Bluegs and troots

Memday trip to the cabin.

From last weekend - the boys trip to the U.P.
Yes - its a late recap post from last weekend.
But at least its being posted in the same month.


The seven year old is convinced he knows how to fly cast like a pro and can catch as many bluegs as he wants to prove it to me.


The 85 yr old man stayed at the lake cabin, l to r, the nephew, the dried out husk of his former shell recovering from calihanoichicagoU.P. jetlag, the seven year old, and the bro on the way down to the trout stream


Flinging that spinner on the family bit of the escy river


I can catch troots too...


Tuesday morning hard frost on the dock, after snow monday night


barefootin in the frost

tall timber

new record fill up

25.4 mpg

rhinelander bp

Wisco

beloit 6:30 am

on the road

5am

last leg

hanoi -> taipei->sfo->ord

about 25 hours total, last leg is the redeye to chicago.

Vesak - from Hanoi

Day of Vesak Blog linked from image above...
This week the posts will be from the UN day of VESAK in Hanoi Vietnam.

The long leg is next

13 hours sfo to taipei

Abalone Weekend

It was along way to come for a minus 1.5 tide.




This is why I came for the minus 1.5 tide. These are two abalone snug in their warm crevice aboout 2 meters down.



My first ab of the weekend.



Celebratory beers on the beach with the morning's haul.


The rules work like this. Three a day and three in possession. So that means you can keep getting them, provided you keep eating them.

On the beach, minutes from the water, ab sashimi with wasabl and soy sauce.


Gratuitous ab porn.





That night - the feast was breaded and deep fried abalone steaks "lou's north beach" style.


Next day the leftover steaks from night before went in BALTs; Bacon, Abalone, Lettuce and tomato on toasted sourdough with mayo. Bull pine and sea ranch pacific view optional.


Abalone ceviche: lime juice, garlic, green salsa, cilatro, salt, pepper, coriander, tobasco.


Grilled ab rolls stuffed with jalapeno and cheddar cheese. and kobe steaks.


More gratuitous ab porn.


en route to Hanoi tonight.

2:17 am

crossing the golden gate

en route

Short hop tonight, coupla days, then the long hop sunday night.

Angler's genitals struck by lightning

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Taitung angler's genitals struck by lightning

The China Post news staff

TAITUNG, Taiwan -- An angler's genitals were struck by lightning while he was fishing yesterday morning at a reef on Green Island, located off Taiwan's coast in the eastern county of Taitung, according to coastal patrol policemen.

The angler, 47 and named Chen Ming-wen, was fishing at a reef off the Nanliao Bank of the Green Island, when a bolt of lightning -- attracted by the fishing pole he was holding -- struck, running down to his privates.

Soon after being informed of the accident at 8:55 a.m. that morning, firemen rushed to the spot and sent Chen to a nearby clinic for emergency medical treatment.

Coastal patrol policemen then sent Chen to Mackay Memorial Hospital for further treatment,

Doctors said that Chen had some 20 percent of his body burnt, and remained conscious, adding that they would conduct further examinations to see if Chen's sex ability is undermined or not.

Weathermen said that as the thunderstorm would linger in Taitung area, people had better not expose themselves to the open space.

Meanwhile, a veteran angler said fishing men should be aware that the general fiber-carbon fishing pole can conduct electricity.

Griffendor's first spring

Its mertensia virginica time in the floodplains of the North Branch of the Chicago River.


Positively otherworldy for the couple of days that they bloom.

Griff gets a look at the bluebells.


And a splash in the river.


Inside the city limits ...


View Larger Map

IF you need a trophy ...

Try one of Yoshikazu Fujioka works of Paper Trout art. Super cool. really.
The Oshorokoma pictured here.

The Fishing Pause Ends: Part 3

So this morning the fishing pause ends.

What is the fishing pause ? In Wisconsin the early season catch and release inland trout season ends a week before the regular season starts. Last week all fishing for trout was closed on the inland streams. This morning the regular season starts, and one might be sure that most of the catch and kill that occurs throughout the season will happen in the next couple of weeks across the states trout streams. If science mattered we would know that the continued selection of the largest classes of fish for harvest have destabilizing effects on the stream populations and ultimately are negatively selecting for large fish, as those are the ones that are generation after generation failing to reproduce. We can also know that across the board hatchery fish are no replacement for wild fish. Hatchery fish have smaller brains, and reproduce at a vastly lower rate in the wild. A recent study indicates that the Chinook salmon runs in California had as few as 10% wild fish, with the concomitant problems that comes both in putting a far weaker fish into the environment and masking the collapse of the wild fish population. Yesterday all fishing for salmon on the west coast was closed:

All salmon fishing banned on West Coast

Salmon fishing was banned along the West Coast for the first time in 160 years Thursday, a decision that is expected to have a devastating economic impact on fishermen, dozens of businesses, tourism and boating.

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez immediately declared a commercial fishery disaster, opening the door for Congress to appropriate money for anyone who will be economically harmed.

The closure of commercial and recreational fishing for chinook salmon in the ocean off California and most of Oregon was announced by the National Marine Fishery Service.

It followed the recommendation last month of the Pacific Fishery Management Council after the catastrophic disappearance of California's fabled fall run of the pink fish popularly known as king salmon.

It is the first total closure since commercial fishing started in the Bay Area in 1848.

It isn't as if this should be a surprise. We consistently pay no attention to the facts as they sit in front of us regarding management of these resources. These are not isolated scientific data sets. The recent article in National Geographic about the the collapse of the international fish stocks had this quote:

For reasons not fully understood, when areas are closed to fishing, snapper aggregate within them, forming large resident populations. Spiny rock lobsters ("crayfish" to New Zealanders) do the same. Their density inside the reserve is about 15 times higher than outside. Commercial crayfishermen have cashed in on the reserve's success because the outward migration of crayfish—a process marine biologists call spillover—brings the crustaceans to their pots, strategically placed just outside the boundary. These former skeptics are now some of the reserve's staunchest defenders. They refer to it as "our reserve" and act as marine minutemen, reporting poachers and boundary cheats.

S0 do these macro systems say anything about the rivers of the Midwest ? Our own history of the elimination of species, the Michigan Grayling, the Lake Superior Coaster and the Lake Michigan Lake trout all speak to the fact that all of these natural systems have been damaged and continue to be the wanton acts and policy of who and what we are as the alpha predator.

A curious thing happens when fish stocks decline: People who aren't aware of the old levels accept the new ones as normal. Over generations, societies adjust their expectations downward to match prevailing conditions. The concept of a healthy ocean drifts from greater to lesser abundance, richer to poorer biodiversity.

So today the fishing pause ends.

The Fishing pause: Part 2, more Damn Science

From the Science Daily


Fishing Throws Targeted Species Off Balance, Study Shows

ScienceDaily (Apr. 21, 2008) — Fishing activities can provoke volatile fluctuations in the populations they target, but it's not often clear why. A new study published in the journal Nature by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and colleagues has identified the general underlying mechanism.

Research led at Scripps with a distinguished team of government and international experts (including two chief scientific advisors to the United Kingdom) demonstrates that fishing can throw targeted fish populations off kilter. Fishing can alter the "age pyramid" by lopping off the few large, older fish that make up the top of the pyramid, leaving a broad base of faster-growing small younglings. The team found that this rapidly growing and transitory base is dynamically unstable-a finding having profound implications for the ecosystem and the fishing industries built upon it.

"The data show that fished species appear to be significantly more nonlinear and less stable than unfished species," said Professor George Sugihara of Scripps. "We think the mechanism involves systematic alteration of the demographic parameters-and especially increases in growth rates that magnify destabilization in many ways-which can happen as fishing truncates the age structure."



How exploited and unexploited fish populations differ. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of California - San Diego)

Read the whole article here