Silly on a Stick

Specialized things are specialized for a reason.

This is true of dogs, as I have noted in the past. A terrier small enough to go to ground cannot also be large enough to be a really excellent all-day retriever. You may get a small dog that can retrieve a few birds, but it will not be as good a dog as a dedicated breed on either end of the spectrum.

More likely, by planting one foot on the dock and one foot on the boat, you are going to end up in the water. Sometimes it's best to make a decision and not get somewhere in the middle.

And so it is with guns and fishing rods. One is not like the other, and if you need both out in the woods, might I suggest a reasonably-priced four-piece Eagle Claw pack rod paired with a Smith and Wesson .22 Kit Gun or its analog made by Taurus?

But no, an American genius has decided what the world really needs is a 1-pound pack-rifle and fishing pole combination.

As a fishing pole, it appears to be a wonderful tire iron, and as a rifle it appears to be a wonderful tire iron that loads one shot at a time and might blow up in your face. 

To repeat: Specialized things are specialized for a reason.
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Fish on Friday

Networking back when it had something to do with nets.

This was Gloucester, Massachusetts in 1905. A Shorpy great. Click to enlarge.
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No Fish On Fridays

Fish on Fridays

Enjoy!
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Fish on Friday

A nice array of properly aged Striped Bass.
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Fish on Fridays

Carpe diem.

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Fish on Friday

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This song could be sung with almost the same lyrics, but with "gone digging" as a substitue.

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The Best Ice Fishing Video You Will See Today

from Juuso Mettälä on Vimeo.

This is the best ice fishing video you will see all day. Filmed at Lake Saarijärvi in Vaala, Finland. Let's see how long it takes you to figure out what is going on.
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Fish on Fridays: Unnatural Selection Edition

From The Oregonian:

Genetic adaptation of hatchery steelhead starts hurting spawning success within just one generation, according to a study of Hood River fish that could lead to pinning down the causes of hatchery domestication.

Classic Darwinian evolution is clearly at work –- and it's working fast, the researchers concluded in their study, published today by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

...Hood River steelhead that thrived in hatcheries had traits that were "beneficial in captivity but severely maladaptive in the wild," the study says.

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Fish on Fridays: Devil Ray Edition

Devil Rays Tooling the Sky in the Sea of Cortez:

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Fish on Fridays: Killer Whale Verus Great White:

Killer Whale Verus Great White:



The Killer Whale grabs and flips the Great White to immobilize it. Yeah, I think this Orca has done this particular trick before!  

What's the Jack Russell connection you ask?  What?  You don't know who the lead singer of Great White is?  Seriously?
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A Big Picture of a Curious Great White

Double click to enlarge.  Note the scar tissue!



From the Big Picture at The Boston Globe comes this and other National Geographic photos.  This is a Great White Shark off the Isla de Guadalupe near Baja, Mexico.
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Fly Rod As Art and Craftsmanship as Porn

Scott | behind the scenes from Scott Fly Rods on Vimeo.

This little commercial is marinated in awesomeness.
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World Record Blue Catfish Taken in Virginia

This 143 pound blue catfish was caught in Bugg Island Lake, Virginia, and should beat the previous world record by more than a dozen pounds.  Link
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Why Don't I Eat Fish?

Why don't I eat fish? 

People often ask me this when I eat out, as it's my only dietary restriction, and it seems odd to a lot of people including the "vegetarians" who have somehow (mysteriously) decided that fish are a kind of vegetable.

I am actually a pretty good fresh-water angler and love to eat fish (especially flounder, sole, swordfish, tuna) but I gave up eating fish more than two decades ago as it became clear that wild fisheries management was not possible under existing international law, and the science of aquaculture was not yet developed to the point where it was entirely safe on all scores.

Fisheries management is not easy, but by now it's pretty clear that aquaculture is the only way forward, same as poultry houses replaced pheasant hunting, and cattle ranching replaced buffalo hunts. We can repurpose horse and chicken waste (as energy and fertlizer for example), but we cannot quickly grow back an ocean bottom that has been trawled, nor do we (yet) know how to pen-raise swordfish, nor can we harvest wild shrimp without at least seven pounds of bycatch tossed overboard.

The problem of course, is that we now have too many mouths to feed in this world, and so as the world is new so must we think anew. Part of thinking anew is rethinking some of the less-sustainable food sources we have in this world.

Job One, the world has agreed, is to end whaling, as well as the killing of sea turtles and the harvest of sea turtle eggs.

Job Two is to get better at aquaculture, and we are quickly doing that, as I noted in an informal email I wrote some years back and which I now see has been picked up by the folks at Sea Shepherd.

Will I ever eat fish again?  Maybe. Tilapia (a genus of African cichlid with about 100 member species) is being farmed in a logical way that keeps the fish-food sources very low on the chain (i.e. the food is soybeans) while keeping the antibiotic and parasite load pretty low as well.  We shall see.  Maybe it's time to greenlight Tilapia?  I am not sure, but I am keeping my option opens.  As the world is new, so must I (slowly) think anew.
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Asian Carp: Exporting the Problem to China

America may be about ready to solve the Asian carp problem.

Job One is to turn it into a business. Towards that end, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity has made a $2 million grant to the Big River Fish Corp of Pike County, Illinois so they can expand operations and export Asian carp back to China. The company is kicking in $1.5 million of its own money, and plans to create 60 jobs, according to Prairie State Outdoors.

Job Two is to trap these pesky bastards in even larger numbers than then are now being netted. Towards that end, Peter Sorenson at the University of Minnesota has developed a hormonal implant that simulates the production of sex pheromones in fish so that a "bait" fish, put in a trap becomes sexually irresisable.   If that's is successful, one can imagine a permanent trapping system put into a river or canal, where the fish would be netted up in the front, ground up, and chummed out the back.  Dust to dust, and fish back to fish. In the mean time, it's nets, shocking systems, and poison.
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Smile for the Camera

This is a Goliath Tigerfish caught by Jermey Wade in the Congo River while filming his show "River Monsters."

Goliath Tigerfish are every bit as dangerous as they look. Says Wade: "If you aren't careful it could easily take your finger off or worse."
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I Want to Catch a 50 Pound Striped Bass

Link

Competitive hunting and fishing, in which the first competition is always with the spouse. Hat tip to Ted Williams for this one!
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We May Need a Bigger Fish Bowl

This 30-pound gold Koi was pulled from a lake in France by a fisherman. He was released alive, well, and famous.
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Imagine Being the Camera Man