Old Age: Teh Suxx0r

Man it sucks getting old.

Teh Wind Knot has just gotten back from a bidness trip that included four countries on three continents over the last week and a half. Your hero is exhausted and he has to jump on a plane to visit our nation's capital for a couple of days this afternoon. Ten years ago, that would be nothing. I used to have to go for a week or so at a time and never sleep in a bed--just airplanes. A quick shower and I was good to go. Not any more.

Same thing for fishing. I used to be hardcore, like The Wet Boots, willing to fish hard 24/7, if necessary. Eight straight days of stripping streamers fifteen hours a day in Chile was nothing. Just wrap some duct tape around the cuts on the fingers and keep getting it. Now I pace myself. I used to laugh at the old farts sitting on the bank waiting for a hatch to arrive. Why sit when you can fish? Even if nothing is happening, I can still try to dredge something up with a nymph or a streamer. I used to be able to swing the mouse until three or four in the morning then grab a few winks and be up in time for a trico hatch. Now I usually have to choose which way to go because I know it is unlikely that I will be able to get out of bed at dawn if I just got in an hour or two ago.

I like to think that I have picked up a little wisdom and cunning to make up for the lost energy, but I am probably just rationalizing. Oh well, at least you get to take in some of the scenery sitting on a log waiting for a hatch. I am more balanced now. That is my story and I am sticking to it.

Back The Brookie!

Teh Wind Knot was catching up on some web surfing and was checking out the TU Brook Trout Restoration page (formerly the grass roots Back the Brookie program before it was nationalized). One of the things that has been done as part of the Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture is a watershed by watershed study of former brook trout water to see where the little fellas live now. The results are pretty sobering.



Green means that 90-100% of historical habitat is occupied by reproducing brook trout. Yellow is 50-90%; Red is 1-50%; Pink means that they are there, but there aren't good numbers on population; and Grey means that they are gone. Kaput.

It is a dire picture.

The reasons for the demise of brook trout are many and what to do about it is a complicated question. However, we should care about this, since the brook trout can be thought of as the canary in the coal mine for air and water quality. There are a lot of folks who live downstream of these degraded watersheds. If we can help the brook trout, we can help the peoples as well.

¡Estos Chilenos Están Locos!

Breathless rumors have been going around the fly fishing message boards (probably by the same guy posting on all of them) about a recent ban by the Chilean department of agriculture on folk's bringing flies made from feathers into the country.

Teh Wind Knot has not been able to verify this officially, but has heard it from sources more reliable than FF message boards (if there is such a thing) and, given previous experiences with Chilean customs, has to believe it is true.

The furor makes this sound worse than Pinochet's death squads or Allende's Cuban "advisors"--an evil plot by the government to force anglers traveling to flail the waters to support the massive local fly shop industry. I doubt it.

The Chileans may be overreacting to the bird flu scare, especially given that it is unlikely that the virus would be very happy in dead chickens instead of live ones. But Chile has a history of overreacting to such threats and also some good reason.

Chile is essentially an island. And before you accuse TWK of not being able to read a map, you have to remember that it is bordered on two sides by the Pacific. In the north, it is cut off by the driest desert in the world and has Los Andes protecting the Eastern flank. Because of this isolation, it has more in common with New Zealand than the U.S. and can lay claim to being home to more unique species than any other place in the world. This isolation allowed Chile to survive the phylloxera epidemic that destroyed the French wine industry in the 1800s (and did the same to its Northern neighbor, Peru). So, they have some reason to be overprotective at times.

If you are planning to go to Chile, don't freak and don't try to smuggle your favorite patterns into the country. Just leave them at home. You can buy flies there (mostly made in China like yours were) at reasonable prices. If you are fishing with a guide or outfitter, they will want to be helpful, not gouge you. That is not good for business. Besides, you probably don't have the magic bug in your box anyway.

It is a vacation. Chill. And enjoy the fishing. It is awesome.

Some Old Skool Tunes

Teh Wind Knot has been on a musical nostalgia kick lately--ever since a buddy called to say that Cheap Trucker's Speed was having a reunion gig next month in Morgantown. We are skipping teh CTS reunion, since it would involve going to West Virginia. On purpose, of all things.

However, it did cause us look back to some of the bands from the formative years. In the interest of spreading the love, I give you one of my favorite bands of all time, Jason and the Scorchers:



Many of you will be too young to remember teh suckage that was 80's music. If you listened to the radio or went to record stores (some of you will remember radios sans satellites and record stores) there was nothing but Eurotrash, synthesizer, Flock of Seagulls crap. Fortunately there were a few good bands that kicked ass, although never really made it big. Jason was one of these. And, they were much better live. Probably responsible for at least four of TWK's top ten shows of all time.

Enjoy.

Free Markets And Trout Streams

Once again, Thee Ass Hooked Whitey beat me to it.

In his post Who is the Property Environmental and Research Center and why do they hate us?, he brings up a New York Times article (subscription may be required) that brings some of the free market, property rights type arguments into the fray.

Since TWK is an economist by training, he can't disagree with many of these arguments (union rules, you know). The success of using property rights as one tool to prevent poaching of wildlife in Africa is a good example.

However, the SRC case is a different animal from, say, a bunch of folks chipping in to fix up a spring creek. The rights to navigable streams are publicly owned by the states. Allowing SRC to take over such a stream for nothing doesn't even do what the property folks argue. It is analogous to giving away grazing or mineral rights on public land. You get the same over-consumption of an underpriced commodity, except the consumers are different. It is just a transfer of wealth from the state and people to the SRC.

Now if the state of PA decided that the best way to manage its streams held in trust would be to lease the rights to certain sections of streams to fishing clubs like the SRC and priced it appropriately, I don't have a problem with that. The funds raised from these leases could be used for habitat restoration on other sections of stream that might badly need the funding or increased enforcement of game laws, etc.

This is not what happened with the Spring Ridge Club. They didn't pay to use the water that is supposed to be held in trust by the state for all its folks. They put up no trespassing signs and strung piano wire across the stream. Doesn't sound like an innovative, free market solution to me.

More River Nappers

We promised to continue outing the river napping members of the Spring Ridge Club. Somewhat delayed, due to events outside the control ot TWK's crack research team, here is the second installment

Lewis Campbell, CEO of Textron

Lewis B. Campbell is chairman, president and chief executive officer of Textron Inc. He also leads the company's Management Committee, International Advisory Council and Transformation Leadership Team. Campbell has played a key role in developing Textron's strategic and operational focus, reshaping its portfolio of businesses, and leading the company to realize enterprise-wide synergies to achieve greater operating efficiencies.

Textron

Barden Gale, Chief Investment Officer, ABP Investments

Barden Gale is Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of Global Real Estate at ABP Investments US, Inc., the investment arm of Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP, one of the largest pension funds in the world. Mr. Gale is responsible for all real estate activities of ABP. ABP's real estate holdings are concentrated in securities of publicly traded real estate companies and selected private entities and funds in Europe, the United States and Asia Pacific.

ABP Investments

John Barrett, Barrett Production

Creator of Fly Fishing America and Fly Fishing Masters

Barrett Productions

There are many, many folks on Donny's Christmas card list. TWK will eventually out them all.

Teh Wind Knot Gets Some Fishin' In

It has been very busy at TWK Intergalactic Headquarters, so our hero has not been on the water much. However, on the way back from a little work travel, TWK got to stop and fish with his buddy, Mr. Lucky Sperm, on some private water (that is private, not privatized--TWK did not join the Spring Ridge Club).

It was chilly but the feeshes were there and were biting if you ran something deep and close to them. Somehow, we managed to do that a few times. Here is a pic of one that TWK caught close enought to Mr. LS to get its picture taken (but luckily far enough away so that the secret weapon was removed from its mouth before the snap).



Now these aren't the wiliest creatures in the water, since they don't get a lot of pressure, but it is still a great place to fish. Not dumb enough to venture a guess about its size, but I will point out to you hero shot haters (and to the ladies, of course) that TWK has very large hands.

Oops!

It appears the boys who run SEFF Forum with an iron fist have been too busy appointing more moderators and posting circa 1995 internet jokes to remember to pay their domain registration.

Teh Wind Knot dropped by to check out the latest posts on best line for a 5 wt and TFO rod rhapsodies and got the 'page of shame' instead.



A quick whois lookup shows that it expired today. I suspect the powers that be will figure it out and fix it soon. I hope so. I need some advice on rigging strike indicators for DH streams.

Outing Teh River-nappers

Google is your friend.

A member of Teh Wind Knot's large network of double nought spies used The Wayback Machine to get a member list of the Spring Ridge Club (it used to be on the site but they have taken it down).

Taking a page from Martha Burk's playbook, TWK thought his loyal reader(s) might be interested in knowing just who these folks are. You never know; you might want to switch cardiologists or move your 401(k) to a firm that does not try to steal trout waters from you.

So, as a public service, Teh Wind Knot's Research Department has been using our aforementioned super secret search engine to come up with some scoop on the membership. Here is the first installment, for your viewing pleasure:

Chris Maybury, Chairman of Beacon Events

Chris Maybury serves as Beacon's non-executive Chairman. He comes to Beacon after 10 years with the Institute for International Research where he served as Chief Executive Officer. Under his leadership, IIR grew into the world's largest conference and performance improvement company with revenues of US$900 million. Chris retired from IIR after its sale to Informa plc in June 2005. Based in Greenwich, Connecticut, Chris enjoys sailing and is an avid collector and wine connoisseur.

Beacon Events

McLane Cover, Managing Director, Think Equity Partners

McLane joined ThinkEquity Partners in February 2004 as a Managing Director and Head of Sales in the in the Boston office. He was previously with Citigroup Global Markets from 1994 through 2003 where he was a Managing Director in institutional equity sales. He served on several research, sales and capital markets steering committees and was the firm's leading producer for several years. Prior to Citigroup, McLane was a Managing Director of institutional equity sales at Kidder, Peabody and Co. from 1986 to 1994. McLane received a B.S. degree in finance, investments and economics from Babson College.

Think Equity Partners

Barry and Cathy Beck, Fly Fishing Celebrities

Photographers, writers, fly fishing instructors, and trip leaders, Barry and Cathy Beck have written several fly fishing books, and their photos and articles regulary appear in many publications.

Barry and Cathy's Sponsors

This is just a first installment. Unfortunately, since the Research Department is a lazy and shiftless bunch, we were not able to provide you with all of the members. Watch this space, though. More to come.

Teh Big D

I ran across The Wet Boots' recent post where he gives a shout out to the Delaware river. Since that is a river that I really enjoy fishing, it got me thinking.

Teh Wind Knot's first assault on The D was in the company of a buddy who is a Jersey homer but an otherwise fine fishing companion. It was an impromptu trip to kill some time before some event Jersey Homer's wife had planned that evening. As hard as it is to believe, TWK was completely skunked on that first visit. He did, however, learn the joys of a local delicacy: the Taylor Pork Roll. With egg and cheese on a hard roll. Yummy.

About a year later, TWK had to attend a wedding in upstate New York and decided to take a week to head up there and fish a bunch of the good streams from PA to New England. One of the stops was for a couple of days on The D. Teh skunking had left an impression and TWK was determined to bring the river to its knees. All that was necessary was someone other than Jersey Homer on the oars and your hero would show those fishies a thing or two. Wrong.

The thing about floating with a guide is that a decent guide can handle the boat so that as long as the sports can generally flop the fly over the gunwale, the guide can manage the drift and get the sport on the fish. It is not quite as easy on the Delaware. The fish in The D are selective and wild, wild, wild. Getting anywhere near them with a drift boat puts them down in the clear water.

TWK was having to make insanely long reach casts to rising fish his guide had spotted with binoculars as they subtly sipped dries. As The Wet Boots mentioned, a bad drift will generally put the fish down. It was sort of like bonefishing where the client almost never sees the darn things and just has to try to make the cast the guide calls for.

It was almost like work. Until the take. The fish in The D are big and can fight. The tally that day was not impressive, but the fish landed were. And landing them was an absolute blast.

Since then, I hit The D at least once a year, usually in the late Summer/early Fall when it is still hot at Teh Wind Knot Central but cooling off up in them parts.

This year, we are going to try it in May and bring along Lady Wind Knot. Can't wait. It is some of the most challenging trout fishing I know, but it is a great time.

You should definitely put it on the list if you have never been.

NZ blogger Bish on Fish posts this interesting and disturbing anecdote on the lengths some folks will go for the hero shot.

Years ago, Teh Wind Knot and his buddies were duck hunting and saw and dimed out a deer hunter who did something very illegal. While sitting through 'fish court' waiting to testify, there was a guy who was being prosecuted for shooting a deer at night and out of season. The way he got caught was that the game warden happened by a local taxidermist's shop and noticed a fresh deer that had been brought in for mounting. Can you imagine? Taking a deer out of season and having it put on your wall to show off to your kids?

Sadly, it seems that fly fishers are not above inflating their egos in a similar manner. TWK is not above holding a fish for maximum photographic effect, but check out the post above for something that goes way beyond that.

TU By Numbers--Does It Use Its Money Wisely?

A buddy of mine was grousing the other day about the fact that he had heard that TU spent only a tiny fraction of what it took in on anything having to do with protecting salmonids. Since Teh Wind Knot is pretty active in TU and a finance type, he decided to analyze the numbers and call bullshit on his buddy. Pulling the latest IRS Form 990 that all charities have to file, was pretty interesting to say the least. You can get it from TU's web site, although more up to date information is available at places like Guidestar.

Here are the basics, somewhat summarized from IRS speak:



Wow! That looks like an efficient organization. TU took in around $16.6 MM in fiscal year 2005 and spent around two thirds of that on Programs. Almost $11 MM to save the fish. Sounds good, right?



Well, if you look at what they spent on Programs, it is not quite as clear. The biggest line item was salaries and benefits for staffers. They spent a lot printing and mailing magazines and calendars (but unfortunately not enough for proofreading as their latest calendar has 31 days in February). TU spent only $569,000 for grants. That sounds bad.

Thinking that $3.1 MM for "Other Expenses" must be going to save the fishies, TWK did a little more digging. Unfortunately, TU doesn't really tell us where that money went. The biggest chunk is for Consultants at around $2.8 MM. Surely, those are lobbyists and scientists looking to save coldwater fisheries? I sure hope so, but I sure can't prove it to my friend, and, from my experience with the organization, I would suspect that some of that goes to renting lists, PR firms, graphic designers, etc.

One interesting thing is to look at the grants. Of the measly $569 k TU tossed out in grants, two thirds ($ 380 k) is the 10% rebate local chapters get kicked back from National on membership dues (and one could argue that should be included in fundraising expenses). Only $189 k went to stream improvements (and for you east coasters who are always griping that the money is all spent out west, you have a legitimate complaint).

What does this tell us? I don't know. I know I can't convince anyone that TU is an efficient organization, since with the most favorable look, only about 20% of annual revenues are spent on fish stuff. It is pretty clear that TU could do more in grassroots habitat work if they cut down on the glossy magazines, direct mail and boondoggles for staffers.

Why You Should Not Join The Spring Ridge Club, Even If You Have The Cash

As a public service to all you rich poseurs out there, Teh Wind Knot is going to give you the top five reasons you should not drink the Don Beaver Kool-Aid and join the Spring Ridge Club. I am sure after reading this primer you will find better things to do with your ill-gotten gains, like augmentation for your trophy wife.

1. It does not make you seem less nouveau riche:

This is not one of the grand old clubs that McGuane immortalized. Those good clubs want to make sure the money isn't going to be pissed away before they let you in. This is the sporting equivalent of the McMansion development in which you live.



2. It is not a good way to teach anything to your kids:

If you take take little Chad or Brandon (or whatever the fruit of your loins is called) up there every weekend, he will turn into a snot nosed little bastard. All he will learn is that hard work does not exist and everyone else was put on earth to wait on him. He will not even learn to fish. Sure he will be able to impress his friends with hero shots of the hawgs he yanks out and may learn to love fishing. However, his skills will suck. He will be okay at fighting large fish, but will have no earthly idea of how to find one on a real stream without a trout chow dispenser. Even worse, he will think he is the shit and forego college after Choate and move out west to 'become a guide'. But with no skills, he will be stuck as the loser fly shop guy all the guides make fun of and you will be sending him cash for living expenses (a new Clacka every year and tons of pot) for the rest of your life.



3. Spring Ridge Club is way too Republican:

Teh Wind Knot has cross referenced the membership list with campaign contributions and those guys throw way too much jack at the Republicans. That is sooooo 1999. Do you read the papers? Better ditch that gang and get on the new bandwagon for 2008, if you want to keep all that defense contracting work.


4. You are not helping the 'Resource':

Feeding Purina to trout makes them grow bigger, even in marginal water. That does not make you an environmentalist. Those stockers don't help the genetics and only crowd out what wild fish could live in the stream. Get a clue. Give that money to real habitat improvement if you want to feel good about yourself. Fed stockers are ornaments, just like the pagodas at Epcot Center.


5. It isn't even exclusive:

Do you think you have a special place where only the top tier can come to fish? Think again. Any mouth-breather with the cash can join SRC, or one of its sister franchises. Donny doesn't care whether you made your money honestly, stole it or even won the Powerball. All spends the same to him.

Smoke Filled Rooms

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Donny Makes Lemonade From Chicken Shit

The time share king of PA has taken a page from the great losers and cowards of history: after getting your ass kicked up and down the street, declare victory.

In response to the court taking him to the woodshed, he posted this crock on his web site. I post it here for because I am a great guy and I know you are all lazy, but I suggest if you want to read it, Google "Spring Ridge Club" and click through, so he has to pay for it. Even better, head to Trout Underground and click around until Google serves you up a link, so one of the good blogs gets a penny or two.

Below are some of my favorites. Since Teh Wind Knot is an experienced corporate warrior, the doublespeak has been translated for those of you who may not be fluent.

The Commonwealth seized control of the bed of the Little J in the early days of Spring Ridge Club

Translation: "Waaaaah!"

Thanks to our catch-and-release policy on the Espy Farm, the average trout in 2001 was from 16 to 20 inches and larger

Translation: "No way we were going to let anyone take those fish after we had invested so much money in trout chow"

“It was the classic case of David versus Goliath,” says Beaver.

Translation: "Who wudda thunk that little guy with that rock could whap me upside the head like this"

“I think it has been a win-win on all fronts,” Beaver concluded

Translation: "I gave Lefty, Joe and the Becks free memberships so they could take pics with huge, chow fed, fish to keep their endorsement bucks rolling in and sold memberships to all their fan boys for millions. Millllllllllllions! Bwahahahahahaha!"

In 1995, Donny quit his regular job and devoted full time to conserving these irreplaceable waters so that his kids and grandkids would be able to enjoy the same great fly fishing that his dad and granddads introduced to him.

Translation: "I'm getting paid like Trump, you beyotches!"