(Please don't) Take me to your leader.

It's sometimes fun to ponder what Mozart, or others of his ilk, would think of the music of, say, Led Zeppelin or Muddy Waters, or even English Jonny and T.J. Brayshaw.  What I suspect, in at least two of these cases, is that he would at the very least recognize it as music.  He might even like it.

It's baffling to me, then, that folks who all might be lumped under the label of "fishermen" could have such different ideas about what fishing is, or at least ought to be.  Recently, in my internet travels, I came upon two different discussions that gave me pause for some reflection.  In most ways, they have very little in common, with the exception of two things.  First, both have something to do with fishing (If I'm feeling generous.  Let's just say, they have to do with fish.)  Second, my reaction to both was the same, which is to say immediate, visceral, and negative.  I thought about this afterwards, particularly about why my reaction was so negative and whether this was even fair.  In the end, I think I'm more confused than disturbed.

The first had to do with a well-known tarpon tournament that occurs each year in Florida's Boca Grande Pass.  Large numbers of very big tarpon pass through here, and absurdly large numbers of anglers gather to catch them.  This isn't the backcountry, flats fishing some of you might be familiar with, because here the water is too deep to fly fish (or even sight fish) for the tarpon.  Instead, the competitors jig the fish up from the depths.  The entire scene is borderline chaos, and many believe that the numbers of anglers, the fishing techniques, and the fish-handling practices are unnecessarily hard on the fish, such that mortality of these fish far exceeds what many tarpon anglers would consider acceptable.  It's hard to watch video of this event and not suspect the same.  A fellow on The Drake's message board was roped into fishing "The Pass" with his boss, and describes the episode this way: "Sure, we hooked fish, quite a few in fact. Got four to the boat, lost two of them to sharks. I don't know if they were particularly thick that day, but I'd say about a third of the poons met "Jaws" from what I could see. For the guys on my boat, that was particularly cool. We broke off a few times weaving in and out of the amateurs who "didn't know how to fish the pass" as my guide told them. I enjoyed a few of the "What the fuck are you doing?", "Move your fucking boat, don't you know what you're fuckin' doing?" that were exchanged between boats that are all of a few feet apart at times."

Hold your thoughts for a moment, please.

The second discussion came from a local fishing board, and had to do with a fellow's account of a large musky he accidentally snagged while fishing. He acknowledged that the fish was snagged (in the tail), and released the fish after landing it.  These things happen.  My immediate, visceral and negative reaction was to what followed his account of the event.  After describing the long fight, the fisherman described why he decided to go home, rather than continue to fish: "It doesn't get any better than this!!" 

It seems there was simply no improving upon this fishing experience.   In any event, he was then warmly congratulated by several other fishermen for a "Great catch!!", and several also congratulated him for releasing the tail-snagged musky.

This angler released the musky, and I suspect little harm was done.  I don't know the effects of the Boca Grande Pass tarpon tournament on those tarpon, but let's assume for the moment that it has little if any negative effects on the tarpon.  My gut reaction is to be deeply offended by the tarpon tournament on many levels, but perhaps this isn't fair.  The fact that it doesn't appeal to me doesn't necessarily mean that it's distasteful.  What has me so distressed is that I am at a complete loss to understand what is going on in the heads of any of these fishermen.  I am thoroughly confused as to why anybody would want to participate in that circus.

And the musky snagger? He can't imagine anything better than snagging a gamefish by the tail? Nothing?  Nothing at all? To try to get a fish to actually take a lure would be, I guess, anticlimactic. Hit a pheasant with your car while driving down the highway? The same as a great quartering-away wingshot, apparently.  Fucking a corpse?  "Best sex I can possibly imagine!!"

And what of those who congratulated him?  I was particularly bemused by those who congratulated him for releasing the snagged fish, as if he deserves extra accolades for doing what is so clearly the only proper option.  Jonny recently congratulated me on my ten-year wedding anniversary, but he never bothered to also congratulate me for not beating my wife or fucking the babysitter.

It makes me wonder if, despite that we all call ourselves "fisherman", we're even from the same planet.  My first thought, upon meeting some of these folks, might be to instruct them to "Take me to your leader", but I suspect even mastermind behind this colony of alien fishermen wouldn't be able to make me understand.

I Love Thee Like A Carp

Not to be outdone by the tender words of the lovely Erin Block, we note that Zakur and Quill have been waxing their lyrics these past few days. Bravo! Well, be damned, if our very own TJ Brayshaw hasn't sent me his poetry this fine evening. Inspired readers are encouraged to submit poems of their own, and we'll select a winner based on our own criteria of what the best shit is.

Fuck Steelhead

It matters not the fly I have chosen

Since the rivers are blown out or are all frozen

And so I admit

Once I've finished my fit:

With large steehead I'll not be posin'

I Love Thee Like a Carp

With these carp I feel a connection

Those lips give me cause for reflection

I can't get enough

Of that scaly stuff

Is it wrong that I have an erection?

Not Fishing on Sunday

My double haul's perfect, my mending inspired

The backing is fresh, the guide has been hired

I work late on Friday, lest I get fired

In housework the next day, I'm totally mired

Now Sunday is here... but I'm too fucking tired.

The Novice

Your passion is real, your commitment sincere

You've learned how to tie, you've got all the gear

But please don't forget

That your ears are still wet

Since you've fly fished for what? Just one fucking year!

Old English, up a tree again.

The Guy We All Know

The jacket is "Simms", it fits like a tux

Your Charlton reel costs twelve-hundred bucks

Yet despite all that money

(It's really quite funny)

You don't even realize: your casting still sucks

English Jonny

There once was a fellow from Guilford
Who fished from Rhode Island to Milford
At night he would go
Where the Culvert doth flow
This time from his family, he pilfered.







[Two of these limericks were published in slightly different forms in the Fall 2013 issue of "The Drake" magazine.  Thanks to Tom Bie and "The Drake" for putting it out there.]

Redds, Southern-Style

Until recently, I never gave much thought, either way, to fishing over redds.  A redd (pronounced “reh-du-du”, I guess) is that hollow depression in the river bottom made by a spawning trout or salmon where later the eggs will be laid and subsequently fertilized. Recently, Gary pointed out the irony inherent in Great Lakes steelheaders, i.e. that they violently oppose fishing over steelhead redds, despite that steelhead are not native to the Great Lakes, and in most cases, no natural reproduction occurs anyway.  Well, the truth is that, as far as I can tell, most Lake Erie steelheaders have no such qualms about fishing over redds, or about anything, for that matter.  For example, on my last trip, I watched an angler snag all of these fish from one very small pool. Lacking a stringer, he simply threaded a nylon tie-down strap through their gills, and then placed them in this puddle to keep them alive.

Good eats

And this brings me to today’s recipe, just in time for the holidays. This recipe is courtesy of Ironic Gary, as he is known, and I have to admit, it’s a real winner.  I was skeptical, initially, but this has become a staple in the Brayshaw household.

You can adjust the batter to suit your tastes, but it is absolutely essential that you keep the redds very cold until they’re dipped in the batter.  This helps the batter to stick to the redd. Fortunately, the redds are naturally cold, since steelhead, trout and salmon are cold-water fish. In addition, the recipe’s proportions can be adjusted to accommodate brook trout redds, which are usually much smaller than steelhead redds. (In fact, at home we sometimes simply sauté a batch of brook trout redds in a stove-top skillet, thus obviating the need for a deep fryer altogether.)

•    6 steelhead redds (trout, salmon redds may be substituted)

•    1/2 cup evaporated milk

•    1 tablespoon salt

•    dash pepper

•    1 cup flour

•    1/2 cup yellow cornmeal

•    2 teaspoons paprika

•    Deep fryer, with oil

Clean, wash and dry the redds. It is essential to keep the redds very cold if the batter is going to stick to them. Combine milk, salt and pepper in a bowl. In a pie plate or shallow dish, combine flour, cornmeal and paprika. Dip redds in milk mixture then roll in flour and cornmeal mixture. Fry redds in hot oil for about 4 minutes. Test carefully with a fork or felt-studded wader boot and fry for 4 to 6 minutes longer, or until the redds flake easily with a fork and are browned. Drain on paper towels. Serve with bacon and hush puppies and coleslaw, if desired. Serves 6.

Carefully lower the battered redds into the fryer

The Culvert selects the best ____________ of the year!

How does he do it?  He always carries a ______________, that's how!!!

The coming of fall is always bittersweet, since it means the close of much of the best fishing of the year.  But fall is also when we here at The Culvert review products, just in time for your holiday shopping! Stay tuned for unbiased reviews on the latest and greatest products to hit the shelves in 2011, and get a jump on 2012.  We don't sugarcoat anything here at The Culvert, least of all our reviews.  In fact, while we haven't yet decided what products to review, we've already written the unbiased review itself, and as soon as the products start rolling into the central office, we'll be on the water testing 'em !  Read on...

We all have one - that favorite hat, or pair of slippers - that thing which is perfect, and made so because it has grown with us, over time.  So much so, in fact, that it's hard to say where we stop, and it begins. The problem, of course, is that these things never start that way.  That kind of perfect comes only with time…or does it? Had you told us that the wait was over, we wouldn't have believed it, until now.  But it's true, and it's our hope that you won't just take our word for it.  Until then, our word will have to suffice.  

Perhaps on occasion, somebody pulls a fast one on English Jonny.  Sometimes ol' Brayshaw gets bamboozled.  But it's a rare product, indeed, that can impress us both.  But with ________________ we have both found our "perfect pair of slippers", and despite our differing shoes sizes, we both agreed that ________________ "fit" perfectly, right from the start.

The first thing we noticed, the moment we took _________________ out of the box, was the exquisite craftsmanship.  No, it's not often that one describes ________________ in terms normally reserved for a Stradavarius, but then again, the ___________________ from ___________________ is simply no ordinary _____________________.  Is this sort of attention to detail necessary?  No, probably not.  Certainly not if one's goal is simply to catch fish.  But with ________________,  catching fish becomes an experience.

And catch fish we did. The _______________ is a work of art, for sure.  But it's more than that. From the moment we reached the water, the ________________ from _________________ performed flawlessly. Jonny netted the largest fish of the season moments after our arrival at the water's edge, and while the crowd came to see his fish, it was the __________________ that drew all of the "oohs" and "ahhhs".  Could he have caught that fish without his _________________?  Not likely, and everybody knew it.  But there wasn't enough gold in Fort Knox to make Jonny part with his new _________________, such was his admiration.

Not to put to fine a point on the matter, but the _______________ is simply the last __________________ you will ever need to buy.  Do you need it to catch fish?  Maybe not. Do you need it to look good?  Maybe not.  

But we see no reason why, at a reasonable $ __, ______, you can't do both.

Getting Ready, # 2.

[Editor's Note: We have decided to make the contents of some recently confiscated hard drives available to you, the readers of The Angler's Culvert. Much of what has been uncovered is highly disturbing, but in the interest of national security, we felt it was only appropriate to release it. Analysts are still in the process of trying to make sense of it all, but it's clear that whatever it is that they're doing, it is clear that they're getting ready. ]

English Jonny (EJ): Thank you for sending me that poem. It is so bad it has made my balls ache.

T.J. Brayshaw (TJ): Yeah, he can certainly make one's balls ache. There's probably a lesson in there.

EJ: Yes, of course. But, the trip? What about food? Duck? Or lamb. Definitely we shall put red meat to our lips. Do you want to do any trout fishing? Late May is an excellent time to fish the upper river, and it's quite lovely up there. I wonder if we should start to look at tides and actually have some kind of plan for the week?

TJ: I've been meaning to look at the tide charts, but haven't had time, and figured it isn't urgent yet. Weather isn't as predictable as tides, anyway, so we'll have to be flexible. My only "plan", at this point, is to bring as many fly rods, lines, sex toys, reels, flies, waders, pain killers, muscle relaxers, digital cameras, one-dollar bills, books, apple-green bucktail hairs, duck recipes, and corn niblets as my car will hold, and start driving east. You'll have whisky, right?

EJ: Yes, of course. Bill has been hinting that he'd like come over to be with men and drink in excess, despite the fact that he knows you're visiting.

TJ: It would be good to have Bill over. Most primal rituals that occur around a fire involve some sort of sacrifice, and he seems like a good candidate. He's not so important that our society cannot thrive without him, but he's also not so offensive as to displease the gods.

EJ: Good. I'll open the invite to him. We can decide on a specific night later. He will look good on a spit with an orange in his mouth.

TJ: Yes. With the orange fruit in one end, and the orange Butt Out 2 in the other, he'll be a gourmet meal fit for a magazine spread. Charlie's wife can take the photos. We should stop now.

EJ: You should stop now. Please bring some books. And your fly-tying vise. I figure when we're not out fishing, having drunken fire pit Roderick Haig-Brown recitals (while gently turning the Bill spit roast), we might just tie a fly.

TJ: Yes, indeed. As for the spit, I have a rod & fly turner (for epoxy flies or the epoxy wraps on fly rod guides) that a friend made for me. I wonder if I should bring it so that we don't have to worry about turning Bill regularly. It's so easy to picture him, golden brown, with just the right amount of crackling skin and dripping fat, that I'd really hate to ruin it because we're both writhing on the ground in a Haig-Brown paroxysm.

Keeping Up with Olde English... Jonny

Dear Brayshaw,

I didn't understand a word of Jonny's last post. Can you help me?

- Confused in Cornwall (Cornwall, Pennsylvania, that is)

Dear Confused,

Your confusion is perfectly understandable. Jonny speaks what is known as Olde English; indeed, he is the last known living speaker of the language (and, because it's the only language he speaks, in actual fact he can communicate with nobody). The problem, of course, is that the Culvert is an American website, and often the software we use is simply unable to translate properly. But I've done it for you.

First, I select Jonny's story. I then run this through our "Web to Olde English" translator, thus producing (for example):

Now, I have to run this through another back-translator (please excuse all the webmaster/computer jargon), in this case "Olde English to American", thus producing:

"Me 'n ol' Z wents t' fishin', and twern't bad. We had t' drive a fer piece, but got us a few, 'n had a burger 'n fries on th'way home."

(That's actually the entire story, once translated.)

Always happy t' help!

T.J. Brayshaw

Sporting? Yes - but is it ethical?

Fishing, but fly fishing more specifically, went through a light-tackle revolution some years ago. For some, the revolution is not over, but most of us now realize that while it may be "sporting" to try to catch large fish on very light rods and light tippets, this does a disservice to the fish (well, more of a disservice than catching it on appropriately-sized tackle.) Not surprisingly, perhaps, hunting has also dealt with its own identity crisis more than once. There is no catch-and-release in hunting, of course, and for this reason the ethics surrounding the bloodiest of the blood sports can sometimes get even more complicated.

I myself was recently sucked into this moral morass, and while I'm embarrassed to admit the details, I think doing so is important. Robert Ruark knew what he was talking about, and when I reach that Great Hunting Lodge On High, I'll have some explaining to do should he meet me at the door.

Here's what happened: Some two years ago, I was casually flipping through the sporting goods flyer that comes to my house, via the U.S. Postal Service, three times a day. Twas there that I saw this new item, the "Butt Out":

The directions were short, sweet and to the point: "Insert into the anal canal and twist until it grabs the membrane. Continue twisting another half turn, then steadily pull." They were accompanied a three-part illustration, in case something was still unclear.

That sounds easy enough, I thought, but I also instantly recognized that the challenge here would be "getting a shot off", so-to-speak. A very good bow-hunter can drop a deer at 40 yards, but most recognize that getting much closer is not only desirable (for an effective kill), but most importantly, requires stalking skills of the highest degree. Can you get within 15 yards? Or ten? Now imagine, if you can, the kind of stalking skill required to harvest a deer with this new, most primitive of weapons? I became obsessed.

I'm going to spare you the details, except to tell you that, yes, I did get close enough. Three times. The first deer, not surprisingly, bolted the instant my weapon struck home and I, completely unprepared for its strength (after all, no deer I'd ever killed in the past...from a distance...could have prepared me), lost my grip on my weapon. I stood there, draped in humiliation, as I watched the blaze orange weapon bound across the field, just below the white flag of the raised tail. It's only now, in hindsight (get it?), that I realize my own humiliation was just a fraction of that experienced by the deer.

After this initial failure, I got smart. I fashioned a wrist-lanyard to my weapon (which I had now also painted in full camouflage, incidentally). The second deer did not take my weapon, but instead left me with 18 inches of alimentary tract and a dislocated shoulder. I am not proud of this.

Ultimately, I did get my buck. But at what price? Am I sportsman? What did I prove? I don't recall that final hunt with fond memories; instead, it makes me nauseous. I should have known. I'm better than this. We're all better than this. The time for extra-light tackle has come and gone. The Butt Out's time never should have come at all.