January2011
It was suggested, not by myself but by others, that last week’s Dirty Harry blog entry may have set the bar too high to ever be reached again, by the likes of me anyway. Now that’s not to say that I agree with the suggestion that it was a bar-raising entry, but given the depths of my mediocrity as both an angler and a writer, I believe there is much truth in the assertion that I may have peaked. Long-time UA supporter Rebecca Garlock (keeper of the Outdooress blog and a Co-Chief Executive of the Outdoor Blogger Network) suggested in the comments section that I was, in fact, “toast”.
Many once-great professional athletes have hung on too long, only to end up tarnishing if not completely disgracing themselves and their legacies. Be the reasons what they may — the need for more lucrative paydays, a spirit that just couldn’t live without the competition, an ego too large for their own good, or perhaps a combination of them all — playing past their prime rarely if ever has resulted favorably for either the athletes or their fans.
As fans, nobody who witnessed these athletes at the height of their careers enjoyed seeing them wallow miserably in frustrating despair as their aging bodies were no longer capable of competing with younger, faster, stronger, better-dressed athletes. Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Michael Jordan, Roger Clemens, Brent Favre…the list goes on. The best way to bastardize an otherwise brilliant career, it seems, is to linger past one’s prime. I am of the opinion that it’s far better to go out while you’re on top – to retire with grace and dignity, and humility. If you don’t, that humility will inevitably be shoved down your throat with great force.
That being said, which is not to say that the Unaccomplished Angler has ever approached a level of brilliance with regard to anything, I do believe it is time to bow out gracefully, before someone suggests I do.
To my 8 loyal followers who stuck with me over the course of the past year and a half or so, thank you—your support has made it all worthwhile. And to the many who jumped on the bandwagon just recently and left comments, thanks for doing so. It helps ease the transition into retirement knowing that I had a thousand or so extra hits on my website in the end.
What will I do with all my free time now that the blog of Unaccomplished Angler will no longer be demanding the minimal effort required to produce marginally acceptable Weekly Drivel? Hopefully something lucrative. I’ve got my kids fly fishing books to promote, and a couple more to finish in the hope that my publisher demands them soon. I’ve got fish to try to catch, and a job to look for (if you’re hiring, drop me a line. Seriously).
It’s been fun while it lasted—at least for me—but I smell burnt toast.
I’m going fishing. Tightlines,
With all the odd flavored vodkas on the market these days, including Smoked Salmon vodka, it was only a matter of time before wine makers followed a similar path. I recently found myself in the wine aisle at the local grocery store—a place where I am neither comfortable nor familiar. Surrounded by a daunting number of brands, a confusing array of different wine types, and serious looking people who appear to be right at home, the wine aisle is a scary place. I’m much more at ease in the beer section. The far end of the beer section to be sure, where Pabst Blue Ribbon and Bud Light reign superior. When I’m feeling all mature and grown-up I’ll spring for some Kokanee because it’s a bit more substantial and well, it’s named after fish.
When I do happen to buy a bottle of red wine on occasion, I generally shop by price. If it’s under $8 a bottle it captures my interest. But I am also influenced by wine bottle labels. As an artist/graphic designer type, I appreciate a label that sets the brand apart from others. One of my favorites, for example, is Red Table Wine, which hails from the same winemaker as House Wine, Steak House, and Fish House. I like a wine maker that doesn’t take themselves too seriously.
Aside from fancying a unique label I’m also a person inclined toward the sport of angling, so a bottle of wine with a fish reference on the label will grab my attention like the strands of flash in a marabou streamer. I pondered picking up a bottle of Coho, but it felt a bit out of season in the sense that the silvers have long since spawned; their carcasses by now completely decomposed and returned to the sediment of the river banks and bottoms. However, it is the heart of winter steelhead season, so one can imagine my delight when I happened upon Steelhead Red. It’s a Zinfandel, which means absolutely nothing to me. I called my sister-in-law to ask her what a Zinfandel is (it’s a red wine, apparently). Frankly I don’t I don’t even care how it tastes—it’s got a steelhead on the label. There were only two bottle left, so I grabbed them both. They were fin-clipped so I put a couple notches in my catch card and proceeded toward the checkout.
According to the website for Quivira Vineyards, makers of Steelhead wines:
“Steelhead is the first wine brand dedicated to fisheries conservation. A portion of the proceeds from every bottle of Steelhead Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel and Steelhead Dry Creek Valley Sauvignon Blanc sold help fund Trout Unlimited’s creek restoration projects. Enjoy these delicious wines and raise your glass to healthier creeks throughout North America!”
Clearly I’m not one to judge whether a wine is any good or not, but after popping the cork, letting it breath, sloshing it around the glass and holding my nose over it before ultimately taking a swig, I can honestly say that I enjoyed Steelhead Red. Surprisingly, it tasted nothing like fish. More like red wine.
Actually, another reason I bought the Steelhead Red is so I could say I caught a couple steelhead today—a heroic if not completely impossible task on a wet, miserable day when our rivers are actually blown out and at or above flood stage. It seemed the right thing to do.
Interestingly in the past few weeks I’ve stumbled upon a couple of different discussions about a book that was published in 2010, An Entirely Synthetic Fish: How Rainbow Trout Beguiled America and Overran the World by Anders Halverson. The first discussion was on a very popular fly fishing forum, and as so often is the case on internet forums the thread flew off course and turned sour. By the time the discussion had spawned out I’d forgotten what the intent of it was in the first place. Then a couple weeks later, The Trout Underground posted a review of the book and reeled me back in. I have not yet read the book, but it’s on my list. Actually I was hoping to receive this book as either a Christmas gift, but apparently I was bad this year.
Because I’ve not read the book I can not speak to its essence, but in the meantime I’ve done a bit of reading about the book and listened to a Fish Explorer podcast interview with the author. To ponder the concept of the rainbow trout being introduced so widely to so many waters where it was not native is pretty amazing, and is as mind boggling as the quickness with which we settled the American West (and all the bad stuff that came of that, including the artificial introduction of the rainbow trout). I fully admit that I did not know that the rainbow is native only to a narrow band along the Pacific Rim from Mexico north to the Bering Strait and Kamchatka. Today an angler can undoubtedly catch more rainbows in rivers across America than any other type of trout. In many of these waters, while not native, the rainbows are wild in the sense that they’re self-propagating and thriving. Unfortunately at the cost of some native species, both fish and certain types of frogs.
I think I get it. We as a civilization are at a point where we’re reflecting back with shame for all the bad stuff we’ve done to our world and the environment over the past decades. We’re the “guilt generation” trying to undo what has been done by generations before: there’s a lot of habitat restoration being done in an attempt to help recover fish runs that we as humans have nearly wiped out in many places. Dams are being torn down, rip rap banks being removed so flood waters can reclaim their natural floodplains and provide safe haven for fish during high water, trees are being replanted along riparian zones previously cleared of all vegetation, etc. The list goes on, and it’s good that we’re doing something about it. As part of this attempt to undo what has been done, hatchery fish of all kinds are being given a bad rap because, well, they’re not “wild”, in many cases they’re non-indigenous and frankly by nature’s design they don’t belong. Kinda like the white Europeans when we they landed on the east coast 513 years ago.
But what of the homogenous rainbow trout, specifically? They’ve been around in so many waters for so long that we’ll never get rid of them, and many probably don’t want to. From what I’ve gleaned, this is not the point of An Entirely Synthetic Fish, either. Personally I treat a wild (not the same as native) rainbow or brown trout with the same care in handling as I do a cutthroat or a bull trout. If they’re thriving, for the most part, in most areas where they were introduced, should perhaps we not simply embrace the rainbow for the aerobatic, strong fighting fish they are? It’s not their fault we put them where they never would have been on their own: they had little say in the matter. Yet here they are in lakes and streams and rivers across the country and the world. Can’t we just show them a little love? If these non-native rainbows find out how we really feel about them, they’re likely to become resentful and dour, and may resort to even more hideous means of damaging self indulgence as they seek our acceptance. They may not be the au natural, Birkenstock-wearing native cutthroat or the prestigious eastern brook trout that we love to romanticize about, but completely synthetic? Come on – isn’t that a little much? A little cosmetic surgery never hurt anyone. They just want to be accepted, if not loved.
Heck, even the hybrids are doing it.
My word, what is next—pectoral fin augmentation?
PS- My apologies to Mr. Halverson for the content of this article.