownie?

Seriously--is there ever a time to set aside poltical gamesmanship for the sake of a little honest inquiry ? Can wielders of influence in America --in any sector and of any political bent--ever suffer to look at themselves and the facts candidly? I seriously doubt we'll make progress on problems like poverty, the environment, terrorism, education, or disaster response until something reverses this tide of delusional bureaucratic narcissism.

Cooler

Slept in pajamas last night for the first time this fall. When I left the house this morning, I went back in for a coat, again for the first time this fall, aside from a night a couple weeks ago when it turned out I was being overcautious. This is positively exciting.

Not too much else to share today, aside from a quote I found on Joel Weishaus's Forest Park site.

Touching one another
each becomes
a pebble of the world

--Soen Nakagawa

Good to remember on those days when disconnection feels like the primary reality. The pebbles you indifferently walked over one day may call you into the mosaic the next.

Woods Words

Found a neat word in a column by Bob Gwidz in the Grand Rapids Press:

As I've waded more deeply into middle age, I've begun to rethink my philosophy on opening day. So what if you don't shoot any birds? They are really bit players in the overall ritual, the excuse, as it were, to spend time afield with your dogs and your chums.

And that's how I found myself thrashing through the shintangle of northern Michigan on opening day this year...

How I've gone this far and digested as much outdoor writing as I have and not come across this, I dont' know. What a great way to describe those messes of briars, downed limbs, and thick ferns you find out in the forest, or on its edges.

Depending on how thick the cover is, I might omit the first "n."

The beds of high grass that fill southern Michigan creek bottom in late summer could be called "chintangles."

What are some other good, vivid words for features of the outdoors?

The garlic party was fun on Saturday night. Kristine's fool moddomas (a Lebanese fava bean dip) was a hit. Our host attributed U-M's loss to insufficient garlic in the team's diet (LLoyd Carr, are you listening???).

The teacher training Saturday morning was enjoyable too, though not without a snag or two. As part of the workshop, we took some test kits to the Ottawa River to test water samples for oxygen content, nitrates, phosphates, and turbidity. A few of the results indicated that something had gone awry with the testing. We let it go on Saturday--but the incident does identify issues I'll have to deal with in my class when it gets going. I went on Saturday to learn, and I guess I did.

Rivers, Garlic, Grey Hairs, Wet Heads

Saturdays have been awfully busy of late. Today, I'm going to Toledo again for a teacher training session related to the Student Watershed Watch. In October, area high school students sample local waterways and report findings at a conference in November. Next year, my writing students will join them, but I want to go through the process on my own this year to get ready.

Tonight I'm going to a "garlic party." A friend has invited people over to watch the U-M football game and ordered them to show up with garlic-rich dishes. Being an afficionado of "the stinking rose" myself ("it's not a spice, it's a vegetable!"), this sounds dandy. And I expect you wouldn't have to worry too much about people crashing the party--one whiff and most people would run.

One other observation about Thursday's concert: I was pleased to see that Kristine and I were not the oldest people there! It's always a concern anymore when we go to concerts. Not that it would be a bad thing, but it would feel kind of odd. But yet again, we were a good ways short of being the oldest. Hats off to rockin' grannies!

Saw this quote by a commenter on Ypsi~Dixit's site that I thought some who come around here might enjoy. Keep it in mind as you enjoy an autumn weekend:

Velvet pillows, safari parks, sunglasses: people have become woolly mice. They still have bodies that can walk for five days and four nights through a desert of snow, without food, but they accept praise for having taken a one-hour bicycle ride: "Good for you." Instead of expressing gratitude for the rain by getting wet, people walk around with umbrellas. Nature is an old lady with few suitors these days, and those who wish to make use of her charms she rewards passionately.

¿Que Onda Guero?

Well, last night, for this guero it was down to the State Theatre in Detroit to see Beck.


I saw him in Cleveland three years ago when he was touring in support of Sea Change. I often remember that show fondly. After last night, I'll remember it even more fondly.

Actually, the concert last night was not bad. But there were some sound problems early on, and the band wasn't as tight as it might have been. The crowd was kind of restive, too. I probably should expect that at a concert, but I remember that during the quieter numbers Beck played in Cleveland, people listened raptly.

He played a lot of songs from Guero, of course, and also from Midnite Vultures. Very little from Sea Change, which bummed me, though one of the songs he did play from it provided one of night's more interesting moments. At one point, Beck's band retired for a bit, and he performed a few numbers solo (actually, that was probably the best part of the concert). While he was doing this, the band carried a loaded dinner table onto stage and ate a meal there while Beck played. When Beck played "Golden Age," the band accompanied him by drumming on the table and clinking forks on glasses. Not the kind of rythmn track you'd expect with a moody number like that, but it actually blended rather well.

The encore was right on the money too. Musicians from the opening acts joined Beck's band for a high-energy rendition of "E-Pro." The energy is what stood out about it. For most of the evening, Beck's performance seemed desultory. Maybe it's been a long tour for him. Maybe he didn't sleep last night. Whatever the reason, he sounded as if he was holding back, putting out lots of sound but little soul. The raucous finale, as well as his solo set, rose above that. On many other numbers though, it sounded as if he and the band were, well, fighting for a lost cause...

All in the Suit

This afternoon I'm giving a presentation at the U of Toledo on my meagre efforts to date at environmental service learning. Which amount to having composition classes write newsletter articles for a local environmental group.

I just finished writing the presentation. It's not great, but not embarrassing. I have no enthusiasm for it though. Mostly its a restatement of ideas that have been rattling around in my head since I wrote a paper on them for a graduate class nearly ten years ago (a paper I came very close to expanding into my dissertation). Next fall, I'll get to apply many of them in the course that I got the grant to develop (and which I'll soon get serious about actually developing). I ought to feel satisfied--it would appear that old ambitions are reaching fulfillment. But it feels more like old burdens are simply becoming more cumbersome. I'm trying to figure out why this is.

I hope the presentation goes OK. It's not great work by any means, but I'm going to wear a nice suit to give the presentation. That should divert attention from any intellectual or methodological shortcomings in the talk, right?

Quantity vs. Quality School Time?

The Detroit Free Press reports that the Michigan Senate passed a bill requiring schools to begin classes after labor day (which would return to the status quo of my own school days). The impetus for this is to extend the family vacation season and allow tourist businesses in northern Michigan to make a few more bucks.

"I've seen Michigan's economy continue to deteriorate," said Sen. Alan Sanborn, R-Richmond. "This is a much-needed shot in the arm." .

Maybe so. But not everyone agrees. This measure (which passed the House in a slightly different form earlier this year) has been opposed by school districts, who claim they need the additional classroom days to help maximize student achievment.

Far be it from me to urge academic slacking, but as far as I can tell, more of the same isn't going to benefit pupils. I don't know that the school year needs to continue in synch with the agricultural calendar, but the schedule isn't the first thing that needs to be fixed. How about requiring some serious writing from students every year in high school? There's plenty of time for that already, but it doesn't happen. How about improving facilities and resources in low-performing schools? An extra week with outdated texts and crowded classrooms doesn't enhance performance. Why not de-emphasize standardized tests and devote the time spent preparing for and taking those to mastering more content in core subjects?

Taken by itself, sending kids back to school in the middle of summer is a superficial gesture that gives the impression doing something substantive. It suggests that the authorities are "serious" about education, but allows them to avoid addressing any really difficult economic and social issues. Good education is worth fighting for, but the opponents of the post labor-day school start are picking the wrong fight.

Any secondary school teachers reading out there? How do you feel about the expanding school year?

Heading East

Early in October, I'll be attending a conference in Vermont on environmental service learning. I'm hoping it will give me some ideas about the environmentally-themed classes I'm developing, and am looking forward to hearing some of speakers. The timing of the conference is perfect for catching fall colors, but naturally I've set my sights on catching fish while I'm out there. And I'll have help.

When I was in the American Studies M.A. program at Bowling Green State, I met a guy from New Hampshire by the name of March who also liked to fly fish, and actually focused his program on material culture of the outdoor sports, writing a thesis on the first female fishing guide in Maine. We hung out during good part of the two years we were there, made a few fishing trips into Michigan, and have kept in touch since graduating. Once I knew I was heading east this fall, I got in touch with him about meeting up, and it appears we'll do it in grand style. We'll be getting a cabin on the Upper Connecticut river, where fishing for brook trout and landlocked salmon should be going strong, and spend a day before the conference fishing. We should be more or less in the spot in the photo above.

Probably no hunting or fishing for me between now and when I leave. But the prospect of this outing makes that seem more tolerable.

The Tomatoes Know

Summer apparently has no plans to leave. Predictions for this week call for highs in the 70s or low 80s, with mild nights in the 50s. I'm sort of bummed by this. I like summer, but I'm ready for fall, the real fall of frost, snow-clouds, and sweater-wearing. True, the leaves are well along in their color transition (owing to a dry summer), and grass in the fields is becoming sere and brittle (for the same reason), but when the temperature is near 80, those sights somehow seem out of place.

My sense of season is very temperature-dependent. I know temperatures can vary widely within a given season (ever more widely as the years go on, it seems), but temperatures in the range I expect (or at least hope for) are my primary yardstick for determining "seasonable" weather. I'll admit, though, that they are only one.

My tomatoes are more convinced about autumn's arrival. They haven't yet fallen to frost, and may not for some weeks. They're still putting off blossoms, and some of those swell into fruits. But the tomatoes that form and remain now ripen only glacially. Most of the fruits that are green now will never ripen. At this point in the season, pathos is my garden's dominant crop.

Temperatures are still comfortable for my plants, and with a garden hose I assure they're getting plenty of moisture. But I can't control the sunlight. They don't get that much in my tree lined yard to begin with, but now I expect they never get more than three or four hours a day. And the light they get now is not nearly as intense as it was six weeks ago.

Summer's light is failing, even if its heat isn't. Light is probably a more consistent and objective measure of the seasons than temperature. Ancient peoples who built elaborate ritual sites oriented around the solar year knew it. Even my tomatoes know it. As a modern guy in the developed world whose conscious connection to nature is primarily recreational and aesthetic, I'm free to disregard that seasonal criterion if I choose. Whether this is anything to be proud of, I don't know.

Rivercleaning, Campus Style

What a difference at yesterday's river cleanup, versus last week's! And scenery was the least of it.

I teamed up with a professor from the Earth Sciences dept., his son, and an undergrad accounting student to clean a section of the bank behind an appartment complex just off campus. The bank was steep, muddy, heavily wooded...and filthy. In this stretch of maybe 300 yards or so, my group found more than 200 beer bottles, numerous pieces of furniture, CD's, utensils, plastic cups, and too many scraps of paper and plastic to count. Some of the interesting finds I made were several vases, all in one spot, and a home pregnancy test (too degraded to see the result). One clearing in the woods was filled with clear plastic cups--which we understood when we looked at the appartment behind us and saw a keg standing out on a balcony on the second floor, and tubing for a beer bong threaded through the balcony's grating. Another group found a box of 1000 spark plugs dumped along the river. I think the foursome I was with accumulated double the trash that my group on the Au Sable did over a much longer stretch of stream.

The Toledo cleanup was also more hazardous. We didn't have to wade, but, as I said, the banks were steep and muddly, and if that wasn't enough, there were railroad ties with long, rusty protruding nails jackstrawed all over the place. They originally had been put there to reinforce the bank, but had since eroded out and fallen into decay. Some you could safely walk on, others would crumble at the slightest pressure. Fallen sticks covered much of the ground, and since it had been raining, they were slick and apt to make you slip if you stepped on them. The other cleaners and I took a few spills, but no one was hurt. Of course, there was poison ivy everywhere. Another 24 hours or so should tell if it got me. At the start of the cleanup, we were required to sign liability waivers. That was curious to me, as I had never had to at other cleanups, but I could understand why once we started cleaning our beat.

Still, I was glad to be there. Today Kristine and I will be working on the porch again, which may make yesterday's labors seem like a holiday.

Poet's Corner

Another weekend, another river cleanup. Shortly, I'll be leaving for Toledo to take part in "Clean Your Streams" day, sponsored by the Maumee/RAP, an interagency river protection group. I'll be pitching in to clean a section of the Ottawa river running across the U of Toledo campus. A few of my students have said they'll come. The outing won't be nearly as scenic as that a week ago on the Au Sable, but it will be nice to make a difference where I work everyday.

I'll have a report tomorrow. In the meantime, I'll share a poem I read yesterday which I liked very much.

River Ghazal #5, by Michael Delp

Think of your life as wind through a doorway.

Whenever you can, trade the bank for the river,
the sky for the bird, your skin for pure light.

Fuel your heart with single caresses, glances,
the sudden vision of your life gone feral.

Go to anyplace where there are more rivers than roads;
trade your flesh for any moving water.

Think of your life as a trigger, death in the target,
something blazing inside your chest.

Nature and Destiny

While I listened to the president's speech last night on reconstructing New Orleans, this part more than any other made me question again whether the guy--or anyone working for him--has a clue.

In the life of this nation, we have often been reminded that nature is an awesome force and that all life is fragile. We are the heirs of men and women who lived through those first terrible winters at Jamestown and Plymouth, who rebuilt Chicago after a great fire and San Francisco after a great earthquake, who reclaimed the prairie from the dust bowl of the 1930s.Every time, the people of this land have come back from fire, flood and storm to build anew and to build better than what we had before.

Americans have never left our destiny to the whims of nature, and we will not start now.

Interesting choice of prior disasters, since nearly all of them arose from people putting themselves at the mercy of nature out of ignorance or carelessness. Moving to a continent where you're utterly unprepared for the climate, or for eeking a living in the wilderness is certainly trusting your destiny to the whims of nature, however fervently you might be praying at the time. Building practices in Chicago at the time of the great fire made it particularly vulnerable to the "awesome forces" of fire and drought. (Similarly, the great forest fires in northern Michigan and Peshtigo, WI that same year, 1871, were fueled by piles of dry slash scattered by loggers over acres and acres of ground.) The Dust Bowl was exacerbated by farming practices that loosened and dispersed the soil. We could say too (as people have for decades) that building a large settlement below sea level is to ask for trouble at some point. Or that turning a blind eye to ongoing climate change has placed people around the world in greater danger from floods and storms.

Like it or not, to live on this planet is to be at the mercy of nature to some extent, and, pace Mr. Bush, no one can opt out of that on the basis of nationality. We can manage and reduce risks, but never eliminate them entirely. But we are never more vulnerable before nature than when we live in ignorance of or indifference to our enviroment, and our impact on it. The Bush administration has expressed such ignorance and indifference since it took the stage and, references to new and improved flood control for New Orleans aside, I fear that to some degree it will poison the federal efforts to reconstruct the Gulf coast. The simple triumphalism of Bush's speech gives the impression that we can put things back together so as not to have to worry about his happening again. A bad idea when you're living along a great river inclined to change course periodically, on land that tends to sink into a part of the ocean that is a prime conduit for hurricanes. I've never heard Bush encourage people to significantly rethink the way they live and interact with the world around them (even by, say, consuming less gasoline) in any other situation--I don't expect he'll encourage it in this one.

Fortunately, people did learn something from the disasters enumerated above, and practices were changed to prevent or at least mitigate recurrences. Often citizens are more sensible than their so-called leaders, and that gives me some confidence about the rebuilding of the Gulf.

A New Haunt

Hunted this morning at Gregory State Game Area near Pinckney. No luck, but it was a great morning to be out. Nice mix of habitat in that small area--mixed hardwoods, oak openings, meadows, good crops of wild grapes, apples, and serviceberries. Saw fiddlhead ferns, too--the first time I've ever sighted them much south of Mt. Pleasant. It will be interesting to spend some time exploring this place.

The drive out was very pleasant. The Pinckney area, though attracting many new homes, still has many larger woodlots and overgrown fields, giving a taste of Southern Michigan's wild side. A description of the area made more than a century and a half ago came to mind:
 
The country through which we were passing was so
really lovely... At least two small lakes lay near our way; and these,
of winding outline, and most dazzling brightness,
seemed, as we espied them now and then through the
arched vistas of the deep woods, multiplied to a dozen
or more. We saw grape-vines which had so embraced
large trees that the long waving pennons flared over
their very tops; while the lower branches of the sturdy
oaks were one undistinguishable mass of light green
foliage, without an inch of bark to be seen. The road-
side was piled like an exaggerated velvet with exqui-
sitely beautiful ferns of almost every variety; and
some open spots gleamed scarlet with those wild straw-
berries so abundant with us, and which might challenge
the world for flavour. Birds of every variety of song and hue, were not
wanting, nor the lively squirrel, that most joyous of
nature's pensioners...

From A New Home--Who'll Follow?, by Caroline Kirkland, 1839.

Kirkland lived in the Pinckney area in the years just prior to Michigan's statehood, and her book chronicles the struggles--both material and emotional--her family and neighbors faced trying to settle in this boggy, rough place. Hard to imagine it now, but the landscape of Livingston County once seemed daunting and formidable.

This morning, it was only formidable to me as I tried to cross through tangles of briars and and soggy marsh edges. As I said, I didn't get a shot at anything, but at one point I did scare up a flock of wild turkeys. They were not a target--I don't have a turkey permit--but it was still neat to watch those big birds flushing off in every direction. Quite the racket they made in those quiet woods. On the theory that grouse might also favor the terrain occupied by turkeys (what is a turkey, after all, but an oversized grouse?), I walked toward where I had seen the flock. Occasionally, I reflushed a turkey, though that was evident only by the stirring of leaves and a thumping noise coming from the top of some tree in the distance. A short time later, I did kick up what sounded like a grouse, but it was behind thick foliage and I never got a good look at it. When the leaves have dropped and visibility improves, I know where I'll want to look.

Now to grade some online work for my tech writing classes. A far less invigorating challenge, but it does pay the bills.

Dave Richey

The links in yesteday's entry are working now. Strange how certain things work on my home computer and not at work.
Found
another Michigan-focused outdoor blog which I'll commend for your reading, that of Dave Richey, the former outdoor columnist for the Detroit News. Seems to discuss pretty much everything that people in this part of the world stalk, whether on land or water. On the down side, it may supply too much additional fodder for daydreaming.

I will take issue with one point he raised recently:

Many anglers and hunters seek outdoor entertainment, and that's what they get when they share a fishing trip or a hunt. We are being entertained by ourselves or others, and by the common sharing of such goals as hitting the Hex hatch right or helping each other take a buck during firearm season. By doing so, we further reinforce our need to have other people nearby.

Camaraderie and joking is part of what has become a tradition of sharing, and spending time with friends or relatives. Sadly, it has ended going it alone for most people. The time-honored thoughts of man against wilderness is a thing of the past. It's now a group of people against nature.

Many sportsmen feel safer in crowds where someone makes decisions on where to go, when to fish or hunt, what time to meet for dinner, and such mundane things as picking a place along a runway for each person to sit. Fishing and hunting has become homogenized, sterilized, and pre-packaged so the angler or hunter never have to think for themselves. It's like being in the Army where officers tell people when to eat, sleep and do their job.

I do nearly all of my fishing alone. I'd agree that company on the stream can be a nuisance when your companions are more casual about the sport than you are, or are given to idle chatter. But those few people you meet in a lifetime who seem to connect to the outdoors much as you do--however that may be--enrich the experience immeasurably. If company in itself seems to be the problem, you may not have found the right company.
Bought my first online license today, a small game license which I'll put to use tomorrow. For some reason, I find license-buying a pleasant ritual, at least when I can do it in a small sporting goods shop. Maybe because it is one of the few "communal" aspects of the sporting life as I live it. No time for that at the moment, though. The important thing after all is to avoid a ticket, isn't it?

Talk about the passion

Found a couple of interesting items today at MidCurrent, the fly fishing newsblog. The first is an interview with Diana Rudolph, a saltwater tournament angler. I sometimes think competitive anglers are missing the point, sacrificing experience for results, but this lady clearly has all the bone-deep passion that the sport, at its purest, breeds in its adherents. It can seep into even the humblest elements of or preparations for fishing:

MC: What do you have in your pocket when you’re standing on the bow of a skiff?

DR: “Lip balm. Plus I put all the tippets from the tarpon I’ve broken off in my pocket; I don’t know why, I just like to have them at the end of the day. If I’m bonefishing, a tailing fly and a heavier fly. No cell phones, no pliers, no voodoo freaky good luck charms. Although I am quite superstitious. I have special necklaces, I have to wear the same hat, I have to eat the same breakfast. And I always kiss the fly. Especially if I move to a different flat or something, then I kiss it multiple times. And if I tie a fly for somebody, I always kiss it before I give it to them. There certain things that just get you amped up about fishing.”


The other thing that caught my eye at MidCurrent (actually on the same page as this interview) was a quote from Tom McGuane:

"What the predator knows when he wakes up in the morning is where the wind and light are, and it is impossible to do anything but hunt when they are aligned."

This morning, I checked the weather forecast and saw that the heat would break Wednesday and that Thursday would dawn with pleasant, cool temperatures in the 50s. Once I read that, it seemed like I hardly had a choice but to go hunting when the small game season opens Thursday morning.

This promise of the wind and light aligning, so to speak, seems less like an arising opportunity than a kind of confirmation, where, at least momentarily, the things around you fit, or call to, the thing you are. In a way, the opportune moments for exercising your passion promise not to divert you, but to realize you.

Gates Cleanup '05

We had a great weekend at the cleanup. Once again, a large crowd turned out to pick litter from the three branches of the Au Sable. Among the celebrity attendees was the director of the DNR, Becky Humphries. The weather was splendid--sunny, 70s, and the river was all but deserted save for the cleaning crews. A great time to be outside, even better in the presence of 300 people all talking about, and more importantly, rolling up their sleeves and working for, the health of the river.

Didn't find anything too noteworthy this time, though Kristine found a large, rusty iron tool I thought might be a logging implement or part of a boat. We saved it and are trying to identify it…will post a picture here if I can ever find or take one. Actually, we found a lot less trash than we were expecting. I filled two thirty-gallon bags about halfway--would have made it through with one, but stuff I had picked up started slipping out through small tears that had formed in my bag along the way. Everyone else in my crew--Kristine, a guy and his young daughter from Tecumseh, and a man with his dog from Grand Rapids, finished the beat with just one bag. There might have been less trash in the water as a result of higher gas prices keeping people home. Or, as one cabin owner we talked to suggested, perhaps people are being more careful with their trash. Here's hoping for the latter.

After I had napped off my indulgences at the post-cleanup barbecue, I went back to the river to fish a bit. I got on the mainstream at Guide's Rest, always a favorite stretch and looking better than ever with the new cover provided by tree drops conducted over the last year or so--Anglers of the Au Sable, in conjunction with some government agencies, helicopters downed trees into the stream to improve fish habitat. Maples were used in some recent drops, and over a few of the log jams their still-attached leaves flashed rosy previews of October. The evening was warm and still, and as I expected, some blue-winged olives began hatching, attracting a few trout to feed on the surface. I caught one brookie about 8" and lost another of similar dimensions just short of my hand. Had another nip, but that was the extent of the action. I worked maybe four or five other feeding fish, but I think I spooked them with a single cast or by wading into place. Au Sable trout are always pretty wary, but particularly so at the end of the season, after being harassed for five months straight. I love autumn trout fishing because the crowds have mostly gone home (or gone to fish for salmon), but sometimes the fish still remember them all too keenly.

Sunday after we broke camp, Kristine and I hiked the river trail at Hartwick Pines state park, a pleasant, short loop along the East Branch, which is really just a little creek. A couple of times along the stream we saw small brook trout finning quietly in open water and stopped to watch them for a while. Sometimes it's good to just see them being themselves, without worrying about catching them.

From a bit down the road...

Yesterday, completely by accident, I wandered onto a listing of Toledo, OH area bloggers. Being the publicity whore that I am, I immediately applied to join, since, while I live in Ann Arbor, I do work in Toledo and occasionally even blog from there. Once I saw Arbor Update there, I figured I was a shoe-in, and FTR was listed by the end of the night.

I wasn't surprised to see AU there, since Ann Arbor seems to be a favorite getaway for Toledoans. Around campus, it's not uncommon to hear faculty and students alike swooning about their recent or upcoming visits to Tree Town, invariably winning sighs of envy from their audience as they hold forth on the wonders of Zingerman's, Shaman Drum, Whole Foods, or the Ark.
US 23 in southern Michigan is one of the blandest stretches of highway I've seen, but for Toledoans, it's the yellow brick road itself. I'm told occasionally how lucky I am to live here, to which a respond with a shrug and some whistful murmurs about housing prices.

FTR readers know I'm a bit circumspect about the amenities of my accidental hometown. There are a lot of good things going on here which you will not find in towns of a similar size, even in some that host universities of a size similar to U-M : visiting authors and other speakers, splendid free art exhibits, clubs for almost any interest, concerts. Some good dining and drinking retreats, though few of truly outstanding quality. But there is also a lot of pretention and smugness about the place, frequently reflected in the city's cultural or commercial venues. A writer of my acquaintence said after a visit here that Ann Arbor was the most homogenous place he'd ever seen. That hadn't occurred to me before, but it's the truth--it's very much a reservation for affluent liberals, with few rough edges to cut into their self-satisfaction.

Still, when Kristine and I go out to amuse ourselves, we usually head down Plymouth road into this cultural-elite theme park, just like my colleagues and students at Toledo. You take the good with the bad wherever you are, and I can think of plenty of places where the good is harder to pick out. I probably ought to do a reverse road-trip, going down to Toledo some weekend to explore a bit, as I've been promising myself to do since I started working there three years ago. While I've said that Toledoans have rated Ann Arbor too highly, my behavior usually affirms that rating.


This weekend, I'm headed to my own little shangri-la, which other folks occasionally confuse with a remote, limited backwoods hamlet: Grayling. Kristine and I are taking part in the the annual river cleanup sponsored by Gates' Lodge. She and I will be working on the Au Sable mainstream between Burton's Landing and Louie's Landing. Hopefully, I'll find a moment to wet a line at some point while we're there.

Long Range Plans

My hands smell like gun oil. This is the first day since last spring that they've exuded that lighter-fluid-spiked-with-detergent aroma peculiar to Hoppe's No. 9, though you might have caught a whiff of it on them on many afternoons last winter.


This is notable mainly because anytime during the twenty or twenty-one years prior to last January, my hands had been free of that smell entirely. Too long a time, for both practical and spiritual reasons. The last time I fired my shotgun, back when I was in high school, I didn't clean it afterward. During all the years since, I almost dreaded opening it up, fearing a horror of corrosion building inside. Still, I thought I would, one of these days. In fall, the sight of a newly leafless aspen copse or a wetland bordering some woodlands would fill me with a wordless, tremulous compulsion to walk into those places with my gun, seeking partridge or woodcock. Usually the feeling would quickly pass, but I would continue thinking, one of these days…

Last winter, even though most hunting seasons had already closed, I decided the time had come to follow through. One evening, with a box of cotton patches and a fresh bottle of Hoppe's from Cabela's , I dislodged my gun from the mound of dust and spiderwebs where it sat beneath the bed and cleaned it--apparently sitting dirty all those years had done no lasting damage. Never having been taught to shoot properly and never having brought much game to the ground when I did hunt, I began going to the shotgun range at Island Lake State Park a couple of days a week and shooting skeet or trap. My scores were pretty miserable, but with practice, and some off-the-cuff coaching from other guys there, I started reliably hitting 17-20 out of 25 targets each round. Not great, but not embarrassing. The more clay birds I shot, the more my head filled with visions of hunting trips I would take this fall, to local public lands like Waterloo, or possibly up north on a weekend or two. It felt as if I was about to recover the use of some long-crippled appendage; not adding something to my life so much as regaining an older fullness.

At least until about April. I think I went shooting once after my first steelhead trip last spring, but not again until today. Once fishing season kicked off, I hardly thought about shooting at all. By August, I wasn't even sure if I would start hunting again. The activity had come to seem remote, alien, too much trouble to concern myself with. And wouldn't efforts to advance the academic career be a wiser use of my time this fall?

The objective answer to that question is "yes," though this is a case where the most objective response isn't necessarily the truest one. With cool nights, turning leaves, and a whiff of woodsmoke from the distance the other evening, I've started to think about hunting again. Just in time, too, since small game season starts a week from today. I didn't have to go to campus today, so this morning I went up to Island Lake and shot a couple rounds of trap--17 & 19 out of 25. Apparently I haven't lost the touch entirely. There are other things I can and possibly ought to do. But none of them prompt me with anything resembling a pang.

I may not hunt the opener next week, but I will at some point this fall. My gun is once again clean and fragrant--it's possibly more ready to go than I am. I'm still not sure if I want to plunge into hunting too deeply (there are some pangs better left ignored), but I can't make an informed decision about it unless I actually go, can I?

Wordsworth by Windmere it Ain't

The British poet Tom Haworth posted this field report from a friend in New Orleans. Scary stuff. The faint of heart ought not click. Visit the first link on the page.

Bayou Bulwarks

We're all familiar with the phrase "act of God" used by insurers to describe natural catastrophes. The closer we look at the Katrina disaster, the less apt it seems.

In yesterday's L.A. Times, Susan Zakin chronicles how federal attempts to conrol Mississippi floods contributed to the erosion of south Louisiana's bayous and increased New Orleans' vulnerability to flooding.

Starting in the 1940s, levees built along the Mississippi River stopped the natural flooding that for centuries had stacked the bayous with sediment that acted as a hedge against salt water pushing in from the Gulf of Mexico. Later, canals built for oil pipelines and tankers accelerated erosion and allowed salt water to intrude farther into the swamps. Every year Louisiana loses 25 square miles of wetlands because of various kinds of human interference. That's a little more than one football field every half hour, a rate that Louisianians cannot staunch by themselves.

If that wasn't bad enough,

getting Washington to pay attention isn't easy. Just a week before the hurricane struck, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco had tried to persuade the president to fly over the bayou country. Blanco, of course, wanted money. Earlier this year, over the president's protests, Congress included in an energy bill a provision that would give Louisiana about $135 million a year, which is well short of the $14 billion over 30 years needed to restore Louisiana's wetlands.

Is Blanco just another hysterical greenie out of touch with economic realities? Guess not: Even the oil companies are backing Blanco's plan for coastal restoration; they'll lose their pipelines and ship canals if southern Louisiana sinks like a dying thing into the Gulf of Mexico.

As Congress convenes to discuss relief and reconstruction, they ought to spend a little time considering these words from Zakin's summation:

In New Orleans, the bones of the world have been laid bare, and Americans are seeing how inseparable are the natural and the made worlds. We see it in other countries--Haiti comes to mind--and now we see it at home, where the levees have broken, where the Superdome looks like the Hotel Rwanda and police couldn't rescue victims of the flood because they were arresting looters.

Better flood policy, Zakin concedes, wouldn't necessarily have prevented this chaos. The storm's path was, as they say, an act of God. However, that doesn't excuse the rulers of this world (and those who vote for them) from supporting water and wetlands policies that can minimize or avert the damage and the related suffering from hurricaines--and diasters of other sorts-- to come.

No Looking Back

Media reports of the continuing post-Katrina cleanup now often include somber reminders that it will be a long time before things are back to normal in Gulf coast communities.

I hope so. Actually, I hope they never quite get there. "Normal" in the recent past included ignoring or dismissing the consequences of climate change, tolerating vast and growing disparities of wealth and opportunity, careless use of natural resources, and Federal public safety efforts that were essentially symbolic. Going back to the way things were merely invites a return to the way things are now in New Orleans.

In a piece in the journal World Changing, Alex Steffen argues that Katrina has forced the US into a reconsideration of priorities in much the way 9/11/01 did:

Katrina was a watershed moment. From here on out, the debate is over. Everything has changed, at least as dramatically as in wake of 9-11. From this moment forward, there is simply no ethical way to debate the need for a new, holistic, worldchanging approach to tackling the planet's biggest problems. As we begin thinking about how to rebuild New Orleans, we need also to recommit ourselves to a new vision for the future of the planet as whole.
We now live in a post-Katrina world. It's time for our thinking to catch up.
Read the rest.

I think the September 11 analogy is valid, but it raises some red flags. In the months just after the 2001 attacks, it seemed like we really were living in different times, as neither the government nor the citizens of the US could carry on with their ordinary ways of viewing (or not viewing) the rest of the world. But soon, it seemed like we were pretty much where we'd always been. We could go shopping; we could drive any vehicle we pleased; we could consume at our whim and not worry too much about the consequences. Foreigners were either scary or uncooperative, and best avoided if at all possible. We do live in a heightened state of anxiety, though that anxiety is exploited for dubious political and strategic purposes, a statesman's trick that isn't new at all. In short, we seem to have made a number of small changes in order to avoid or forestall larger ones.

Katrina has delivered another terse invitation to reconsider the ways we act, think, and place ourselves in the world. Here's hoping we accept.

Happy Labor Day

This Blog Is 

With Pride 

(Reenacted) History Repeats Itself

Yesterday Kristine and I made our annual trip to the Michigan Renaissance Festival in Holly. Kristine looks forward to this very much. I don't mind going, but to me there's not much to see once you've been there a couple times. There are a lot of people selling crafts to help enthusiasts step fully into their role: swordsmiths, kilt makers, crafters of leather jerkins or bustiers, and pewtersmiths making talismans or one sort or another to dangle from ones neck. Others offer block prints, tiles or other items to add an Elizabethan touch to one's home. There are a few stalls I like looking through, but I glaze over at most of them. And the same ones are there year after year.

There are also musicians as well as comedy acts on the various stages for inter-purchase diversion. I actually do like much of the music, and we make a point of hearing several of the players. One we've seen there a number of times that we love is Owain Phyfe and the New World Renaissance Band. We bought another of his CD's yesterday. Much of the music is actual period stuff; the rest tends toward a Celtic string band sort of sound. The comedy acts are less appealing. Actually, some of them are very funny--the first time you see them. But they never change! Apparently there is no down time on the RenFest circuit. One of the better acts is a skeleton puppet named Ded Bob, operated by a hooded figure who goes by the name Smudge. First time we saw him, in the early 90s, we thought it was a riot. Even the second time through his show wasn't too bad. But it was the same thing year in and year out. After missing Ded Bob (and the rest of the fair) a few years, we went back last year, and assumed something would have to have changed by now. Nope. If you want more of an action spectacle, there are full contact jousting matches. When I first saw one, I thought it was interesting for about ten minutes. Fortunately, there are stalls scattered throughout the fair serving Guinness stout, and they never lose their appeal.

Obviously, there are many people who don't share my take on this. The place is always crowded, and the shows are packed. And lots of people show up in costume, from pre-teens through retirees. I think the proportion of those who do has increased considerably since I started going (evidently those craftsmen are finding customers). Yesterday I was puzzling about what it was that drew people to participate in this. I doubt it’s a fervent interest in Renaissance history and culture, at least primarily. The answer, or at least one answer, hit me when I saw members of another tribe who appear there in display: goths. You will always see a few teen goths strolling around in full regalia, probably none of which graced the closets of 16th century peasants. (Actually, their gear might well have gotten them burned as witches back in the day.) Goth culture allows kids (or former kids) to play with their identity, to define themselves in some other way than quotidian reality demands. Others--whether accountants, stay at home mothers, cops, or other figures of respectability--have the same impulse, and the RenFest offers an alternative space that allows its expression. The elementary school principal struts about in leather breeches, his hand clutching a ram's horn full of ale, the lab tech transforms into a shepherdess with breasts straining chinward beneath her tightly laced and intricately embroidered bodice. Granted, this festival is a rather scripted and controlled alternative space, but it evidently suffices for those who come. I often seek out such spaces myself, though my costume typically consists of a fishing vest and waders.

Freestone Radicals

Conversation overheard in a flyshop last week, between the counter clerk and a local river guide.

CC: ...Yeah, traffic has been way down this year, but what can you expect with gas prices? Gas up to here from most downstate venues could cost $100 for some people.

RG: That's going to hurt a lot of people around here eventually.

CC: Sure, the motels, the stores, especially the canoe liveries are hurting.

RG: What I don't understand is why people aren't complaining. Back in the 70s when gas hit 60, 70 cents, a dollar a gallon, people were throwing a fit. Now? Nothing.

CC: Things are different now. Seems like since about the time Reagan got in, people have just become more complacent.

RG: Sheep to slaughter.

CC: You know what the problem is, don't you? You've got about 6% of the people in this country controlling 80% of the wealth.

RG: I think the bigger problem is the 1% that controls 60% of the money. Those guys have got the government working for them.

CC: Well, there's definitely a "face behind the face" problem. I don't know what to do about it.

***long silence****

Not exactly the sort of thing I expect to hear in most flyshops. Looking at those guys, the clerk in the sort of refined denim shirt and chinos they sell in the back of Orvis catlogues, the guide in camo with a wiry beard, I never would have imagined those words coming out of their mouths. Lynne Cheney said once that if you wanted to wanted to understand her husband, you had to understand fly fishing, because everything he did and believed came from that. If the sport does make the man, then either Dick Cheney or these guys (as well as myself) got something very wrong along the way. I don't know if there's a particular influence that fly fishing has on anyone, but from what I've seen, it surely does lure in people of all sorts.

The liberal-progressive in me wants to believe that those guys represent a large group of anglers. They probably do--but only insofar as they aren't afraid to speak their minds, and they love their rivers. That much the sport does seem to impress on its devotees. And sometimes, that translates into wonderful politics, not strictly aligned with any of the customary factions that jockey for power.

But still, there's Dick Cheney and plenty more like him, determined to freeze politics as usual into place. Like the clerk, I don't know what to do.

Another River, Other Waders

I have to admit that while writing yesterday, I felt an eerie disconnection from reality. Coverage of the calamities down south gave what I wrote an extra-ordinary irrelevance. While I recounted blissful days on the river last week, communities at the end of another river were undergoing social and physical collapse. I was thinking a lot about the disaster in New Orleans and Mississippi, trying to imagine what it would be like to live through that, and feeling keenly my inability to help. Kristine and I sent our mite and our prayers, but beyond that, there's little we can really do, aside from continuing our comfortable life, where flooding from anything other than a broken pipe is an impossibility, and even the most ferocious tornado could do only a fraction of the damage Katrina did. What I feel isn't survivor's guilt. It's more like a heightened awareness of how odd are the times we live in, where we can be pulled deeply into the unfolding of a disaster that has for all practical purposes left us untouched. ($3 gas may be an inconvenience or even a hardship, but it isn't a brush with devastation.) We can be right there, yet in many senses, so far away.

The reports of shootouts between police and looters, and of hospitals taking sniper fire, are extremely disturbing. I can't grasp why people would unleash that kind of malice on top of the suffering caused by the hurricane. The ordinary looting I can understand. It's simply greed, and probably an inevitable response to the outbreak of anarchy. (Anarchy is the ultimate freedom, and as Donald Rumsfeld reminded us after the fall of Baghdad, free people are free to loot.) But I agree with TroutGrrrl that a lot of what's being called looting, especially as the disaster goes on, isn't so much looting as scavenging for survival. It's already clear that rescue and assistance workers were unable to get on the scene, or at least to parts of it, as soon as they were needed. I'm not going to waste my breath criticizing the relief agencies, but the fact remains that a lot of people were left stranded without the means to survive. Were I in that situation, I might not worry too much about what I owed the rightful owner of the jar of peanuts or bottle of Aquafina I took from his abandoned store. Some words that are always appropriate when considering others seem especially so in regard to the Orleansians with wet feet and sticky fingers (though perhaps not to those with blazing guns): "Judge not, lest ye be judged."

Au Sable 8/25-26, Pt. 4

When I first waded in to the river below Alligator Flats, I saw a fish rising in a quiet spot on the opposite side of the river, just across a strong riffle. The riffle proved a little too strong actually, since by the time I was knee deep, I was afraid I'd be swept off my feet. The river was much faster here than anywhere else I'd waded in the Trophy Waters, but you wouldn't know it watching from the bank.

I tried crossing at the head of the next riffle--same story. I finally made it across, barely, at the next riffle (crossing in the quieter water was out of the question, as it looked chest-deep at a minimum). The current was still strong, but the bottom was more even, without those little pockets that drop you a foot here or there. Not good when traction is critical. I realized then how little attention I usually pay to current when I'm wading. Most often, I'm wading downstream in smaller rivers with a gentle current. Trying to stay upright against that rush of water last Friday, with every muscle from the diaphragm on down fighting the current, I got a new appreciation for how big that river is. Only a slight increase in the river's gradient brings what a puny 6'6" 210 pound wader like me feels as a tremendous increase in its force. The power of earth and water, usually ignored until it threatens peril, or at least inconvenience.

Once I had crossed I was a long way from that rising fish I had seen from the access. However, other fish were rising some quiet water upstream. I made my way to them, and caught three rainbows in about five casts on my ant. I saw another riser a bit past midstream. He was out in another riffle, and I hesitated going after him. If the current was anything like it was below, I might not maintain my balance while casting. After the fish fed a few more times, greed or something like it got the better of my caution (this seems endemic to fishermen!) and I decided to give him a shot. I was pleasantly surprised to find the current much gentler here, and the water not much more than shin-deep. My first cast caught the feeder I had stalked. It was while I released him that I first saw the Alligator, staring right at me with mouth agape, as if to say "Fish here!."

I took him up on the invitation, heading back across and a little upstream, where a long, gentle glide was carrying along a steady parade of ants. I took a rainbow of about 12", then spent about 20 minutes trying to reach two fish I thought were bigger that were feeding underneath some overhanging logs. Only managed a good presentation 3 or 4 times, and those apparently didn't coincide with the trouts'' feeding rythmn. I could rehearse the casting travails I went through trying for them, but to cut it short, I'll just say that I'm no Lefty Kreh.

During the rest of the afternoon, I scouted a few other spots. While I caught a few more fish, I wasn't as impressed with these locations as I had been with the 'gator's lair, so it was back there for the evening rise.

Walking up there from the access, I cast a beadhead soft-hackled white fly pattern into the riffles, and caught two trout and broke off another. I actually had had a few nips doing that on the way down earlier that day. It's a technique I need to work with more. Made a serious mistake trying to cross just below the Alligator--I was up to my belly in about three steps. He only allows safe passage at or to about 100 feet above his position. As for the rise itself...I guess I could describe it as the previous night's experience inverted. There were as many flies on the water as there had been Thursday. The difference is that there were very few risers, though the few I saw struck quite readily. It's a toss-up to me whether that or having lots of cautious risers is better. I did catch three or four rainbows and had a few more short hookups on an emerger pattern, either fished blind or cast at one of the rare feeders. The best fish of the trip came while I did this, a 13" rainbow that leapt three times in his first three seconds on the line.

When the spinners came, audible rises ceased entirely, and my emerger drifted untouched. Walking back down toward the Alligator, I saw some gentle rises dimpling the water that had given me three fish in the afternoon. I tied on a spinner and again, I caught three fish in about three or four casts. Maybe the same ones that hit my ant some hours earlier.

I revisited spots that had given me some fish earlier, looking and listening for more feeders. When none came, I trained my high-beam flashlight on the Alligator's nose and began wading back to the access. Fifteen minutes later, I was pulling out of the Shell station in Mio, loaded up with gas and hot coffee for the drive home. And, obviously, some blog fodder.