Obligatory Year-End Reminiscences

What to say about 2005? Among the standout events for me was the launch of my blog, about a year after I'd plannned to. I've enjoyed "meeting" the folks who've come here. And I've enjoyed reading many blogs, too. Prior to doing my own, I had never paid them any sustained attention. Lots of good outdoor experiences, including another "last" hunting trip yesterday (last trips are sort of like last casts--you'll always end up making a few more, if the opportunity presents itself). Few really bad things happened to us this year--Kristine's hospitalization (for a freakin' CAT BITE!) was probably the worst that came our way. Our porch renovation might qualify as the runner up, but after all the sweating and swearing, it came out looking pretty good (although some finishing touches await us this spring).

My job goes on, usually neither very fulfilling nor very loathesome. It beats unemployment, I guess.

By most external measurements, I had a pretty good year. Often though, it didn't feel that way. For the most part, we financially secure, we were healthy, and we got to do many things we enjoyed. There's a good chance this state of affairs could continue for some time. Which may or may not be good. I feel like I've hit a point where there's no longer much to look forward to. As if I'm in some comfortable rut, and not sure how to get out or what getting out would look like. Maybe the best way to put it is that I feel my life has assumed a shape that can no longer accomodate aspiration. I occasionally wonder if things would look otherwise if I quit fishing, or at least was more casual about it. Seriously, how many passions can a person accomodate?

But enough moping. I hope everyone has a pleasant new year's eve and a fulfilling year in 2006. Kristine and I will be taking it easy at home tonight, watching a marathon of The Wire on DVD. What is it about Christmas break and crime shows? Three years ago, we watched most of the first two seasons of The Sopanos on tape over break, and I think we saw season three during the next year's holidays. As everyone else prays for peace on earth, I slide vicariously into the criminal netherworld.

Perhaps another symptom of some imbalance within. May we all strike the balance we need in the year ahead.

Catfish Caper

Yesterday, the San Jose Mercury-News published its list of the weirdest outdoor stories of 2005.

My favorite:

Two assailants robbed two anglers of their stringer of catfish caught at Troost Lake in Missouri. Worse, one angler, who obviously likes his catfish, gave chase and was shot in the calf. Shirley Coppage, who was fishing nearby, told the Kansas City Star: "I don't understand it. After stealing all that fish, they would have to clean them all. That's a lot of work."

Still more reason to practice catch and release!

Here's hoping I--and the readers who come here--never make this list.

Not odd, but kind of irritating--went to the trap range this morning and shot 4/25 in one round. Never shot that low at any point last winter. Part of me says I need to get out there more, part says I should never return.

Outdoors

Bird of Choice

I'm not talking about white vs. Dark meat. Here in Michigan, there are periodically calls to choose a new state bird. Currently, our official bird is the Robin. Some people question why we chose this--it's not unique to here or especially abundant here (it seems pretty abundant nearly everywhere I go in the eastern US), nor, as far as anyone can tell, does it have a distinctive role in the state's history.

A couple days ago, outdoor writer Dave Richey entered the fray, nominating the chickadee and the Kirtland's warbler as alternatives to the robin. These seem to be almost every anti-robinist's go-to birds, for what it's worth.

Richey is a chickadee booster, touting the little bird's charisma and perseverance. Chickadees

. . . trust people, meet us at the bird feeders when it comes time to refill them, and they circle around and land nearby as we complete this task on their behalf. They have a chuckling little voice, are always busy and provide great year 'round entertainment for housebound folks.

This friendly little bird doesn't head south as the other two contenders for state-bird status do. They are tough, individualistic, and a joy to watch when winter arrives. We predict storms by their feeding activity.



I find chickadees irresistibly charming myself, though like the robin, they aren't unique here by any means. The kirtland's warbler, on the other hand, is. They are known to nest only in certain areas of northern Michigan. I've heard rumors of some nests in Ontario, but Michigan is unquestionably their stronghold--or perhaps, their tenuous toehold. The warblers

. . . are few in numbers, and are an endangered species. They nest in Michigan's young jackpine forests, and have slowly increased their numbers from a low of 25-30 birds years ago to over 400 singing males.

Their numbers are counted during the spring nesting period, and it is believed that for every singing male, there is a female. These birds, through the effort of sportsmen and other concerned individuals, have rose from the brink of extinction to their current high point. They leave the state in early fall to fly south and return in the spring.

They are a pretty little bird but are rarely seen except by biologists who lead tours during the spring nesting period when a bird lover may catch a brief glimpse. Only fire and regeneration of young jackpine forests will keep this bird alive.




To Richey, the scarcity of the KW does not make it more precious.

I would hate to have the Kirtland's warbler as a state bird. They are at an all-time high in numbers right now, but any type of jackpine disaster could wipe them out, leaving us with an extinct state bird

Chickadees, on the other hand

. . . are gutty enough to tough out the long winter, are curious and inquisitive, and are not reclusive. They accept humans and flourish because of us.

Leaving aside the question of whether staying put when the snow falls is "guttier" than migrating thousands of miles on your own power and foraging along the way (how do you compare the courage of different survival strategies?), I am led to wonder about the reasons we choose these state mascots. What do they do for us, and could they do more?

As symbols, they are meant to communicate something, and I think the idea is for them to convey something about this state--the unique or representative flora and fauna, or ones that hold a special place in the state's culture. By that last criterion, the chickadee could be a good choice, since Michiganders do like to boast about the toughness of their winters and praise themselves for enduring them. But the case Richey makes for the chickadee (and views like his are advanced by others) makes it into a symbol of something that has little to do with nature. His chickadee is what many in American society see as an ideal human personality--strong, smart, self-reliant but sociable, a good sense of humor. Someone you'd like as a neighbor or coworker. Call me a misanthrope if you must, but I think the non-human emblems we appropriate for our states ought to say something about the non-human environments in which they're situated.

The KW pulls triple duty in that department. First, it is unique to Michigan. No other place (or at least no place remote from Michigan) can claim that as a part of its environment, in the summer months anyway. Second, its restricted habitat needs and limited range bespeak the jack pine woods that flourish only in parts of the great lakes region, when other environmental conditions permit. Finally, it brings us to reflect on the always fluid state of the physical environment, and on the potential of humans to participate gracefully or disruptively in that flow. In short, the KW could bring Michiganders to pay more attention to where on earth they are, and what they do there. Why settle for a state bird that entertains when you can get one that educates?

Holiday Cold

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...a cold.

Kristine has been wrestling with a cold for the last week. A bit unusual, since I'm the one who typically gets sick around the holidays. Often, when one of us is sick the other manages to avoid it, but that wasn't the case this time. Around noon yesterday I felt a tingling around my nose, and by bedtime I had a full-blown sore throat and some heavy-duty congestion. Pretty much the same story this morning.

I was hoping to go on a little outing tomorrow, though that may not happen. Usually I hate these warm spells during winter, but I wouldn't mind this one continuing for a bit, at least until I feel good enough to make it out on the water.

Maybe it's time to turn to the cold cure reccomended by the narrator of Jim Harrison's novel Wolf, which consists of:

*Drinking half a gallon of freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and two gallons of warm water to cleanse the system.
*Eating at least one pound of prime steak, rare.
*Taking a long, warm bath in a darkened room. While bathing, you should slowly sip a bottle of the very best bourbon you can afford, at least a fifth. A cigar is optional during this part of the ritual.
*Sleeping for twenty-four hours after the bath.

Swanson, the narrator, says the treatment leaves him renewed and refreshed, but cautions it may cause hangovers in "those with weak systems." Which, he adds, is their problem.

I think I'll stick with herbal tea.

Health

The FTR Christmas Card

This Christmas finds me reflecting on the nativity of Jesus with some concepts typically not associated with Christian theology, or at least the kinds most commonly preached.* There is a pop rendering of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle holding that observation of an event changes the nature of the event itself--that by involving ourselves in something, we (not as generic "humans" but as uniquely situated beings with a distinct perspective on and relation to the event) partly influence what it is. Quantum physicists dismiss that as an oversimplificaton, though modern epistomologists have made intriguing arguments to that effect, and the notion also makes sense on an intuitive level. From whatever source, the idea that one's relation to something helps to contitute that thing (and vice-versa) is out there, circulating.

Well. Suppose, for arguments sake, that there is something roughly corresponding to what we call "God." That there is some pervasive presence we could call the heart, or the spirit of the universe. What if this presence could take some uniquely situated form, with particular, concrete relations to some time and place, existing not everywhere but somewhere. What change would that make in the world where this incarnation occured? And what change would this encounter work in that spirit? What if that incarnation was reenacted by communities of people who fashioned a way of living inspired by that initial "situation" of the divine?

Given the often sorry state of our world, I think caution is in order if one tries to delineate any sweeping change for good that came of that nativity in Bethlehem or the life that followed it. But these creative interactions are always complicated things, and the propostions offered by the one celebrated today are, I think, quite interesting nonetheless.
---------------------------------

*Process theology inspired by A.N Whitehead includes similar concepts, though I'm working here with a more traditional notion of God. The Buddhist notion of "Interdepent Origination" partially parallels what I'm suggesting here as well.

Religion; Christmas

And Boy Does it Catch Fish!

Still shopping for the fisherman on your list? Give them a blast from the past!

I recently learned that the Popeil Pocket Fisherman is still produced and sold. First manufactured in the 1950s, the Pocket Fisherman is a compact spincasting rig that folds down to a mere 9". Extend the plastic arm with a guide that serves as a rod and you're ready to chase the big ones! You'll never again find yourself by a river saying "If only I had my rod!" With one of these tucked into your dashboard or purse, any trip can become a fishing trip!

If you grew up in the 1970s, you may remember the TV commercials for these, where a frenetic announcer shouted something like my last three sentences over video of men in boats landing improbably large fish on these stubby little toys. Like a lot of the other Ronco/K-Tel products of that era, they became a punch line, something no one but the hopelessly taste-impaired or unabashedly rednecked would buy, or at least admit to buying.* But they're still around.

Part of their appeal (like that of so many other mementos of Generation X childhood) probably lies in their retro goofiness. Recently, this vintage 1972 model sold on EBay.
Parting with this sounds like a practical decision, but I can't imagine anything but nostaligia or a mania for kitsch behind the purchase. Or the purchase of a new one. The convenience factor is really not that great--even in large pocket, it would be rather clumsy--and what little there is would be more than offset by the rig's limitations. A 1 1/2 foot rod makes casting very awkward, and this rod has the sensitivity of a tent stake, making it hard to detect bites if fishing with bait, or to play any but the smallest fish. The Pocket Fisherman isn't cheaper than conventional fishing gear either. New ones retail for about $40. For that price, you could get a very serviceable spinning rod and reel combo. And seriously, ordinary gear does not take up all that much room. If you want to fish on the go, it's easy enough to keep a rod and a small bag with a reel and some tackle in your car or in a bike pack.

Yet there's no novelty in those things, no aura of can-do space age innovation, nor is there the promise of wetting a line with the mere flick of a wrist. With a Pocket Fisherman in hand, you could be as self-sufficent as the castaways on Gilligan's Island, who you were watching in between commercials for these, and for K-Tel hit compilation LPs and custom potato slicers with the bonus Julienne fry attatchment (honestly, can't you see the Professor rigging one of these out of a coconut and a bamboo shaft?). They will be as eternal as Brady Bunch reruns.

*Full Disclosure Statment: One Christmas while growing up, I received a K-Tel Fishin Magician (12 fisherman's tools in one!) and a Budweiser Lure.
Believe it or not, there were times when the Bud lure caught a lot of fish. I'll leave it to FTR readers to decide whether I belong in the "hopelessly taste-impaired" or "unabashedly rednecked" category.

Hope Everyone has a Merry Christmas.


Tags:Fishing; Pop Culture; Christmas

A Last Hunt

Last week I said it would be quiet here for a while, and I've been true to my word and then some. Finals ended last week, but I've been kind of lethargic since. Not physically tired, as sort of generally sour on life. I don't know why. I I certainly haven't had many ideas to blog about, or much interest in finding any. Yesterday felt like the darkest day of the year for more than astronomical reasons.

It's not going to be a very restful break. I need to begin prepping next semester's classes, and though I've taught some of them before, I seem not to have too many records or notes from those, either at home or in my office at school. So I'll spend much of the next two weeks reinventing the wheel.

But I'm not ready to start that yet. This morning, I got the idea to run somewhere and do some winter trouting. The Muskegon seemed like my best bet, and not unreasonably far for a day trip--at least if you have a full day. However, the idea of fishing didn't come to me until about 9 AM. After two and half or three hours in the car getting there, there wouldn't be much time to fish. And the thought of the drive alone took a lot of the luster away from the scheme. So instead, I opted for one last hunt at a nearby game area.

I'd hoped to get out again when small game season reopened in December, but the snow discouraged me. It gets a lot tougher once you get a few inches on the ground. I had no reason to think today would be particularly good, but I needed to get outdoors.

The outing met my expectations. As on most other outings in southern Michigan, I saw no game at all. But I did get into some beautiful woods, and found some ski trails to visit later this winter, as well as some decent looking grouse habitat to investigate next fall. At one point, walking along the edge of a small creek, my boot caught on the wire securing someone's muskrat trap to a tree, pulling the trap onto the surface of the snow. Sorry to whoever set it. I wrapped the wire around the tree to prevent it from tangling up someone else. Once I'd yanked it out, it wasn't going to catch a muskrat anyway.

I wore out pretty quickly breaking a trail through six or seven inches of snow. After about two and a half hours, I trudged back to my car, feeling pleasantly tired. My heart pumped hard, but comfortably. My legs tingled from the exertion. I'd sweated through the three layers I wore, but hadn't realized that until the hunt was over. And my mind felt at ease for the first time this week. Unsoured, I should say. Back at my desk now, the task of organizing classes doesn't sound any more inviting than it did this morning, but I no longer have that "already beaten" feeling I did earlier.

So small game season ends, for me anyway--clay bird season begins. Maybe tomorrow morning.


Tag: Hunting

Cat Chow, Fish Food

We've decided to start making our cat's food ourselves, since he doesn't tolerate most canned stuff (even the prescription diets) well anymore. Since I had some reward points to use at Cabelas, I stopped there on the way home today to buy a meat grinder.

I found one quickly, and naturally browsed over some fishing equipment on the way out. I also stopped to look at the fish tanks near the front of the store. The store contains an artificial trout stream and some large aquariums of warmwater fish, the latter of which I'd never looked closely at before. In the tanks were pike, muskies, longnose gar, catfish, bass, walleye, and a variety of panfish. Swimming in schools just under the water's surface there were shiner minnows too, providing food for the larger fish. The minnows weren't always easy pickings.

Most of the fish were paying no attention to the minnows--perhaps they got their fill earlier. Those that were chasing them tried to swim slowly near them unnoticed, taking up a position below the minnow school then rising up quickly to grab one. Probably nine times out of ten, the minnows dashed off before the fish could get in striking position. At least half the strikes caught nothing. Once, a walleye nabbed a minnow who had foolishly swum deeper into tank, only to have it pop out of its mouth, apparently unharmed, a moment later. It chased the escaped minnow briefly, but gave up. Perhaps dull hooks or the wrong fly pattern aren't always to blame for fish slipping off my line after the first nip.

Many of the fish didn't look so good--or rather, their colors and markings were dull. It was hard to tell apart some of the panfish. Distinguishing rock bass from white bass and crappie took careful scrutiny. I know Cabelas has a staff of icthyologists to take care of their fish displays, but an artificial environment like that is bound to affect them in some way. At least they looked well-fed and supple.

It was fun getting a view of feeding fish that I generally don't. Most of the time they're invisible to me, and I can only guess about how they're what they're doing under the water. That guess has become more educated over the years, but mostly from deductions or from explanations offered by others. I sometimes think displays like that are hokey, or even a travesty of sorts, but today one gave me an education it would be hard to get on the stream.

Fishing

Degrees of Illiteracy

Yesterday, the NY Times reported that literacy rates are declining among college graduates.

This conclusion is drawn from results of the National Assessment of Adult LIteracy conducted by the US Department of Education in 2003.

When the test was last administered, in 1992, 40 percent of the nation's college graduates scored at the proficient level, meaning that they were able to read lengthy, complex English texts and draw complicated inferences. But on the 2003 test, only 31 percent of the graduates demonstrated those high-level skills. There were 26.4 million college graduates.

The college graduates who in 2003 failed to demonstrate proficiency included 53 percent who scored at the intermediate level and 14 percent who scored at the basic level, meaning they could read and understand short, commonplace prose texts.

Three percent of college graduates who took the test in 2003, representing some 800,000 Americans, demonstrated "below basic" literacy, meaning that they could not perform more than the simplest skills, like locating easily identifiable information in short prose.

On the positive side, literacy scores for black and Asian students increased between 1992 and 2003. However, scores for latino students declined.

Sombering news, but who or what is at fault?

Grover J. Whitehurst, director of an institute within the Department of Education that helped to oversee the test, said he believed that the literacy of college graduates had dropped because a rising number of young Americans in recent years had spent their free time watching television and surfing the Internet.

"We're seeing substantial declines in reading for pleasure, and it's showing up in our literacy levels," he said.

In some ways, this bit of news amounts to a cliché--"Johnny can't read because he's spending too much time in front of the TV!" I've heard this complaint in the background noise of my entire conscious life. Sort of like "Humans are destroying their environment!" One of those complex, intractable problems that triggers spasms of acute panic which (in most of us) soon relax into shrugs.

I don't have the luxury of shrugging off this literacy crisis. I see it every day in the classroom. Last week, in the personal statement I wrote for my annual evaluation, I said that discussing readings had become almost a waste of time. For most of the twelve years I've taught, I've been aware that many students consider reading assignments optional, even when they're held accountable for them in some way, via quizzes, examinations, whatnot. But during much of that time, students usually showed decent comprehension of what they did read. Now, particularly in first semester composition classes, exploring anything beyond the general topic of a reading is like...well, like my "snowshoe walk" the other day, or like it would have been if the snow were 5 feet instead of 5 inches deep. And little of the style or strategy we examine in the readings carries over to the writing. I'm supposed to be helping to reverse this decline in literacy, but many times it feels futile. At least as I'm approaching the task now. As I said in my personal statement last week, it's time to try something new.

I have some colleagues who dismiss, or outright ridicule, the idea of assigning readings in a writing class. Written assignments should come from students freely exploring their ideas, then expanding them through reasearch and revision, they believe. It must work for them, but for me something about that approach doesn't add up. For one thing, regular reading helps one absorb basic print conventions which are very difficult to teach in the classroom, such as when apostrophes are used, and that "woman" and "women" are not the same word. (I'm almost resigned to plural apostrophes--or rather, plural apostrophe's--becoming a standard feature of printed English). But more importantly, it confronts one with new ideas, and with striking ways of communicating ideas. It puts one in conversation with something other than the routine, and consequently makes that routine a richer and more animated thing (I'd like to say it liberates us from routine, but sooner or later we all find one). Those functions aren't unique to reading, but few other media conduct them as readily, or as intimately. Reading is an interchange between work and audience to a greater degree than almost any visual medium. If a college education is meant not only to impart knowledge but to draw one into a community that creates knowledge--a profession, discipline, or an engaged citizenry, for that matter--I think that interchange is essential.

I guess I'm not sure what I'm doing here except wringing my hands. That and reminding myself that literacy is a feeble asset when it's taught as a discrete skill rather than cultivated as a habit of living (and it wasn't so long ago that habit was broadly cultivated, and wasn't just an ideal of self-styled literati). The question I'm left with is, what does that habit look like today?
Tag: Education

Snowshoe Outing (Minus the Shoes)

Yesterday, with all the snow that fell (@ 5"), I wanted to go cross-country skiing. It would have been my first outing of the winter. But the snow was wet and heavy, which would make the going difficult on my waxless skis. So late in the afternoon, I took a walk around the U-M's Matthei Botanical Gardens trails.

I was the only one out, and maybe one person at most had been out before me that day, to judge from the bootprints. One of the most beautiful walks I've taken in some time. Snow clung to the trees like a thick wrapping of cotton. The damp snow fell in clots from tree limbs due to sheer weight. The trees along Fleming creek dropped chunks that dimpled the surface like rising fish. During winter, fly fishermen refer to the "snowflake hatch," which is a wry way of saying that it's too cold for any insects to emerge. But along the creek today, you might have believed that fish were actually rising to the snow.

Where the trail passes behind the Huron Valley animal shelter, it skirts a grove of tall spruces whose upper limbs appear amost knitted together. The canopy they make blocks out a lot of light, but also a lot of snow, leading animals to take shelter there in the winter because it's easier for them to move about and forage. I jumped a doe on first approaching the grove, and saw it several more times down the trail when it stopped in clearings to watch me (the Matthei gardens have some of the tamest deer I've ever encountered). I stopped when it did and gazed back, trying to keep both mind and body still. I wanted the experience of it to be as immediate, as unscreened, as possible. The presence of an interesting animal often provides an unexpected but thorough wipe of the brain, which you may prolong sometimes by ignoring your inner commentator for a bit. The point isn't to be empty or inert, but to let a particular moment, and all it contains, have as much room in your mind as it can. Such experiences are usually short lived, but memories of them don't slip away easily.

I don't know exactly how long the loop I followed was, but after about less than an hour of trudging through the snow, I was getting weary. Sinking in with every step and lifting my boots with a heavy plate of snow on the sole, I thought it was a perfect snowshoe day, or would have been if I owned a pair. Normally when I ski or hike there, I venture along a couple of the looped trails, but one felt like enough yesterday. Especially with a driveway waiting to be shoveled.

That walk was the first time this winter 've really felt I was taking part in the season, instead of watching it happen through the windows of my car or study. Paying the gas bill drives the point home too, of course, but not as agreeably.


Tags: Winter; Outdoors

Where's a Warden When You Need One?

Or a fisheries biologist, or a forester, for that matter?

Maybe wishing he would have saved himself a lot of hassles and majored in supply chain management like his buddies back in college.

(AP):Wildlife agencies across the country are struggling with a combination of rising retirements and declining interest in their jobs among young people seemingly disconnected from hunting, fishing and rural life.

According to the latest statistics available from the federal Government Accountability Office, by 2007 the Interior Department will lose 61 percent of its program managers, the Environmental Protection Agency will lose 45 percent of its toxicologists, and the Forest Service will lose 49 percent of its foresters and 61 percent of its entomologists at a time when Western forests are being ravaged by bark beetles.

The declines come as natural resource managers are juggling more and frequently conflicting demands, including more wilderness vs. more trails for off-road vehicles and a push for greater gas and oil development vs. the preservation of wildlife habitat.

Read It All

Seriously--given a choice between sitting in an office analyzing data on a screen, and writing tickets to drunken, beligerent salmon snaggers or deer poachers, how many would choose the latter? How many people would want a daily piece of this action? Sure, we all crave adventure, but most of us prefer it in non-threatening forms. While teaching English can be a pain, my students are seldom armed and intoxicated, or at least not both at the same time. Busted plagiarists don't throw much at you besides looks of shame and panic.

It's just as troubling to see declining numbers of environmental scientists in public agencies. I suppose changing lifestyles play a role in that, but it's hard to believe the popular antagonism to all-things-government doesn't contribute to the problem too. Jobs that may vanish in the next round of budget cuts aren't that appealing. Nor is having know-nothing legislators scrutinizing and critiquing your work.

My hat is always off to those who care for the outdoors, in any capacity. When I was in high school, I sometimes thought about becoming a fisheries biologist, but it seemed impractical because the placement rate in the field was fairly low. I could work hard for a degree and have no job. So I decided to become a musician.

With that kind of rationality, it's probably just as well I steered clear of the sciences.

Tags: Outdoors; Society

The Grip of Winter

This could make a friendship go sour:

(The Minneapolis Star-Tribune) A 44-foot wooden cabin cruiser locked in ice on the St. Croix River might have to stay there all winter, a Wisconsin conservation warden said Friday.

The boat was moored at Beer Can Island at Hudson, Wis., when it broke loose and floated 4 miles downriver to Troy Township, said Paul Sickman, a St. Croix County warden for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

It was the result of a misunderstanding between the owner and a friend, Sickman said: "Each thought the other took care of it ... then they didn't call each other about it."

Read the Rest

I hope the pressures of shifting ice don't crush his boat over the winter. Reading this, I feel even happier about having a boat I can deflate and keep in my basement. I also feel curious to know the origins of the name "Beer Can Island." It could denote carefree bachanalian festivities or years of accumulated litter. Or both.

Things will probably be a little quiet here for the next few days. Loads of papers to grade and final grades to tally. And, of course, Christmas cards to mail. If we learn anything from the case of the icebound boat, it's the importance of staying in touch.

Tag: Winter

Bites, redux

On the surface of the sea, we see shimmering light, but beneath it is cold, black, and full of animals.

--Jean-Paul Sartre

The quote above is approximate, but what I remembered of it came to mind yesterday when I thought some more about the stuff in water that bites you, or might, at least. I said that the depths of the rivers were "creepy," but I'm not sure that's the best word. "Hungry," "grabby," or even "anxious" might be better. Underwater, humans are more likely to become prey than on land. We're used to thinking of predators as large beasts that may run us down and rip us apart, but few of us take that possibility seriously because we're unlikely to encounter one, even in the areas they inhabit (and truthfully, few of us go to those places. But leeches will quickly attatch to you, and small fish will nibble at your skin. As I mentioned the other day, large fish like pike will also take a swipe at you in some cases. The air can be pretty hungry too, if you consider mosquitos, black flies, and such things, but I think most people see those as a nusicance more than a threat (at least outside of malaria zones). A few years ago, some women were wading into a river just below where I was fishing. I caught a small rock bass, and as soon as they saw that, one said "ew, he just caught a fish, out of here," and they both left the water, looking worriedly at me as I unhooked the rockie and released it. The Anishinabe Indians who inhabited the Great Lakes area believed that potentially dangerous spirits inhabited waterways, and crossed the waters in silence out of fear of waking them. Whatever fears inspired those beliefs appear to have endured into the supposedly more rational times.

I'm not particularly squeamish about such things (especially because I'm usually wearing waders), but I do keep a close eye out for watersnakes when I'm wading. Our Northern brown water snakes aren't poisonous, but they are quick to strike if you get too near them. They are the "anxious" things below the water.


The stream I grew up fishing near Kalamazoo was thick with them. Occasionally, some did nip at my legs when I waded up on them without seeing them. Sometimes I backed off from fishing certain spots because I saw one curled around a branch between where I stood and where I wanted to fish. These days, when I'm usually fishing larger rivers, I sometimes see them swimming at some distance from me, and I enjoy watching them smoothly undulate their way across the surface.

Once, the night before I left for a fishing trip, I had a dream in which a dead water snake floated past me as I waded a river. Guess what drifted by the next day while I was fishing! Now THAT was creepy.

Tags: Fishing; Nature

The Bite You DON'T Want to Get

Yesterday, Wolf Blog linked to a story about a great white shark attacking a boat off the coast of Australia. Any ambitions I have about fishing the ocean cool just a bit when I read about this sort of thing.


(anybody know how to tie an outboard fly?)

(News.com.au) ROBERT Hogg, his son James and a friend have had a terrifying brush with a 4m Great White Shark.

The trio were enjoying a "relaxing day in the boat" last week at Middle Beach, about 40km north of Adelaide, when a shark launched out of the water about 3.30pm and tore into a bait bag attached to their 5.4m fibreglass boat….

Mr Hogg described his run-in with the great white as "a bit of a shock".

"We felt a bit of a jerk and then the boat sort of started pulling sideways," Mr Hogg said.

"It was bloody huge.”

Not anything you need to worry about on trout streams or bass lakes, though I have heard of pike and muskellunge chomping on digits dangled in the water. Also of snapping turtles drawn to people’s legs hanging down while they ride in float tubes. If you wet wade any distance in the Huron river, you're likely to pick up a few (sometimes more than a few) leeches A shark, though, is another level of danger altogether. Once while I was in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, I was having a blast riding an inflatable raft in the surf, getting knocked in occasionally, until my father reminded me we had been catching small sharks (2-3’) in those waters all week. I went ashore. Why go home minus a toe?

Questions of breathing (and sharks) aside, I don't know if subsurface waters are necessarily more hostile to humans than any other place they're likely to go, but to me at least, they do seem bit creepier. There is more risk of getting out just slightly less whole, physcially, than you were when you went in. Fortunately, the spiritual or emotional effects of fishing trend in the opposite direction.

Tags: Fishing

Yard Birds

Just after I posted yesterday's entry, I noticed a Cooper's hawk perched in the tree just outside my study, keeping a close eye on the nearby birdfeeder.


In vain, it turned out, since the chickadees and titmice had gone to cover before he landed. It was noteworthy, though, since I hadn't seen a raptor in the yard since a kestrel alighted on our forsythias a couple years ago.

The array of birds at our feeders is pretty limited. Of course, so is the menu. We put out black oil sunflower seeds and thistle seeds. Goldfinches come to the thistles (many fewer this year than in previous ones, for some reason), and the sunflower seeds draw chickadees, english sparrows, house finches, cardinals, blue jays, titmice, and white and red breasted nuthatches. A pretty standard winter population, in my experience, except for the red-breasted nuthatches. I'd never seen one before we moved to Ann Arbor. Around our place, they're as common as titmice, but still seem like a novelty. Downy woodpeckers occasionally show up in the yard, but don't come to the feeder. When we lived in Lansing, we had lots of downies on the sunflower seeds. I shouldn't forget the juncos that hang out under the feeder to glean what the rest of the birds knock off.

I can watch birds at the feeder for half an hour, easily. Funny how I've watched the same birds doing pretty much the same thing for most of my life, but still find them engrossing.

Tags:Birds; Nature

Friction to Land Grab

6 guvs protest bill's public land sale

By Gary Gerhardt, Rocky Mountain News
December 3, 2005

Six western governors put Congress on notice this week they oppose a measure pending in the U.S. Senate that would open millions of acres of public lands for sale to mining companies.

Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal wrote Sens. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., and Kent Conrad, D-N.D., of the Senate Budget Committee, on Thursday saying the sale of public lands in a budget reconciliation bill passed by the House could cut off public access for recreation and deny the states billions of dollars in mineral royalties.... The letter states the House bill would net only $158 million over five years, while current royalties yield more than $2 billion a year, split between the federal government and the states.

The letter was signed by Govs. Brian Schweitzer of Montana, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, Bill Richardson of New Mexico, Ted Kulongoski of Oregon, and Christine Gregoire of Washington.

All are Democrats.

The House bill, which would deed lands used for hard-rock mining to private ownership rather than leaving the ground in public ownership as it now does, was sponsored by Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., and set off a firestorm of criticism.

Environmental groups and sportsmen, in particular, say it is a land grab that will privatize much of the lands owned by the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, and possibly even spill into national parks, monuments and wildlife refuges as well.

Nice to hear that someone is standing up against Pombo's plans to sell off large chunks of western public lands. Two things are especially interesting about this news. First, opposition to the sale is coming from state politicians, who (especially in the west) frequently are sympathetic to extractive industries like mining. In the past, some western officials have supported the kind of sell-off Pombo wants. Second, the governors cite the sale's impact on recreational outdoorspeople. It's nice to see someone is taking account of us (and hey, we do pump some money into a lot of remote areas), and of the quality of life that access to wild land and water brings.

For me, the availability of large tracts of freely accessible land is one of the truly great and relatively unique things about the United States. Not that I don't appreciate the rest of this country's virtues (not least of which is the right to bitch about what's wrong with it), but from my perspective, there is no more tangible experience of freedom that parking your car at the edge of some forest and just walking in as far as you care to. Even better would be living close enough to such places that I could leave the car at home...someday. For now, I just hope Pombo's scheme goes down in flames.

Tags: Politics; Conservation

No Hands Fishing

God forbid I ever become paralyzed, but if it happens, all is not lost.

Students Design Breath-control for Fishing Rod

Mechanical engineering students at Oregon State University have designed simulated “breath-controlled” fishing rod devices that can be used by people with limited or no use of their arms and will demonstrate their prototypes during a competition Thursday.

Read The Rest

The Accidental Buckpole

Michigan's firearm deer season ended yesterday, but one Oakland County landowner continues to harvest deer year round. Not that he's trying to, but unintentionally, he's downing more venison than a lot of hunting camps did this year.

GROVELAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Some residents of rural Oakland County complain about a neighbor's wrought-iron fence that they say has impaled at least a dozen deer over the past five years.

It happened again this week, and hunter John Wareham said it shocked even him....Wareham and his wife, Joan, said they are upset with Richard Matheny's choice to leave the 4-foot-tall fence with arrow-shaped tips. The wrought-iron section covers the front of his 5-acre property, while a chain-link fence surrounds the other three sides.

Matheny said he spent $14,000 on the black fence because his neighbors wanted it to look nice. In a telephone interview Wednesday night, he said he would rather not have the fence at all but needs it to keep hunters from trespassing on his property. Read the rest.

The carnage on the fence is a bad thing, but there are several other problems that led to it happening. First, increased housing development in rural areas gives wildlife less room to move, and increases the likelihood of harmful conflicts between animals and people, however benign people's intentions are. Animals have to adapt the best they can; people often do little to adapt to their wild neighbors, to harmonize biotic community norms, as it were. I think this case represent that kind of acting without much reflection about impacts on the nonhuman world. This particular landowner is no more blameworthy than most of us, but that points to the basic problem: environmental calculations are just not part of how people generally make decsions in their daily lives. Clearly we're doing better at this than a few decades ago, but we need to do better, especially as more of us move into places where human impacts have been more limited, or at least more dispersed.

The landowner's complaint about tresspassing hunters points to another pattern of change that is helping to hang deer on his fence. Lands near metropolitan ares where hunters roamed only a few years ago are being developed or posted. This pushes some hunters to more remote public lands (whose animal populations consequently endure greater hunting pressures), and tempts others to tresspass. I don't condone tresspassing, but I do sympathize with the sense of losing someplace you habitually thought of as "your" spot. I was barred from a favorite fishing access when I was a kid because the land was sold and the new owner didn't want me walking across his property. I remonstrated with what, to my youthful mind, seemed like an unassailable argument: that I'd been fishing there for ten years. I felt like I had some claim to it. But of course he gave no credence to my pleas. As long as I lived there, I carried a grudge against the man, and snuck onto the parcel when I thought he was away.(I've since outgrown that kind of behavior!) In the case at hand, as with the deer, hunters become crowded and restive with loss of territory, and up goes the fence. It painfully kills deer that hunters might have harvested were the property still unposted. And I would bet the fence-killed deer are not going into anyone's freezer.

So there's a bigger story here than one decorative fence and a few unfortunate whitetails. Variations of this are probably playing out all over the US.

Tags:Nature; Wildlife