The Mallard of Discontent

N Is For Chad Who Died of Ennui*

2012-02-15T10:44:00.001-06:00

Events and responsibilities have transpired against me, so I won't be hunting the last day of the Oklahoma quail season. Which is today.

And since I won't be hunting today, thus begins the thirty (more or less) most boring days in the Gregorian calendar; that cold, dead, lifeless, joyless, huntless, fishless period between the end of quail season and the beginning of fishing.

Maybe I should take up predator hunting, but the last thing I need is another expensive hobby. Maybe I should hunt the conservation order light goose season, but we have no snows around here, and even if we did, the last thing I need is another expensive hobby.

This would be the perfect time to have a short-term existential mid-life crisis, preferably one involving warm climes and fish, but I can't even afford a stay-crisis (you know, like a stay-cation...) much less a full-blown one.

So I'll just sit here, little head poking above the windowsill, waiting, waiting, for spring, trapped on a poverty-induced Mobius strip of boredom.

*with apologies to Edward Gorey and the other 25 banally-deceased Gashlycrumb Tinies

Kelly Kettle Initial Impressions

2012-02-13T14:49:00.000-06:00

My plan was to quail hunt this weekend. The weather's plan was to screw up my plan. The weather's plan worked out. Mine didn't. Instead, I stayed inside all weekend stuffing logs into the woodstove and perusing flyfishing catalogs for items I have neither the skill to use nor the money to buy. I also played around with something called a Kelly Kettle.

What's a Kelly Kettle? Well, it's a double-walled kettle with a big hole in the middle of it that you build a fire in to boil water. Here's the website with all the particulars.

When I'm on a hunting or fishing trip I usually take a little one-burner propane stove for heating up water for tea, coffee, etc. It works well enough when the wind's calm, but not so much when the wind blows. Since I live in Oklahoma, where the wind blows pretty much non-stop, I've been looking for a wind-proof alternative to my propane stove, something I can take on a fishing or bird-hunting trip and use to boil water quickly and easily right on the tailgate or ground.

I've read a lot about the Kelly Kettle and other "volcano" kettles on the bushcraft sites and thought that might be the ticket. Look for a full review over on the F&S site when I get the chance to actually use it in the field, but I did play around with it in the backyard this weekend, and I gotta say, I think it's going to be a nice little piece of kit, as SBW would say.

I was, quite frankly, shocked at how quickly this thing boils water with such little fuel. I gathered a little grass and tinder from the yard, placed it in the stainless steel base the kettle rests on, struck a firesteel to it, and placed the kettle on the base as soon as the flame got started. I fed a handful of dry twigs through the hole in the base, dropped a few more down the chimney, and literally within a couple minutes I had water boiling. All this during a bitterly cold, strong, and gusty wind, the kind of wind in which I'd have a hard time keeping my cheap little propane jobber lit, much less heating water.

Like I said, I'm withholding official judgement on it until I'm actually in the field and can see how it works with whatever fuel I can scrounge from the roadside, but it's certainly promising. SBW warned me that some Kelly Kettles tended to leak a bit from the handle and stopper rivets, no biggie and an easy fix, but mine didn't leak a drop on its maiden voyage.

About five minutes after I took these pictures the snow started and the wind really started howling. Being a wimp, I poured the boiling water out the kettle and went inside. My helper, however, stayed outside tending to his own "campfire"...

And about five minutes after that, the welfare wildlife showed up, looking for a handout. Persistent bastards. They'll just stand there and stare at me through the windows. It's a bit unnerving. I haven't been feeding them hardly at all this winter, and in fact when they show up I'll yell at them like that cranky old man that every neighborhood has. "Get out of here, you hooved locusts! You're wild animals, fer christssake, go forage!"

And as my ruined peach, plum and apple trees can attest, they oblige...

I Want This Gun...

2012-02-10T08:33:00.002-06:00

And I really think one of you should consider buying it for me

1969 - Beretta SO3 - Old World Craftsmanship - Hand Made Side Lock!

SO3 - 12ga, 28", 2-3/4", Briley Chokes (SK / SK M / IM / F), Vent Rib, Ejectors, Boehler Antinit Steel Barrels with English Stock - LOP of 14-1/4" over a Checkered Butt, with Drop of 1-3/8" to 2-1/8", and Neutral Cast. Weight 7 lbs. Outstanding Condition - 98+% since being refinished. Very tight. Looks and feels like a NEW gun.

Why would I want this gun instead of an original SO3 that hadn't been refinished, with tubes installed? Because guns like that are so far out of my tax bracket that even daydreaming about them makes me feel ludicrous. Make this gun a 20 in original condition with a solid rib and choked IC/M and there you'd have perfection, but alas, I'm not perfection-grade. I'm "merely adequate" grade.

But this gun has been monkeyed around with just enough that (I'm assuming) it will probably go lower than a regular SO3, perhaps even low enough to cross my daydream threshhold. I'll say $2,500 to $3,000.

Which does bring up an interesting question: assuming it would sell in that price range, would you rather have the sidelock 12 gauge Beretta or, say, a late fifties-early sixties vintage 20-gauge Browning Superposed with 28-inch barrels and a solid rib (they were all RNLT back then I believe), which is the rarest and most desirable configuration of the old supers (I'm talking grade 1 supers here, not the pigeons, Dianas, etc). Most of the field-grade 20-gauge supers with that configuration are going around three grand or so, so I think it's a fair comparison.

Hmmm. That's a tough one. I've always, always wanted a 50s-60s era 20 gauge super, but I'm gonna have to go with the SO3 here. What a lovely piece of work those old Berettas are.

Refried Mallard: London Calling

2012-02-09T15:28:00.000-06:00

Another in a series of recycled blog posts from years past. Because I'm lazy.

I did add the lyrics to "London Calling" below the pic. That wasn't in the original post, so that's something, right? I haven't made it back to Europe since writing this in 2009, so I haven't had a chance to implement my plan.

But I will...oh, yes, I will...

                                                 "The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in
                                                 Engines stop running and the wheat is growing thin
                                                 A nuclear error, but I have no fear
                                                 London is drowning-and I live by the river."

This is a picture of a person I don't know talking to a couple other people I don't know as he attempts - using an unknown technique and bait - to catch a fish, the species of which I (surprise, surprise) don't know.

And thus sums up my knowledge of European urban angling. The photograph was taken in London along the Thames on my first trip to Europe a few years back. My plan was to strike up a conversation with him in the international language of the brotherhood of anglers, ask him all kinds of questions about British fishing and expand my fishing horizons beyond my own provincial Amero-centric boundaries.

That was the plan, anyway.

As I walked up to him after the two people in the picture finally left I heard him muttering to himself. I don't know exactly what he was saying, but since it contained multiple instances of the phrase "fockin' tourists", my fear of getting thrown headfirst into the Thames outweighed my curiosity and I just walked on by. In hindsight, I don't blame him a bit.

I had tried the same thing a few days earlier in Paris with a dour-looking Frenchman who was tight-lining a spinning rod along the left bank of the Seine.

I suspect he spoke perfect English, but (again, in hindsight) if I were being heckled by an American buffoon who thought that speaking English slowly and with a ridiculously affected fake French accent would help me understand what he was saying, then I'd probably just ignore him, too.

How bad was it? Imagine the unholy lovechild of Casablanca's Captain Renault and Inspector Clouseau.

"Excusemwha. May eye ask what eat eeze you are feeshing for? Eye am an Ameri-cahn and I too enjoy zee feeshing!"

The man gave me a look of unadulterated contempt, or maybe horror, it was hard to tell, spoke something in rapid-fire French and then turned back to his rod in a manner that implied in no uncertain terms that this tortured conversation, such as it was, was over.

I've since learned to just shut up, smile and say "Bonjour" to absolutely everything.

So suffice it to say I don't know much about fishing in Europe. But damn it, that's going to change.

My wife is a high school humanities teacher, and every three years or so she (and by extension, I) take a group of her students on a trip to Europe. Twice now (not including the trip on which this picture was taken) I have walked along the banks of the Thames, the Seine, the Arno and the Tiber watching other guys fish and wondering what they were fishing for.

Next time, it's gonna be me. Next time, I'm packing a three-piece travel rod, a Calcutta 100, a small tackle box (after I figure out what kind of tackle to take) and I'm going to fish every one of those rivers. I will have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. I'll try to talk the Suburban Bushwacker into helping me out with the Thames, but the others will be Terra Incognita, pure guerrilla fishing.

I may not catch anything, but at least I can say I did it instead of wondering about it.

I have no idea how many laws - both international and sovereign - I'll be violating with this plan, but I'm sure it's legion. And I don't care. What are they going to do, throw me in fishing jail? Besides, they've got to catch me first. All I have to do is act like I belong there, like I have every right to be fishing that spot.

And if anybody questions me, I'll just smile, say "Bonjour" and run like hell.

Brilliant, no?

Ghost In The Machine

2012-02-08T18:06:00.002-06:00

I was watching an episode of Top Gear a few years back (the rightful UK version, not that unspeakably stupid and moronic American travesty. Seriously, why do we feel the need to constantly "Americanize" television shows whose charm lies in their very Britishness? The Office is the only one that's ever come close to pulling it off. Rant off...) when Clarkson and Company asked the question "what's the most beautiful machine ever made by man?" (I'm writing from memory here, so I may be paraphrasing a bit).

The answer was "the Spitfire," and while I think the classic English double, as well as the traditional recurve and longbow, are equally beautiful (if you can classify them as "machines") I am not inclined to disagree with the Top Gear guys' assertion. Many people believe the Supermarine Spitfire was not only the most beautiful airplane of the WWII era, but one of the most beautiful airplanes ever made.

But my personal favorite has always been the Vought F4U Corsair. No, it can't compete with the Spitfire for sheer elegance and beauty, but for a history-obsessed kid growing up in the seventies, hanging on each episode of Baa Baa Black Sheep every week (until it got cancelled, damn it) the Corsair with its menacing midnight blue paint and awesome gullwings was - to use the patois - the shizzle.

This one resides at the Commemorative Air Force museum in Galveston. I took the pic last summer on our Galveston trip. She's a looker, isn't she?

George, On Voting...

2012-02-07T08:12:00.002-06:00

Here's my personal style of participatory democracy: I choose to participate in elections - be they at the local, state or national level - in which I believe my vote or my candidate can make a difference, even if it is likely or even inevitable that my candidate or my cause will lose. Conversely, I decline to participate in elections in which I feel there are no candidates or issues that I can in good conscience support. It sounds quite reasonable and pragmatic to me.

But it's an election year, which means I must contend, once again, with the Civics Nazis. You know, those insufferably smug, self-righteous and utterly delusional twits who fervently believe the act of voting - in and of itself - is a star-spangled holy sacrament that we are duty-bound to engage in regardless - completely regardless - of whether we happen to like, believe in, tolerate, or find even remotely palatable any of the candidates.

You know who I'm talking about; the ones who wear that "I Voted" sticker like a talismanic confirmation of their patriotic wonderfulness. The ones who make it a point to ask if you, too, furthered the bright, shining beacon of democracy by voting, and when informed that "No, in point of fact I didn't vote in (insert election here) because I believe all the choices offered me to be corrupt shite bags completely antithetical to my worldview" immediately puff themselves up, wag their fingers and say (as if the thought were original) "Well, then you have no right to complain, do you?"

Well, yes, as a matter of fact I do have a right to complain, asshole. It’s you who needs to keep ‘yer effin’ trap shut. Another profane and prescient gem from the lost, lamented and utterly brilliant George Carlin (and if you must be told that George Carlin is NSFW then I pity you. I truly do...)

Aw, George, you left too soon. Your country needs you...

Google Search Fail...

2012-02-03T21:03:00.002-06:00

For the sorely disappointed customer of Vietnam Post and Telecom Corporation in Hanoi, who typed "japanese girl nake" into Google and (at least according to my Sitemeter info) somehow ended up here...

Sorry about that, man. You got the girl part right, and she was always naked, the little slut. But alas, my naked little girl was all English...

Old Crazy Is The New Normal

2012-02-03T09:07:00.001-06:00

Beaver County, Oklahoma. March 28, 2006

When the residents in my little corner of the state went to bed last night, we...

1. Were still firmly in the grips of an "extreme" category drought as defined by the folks who define such things (NOAA, USDA, NWS, etc.).

2. Had received virtually no measurable precipitation for the month of January (at least at my house) and no snow whatsoever, and in fact had received no measurable snow at all this winter.

3. Had been wearing shorts around the yard and daydreaming about gardens, turkeys, and fishing (at least I was) due to extended periods of January (and February) temps in the 60s and 70s.

When the residents in my little corner of the state woke up this morning, we...

1. Were under a tornado watch.

2. Had received up to golfball-sized hail (bush-league stuff for a spring storm, but a bit odd on the second day of February...

3. Had received well over three inches of rain, with some areas pushing four inches.

To put that in perspective, my county of residence received just over 13 inches of rain for the whole of 2011. And that's putting a somewhat rosy bloom on things, as the northern parts of the county received less than that (about 12 inches at my house). Areas a bit north and west of my home received far less than even that (6.2 inches for the entire year in some parts of the panhandle).

So in one eight-hour period, in the middle of what used to be called "winter" we received large hail, severe storms, the threat of tornadoes and close to one-third of the total rain we got for all of 2011.

Welcome to the new normal. It's going to be an interesting weather year...

Same Song, Different Verse...

2012-01-31T11:23:00.000-06:00

One of the many misconceptions about my area of the southern plains (basically the western halves of both Oklahoma and Kansas as well as the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles) is that it is uniformly and monotonously flat. It's not.

While it is true we lack the obvious and dramatic rises in elevation of more vertically-endowed areas, there are many areas of the southern plains that are quite rugged, indeed. And let me tell you, they can be a real bitch to hunt.

With the clock winding down on The Great Dismal Season, I decided to give one such area a try. It's a spot north of my house that consists of a series of deep, cedar-and-brush-choked canyons. I generally don't hunt it much in the early season. It's snakey as hell and I've never found many birds there, anyway, but since this year I'm not finding birds anywhere else, last weekend I thought "what the hell" and loaded up the dogs.

It's just like this, one deep cleft after another. I'm not in hard-core chukar hunter shape, but I'm not in "hop-my-fat-ass-on-the-quad-and-go" shape, either. I'm a pretty good walker (I have to be if I want to hunt) but after a few hours of side-hilling these canyons, I was about beat. So was Tess, whom I brought along not because she's a good upland dog (she's not) but because I felt guilty that duck season had ended the week before while I was in Vegas.

We were both doing a lot of this...

While Jenny was doing a lot of this...

Waiting for us. I still don't have a clue what kind of dog she's going to end up being, but I can't deny the little girl's got a motor on her...

After a few hours of that, I decided to go up top into the daylight and hunt a few old overgrown shelterbelts that, in the past, had given up a few birds for me. I needn't have bothered...

Looks a little sparse, doesn't it? In a normal year there'd be all kinds of grasses and weedy forbs growing along these old horse apple trees. And maybe even a few quail. But not this year. Actually it looks downright lush in the picture compared to the in-person reality. And that's basically what the entire western half of the state looks like.

So we ended up back at the truck for the obligatory tailgate shot...

Sans birds, of course. I'm getting really good at taking that kind of picture this year...

A Modest Gun Review...

2012-01-27T11:36:00.008-06:00

Of all the guns I saw and handled at SHOT, nothing - and I mean nothing - could top the new Mossberg 464 SPX for sheer, unvarnished aesthetic awfulness. The sight of it - quite literally - stopped me in my tracks (in the bad, very bad form of that cliche). I just stood there staring at what Mossberg had wrought as the flow of the crowd parted around me. I didn't dare take a picture of it for fear the image might corrupt my camera's CF card like some ugly virus.

Move over, Stoeger Double Defence, now there's something hideouser. And if you love classic leverguns, you may want to avert your eyes now...

Yes, that's the sound of your retinas burning. Have you ever seen anything so putrid? How far, I ask, can the gunmaker's once-proud art be debased with something so thoroughly contrived, so overwhelmingly stupid?

And the real pisser is, it sort of...intrigues me.

Kind of like that one time at a long-ago party, the one where I suddenly noticed that rather weird-looking girl staring at me from across the smoky room. I didn't think she was particularly attractive in the conventional sense. I knew she wasn't anything even remotely my type, and I obviously wasn't hers, but before either of us knew what had happened...Bam! There we were, eight sweaty hours later, locked together in tantric bliss on top of a tall mesa, not remembering why or how we had ended up there, completely spent physically and spiritually following a wild, reckless night of sloppy, wanton, utterly feral love-making. And as we watched the sun slowly rise over the flaming ochre cliffs far below and the peyote-specked drool dripped down our slack jaws to pool in the dust at our feet, we slowly, slowly, began to come back from our acid trip to somewhere beyond the Crab Nebula. But as the sun rose ever-higher and daylight revealed the harsh reality of what had been just a few hours before, in the soft, velvety cloak of night, so alluringly exotic and mysterious, we looked at each other in horror and suddenly realized the terrible mistake we'd made. I turned away, got sick all over myself and then ran screaming in the opposite direction, never to speak or even think about that awful, inexplicable, anomalous evening ever again.*

Yeah, the attraction's kinda like that. Weird, huh?

* No, this evening never actually occurred, damn it...

SHOT 2012: The Mayan Connection...

2012-01-22T14:34:00.000-06:00

Apologies for the long delay in any sort of blog activity. For reasons that are still beyond my grasp, the editors at the F&S website decided that this would be the year I would finally be allowed to wander the halls - unsupervised, even - at the SHOT show. So that's where I've been for the past week.

Considering my misanthropic personality, my near-clinical aversion to large groups of people, my uppity (and mostly hypocritical) disdain for consumerist lust, my past unkind remarks about the whole thing, and my long-held belief that if Las Vegas represents the American Dream, then it's a version of the American Dream that's been left in the fridge way too long, I was, admittedly, a bit trepidatious.

But you know what? Overall, I had a helluva good time. I got to re-connect with some friends I hadn't seen in a while, I got to finally put faces and voices to the e-mails of a number of the good folks I work with at the F&S website, and I finally got to see what the hoopla was all about.

OK, I admit, while I was there I did bitch and moan about it pretty much constantly. But that's just, as they say, how I roll. Truth is, it was kinda cool wandering the show floor checking out both the products and the wildly diverse group of people attending the show.

I never thought I'd admit this, but I actually enjoyed myself. And given the chance, I might even agree to go back next year if the opportunity came up.

Which it won't, of course, because we're all going to die in the coming Mayan inferno. How do I know this to be true? Because I attended this year and found that I enjoyed it and might want to go back next year. Yep, my bad luck and bad timing will precipitate the end of the world.

Sorry, folks, and remember, you heard it here first...

Rage Against the Polka Machine

2012-01-10T10:08:00.005-06:00

The George Mason University Band rocks...

That's just pretty damn cool. A medley of two oldie-but-goodie RATM staples, "Bulls On Parade" and "Killing In The Name."

Maybe if my high school band director had been a little more Zach de la Roche and Tom Morello and a little less John Philip Sousa I wouldn't have quit band after my freshman year. Then maybe I could have gone on to college bandie nerd-dom like my wife. 'Cause I was a pretty damn good trumpet player, if I say so myself...

But wait! It gets better! How about a jazz version of "Killing In The Name" to really, uh... angrily chill you out?

O Bob, Where Art Thou?

2012-01-09T11:25:00.001-06:00

Saturday. I wake up, and in what is becoming an increasingly pointless act of (waning) faith-based rote, load Jenny and go for yet another late-season death march on my favorite local public hunting area, which happens to abut a minimum-security state prison.

I park on the northern edge of the area along a lonely, seldom-used county line road, and as Jenny and I start hunting down toward the river bottom (and toward the direction of the prison, which sits across the river) I happen to look back at the parking area and notice one of those official-looking white vans that scream "government vehicle" parked directly behind my truck. I'm still close enough to notice that the driver is eyeballing me through a pair of binoculars.

"Who the hell are those guys and why are they watching me?" I ask myself as he puts down his binoculars and resumes driving, slowly, on down the road. I shrug my shoulders and promptly forget about it as the dog and I continue hunting a brush-choked draw that leads down into the riverbottom.

Three hours, numerous miles and zero quail later, we work our way back up out of the bottom toward the road when I notice that same damn van parked behind my truck again. Once again, they eyeball me for a few minutes before slowly pulling out of the parking area and cruising on down the road.

Odd behavior, for sure, and I wonder if one of the inmates at the prison has decided incarceration is a bummer. It's actually a fairly routine occurrence, not like this prison is Alcatraz. Once or twice a year someone gets happy feet, and the fleeing inmates generally fall into one of two distinct categories: those smart enough to slip into the small town adjacent to the prison and quietly steal a car, or those who climb the fence and blindly run like hell to the north across the WMA.

The former generally at least make it back to a major metropolitan area before getting recaptured, while the latter spend a few very uncomfortable nights wandering aimlessly around the prairie before being spotted by a rancher and picked up.

So maybe it's not just the dog and me out here, after all, because there sure as hell aren't any other quail hunters.

Sure enough, when I get home and check the news, I discover that nope, we weren't alone...

From the Oklahoman

An Okmulgee County man who escaped from a prison in Fort Supply remained missing Saturday, Warden Marvin Vaughn said. Michael Weber, 50, was last seen at an inmate count about 9 p.m. He was still missing at the next count taken at 10 p.m. Weber is serving a five-year sentence for two counts of possession of a stolen vehicle in 2009 in Okmulgee County. He began his sentence in October 2009 and was to be released in August 2013.

Weber is 5-foot-9 and weighs about 170 pounds. He has numerous tattoos on his arms, legs and back.
The William Key Correctional Center in Fort Supply is a minimum-security prison housing about 1,100 inmates. Deputies from the Woodward County sheriff's office are assisting in the search.

As of Monday morning, Monsieur Weber, much like Monsieur Colinus virginianus, has evaded all attempts to locate him and is still hiding out somewhere in the wilds of far northwest Oklahoma. He sleeps with the quail. And where that may be I have no idea...

The Truest Expression of Young Love. Ever.

2012-01-06T09:43:00.005-06:00

Found on the title page of an old paperback copy of the children's classic "My Side Of The Mountain" I recently bought for my son to read.

Isn't that great? Talk about unintentional poignancy in capturing the fervent angst of newly-sprouted love. The Bard himself couldn't have done it any better. And in terms of arc of story, I think this beats hell out of Hemingway's famous (and most likely apocryphal) "Baby Shoes" story, while coming in a word shorter.

Well done, Daniel. Trust me, I (and the rest of the world) have been there. We can commiserate. And wherever and whoever you are, I hope you and Raelyn eventually worked it out, because as you've no doubt discovered by now (some 23 years later, assuming the book was bought new), it doesn't get any easier or less confusing. Or more wonderful.

Interactive Multi-Player First-Person Shooter, Version 1.0

2012-01-05T08:39:00.000-06:00

If there's a better, cheaper, more entertaining and just plain fun way to spend an unseasonably warm January afternoon with a young boy, I sure don't know what it is...

Signed, First Edition of "Grief & Stupidity" (with dustjacket)

2012-01-04T09:55:00.002-06:00

Abebooks just published its list of the most expensive book sales of 2011 on the Abebooks website. It's an interesting read, especially the books by category. I generally pay a little more attention to the moderns than I do the truly antiquarian books, just because that's what I'm most likely to stumble across in used bookstores, rummage sales and thriftshops.

So what could I expect to get for that first-edition (with dustjacket) To Kill A Mockingbird I paid a quarter for at a garage sale?* Oh, about $25,000 or so...

*in my dreams...

From the Abebooks site...

It was a bumper year for rare bookselling. The combined total of AbeBooks’ top 10 most expensive sales during 2011 is $220,330. The November sale of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital for $51,739 was the year’s most significant transaction on AbeBooks and one that sparked many wry smiles.
The sale of a signed first edition of Harper Lee’s one hit wonder, To Kill a Mockingbird, for $25,000 illustrated that this novel remains one of the most desirable of modern firsts.

Our third largest sale was a complete set of all 10 issues of Aspen Magazine, a multimedia publication that ran from 1965 to 1971. Many leading figures in contemporary art, both British and North American, were contributors to Aspen including Andy Warhol, John Lennon, Timothy Leary and Susan Sontag.

Browse the acquisitions of big spending book collectors and you will encounter the Grinch, a Hobbit, the world’s most famous pilot, a spy licensed to kill, the Boy Wizard, a novel about the Spice, courageous senators, banned poetry and a book about teeth.

As (my) luck would have it, I do have a heartbreaking (for me, anyway) story concerning one of the titles on the sci-fi and fantasy list, which is...

1. The Hobbit or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien - $20,447
First edition, first impression copy of Tolkien’s classic with a complete dust jacket.
2. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Philip K. Dick - $12,500
First edition, first printing of the book that inspired the Blade Runner movie. Published in 1968 and signed by Dick.
3. Dune by Frank Herbert - $7,500
First edition, first printing with a laid-in signature by Herbert. Includes a dust jacket in fine condition.

Back when I was younger and much, much stoopider, I worked at the Norman, Oklahoma Goodwill store during my hazy and mostly unproductive college years. As part of my job I sorted untold numbers of boxes of donated books. In a college town with a fairly literate demographic, this could have been a veritable gold mine of potential finds (I even got a discount!).

Unfortunately for me, back then I was a reader and a reader only, and I had absolutely no idea of the value of modern first editions. If I came across a nice, hardback copy of a title I already had in paperback, I'd pass on buying it. Even now, I want to cry in anguish at the books I let slip through my hands just because I already had a tattered, worthless paperback copy of the same title sitting on the milk crate bookshelf back at the apartment.

Anyways, I'm certain, absolutely certain, that I passed on a first-edition Dune (with dustjacket) because I already had a paperback. I recall this particular instance because I distinctly remember thinking at the time how damn ugly the dustjacket art was compared to my cool 1977 sixteenth printing Berkley Medallion paperback copy. I could have gotten it for...fifty cents.

Folly. Of. Youth.

At least I'm comfortable in the knowledge that I never made the same mistake with number two on the list. I don't recall ever seeing a hardbound copy of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and my paperback edition (the Blade Runner movie tie-in, even!) is the only one that's ever passed through my hands. I think. Or at least I hope.

I won't even mention some of the fiction moderns I passed on, because I'm trying to ease up a bit on the drinking.

I still have that worthless paperback copy of Dune sitting on my bookshelf, and I still wail and gnash my teeth every time I see it. Scares the hell out of my family, but they're getting used to it.

Goodbye '11, Hello '12...

2012-01-01T13:52:00.000-06:00

“Much of the vitality in a friendship lies in the honouring of differences, not simply in the enjoyment of similarities."
Cyril Connolly

Happy New Year's Day, everyone! I've been on a little break for the past few days, but plan on dragging back sometime this week. In the meantime, I'd like to thank everyone and anyone who's read and commented on this weird little collection of observations, gripes, rants, screeds and reflections over the course of this past year. I don't always say it, but I enjoy and appreciate your thoughts and reactions immensely.

Here's hoping for a wonderful 2012, or at least as wonderful as we can make it before the world ends...now go grab yourself some black-eyed peas*. If the Mayans are indeed right, we're gonna need 'em...

* The real black-eyed peas, not these dorks...

Just a Little Perspective...

2011-12-23T14:53:00.000-06:00

Green On White And The Meaning Of Life

2011-12-21T11:20:00.003-06:00

The snow came roaring in on Tuesday, and with it the birds, pushing ahead of the blizzard raging behind them. Hunkered down in the cattails, we watched them flying high, fast and gone with neither glance nor quack toward my meager spread and ever-pitiful calling. A typical evening hunt for me.

So we just sat there, the dog and I, in the lee of an old beaver lodge, content to watch the undulating spectacle of migration play out across the evening sky. And, as I often do in the presence of such ancient and wondrous magic, I quickly fell into deep contemplation of all life's mysteries.

I mused and I mulled. I pondered and naval-gazed. I philosophized and proselytized, and just when I was on the verge of pulling it all together into one, all-encompassing unified-field theory of life, the universe and everything, a flight of mallards suddenly pitched into the decoys and my half-formed grand realization was gone like a forgotten dream, leaving in its wake a pair of drakes bobbing in the slushy water.

So much for figuring it all out, but a beautiful pair of greenheads on a luminous winter evening is about as good a consolation as a guy could ask for.

'Tis The Season For Giving...

2011-12-20T07:39:00.000-06:00

I want it...

Findmeagift.com are the first in the UK to stock this ridiculously hilarious RC toy! Our fantastic radio controlled helicopter is like no other! Don't expect there to be any room for passengers on this voyage sonny-jim. The Remote Controlled Flying F*ck says it all!

Imagine a normal day in the office and some idiot next to you is blabbering on about something pointless. Instead of turning round and telling them that you don't give a flying f*ck, show them instead!

This remote controlled toy is literally the word 'F*CK' with a helicopter propeller. Fly it around the office or house without a care and let everyone know what you really think of their dull and pointless conversation.

Blatant, crude and oh-so funny, the RC Flying F*ck helicopter is a fantastic way to show your true feelings without having to say a word. Whether you love radio controlled toys, or you just need a way to tell your boss that you don't give a rats ass about his golfing stories, the Remote Controlled Flying F*ck says it all!

Shamelessly stolen from Patrick Burns' Facebook page, or wall, or whatever the hell you call it...

And a Spoonie Shall Save Them...

2011-12-19T11:47:00.000-06:00

Pardon the absence. Last week I was in Stuttgart, Arkansas, duck hunting (and rice) capitol of the world, where I shot exactly...one shoveler.

How did I manage to not shoot a single mallard of the non-smiling variety (or any other ducks) in Stuttgart-freakin'-Arkansas? Simple, there weren't any there, and what ducks there were, were scattered all over the area, thanks to a ton of standing water in the fields combined the White River being out of its banks.

Had an absolute blast, anyway. Despite all the mallards for which Stuttgart is justly famous still being somewhere else, I shot my first limit of specks, got to meet a bunch of cool, like-minded folks, developed a much-deeper appreciation for the DU mission and got a glimpse into a part of the larger waterfowling world and culture that's quite a bit different from my own, but still the same.

More to come over on the Field & Stream website...

Honest Gun Descriptions...

2011-12-12T14:46:00.003-06:00

This gun is "Shithead Approved"...

Greg over at Shotgun Chronicle had a good post recently about Champlin Firearms, a really cool high-end gunshop here in Oklahoma, specifically the descriptions of the firearms for sale on the Champlin website, which tend toward the...highly descriptive...

From Greg's post

I love to visit the Champlin site. Besides being a sweet site to drool over some of the finest guns ever built, like this Purdey over under they also offer good info on guns and some exquisite snippets of sarcasm, like this one from a gun description.

“I believe the guy that installed this recoil pad drives a Volvo, likes warm flat beer and was breast fed until age 7; however the pad can be changed easily.”

Better still, they have a knack for finding cool guns that are interesting and very shootable. Check out this little Italian gun they have listed. What a nice little gun. Except the recoil pad that is…

Nice find, Greg, but you missed this one, man...

#70953, W. C. Scott & Son Makers London, England: A Boxlock 16 Bore Model 162 Made 1901 with 26" Damascus Extractor Barrels that some Shithead blued to make them look like steel barrels but they are British Nitro Proved with Rib Extension & Hidden Cross Bolt at .669 .003 & .011 (Skt.I & Skt.II), Wall thickness on the right barrel at .0295" and .0305" on the left barrel, 2 1/2" chambers, Nitro proved at 1 ounce, A single selective trigger that functions to select the right or left barrel moving the slide forward or rearward, Splinter forend, Open pistol grip stock at 14 1/4 x 1 9/16 x 2 13/16" over a 1" pad, 5 lbs. 14 oz.., 70% coverage of period scroll engraving, The bores are excellent to near excellent plus.

If you're ever in Enid, Oklahoma (and if you are, I'm sorry...) then a trip to Champlin Firearms is highly recommended. It occupies a distinctly nondescript (from the outside) ramshackle metal building at the Enid airport, but walk through the door and you know you're in a real gunshop. And the best part is, you are free, nay encouraged, to handle any of the guns in their inventory.

It's interesting, but I can speak from personal experience when I say it's also a bit terrifying to fondle a gun worth more than your house.

Guns I Shoulda Bought: Pre-War Superposed...

2011-12-07T12:59:00.003-06:00

It was a thing of beauty leaning there in the gun rack among the ass-ugly plastic fantastics and worn-out department-store pumpguns. Two triggers, two barrels, solid rib, with a stock of swirled chocolate.

It was a widower's gun, on consignment for an elderly lady whose husband had had good taste in firearms and a penchant for Brownings. In addition to the super there was a sweet sixteen and two light twelves, all pristine post-war guns.

But I only had eyes for that old 30's-vintage super. I'd come into the gun shop, press my face to the glass of the circle rack and slowly turn the carousel until it was level with my face, then I'd ask to look at it, again. The asshole clerk would sigh, hand me the gun and glower impatiently while I fondled it.

I'd swing the gun on a few imaginary birds, break it open yet again, look down the bores, trace my fingers over that beautifully-figured stock and then reluctantly hand it back to dickface, who would put it on the rack with a smirk and then go back to ignoring me. The hangtag said $600. Hell, they were practically giving it away.

Didn't matter, of course. It may as well have been $60,000. I was a sophomore in college. I was working as a donation clerk at the local Goodwill store. I shared a dumpy one-bedroom apartment with a girlfriend who made even less than I did. I was driving a Schwinn at the time. I could afford Milwaukee's Best. I could afford Hamburger Helper. I couldn't afford a Browning Superposed no matter how much of a screaming deal it was.

And then, of course, one day it was gone from its place in the rack. The eared phallus smiled broadly as he told me that some guy from Tulsa here on business had walked in, just killing some time, picked up the super and bought it on the spot. "Helluva deal on that gun, too bad you couldn't get it."

Yep, too bad...

That's Great, But Does It Have Any Quail?

2011-12-05T15:05:00.000-06:00

Because I'm having a helluva time finding any down here on Earth...

From the BBC

Astronomers have confirmed the existence of an Earth-like planet in the "habitable zone" around a star not unlike our own. The planet, Kepler 22-b, lies about 600 light-years away and is about 2.4 times the size of Earth, and has a temperature of about 22C.

It is the closest confirmed planet yet to one like ours - an "Earth 2.0". However, the team does not yet know if Kepler 22-b is made mostly of rock, gas or liquid. During the conference at which the result was announced, the Kepler team said that it had spotted some 1,094 new candidate planets.

The Kepler space telescope was designed to look at a fixed swathe of the night sky, staring intently at about 150,000 stars. The telescope is sensitive enough to see when a planet passes in front of its host star, dimming the star's light by a minuscule amount. Kepler identifies these slight changes in starlight as candidate planets, which are then confirmed by further observations by Kepler and other telescopes in orbit and on Earth.

Kepler 22-b was one of 54 candidates reported by the Kepler team in February, and is just the first to be formally confirmed using other telescopes.

More of these "Earth 2.0" candidates are likely to be confirmed in the near future, though a redefinition of the habitable zone's boundaries has brought that number down to 48. Kepler 22-b lies at a distance from its sun about 15% less than the distance from the Earth to the Sun, and its year takes about 290 days. However, its sun puts out about 25% less light, keeping the planet at its balmy temperature that would support the existence of liquid water.

On the Nature of Whisky...

2011-12-02T08:49:00.000-06:00

"Of the history, geography, literature, philosophy, morals, use and abuse, praise and scorn of whisky volumes might be written. They will not be written by me. Yet it is opportune that a voice be raised in defence of this great, potent, and princely drink where so many speak to slight and defame, and where so many glasses are emptied foolishly and irreverently in ignorance of the true qualities of the liquid and in contempt of its proper employment.

For, if one might, for a trope's sake, alter the sex of this most male of beverages, one would say that there be many who take with them to the stews beauty and virtue which should command the grateful awe of men.

Though, in truth, there is little of the marble idol of divinity about this swift and fiery spirit. It belongs to the alchemist's and to the long nights shot with cold, flickering beams; it is compact of Druid spells and Sabbaths (of the witches and the Calvinists); its graces are not shameless, Latin, and the abundant, but have a sovereign austerity, whether the desert's or the north wind's; there are flavours in it, insinuating and remote, from mountain torrents and the scanty soil on moor-land rocks and slanting, rare sun-shafts."

From Aeneas MacDonald's "Whisky"

I think this is going to be a good book. With an intro like that, how can it not be?

That's Great, But How Do You Light The Damn Thing?

2011-11-30T08:02:00.001-06:00

From the Guardian

Science fiction legend Ray Bradbury, who at 91 has long been one of the last bastions against the digital age, has crumbled, with his classic novel Fahrenheit 451 finally published as an ebook.

In the past Bradbury has said that ebooks "smell like burned fuel", telling the New York Times in 2009 that "the internet is a big distraction". In an interview in which he also said that he had "total recall" and remembered "being in the womb … coming out was great", he told the paper that he had been contacted by Yahoo eight weeks earlier. "They wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo! You know what I told them? 'To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the internet. It's distracting," he said. "It's meaningless; it's not real. It's in the air somewhere."

But the author has now been convinced otherwise, with his American publisher Simon & Schuster announcing on Tuesday that it was releasing the first ever ebook of Fahrenheit 451, a novel which has sold more than 10m copies since it was first published in 1953 and in which Bradbury predicts a dystopian future where books are burned and reading banned. The ebook release was part of a new publishing deal, reported to be worth seven figures, for all English language print and digital formats of Fahrenheit 451 in North America, and English language mass market rights in North America for Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man.

Maybe it's time someone re-imagines "Fahrenheit 451." Not the basic premise, which of course rings just as true (if not much more so) today, but the method. I mean, seriously, WWGMD (What Would Guy Montag Do?).

Let's face it, deleting a hard drive or someone's "cloud" account just doesn't have quite the same flair, resonance, or sheer dystopian panache as flamethrowers and literary bonfires, does it?

It's just one more example of the native superiority of real books over those ephemeral ersatz abominations. Hell, real books even destroy better and with more style...

I do wonder, however, how #1 Bradbury Fan Rachel Bloom is taking the news?

It's That Time Of Year...

2011-11-18T09:09:00.000-06:00

And both my ever-diminishing back as well as my ever-expanding waist do not like it. When the dead-standing trees are still two hundred rough, brush-choked yards from the closest point you can drive the truck, one pick-up load is about all this old-ish dude cares to handle at one time.

And unfortunately, it's also this time of year...

So for the next nine days while Oklahoma's public lands are off-limits to quail and duck hunting, I will join the Fuddite Army in pursuit of The Antlered Ones, although if I tag out quickly or just get bored and restless I may load up the dogs and make a few quick trips to some nearby Kansas WIHA lands. I hear the war doesn't start up there until Nov. 30th...

Jenny's First Mouthful of Feathers...

2011-11-15T14:52:00.000-06:00

Just got back from the Kansas quail/pheasant opener with the guys from the Pheasants Forever Rooster Road Trip. The hunters were many, the birds were few, and those brought to hand were well-earned. As they should be.

Just one good, solid point on a wild public-land quail is what I wanted. Ask, walk like hell, and ye shall receive. It was a beautiful thing, and like most beautiful things, I was the only one to see it.

She sure as hell wasn't perfect, but I wasn't asking her to be. I was simply asking her to show me she was starting to get it. And I'll be damned if she's not starting to get it.

The Sports That Sports Illustrated Used to Cover...

2011-11-04T12:44:00.007-05:00

A fellow freelancer and I were talking last week about the subject of how great Sports Illustrated used to be.

Or I guess I should say how great we assume Sports Illustrated used to be, since of course neither of us (being young, hip dudes) were actually able to read back when SI was publishing hunting and fishing journalism from guys like Robert F. Jones. That SI was long since gone (or so I thought) by the time we came of age, replaced by, well, whatever it is that SI covers now. Sports, I guess.

But I didn't realize just how recently that metamorphosis had occurred until I was doing a little Google Fu on red setters (not Irish setters. Red setters. The former's a photogenic dustmop. The latter's a bird dog that has always intrigued me) and I stumbled across an SI article on that very subject. Even more amazing, it was from the Novermber 20, 1978 issue.

I would have thought that by that time SI would be basically the same publication it is today. I would have been basically wrong, because there it is. Whodathunk it. The SI Vault website is, by the way, completely searchable. Well worth the timesuck.

I sure wish Sports Illustrated still published those kinds of stories. Hell, I wish most hunting and fishing magazines still published those kinds of stories...

Incidentally, the picture above obviously isn't a red setter, it's a chessie, which was featured on the Nov. 30, 1959 cover of SI. I couldn't find anything out about him other than his owner's name was Kenneth Hand. Don't know if the dog actually ran in the 1959 National Field Trial Retriever Stakes (there were two chessies, according to the article) or if he was just a model. Good-lookin' dog, either way.

Hey Man, Nice Shot*

2011-11-03T12:54:00.001-05:00

I have to admit, I've become a bit inured to a lot of the waterfowl and waterfowling photography out there because, quite frankly, most of it's pretty derivative, especially the standard C&C (cupped and committed) mallard shot.

But I gotta say, the cover shot on the current issue of DU magazine is really, really nice. Me like.

* With apologies to Filter

How To Beat The High Cost Of Living...

2011-11-02T14:07:00.000-05:00

The ever-resourceful Suburban Bushwacker recently blogged about dumpster-diving for a perfectly fine-looking Burberry jacket that had no doubt been cast off by one of this year's UK nominees for Upper-Class Twit of the Year.

Since SBW and I share not only a mimimalist aesthetic, but the minimalist income stream that usually precipitates said aesthetic, I am appropriately jealous of his score. The closest I can come to matching is my purchase last year of a brand-new Barbour shooting jacket that was sitting on the clearance rack of a local insurance salvage resell store.

I have no idea where it came from or how it got there, but I had always wanted one of those classic waxed-cotton shooting jackets. When I saw this one, in my size even, I snatched it up with visions of being the best-dressed, classiest-looking quail hunter in Oklahoma (something most folks believe to be mutually exclusive...)

While not as expensive as one of those Burberry jobs, it was still a $400 jacket for, IIRC, $79, so I got it. And wore it hunting. Once.

A thick, waxed-cotton coat may be fine for genteel chaps who hunt damp, chilly Britain, standing around with a gun-bearer, in one spot, waiting on driven grouse, but it was about the worst thing this lowborn Okie prole ever wore for walking miles up and down northwest Oklahoma sandhills.

My fashionable, Orvis-endorsed dreams crushed, I went back to the vest and relegated the Barbour to being my general around-town coat, a purpose for which it performs and looks great.

Would I pay $400 for it? Oh, hell no. But I have no regrets paying $79 for it, and I'd dive in a dumpster for one in a heartbeat, headlong, even...

A**holes and Autumn People...

2011-11-01T13:20:00.008-05:00

A few random observations - both impolite and wistful - on Halloween and the month of October...

First, a bit of a post-Halloween screed...

Since when did trick-or-treating with your children become a strictly vehicle-based activity? One in which the parents - who apparently can’t be bothered with the tiresome act of removing their lardasses from their vehicles and physically walking down the street with their children and, you know, engaging with them – instead kick said children out of the vehicle and slowly cruise along the street ignoring their kids and other pedestrians, updating their Facebook status on their phone and creating huge traffic and safety hazards.

Thanks for that.

What the hell, people? Is this what we’ve come to? Can we not, for one night a year, just one friggin’ night out of 365, park our cars – just this once – and take a walk instead of willfully disassociating ourselves from the opportunity to have a real, tangible, organic experience with our children?

You horrible, self-indulgent, fat, lazy, no-good, stupid-ass mo-fos; you squawking, shit-for-brained, lemming-like creatures whose asses are apparently connected - Avatar-like - with the heated, air-conditioned Corinthian leather seats in your steel cocoons, here’s a hint: Not only do you ruin the experience for the rest of us who still use our lower extremities for something other than operating a gas pedal, you ruin it for your own children, too.

How? By teaching them to grow up to be just like you. And if there’s one thing the world doesn’t need right now, it’s another generation of self-absorbed dickheads.

And this is just my opinion, but I’m pretty sure that, deep down, most eight-year-old girls don’t really want to be tarted-up pixie streetwalkers for Halloween. That’s your fantasy, and if you've secretly always harbored some Penthouse Forum daydream about rockin’ the stripper pole, hey, that’s cool, but maybe you shouldn’t be living that dream vicariously through your child. Just sayin’…

Just had to vent a little. I'm good now...

Last night, after we got home from trick-or-treating and got the kids out of their costumes and into bed, I grabbed a wee nip and curled up in the reading chair with some Ray Bradbury.

October is a restless month. It has always made me - even as a child - wistful and pensive, with a touch of fear at the transition it represents, not just of season, but of mood, being and mind. It’s the one month in which even this hoary, jaded old adult still feels some residual tug of an ancient, pagan magic we all once believed in as children, but which gradually lost its grip as we grew into adulthood.

And I don’t think there’s ever been a writer that captures the essence of, and speaks so eloquently to, my (for lack of a better term) ‘Octoberism” than Ray Bradbury. Reading “Something Wicked This Way Comes” as an adult reminds me, just a bit, of what it was like to be a child who still possessed the capacity for wonder.

That and a stiff glass of scotch also makes a perfect balm for having to deal with assholes all evening...

Oklahoma Clay Pigeon...

2011-10-27T12:25:00.000-05:00

For those days when the hunting turns shitty...

Oklahoma clay pigeon thrower...

Where to shoot Oklahoma clay pigeons...

The rules for shooting Oklahoma clay pigeons...

Rules of the World Cow Chip Throwing® Championship Contest

Two (2) chips per contestant. Chip thrown the farthest shall be the only one counted. If the chip breaks up in mid-air during the throw, the piece going the farthest will be counted. (This does not mean the chip hits the ground and then breaks up.)
Contestants are divided into the following: Men's Open Division; Women's Open Division; VIP Division and Team Division (Must be at least 16 years of age to participate)
Chips shall be at least six (6) inches in diameter.
Contestants shall select their own chip from the official wagon provided by the B.S. Enterprise Committee. To alter or shape the chips selected from the wagon in any way (except in the rare instance when a loose fragment may be removed and provided that the removal does not render that chip less than (6) inches in diameter), subjects the contestant to a twenty-five (25) foot penalty. Decision of the Chip Judge is final.

Oklahoma clay pigeon enthusiast (AKA "shithead")...

On second thought, it might be better to just stick to regular clays...

Bleeding-Edge Goodness...

2011-10-26T11:40:00.001-05:00

                              "If, on your journey, should you encounter God, God will be cut."

                                                                  Hattori Hanzo, from "Kill Bill: Vol. 1"

Ok, so maybe it's not that sharp, but it's damn sharp. Charles May BladieMae. D2. Black canvas micarta. Nickel pins. Nothing fancy, just form following function. Will still shave hair off a forearm after breaking down a deer.

One of my favorite knives from one of my favorite knifemakers. I've got a review of his bird and trout knife (in S30V rather than D2) coming up on the Field & Stream gundogs blog, but the BladieMae remains my favorite all-around knife. I got this one in trade on the secondary market. If you want a new one, it's about a ten-month wait.

Charlie is one of the relatively few knifemakers out there (other than dedicated bushcrafter knifemakers) who offers his knives - any of them - with a scandi grind, and if I could ever scrape up the coin (which I can't, of course...) I'd have him make me a scandi-grind BladieMae in a heartbeat...

Stuff 'yer feckin' e-readers up the 'ol cloudchute...

2011-10-25T10:13:00.002-05:00

...and re-embrace the Gutenberg OS.

Because books were meant to be stored on shelves, not on the digital dildo of the moment. They were meant to be held, read, admired, cherished, displayed and eventually passed on, not downloaded, copied, pasted, and stored as binary code on some goddamned corporate-controlled HAL 9000 with a catchy, bullshit, focus group-derived name...

"Dickens, open my Kurt Vonnegut file, please."
"I'm sorry, Chad. I'm afraid I can't do that. Your Vonnegut file has been deleted as a result of our new corporate guidelines on the downloading of seditious and/or obscene materials. We regret the inconvenience. Would you care to download the latest young adult paranormal romance thriller* instead?"

All the goldbugs bitch and moan about the ephemeral nature of fiat currency, but no one ever says anything about fiat literature. Why is that?

But I digress. The original point of the blog (and really, it did have one, sort of) was to give a link to Steve over at Querencia, who recently put up a couple posts here and here with pics of some of his bookshelves. Proper bookshelves, chockablock with books, memories and mementos.

Cool stuff, and definitely worth a look. That's what I consider a proper e-reader (eclectic reader), one that never needs to be upgraded or replaced, and one that sports an indefinite battery life...

* Actual (and large) genre (with its own aisle!) I observed during a recent visit to a Barnes & Noble. The shelves were packed with titles and the aisle was packed with browsers. We're all fuckin' doomed...

*Definitely not my bookshelf, though I wish it were... the pic is from Shakespeare & Co. in Paris.

The Metamorphosis, Okie edition...*

2011-10-20T12:06:00.002-05:00

No giant man-roaches, just a delectable transformation from this...

To this...

Forget that horrid, slimy, breaded, undercooked mess that restaurants try to pass off as "fried okra." The only acceptable way to cook okra is to lightly coat it with cornmeal, salt, and pepper (no breading and for god's sake no batter) and then fry it in a hot cast-iron skillet until it's crunchy, crispy and almost black (it's actually not quite done in this pic...).

Any other way is simply an abomination...

That represents the year's last batch of okra from the "Stick It To Big Agri-Business Revolutionary Garden." Never thought I'd still be getting okra on October 18. Maybe there's a silver lining to catastrophic climate change, after all...

This year's garden was a mixed bag. We ended up with a good okra crop, and our squash and zucchini harvest needed to be measured in metric tons. On the other hand the seventy-odd days of hundred-degree (and often much higher) heat completely shut down most everything else. None of the watermelon, tomatoes, eggplant or bell peppers produced anything until it started cooling down.

So now I've got tons of green tomatoes, tiny eggplants and itsy-bitsy melons, all doomed since we got our first good freeze last night.

Just as well, really. Duck season's nine days away, quail season opens Nov. 12 and I guess if I can muster the interest there's also a deer season or two mixed in there somewhere. Fall is no time to be messing around with vegetables, anyway...

* with apologies to Franz Kafka's dried-up exoskeleton...

Writing-Related Flotsam and Jetsam

2011-10-18T12:38:00.004-05:00

A few writing-related quotes from perhaps the most acerbic wit of 20th-century journalism...

“...an author, like any other so-called artist, is a man in whom the normal vanity of all men is so vastly exaggerated that he finds it a sheer impossibility to hold it in. His over-powering impulse is to gyrate before his fellow men, flapping his wings and emitting defiant yells. This being forbidden by the police of all civilized nations, he takes it out by putting his yells on paper. Such is the thing called self-expression.”

“Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. ”

“I know of no American who starts from a higher level of aspiration than the journalist. . . . He plans to be both an artist and a moralist -- a master of lovely words and merchant of sound ideas. He ends, commonly, as the most depressing jackass of his community -- that is, if his career goes on to what is called a success.”

“Believing passionately in the palpably not true... is the chief occupation of mankind.” (not really about writing, but I'm making it so).

In other news...

An interesting account of how one first-time novelist (but established writer) came to the decision that giving away his self-published debut novel for almost nothing made the most economic sense, via BoingBoing

It's worth a read, especially for those aspiring (is there any other kind?) book authors who can't seem to gain any traction trudging along the traditional book publishing path (And if there are any literary agents out there, I'm now holding up a cardboard sign that reads "Will Work for Representation and/or Food").

A quote from the last graf...

As the screenwriter William Goldman said years ago about Hollywood, Nobody knows anything. You try something, you try something else, you try everything, even things that sound insane, because in an industry where the longstanding business model has been upended, everything else has been upended too, even the gravitational tug of logic. If you want to get rich, value your work at zero. Yes, okay, it reads like the last line of a Zen koan. But self-publishing’s best practices are still unwritten, so really: Why not? That tactical freedom might be the most disruptive, the most liberating part of the whole self-publishing business.

I'm still trying to decide if that's a fair statement or self-delusional bullshit. I'm thinking the latter, mebbe?

And if you're a writer or journalist who just doesn't have enough despair in your life (and who couldn't use a little more despair, right?) I'll now direct you to this cheerful little report on the current state of the alleged creative class, via Salon

Read it, writers, and weep for the present, never mind the future, 'cause there 'aint one...

Listen to the optimists and the great recession sounds like a great opportunity. This is the time for the creative class to brand itself! A day job, they say, is so 20th century – as quaint and outdated as tail fins and manual sewing machines. Thanks to laptops, cheap Internet connections and structural changes in the world economy, we’re living in a world of “free agents” – “soloists” who are “self-branding” and empowered to live flexible and self-determining lives full of meaning.

We are all citizens of Freelance Nation — heirs not to the old-school stodgy, gray-flannel-suit Organization Man but to the coonskin-capped pioneers and rugged, self-made types who built this country.

Do Morons Dream of Being Mindless Sheep*

2011-10-07T08:23:00.000-05:00

From a press release I saw this morning...

"Have you ever dreamed of hunting waterfowl on TV with a professional sportsman?"

A "professional sportsman?" What? You mean like this guy?

I've met a few "professional sportsmen." And the only thing I ever dreamed about was getting the hell away from them as quickly as possible. But then again, I always was a sloth-infused small-time dreamer with no real vision, so if it's your dream - out of all the possible dreams in the world - to hunt waterfowl on TV with a "professional" sportsman, then who am I to judge? Reach for the stars, dude...

*With apologies to Philip K. Dick's corpse...

Mallard's Cop-Out Rewind: It's That Kind of Place

2011-10-05T10:28:00.002-05:00

Apologies for the lull. I've got blog material stacked up (hunting trips, books, decoys, dogs, the shitty and depressing state of writing as a viable career, and many other random thoughts) but I've been busy the past three weeks and haven't quite had the time to sit down and write anything.

So of course I'm copping out (temporarily) by recycling an old post that maybe a few of you haven't seen. Lazy, I know. So sue me...

I have no idea what story is contained within this picture's alloted thousand words, but I was cleaning out some files in anticipation of switching over to a new computer this weekend when I stumbled across it and said "that's so weird it needs to be on the blog".

I took it some years back on a state highway somewhere between the southeastern Oklahoma towns of Antlers and Broken Bow. As I was driving along I looked over, saw something dangling from the highway sign, thought "what the hell?" and turned around to take a look.

It turned out to be a string of decapitated catfish, mainly flatheads. I have no idea what compelled someone to hang them there: an angler's pride, some kind of hillbilly voodoo, perhaps a warning to to stay the hell on the main roads (homegrown weed is and always has been a big cash crop in the mountains of SE Oklahoma). I never figured it out. I snapped the picture, looked over my shoulder to make sure Leatherface wasn't watching from the trees and got back in my truck.

I shouldn't have been surprised, though. My mother was born and raised in Antlers and I still have a pile of relatives down that way. I spent a lot of time there as a child so I was well aware things are a little, well...different in that part of the state.

How different? When I took that picture I was down there on an assignment, writing about... Bigfoot.
Yep, it's that kind of place. Beautiful, but strange, a little spooky and completely unlike the popular image of Oklahoma.

The year prior I had been down there on another assignment, writing about Oklahoma's timber industry. While there I had arranged to drive around some logging sites with a local timber company foreman. As I got into his truck and snapped my seatbelt into place he looked over at me and quite unexpectedly asked "You gotchaself a gun, doncha?"

Now, for those unfamiliar with that part of Oklahoma, it's as rugged, as isolated, as wild and as suspicious of outsiders as any place in the country. I was going to be spending all day in the woods with this guy, alone. And here he was asking me if I happened to have a gun on me. Cue banjos.

As it turns out I did, in point of fact, have myself a gun. Yep, it's that kind of place. Notebook? Check. Tape Recorder? Check. Camera? Check. Glock? Check. But I wasn't sure if I should tell him or not. I didn't know this guy from Adam. And he was big, kind of wild-looking. I was from "the city." Cue banjos again.

Would it be tactically prudent to keep it a secret or should I just come out and say upfront that I was packing. Was it a trick question? Would I be violating some company policy? The question, however, was rendered moot as he pulled a scoped .223 from behind the seat and shoved the barrel into the floorboard next to me.

"This is for coyotes 'an such," he informed me with a grin. I instantly wondered if nosy reporters, taxonomically speaking, fell into the "such" genus. "But," he continued, "Ah don' go nowheres roun chere without a gun. Dope growers. An there some roads you doan wanna go down even then."

Great. With the prospect of armed conflict apparently part of the day's tour, I figured I might as well tell him. He gave me an approving look and off we went, engaged in perhaps the most heavily-armed interview in Oklahoma journalism history. Yep, it's that kind of place.

I never ran into Tony Montana and his little friend on that trip, and I after I snapped this picture I went on, but never found Bigfoot, either.

Didn't really matter, though. The locals were scary enough...

Hate To Keep Flogging a Deceased Equine, But...

2011-09-12T17:09:00.000-05:00

Did I mention that duck season's not looking so good this year? This is the old flood-control lake on the in-laws' homestead and my A#1 fowling spot. If I had taken this picture in a normal year I'd be standing in about four feet of water, ducks would be dropping from the sky and all would be good and right in the world.

So it goes...

At least I got in a little work on some planted birds with ~~knucklehead~~ Jenny while we were down there seeing how bad things were.

I'll be hitting the Kansas prairie chicken opener with Scampwalker this week and it'll be interesting to see how she does, or doesn't. I thought I had her pretty well whoa broke but we had some issues when the quail started flying. Hope the guys I'm hunting with are patient souls or I may be relegated to hunting along so they can actually enjoy themselves...

Copy Desk Fail and "One Ticket to High, Please."

2011-09-09T10:51:00.003-05:00

Just a little random Friday flotsam and jetsam consisting of two absolute gems, both courtesy of BoingBoing...

First, the "Unfortunate Headline of the Day" award goes to the Washington Post for this doozy...

'Nuff said there...

Next, seemingly staid, buttoned-down travel writer/PBS television host Rick Steves goes a little wild as he gives the funniest travel/getting stoned analogy I've ever heard...

"I love going places, and to me high is a place."

I and the millions of geriatric PBS viewers anxiously await the debut of that particular episode of "Rick Steve's Europe." I'm guessing it couldn't be any weirder or more hallucinogenic than those old re-runs of "The Lawrence Welk Show."

This Is What A Cosmic Screwing Looks Like...

2011-09-07T12:14:00.001-05:00

The highest fall flight numbers in decades whisper promises of an epic waterfowl season. And I finally have a boat to duck hunt out of. No more busting reeds, busting ice or busting my ass. Just launch the boat and go.

All those shallow backwater areas at the upper end of the lake, the areas you could never reach on foot? The areas you see ducks pouring into year after year as you hunker down in the ass-deep water blowing your duck call like a kazoo hoping to peel off a few tone-deaf stragglers?

They're yours now. Just launch the boat and go. That's your new mantra: no worries, just launch the boat and go.

Uh, yeah. About that...

And that's the best-looking boat ramp on the lake. The others are much, much worse. And with the long-term fall and winter forecast calling for a La Nina pattern, it doesn't look to get any better any time soon, and in fact will - in all likelihood - only get worse, water-level wise.

All my other spots are bone-dry. The walk-in areas I typically hunt on the lake are mostly high and dry and the water level of the main lake body is so far away from any shoreline cover I'd need a layout blind to kill anything.

What I need is a small sneakboat I can throw in the back of the truck and launch from anywhere. What I have is a brand-new, much-anticipated, long-dreamed-about 16-foot, 25-horsepower albatross. What a cosmic screwing...

Teal season starts in three days. The general waterfowl season starts Oct. 29th. Time to start doing some rain dances...

Technical Difficulties...

2011-09-07T10:43:00.000-05:00

Several people have e-mailed to tell me that they are unable to post comments on the blog. I have the "comments" settings as liberal as they'll go, and apparently people are still having trouble. Might this have something to do with Blogger's new automatic spam filter that I can't seem to get rid of or modify?

Anybody have any ideas? Anyone with a Blogger account having the same issue? What the hell am I doing wrong? Is it time, once agan, to think about moving over to Wordpress? Please feel free to leave a comment, unless, of course, you can't...

Gratuitous Body Count Pic: At Least It's Not a Tailgate...

2011-09-02T00:21:00.002-05:00

One thing you almost never see from me is one of these...

Not that I have anything against guys (or gals) who like to take pics of their limits, it's just not something I generally do (although if I manage to scratch out an Oklahoma quail limit this year you can bet your ass I'm taking a picture of that. Lots of them. But don't hold your breath. See below...).

As a sort of half-assed photographer, I'd much rather try to take an interesting picture of a single bird (feather detail, macro, different angle, whatever) rather than a big pile of perforated birds (as an example, I'm kinda fond of this one ). And it's not like an opening-day limit is some sort of accomplishment or personal milestone for me. I shoot a lot of them. Not a brag, it's just that I live in an area with (most years) a lot of dove. Hell, I'm sure if you gave The Suburban Bushwacker a plane ticket and a shotgun, he'd shoot a limit, too.

**EDIT: Actually, I just realized that technically, this picture is two birds short of a limit. Why? The two collared dove on the end don't count toward the combined mourning dove/whitewing limit, which makes my small victory in the face of today's lousy conditions, and my resulting euphoria (see below) essentially null and void. Sigh. Carry on...

But you know what? I'm posting this gratuitous body count pic, proudly, because damn it, I earned this ~~15-bird limit~~. I don't think I've ever been more miserable on an opening-day dove hunt, and I've been on some scorchers.

It's not that it was so terribly hot: it "only" got up to 106. It's not that it was so terribly windy: it was "only" gusting to about 35 mph or so. But the combination of 106 degrees, 35 mph winds and the effects of this (insert any adjective here) drought all combined to form some weird sort of unholy synergy of misery. It felt like someone was standing directly in front of me holding the world's largest hairdryer and a bucket of sand, and all the while the giant klieg light of the sun burning holes in my retinas, even through the sunglasses.

Misery. My only solace was leaning my back against the water-cooled steel of the stock tank and drinking gallons of ice-cold well water (out of the pipe, not the stock tank...) while waiting for the evening flight.

Unfortunately, the dove were mostly coming in from the west so I had to get up, walk around the pond and go hunker down in the sagebrush, which meant my ass immediately got punctured with dozens of these little bastards...

That's a sandbur, if you're lucky enough to not be familiar with them. And if the abstract concept of pain could take a physical form, this is what it would be. If you ever plan on bird hunting northwest Oklahoma or southwest Kansas, I'd advise you to bring a good pair of hemostats, because you'll be picking these out of everything...

But eventually, after the pain and cursing subsided, I started shooting a few birds, including a pair of these...

The Eurasion collared dove, a non-native transplant which is quickly establishing itself across the region. It's still mostly a bird of towns, suburbs and semi-rural backyards (we've got a couple here at the house) but they're showing up in hunters' bags more frequently. These are the first I've shot. They're considerably larger than a mourning dove and when this pair came flying in like a couple B-52s even I could manage the double.

After limiting out I walked back to the truck just in time to catch the area manager driving by. I hadn't seen him in a while so he stopped to talk and eventually the conversation came around to quail. The news, as expected, was grim. It's going to be a tough year. Really tough.

He told me that according to the trapping results, it looks like the quail on that particular area managed to get off one meager hatch in the middle of August, which isn't a good time to be a quail chick in the best of years, much less the hottest, driest summer in recorded history. There were no other age groups for the young quail, which means all other hatches this year apparently failed.

And judging by the heat and condition of the cover, I'm surprised anything survived at all. It's hard to put into words just how desiccated the landscape in this region truly is. I hadn't been out to this particular WMA since the end of quail season back in February, and in fact hadn't spent much, if any time this summer north of where I live. It was dry in February, but it's powder now.

How anything as fragile and high-strung as those little nine-ounce birds can live through a summer like this is beyond me, but as I was sitting there this evening I heard a few bobs whistling from somewhere out in the sagebrush. But just a few.

I may shoot some quail this fall, or I may not, but I'm guessing this is the last "look-at-my-limit" pic you'll be getting from me for quite some time. And really, that's not a bad thing.

Rivers of Memory and Streams of Schlock...

2011-08-31T00:44:00.000-05:00

                               “You know (in supercilious tone), Nietzsche says "From chaos, comes order.”’

                               “Ah, blow it out yer ass, Howard.”

                                                                         From a great scene in a great movie...

And if you’ve read the blog long enough, you know that pretty much sums up how I feel about the majority of flyfishing writing. Insufferably pedantic, overheated, self-important, metaphor-choked twaddle that cranks the gratuitously pensive prose knob to eleven until our brains - unable to take any more - just say fuck it and go all Scanners on us. It's the Vogon poetry of the outdoors literary scene: excruciating to the ear, the tongue and the brain.

Don't believe me? Spend a few hours in the sports section of your local Barnes & Noble (can't very well do it with Borders any more, can we?) perusing the flyfishing titles. I promise you'll end up carrying your exploded noggin home in your favorite literary figure tote bag...

Which makes it such a damn mystery why I continue to love Harry Middleton, who, it could easily be argued, is the very embodiment of all that I loathe about the genre. Prose? Here is an honest-to-gawd random passage from the Middleton book I'm currently reading. I promise you I did not cherry-pick this; I just opened a random page without looking and placed my finger on a random spot, again, without looking...

"The only break in the day's otherwise olamic tincture of grays was the luteous glow of my room's single 40-watt desk lamp. It had been like that for three days, the island enveloped in a thick, merciless composition of grays: griseous dawns, cinereous afternoons, dismal dingy gray evenings. I imagined that even the wind and the sounds of the sea were some shade of gray, perhaps an oyster-gray mist rising off the pounding lead gray sea."

You know, it must have been a real bitch to play Scrabble against him...

I mentioned this propensity for wordiness when I blogged about "The Bright Country" last year...

As much as I liked it, though, I did have some quibbling little issues with “The Bright Country.” One, it’s pretty obvious the book is at least semi-fictionalized. Middleton described it as “more real than imagined” but many, if not most of the characters, settings, events and dialogue were simply too perfect to the story to be real. Second, Middleton was an incredibly wordy writer. I’ve got a pretty good vocabulary, but some of his words were simply lost on me, to the point where they began distracting a bit from the story.

But I guess the difference between Middleton and many of the others, and the reason I tolerate his excessive wordiness, his bottomless bag of adjectives and his feathering of fact and fiction, is because the pain and the raw emotion he puts (or rather put, since he's dead...) down on the page isn't the droning, affected naval-gazing gibberish of all the single-malted Compleat Morons out there who somehow, inexplicably, scored a book deal. It's real. Long-winded, perhaps, but real nonetheless.

When Middleton writes about depression and pain and longing, about losing everything and having to climb on the back of a garbage truck every night to go to work, about how the wind and the splatter of rain sometimes reminds him of wild rivers he can no longer fish, well, I can relate to that, I can feel that.

But a book-length exploration of your boring-ass upper middle-class twit existential crisis set on a river, or perhaps a formulaically contemplative recounting of your worldwide flyfishing adventures and what it all means in the cosmic sense? Not so much. I'll just stick with the hard-luck hardscrabble angst and leave the rest of that high-falutin' shit to the "Fifty Places" crowd.

Which brings me to the original point of the blog...

I recently picked up a copy of "Rivers of Memory" which was published in 1993, the year of Middleton's death. It's a little book, eight essays, barely a hundred pages long and long out of print. It's a highly-collectable title, I got it for a good price and as such it will go in my meager collection of decent books, but not before being read, of course. And like all of Middleton's books, it gyrates wildly between passages of forlorn darkness and sublime wonder, all in the arc of a single sentence...

Each night as I haul myself onto the back of county garbage truck number two, there is familiar wind, some shred of moonglow or starlight, a splatter of dark rain on my skin, something that stirs my memory, and again, if even for a brief moment, I am on some mountain river, some stretch of bright water, water full of possibilities, including the possibility of trout, perhaps one that, when hooked, will haul me in and out of time, in and out of life's mysterious and frightening, wondrous and incomprehensible continuum, even to the edges of the universe.

Good stuff...

A Little Maudlin Nostalgia...

2011-08-25T08:54:00.002-05:00

A while back I wrote a blog detailing my penchant for collecting old and largely-worthless fishing tackle from the seventies and early eighties, explaining that...

"I have a special interest in vintage tackle and ads from the seventies and eighties because well, that's when I came of age. I'm constantly cruising the pawn shops and little small-town hardware stores for the tackle that time forgot. Old rods, reels, tackle and tackle boxes: it's amazing what's still out there sitting on store shelves. Whether it's pawn shops or some old ramshackle small-town bait store, I'm always on the prowl...old tackle from the seventies is like drinking an ice-cold coke made with real sugar out of a glass bottle with a bunch of salty peanuts in it, a delicious and fleeting evocation of a time and place you can't get back to."

And one of the places I most often frequented back in the age of sideburns and polyester was the venerable and ubiquitous chain of Oklahoma-based auto supply stores known as OTASCO. Like most typical Main Street-based auto parts-hardware-variety stores of yore (think Western Auto, Montgomery Ward's, TG&Y, Sears, etc...) OTASCO carried a full line of sporting goods.

My first bicycle came from OTASCO (a Flying O, remember them?) My first .22 came from OTASCO (a Winchester 190) and in all likelihood my first fishing pole came from OTASCO, though I was far too young to remember. OTASCO sold a surprising variety of fishing and hunting equipment, and the downtown Norman store was, along with the TG&Y just down the street, one of the icons of my childhood. If I had a nickel for every cardboard tube of Daisy BBs I purchased from that store...

But eventually, inevitably, OTASCO went the way of virtually every other sporting-goods retailer of that era. Some, like Sears, stopped selling hunting and fishing gear altogether (every time I walk into a Sears today I want to cry) while others, like TG&Y (damn how I loved that place) and OTASCO slowly closed stores until they disappeared. I can't remember exactly when the central Oklahoma stores closed. I do remember buying shotgun shells at the Noble, Oklahoma OTASCO up until sometime around the mid to late eighties, but by the end of the decade OTASCO was done for.

I hadn't thought about OTASCO in years, but yesterday I was perusing the Fishing For History blog and what did I see as this week's installment of the blog's excellent series "52 Trade Houses in 52 Weeks" but a very interesting history of the Oklahoma Tire and Supply Co., which is, of course, OTASCO.

Cool stuff, and an interesting read if you grew up anywhere near one of OTASCO's 455 stores scattered across 12 states. After reading it I immediately went and rummaged through some of my old junk. A cursory search didn't reveal any OTASCO-branded tackle (though I think I do have some lying around somewhere) or hunting gear (although I'm pretty sure I've got a few old shotgun shell boxes with OTASCO price stickers on them, again, somewhere...) but I did manage to come up with this:

Back in the day (early to mid-eighties, maybe?) that was the largest (1500 count) box of Daisy BBs you could buy (at least that I'm aware) and I went through a ton of them. I almost certainly purchased this box (and another I still have) from the Norman OTASCO when I was in the fourth or fifth grade. I have no idea why I still have it, but I sure wish I still had the old-school, wood-stocked Crosman 760 through which I shot all my BBs back then. Which was bought at...OTASCO.

Ahhh, good times...

Mallard's Infinite Playlist: Song of September...

2011-08-23T13:24:00.005-05:00

I am - for the most part - a proud ignoramus when it comes to sports. I never played sports (my youth was given over wholly to fishing, hunting, drinking beer and skipping school to repeat items 1,2 and 3), and I never grew up around anyone who did, so it's not that I've lost interest in sports, it's that I never cared to begin with. I couldn't tell you who won the Super Bowl last year (the Dodgers, right?) or the World Series, or that Stanley Bowl thing. I have no clue what an ERA is and I don't know my AL West from my NL East.

I've heard that my home state now has a professional basketball team, the Thunderclap something or other, but since watching basketball interests me about as much as watching platypuses screw, I know nothing of the team, other than most of us here in Oklahoma pay much more attention to our millionaire ballplayers than we do our low thousandaire public-school teachers (current ranking: 49th! Break out the Andre! OK, OK, I'll stop being a political bore...)

But there is one glaring exception to my disinterest. See, I grew up in Norman, Oklahoma. And when you grow up in Norman, Oklahoma, you are beaten daily as a child until you develop an interest in Sooner football (honest, it's in the city charter). So gradually, even if you're not naturally inclined to do so, your interest in college football grows, along with the scar tissue on your backside, until one day you wake up and realize that you are one of them, a...fan.

Sounds brutal, I know, but at least in Oklahoma it's confined to Norman. I hear that in Nebraska - a state much like Oklahoma in its lack of excitement but with only one state university football program to distract its people from ingesting meth and/or watching crops grow - the required beating is a statewide mandate. That would certainly explain a lot... (I kid, I kid my Nebraska homies).

I mean, let's face it: it's Oklahoma we're talking about. It's not like we have a helluva lot we can point to in this state and say "see, look how good we are at this!" So for the past half-century or so we have placed our collective pride and our sense of shared self-worth in the on-field accomplishments of the University of Oklahoma football team (sorry Aggie fans, but it's true...).

And as much as I hate to admit it, as much as the snobbish too-good-for-sports, shun-the-herd iconoclast in me fervently wants it to be otherwise, when I hear this song I completely understand how emotionally invested someone can get in a hometown sports team.

When I was a student at OU I used to live in a crummy little apartment on the south edge of campus, an area that during WWII had been part of a military base. It's mostly developed now, but back in the mid-90s it was an overgrown, largely forgotten jumble of crumbling old buildings and encroaching wildness.

On Saturday mornings during dove season (and later deer bow)I would throw my shotgun in a dufflebag, hop on the bike, cross the highway south of campus and go hunt the south Canadian riverbottom. But even then, miles away from the stadium, I could still hear the roar of the crowd and the band playing the fight song, and I'd hum along to it, heart swelling with Sooner Pride.

"OK," you ask, "if you're such a fan, what the hell were you doing dove hunting when you should have been there watching the game, supporting your school, your team and ~~watching~~ ~~stalking~~ admiring your future wife?" (who as a member of the Pride of Oklahoma's flag corps spent every fall Saturday marching on Owen Field to that very song)

To which I can only reply, it was dove season, man, and during hunting season being a fan has its limits...

And just to give you an example of that, the Sooners are a consensus pre-season #1 and we're the odds-on favorite to win the national championship, but one of the toughest and most important games of the year is September 17th at sixth-ranked Florida State. Every Sooner fan has had that date circled all year.

Where will I be? Hunting prairie chickens in Kansas. Like I said, being a fan has its limits. But you can bet your ass I'll have a radio...

When Good Arachnids Go Bad...

2011-08-18T11:06:00.000-05:00

Damn, the economy must really be in the dumper when you've got superheros knocking over convenience stores...

From this story in the Oklahoman

Police are looking for a man who wore a Spider-Man mask and another masked robber who pointed a gun at a clerk's head during a convenience store robbery. About 8:40 p.m. Aug. 5, police were sent to Fred's Food Mart at 3123 N. Portland Ave., police Master Sgt. Gary Knight said. The store surveillance camera captured video of the robbery. The man who aimed the gun at the clerk was wearing the Spider-Man mask. The other robber can be seen wearing a blue mask in the video.

Maybe he lost a ton of money on the Broadway musical debacle? Or maybe crime-fighting just doesn't pay any more, but I figured if Spider-Man really wanted to steal from the public he'd be smart enough to run for public office instead of this penny-ante stuff. But whaddya expect from a superhero who can't fly and can be killed with a can of Raid? You damn sure wouldn't see Superman robbing the Quickie-Mart...

In other news, apologies for the (continued) lack of activity on the blog, but damn, can you blame me? Who the hell can be motivated to find anything to say in the dead of summer? I sure can't. Can't train dogs. Can't fish. Can't find anything worth saying.

But September is two weeks away. And with apologies to Havilah Babcock, my health (mental and otherwise) starts getting better in September.

Until then, watch out for six-foot spiders...

Hot Enough For 'Ya?

2011-08-03T10:28:00.001-05:00

Yesterday my shaded back porch thermometer hit 109, and if anything, it reads a degree or two cool. We're now in something like our fiftieth (a little less, a little more depending on location) day of 100-degree or higher temps for the year. This July has just been officially declared the hottest month ever recorded in the oven formerly known as Oklahoma (quite the accomplishment for a state not known for the gentleness of its climate...) Today, Oklahoma City will likely break its all-time record high temperature. No rain, and no rain in the extended forecast, either.

Meanwhile, far southwest Oklahoma and a huge chunk of Texas is in even worse shape. Think moonscape, throw in the surface temperature of Mercury for good measure and you get a decent idea of what those folks are dealing with. The latest newsletter from the Rolling Plains Quail Research Ranch reads like, well, an obituary for the coming quail season. And we're just now (just now!) entering what is traditionally the hottest three-week period of the year. Yay.

I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I'm going to have to drive for my bird hunting this year. And I'm beginning to suspect that - despite the fact I now have a boat to duck hunt out of - I will have no water on which to float the damn thing because the area lakes will be too low to launch boats.

And dog training? Fuggetabout it. Don't want to take the chance running the dogs in this heat, and every bit of water around me is either gone or coated with a nasty green sheen of algae, dead fish and beer cans.

A few days ago, in an e-mail to Steve Bodio I jokingly wrote "forecast high tomorrow of 107 and 110 on Tuesday. I used to think it was just bird season that was looking grim. I may have to upgrade that pessimism forecast to include existence itself...

Hyperbole or a wee bit of whistling past the graveyard? I guess we'll see in the next decade or so, but I've got one eye (and a head full of daydreams) trained in the direction of Montana. And I'm not the only one...

You just have to ask yourself what's worse: winter in Montana or summer in Oklahoma? Decisions, decisions...

Assorted Doggerel...

2011-07-24T17:31:00.001-05:00

While walking the aisles at the Pheasants Forever Pheasant Fest in Omaha earlier this year, I was delighted to discover a booth for the American Chesapeake Club displaying this cool vintage poster from the now-defunct Storz Brewery.

I had never heard of Storz beer, but I'm told that back in the day it was a fairly popular regional brew up in that part of the world. And even if it tasted about like it sounds, I'm sure I could choke down a few in appreciation of the chessie art.

I started talking to the poster's owners, who, as it turned out, were close friends with the breeder of my male Lewey, and in fact had owned Leweys great-great-great-grandsire on Lewey's dam's side, which was this dog...

They had a couple chessies there with them that I, regrettably, completely forgot to take pics of, one of which was (I believe, but I may be wrong...) Bur Oak's Authentic Jessica, who would have been Lewey's grand-dam. Small world. But since I can't remember my own family tree, much less my dogs', I may very well be wrong on that. At any rate, it was an enjoyable visit, if a somewhat bittersweet reminder that at some point I'm going to have to think about a new pup to take Lewey's place.

And on to flying setters...

Just because the mercury's sitting on 103 as I type this, and snow is but a distant memory...

Paging Dr. Dolittle...

2011-07-22T15:51:00.000-05:00

Over on the Quail Forever website I recently blogged about watering my yard during a drought. In short, we're up to our ears in wildlife. Not surprising, considering our backyard is (to put it mildly) of the non-manicured variety (mostly weeds, in fact) and is as wildlife-friendly as I can make it.

But what's really bringing them in is the water. Earlier this year, right before this insane drought/heat wave really cranked up, we had a small sprinkler system installed around our yard and garden. We did it not because we're interested in having a trophy lawn (we're not) but because it's literally the only way to keep any vegetation alive in our sandy soil. I hadn't planned on it becoming an oasis for drought-stricken wildlife, but that's exactly what it's turned into. Between that and the "water garden" (i.e. the bait tank) our little acre or so of greenery is fast becoming like those mid-summer water holes you see on the African documentaries...

I can now say I've finally found a good use for watering the yard. We've had more quail whistling around the house year than we've ever had...

Deer? We've had more than we can count. We've got does with one fawn...

We've got does with two fawns...(eating flowers)

We've got a tom who has, quite literally, moved in with us. He hangs out in the back yard all day long, sleeping in our flowerbed...

And when he gets up to scratch around the bird feeder, there's always a doe hanging around to steal his spot...

Bugger off, birdbrain. This is my bed now...

And we have several regular hens who come in on a daily basis, but a few days ago we had one bring in the family (or what's left of it thanks to the neighborhood feral cats, coons and skunks...)

There were actually three chicken-sized poults tagging along, but I couldn't get them all in frame because not only are the animal enjoying the greenery, the 'hoppers are, too, and these guys were buggin' all over the yard.

I can't really tell how the various hatches have gone off this year. I've seen several groups of poults around the neighborhood this size, as well as several about twice as large, so at least for the turkeys it looks like a decent year, anyway. Not like we really needed any more turkeys...

What we need are quail, and as for Mr. Bob, the jury's still out, I think. I haven't seen any chicks in the yard, although I do have several hens and/or pairs hanging around, and we saw a hen riding herd on a group of chicks on the way to the lake last week. Guess we'll find out in November, if it ever gets here...

In addition, we're plum covered up in leopard frogs eating grasshoppers, ribbon snakes eating leopard frogs and coons eating ribbon snakes and whatever else they can stuff down their throats. We've got sharpies and Cooper's picking off songbirds, cottontails trying to pick off my garden, short-eared owls picking off the rabbits and the turkey vultures getting the last word on everyone. Nothing like epic drought to make things chummy. It's a regular chain 'o life in our back yard this summer. The Disney crowd would be enthralled. Or horrified

In fact, I half expect to wake up some morning and have a pair of mallards swimming around the water garden. And if we don't get any rain - and soon - it may end up being my go-to duck hunting spot this year...

Re-visiting Some Old Stuff

2011-07-12T14:38:00.000-05:00

Too hot to train dogs. Too hot to fish. Too hot to even think about the promise of fall and birds and dogs, so I'm re-reading some old favorites. Because when you're lazy the assurance of the known trumps the promise of the unknown any day...

One old favorite I just pulled from the shelf and dusted off for a read is Okla Hannali by RA Lafferty. Go on, you can admit it: you've never heard of him. Neither has anyone else. Neither had I, until I was compelled to read Okla Hannali for a western history class at OU. Who says college isn't worth it?

Lafferty was an interesting dude. He's no longer in print, but you can find most of his stuff if you look hard enough and are willing to pay. Here's a little backpage obit I wrote for our state magazine back in 2002 when Lafferty died, broken, broke and alone, in a Tulsa nursing home.

It is somehow fitting - however tragically so- that the best Oklahoma book no one has ever read was penned by the best Oklahoma author no one has ever heard of, but if history is rife with examples of literary genius discovered postmortem then perhaps Tulsa’s Raphael Aloysius Lafferty will now finally get his due.

The genre-warping author and self-described “cranky old man from Tulsa” who died in a Broken Arrow nursing home earlier this year at the age of 87, wrote dozens of books and hundreds of short stories in a career that only began in his forties. However, despite his prolific output Lafferty never achieved widespread fame, due in no small part to his eclectic subject matter and absolutely unique writing style.

While Lafferty is generally categorized as a science fiction/fantasy writer, his work has always defied such neat and tidy pigeonholes. In 1972, one year before Lafferty won a Hugo award for his science fiction short story “Eurema’s Dam” he published “Okla Hannali”, a historical novel that chronicles the history of the Choctaw tribe in Oklahoma through its protagonist, Hannali Innominee. That he could do both genres so well - and yet remain so widely unknown – is both a testament to his genius as a writer and a pointed reminder that genius is often unmarketable.

Despite the sci-fi label, Lafferty’s writing - with its peculiar style and structure - has often been compared to that of James Joyce. No matter the subject, Lafferty’s surreal tall tales exhibit a lilting, singsong cadence, an unmistakable stamp that enthralls his hard-core fans but forces some who try to read him to simply give up, hopelessly entangled in Lafferty’s syntactic jungle.

It is that slightly askew, wildly imaginative style that firmly entrenched both Lafferty’s cult status and his obscurity.

Virtually an entire generation of sci-fi writers credits him as an influence, but the vast majority of Lafferty’s work is long out of print and extremely rare, primarily because much of it was originally published in low numbers by small, independent presses.

As such, there is no such thing as a definitive Lafferty bibliography. Some of Lafferty’s work remains alive on the publishing fringes, available from the small indie and underground presses that have always sustained him, but for the most part Lafferty‘s books are now the exclusive domain of book scouts, fans and collectors.

“Okla Hannali” is a notable exception. In 1991 the University of Oklahoma Press resurrected Lafferty’s hypnotic tale of the Choctaw nation, and Oklahoma’s literary landscape is richer for it. Few books - fiction or non-fiction - capture the mood of Indian Territory as completely as Lafferty’s, and his singular style imparts a dreamy, songline-like quality to the tale.

Lafferty’s death barely registered in popular literary circles, but perhaps his passing will rekindle scholarly and the reading public’s interest in his work. Both the University of Tulsa and the University of Iowa maintain Lafferty collections, and, of course, there is that vast, amorphous body of work strewn across the dusty corners of the literary landscape, just waiting to be rediscovered.

Until then, however, R.A. Lafferty’s legacy and his contributions to Oklahoma and world literature will remain much as they always have – unknown.

Good stuff, if you ever come across it...

Blogging Escher-Style...

2011-07-11T13:08:00.000-05:00

I can log in to post a blog, but when I try to log in to respond to a comment, or to comment on anyone else's Blogger-based blog, it prompts me for my username/password, and then when I do that, it shows the comment being from "anonymous."

And then, when I try to post the comment, even as "anonymous" it then - in a nice little bit of circularity - sends me right back to the Google sign-in page to start the whole futile process over again...

Any ideas? Is a wholesale move to say, Wordpress in the future?

Mallard's Infinite Playlist: Iris DeMent

2011-06-30T12:40:00.006-05:00

I discovered Iris DeMent completely by accident a while back while noodling around Last.FM looking for other stuff. I had been on sort of a female folky/Americana/Alt-Indie Country kick and was listening to stuff by the likes of Patty Griffin, Lucinda Williams, Neko Case, etc, when I stumbled across her song "Easy's Gettin' Harder Every Day." The hopelessness of the lyrics and the tired sadness of her voice just blew me away (unfortunately it's not on YouTube).

I had never heard of Iris DeMent, but interestingly enough - even though I was quite the fan back in the day - she first gained widespread notice when her song "Our Town" was played in the closing scenes and credits of Northern Exposure during that show's final episode. Here's a cool version of that song with backing vocals from Emmylou Harris, or, as I like to call her, the hottest gray-haired woman in the world.

Her music must strike some note of bittersweet finality, because more recently another of DeMent's songs, her version of the hymm "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" was featured in the closing credits of the Coen Brothers' adaptation of "True Grit." Beautiful stuff, almost enough to make this secular heathen go find himself a god(s).

I wouldn't say DeMent has a classically beautiful voice. It is, admittedly, something of an acquired taste. Some may find it too twangy, a bit nasally, just a little too backwoods Pentacostal-sounding, but having come from exactly that kind of peasant hillbilly stock, I love it. I think it sounds like distilled heartbreak, a sine wave of working class hope and despair, the kind of music populated by Joe Bageant's (and my) people. Good stuff.

I'm still poking around her body of work, but here's one of my favorites so far...

And if you're a Talking Heads fan (as I am) you might like David Byrne's (and Natalie Merchant's) cover.

Not Quite Back From the Dead...

2011-06-27T16:43:00.000-05:00

But I'm getting there, albeit slowly. Every summer, it seems, I go through a period where I just sort of abandon the 'ol blog and let it swing in the wind for a few weeks.

This has been one of those periods, a combination of the boys and wife being out of school for the summer, a long list of around-the-yard-and-house projects (the "Stick-It-To-Big-Agri-Business Revolutionary Garden" is now up and running! In about six weeks look for the inevitable "Crawling-Back-To-Big-Agri-Business-After-The-Bugs-Ate-My-Revolutionary-Garden" sequel...) several trips, general summer malaise brought on by heat, the desire to read a few books and a natural regression toward my personal sloth-mean.

Plus, I'll be damned if I've really had anything to say the past few weeks, and if there's one thing that defines a useless and boring read, it's throwing up a blog post just for the purpose of throwing up a blog post.

So now, of course, I'm going to throw up a blog post just for the sake of throwing up a blog post. I am nothing if not consistent. I actually do have many fine blog topics lined up for your reading pleasure and/or ridicule. This just 'aint one of them.

One of the projects I've been working on the past several weeks is this...

It's a well-used 16-foot Carolina Skiff J16. This came about following an incident during the late duck season in which I very nearly drowned in about two feet of water and ice while busting through thick reeds with way too much decoy weight on my back. First I had a "You're shittin' me? I'm gonna die like this?" moment. I didn't. At least I'm pretty sure I'm alive. Then I had the obligatory "I'm too old for this shit" moment.

It was obvious I needed a boat. The places I normally hunted were simply getting too thick to reach by foot. Not only that, I've really been wanting a boat to take the boys and wife (who's a fishing fiend) out on local lakes. So I started cruising Craigslist and when I found the right boat at the right price, I bought it.

I'm hoping it will be perfect for my needs. Well, let me back up: first, I hope it floats. Once that's been established, then I'm hoping it will be perfect for my needs. I'm not a recreational boater and I'm not interested in that "my outboard is bigger than your outboard" status symbol bass boat crap. I just wanted a good, stable, basic boat, and I think I got it.

When I'm finished it's hopefully going to be my family fishing and fun, cast-n-blast rig. Right now, however, it's sort of in pieces. I took out all the seats and decks, yanked off the motor (a 25-horse Mariner tiller-steer), scrubbed it down inside and out, bedlinered the interior (it looks sorta blue, but it's actually gray), flipped it over and then coated the bottom and sides of the hull in an ultra-tough epoxy paint that the airboat guys cover their hulls with. It didn't have a rear deck when I bought it, so I'm planning on making one from plywood and fiberglass, and if I really go wild I might make a poling platform just so I can say I've got the only redneck flats boat in northwest Oklahoma.

Now I'm debating whether to go ahead and paint the whole thing camo, or just use grass and burlap to cover it during waterfowl season. At any rate, Tess is pleased she won't have to walk so far and stand up to her boobies in ice-cold water and I'm pleased that in the future if I do manage to drown myself while waterfowling, I'll at least have the dignity to drown at a respectable depth.

Incommunicado...

2011-06-05T13:42:00.002-05:00

"Nothing like this way out in west Texas, Galveston Bay is a whole other world."

Jimmy Buffett, from Who's the Blonde Stranger?

If you've been wondering about my lack of posting activity or my complete lack of e-mail response (for those of you who have e-mailed me) over the past week or so, now you know the reason why...

My wife and I decided it was time the boys see the ocean (or gulf, for you sticklers) so last week we packed up and headed down to one of my favorite spots in the world, Galveston Island. Touristy? Yes, but that's OK. I like the place, anyway. I'm mostly a churlish, anti-social bastard when it comes to tourist destinations, but I make exceptions for Europe and anywhere I can fish.

So that's what we did. A little fishing, a little sightseeing, a little seafood and a whole lot of beachcombing. Had a great time. My eldest son caught several nice redfish and landed, after an extended fight, a big jack crevalle that - more than once - I thought was going to spool him. It was great fun.

I've always liked Galveston, my wife and I even spent part of our honeymoon there, and since my new addiction to saltwater fishing, it's also the nearest outlet I have to scratch that itch. I'm already trying to figure out how I can go back down in July or August and fish for a few days.

Maybe it's the long-dormant Parrothead in me coming out, but if I ever get too old to keep up with the dogs, or if the birds ever disappear and with it my reason for living on the plains, I'm packing up and spending the rest of my days somewhere beside the sea, drinking beer and fishing. I can think of very few things I'd rather aspire to...

Anyway, if you've tried to get in touch with me the past ten days or so, be patient, I'll get back to you eventually, after I unpack, go pick up the dogs, mow the yard and wade through the pile of bills that were patiently, implacably, awaiting my return. Cursed reality...

So What's Worse...

2011-05-24T10:55:00.001-05:00

Getting no rain at all and the possibility of wildfires? Or getting rain, but with a little extra mustard...

Weather Synopsis...The forecast for later today calls for a potentially significant severe weather outbreak with very large hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes. At this time, it appears that central and eastern Oklahoma will be under the greatest risk of severe weather this afternoon and evening, east of an advancing dry line. We encourage you to monitor available sources for the latest weather information throughout the day. Storms are likely to hold off until early afternoon at the earliest, so whether you will be at home or at work, this morning is a good time to review severe weather safety procedures. Over western Oklahoma and western north Texas, there will likely be strong winds and extreme wildfire conditions behind the dry line this afternoon.

There are a helluva lot of things I can say about living in Oklahoma, but one thing I can't say - ever - is that the weather is boring and predictable...

Truest. Poster. Ever.

2011-05-20T09:44:00.000-05:00

From the demotivation website...

Karma Giveth, Taketh Away, Then Giveth Again...

2011-05-19T13:29:00.000-05:00

A week or so ago I was fishing a small state park pond behind my house when I stumbled upon a tangled mess of spinnerbaits, perhaps six in all, that had obviously fallen from someone's tackle box.

Having been in that boat before, I left them, figuring that someone might be looking for them. But the next day, when I went back to fish again, they were still there, in the same spot. I debated leaving them yet again. They weren't even decent spinnerbaits, just cheap, generic no-name baits like you get from the dollar-a-bait bin at the big box stores. But I figured if whoever lost them hadn't found them by now, they probably weren't going to. So I threw them in my bag and went on my way.

A few days later I was fishing a different public pond, caught a bass, and in the course of digging through my tackle bag for the digital scale and camera, I took my main spinnerbait box out the bag and put it on the ground beside me.

You see where this is going, right? Now fast-forward a few mornings later when, while reorganizing my tackle bag, I realized my spinnerbait box was missing. A frantic search of my garage turned up nothing, and with a mounting feeling of dread, I remembered that I had left my spinnerbait box sitting on that pond bank. To make matters worse, I had taken a six-weight fly rod with me that day, and yep, you guessed it, I had shoved my bass fly box into my spinnerbait box.

I hopped into the car and rushed back the pond, but as I walked the bank I knew I wouldn’t be finding my spinnerbait box. At least fifty of my best, most expensive spinnerbaits, gone.

Plus my entire collection of bass bugs and flies, wiped out. And nope, I don’t get 'em for free. As a certified bottom-rung nobody, I pay full retail just like you. I was sick. It's going to take me a long time to replace what I lost, so as the saying goes, let the purpose of my life serve as a warning to others.

Now the pragmatists among you may chalk this up to my own stupidity and nothing more, but I don't think so. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty damn stupid. But I think in this case the Karmic fishing gods are punishing me twenty-fold for the unpardonable sin of stealing another man's fishing tackle. It's a clear sign: I should have just left those damn, cheap-ass spinnerbaits lying there for some other sucker to pick up. Lesson learned...

So remember, if you find a piece of lost fishing tackle, no matter how small or cheap it may be, just leave it alone, because no matter how tempting free is, you will pay for it one way or the other. Take it from me. Don't mess with your fishing Karma, it's just not worth it. You've been warned...

I wrote that a week or so ago. Every word gospel truth. People who don't fish can't really understand how traumatic losing your beloved (and pricey) tackle can be. To those of you who think it silly to be devastated over the loss of a few spinnerbaits and flies, well, I can only assume you've never had to pay nine freakin' bucks for a titanium Terminator.

But I digress. I commiserated my tale of woe to fellow F&S blogger Tim Romano who had experienced the same unfortunate thing last year. Two days later I get a package in the mail from Tim, and in it is a box containing a nice assortment of bass flies that went a long way toward replacing the flies I had lost.

Tim's a class-act and a super-nice guy (and if you haven't picked up a copy of Flyfish Journal of which Tim is art director, go do so immediately. It's a great rag.) and he certainly didn't have to do what he did.

Thanks, Tim, truly. When we hit RMNP this summer for greenback cutthroat I'll have to buy you a...oh, I dunno, whatever it is that dudes in Boulder buy each other. Chai tea? Soy beer?

(I kid, I kid...Tim knows I think Boulder's a cool town...)

The End is Nigh...

2011-05-11T11:37:00.001-05:00

Don't say you weren't warned...

http://www.salon.com/news/religion/index.html?story=/news/feature/2011/05/10/rapture_may_21

Spring is finally here -- but apparently, the apocalypse will be fast on its trail. That's the word from a slight but outspoken group of spiritual devotees who believe that the world as we know it is coming to an end.

Maybe you've already encountered the literature: pamphlets, subway ads, billboards on the side of the highway. "Judgment Day is coming" reads one billboard, which features a man praying in silhouette against a sunset backdrop. These are the works of a peculiar breed of Christian activists who've taken to the road to preach their belief in the fast-approaching End of Days. The self-appointed harbingers are not tied to any particular church -- they claim organized religion has been corrupted by the devil -- but rather to Internet- and radio-based ministries. And their lone mission is to tell anyone and everyone that the end of days is May 21. That's when, they insist, God's true believers will be lifted into heaven and saved, during a biblical event widely referred to as the Rapture.

Which is bunk, of course. It's impossible for the world to end on May 21st. Why? Because I haven't caught a bluefin or a tarpon, and it specifically states in my Contract with Life that regardless of eschatology, the world will not be allowed to end until I catch both a bluefin tuna and a tarpon.

So don't worry, we're all safe, for now. Actually, we're all safe indefinitely, because the chances of me being able to afford to go catch either one are exactly one rung lower than nil. So party on, you can thank me later...

But it does segue nicely into perhaps the most obvious addition yet to Mallard's Infinite Playlist...

Relapse...

2011-05-09T14:41:00.000-05:00

It's hard to stay pure. Damn hard, especially when it's early May, the wind's blowing like hell, the water's all turbid and roiled, just like you like it when you know the bass are close to the bank and just waiting to slam that spinnerbait slooowly rolling by, and you're standing there with your flyrod, because you want to capture the purity of experience.

It's hard to stay pure. Damn hard, especially when cast after cast, strip after strip brings nothing but new combinations of the seven dirty words and there's no room for your pitiful-looking backcast or your laughable water-swatting roll cast that doesn't so much roll as tumble a few feet before collapsing into a tangled mess.

So you snap, say to hell with purity. To hell with the new, the difficult, the exciting and exotic. Your redneck id rises up, demands results. Action. Fish. You turn around, walk back to the car, break down the flyrod, stuff it in its case, grab the baitcaster and seven-foot spinnerbait rod that just happens to be sitting there and - like a dieter sneaking into the Krispy Kreme - skulk on back to the water, all high-minded piscatorial ideals sent scurrying away by the desire, the need, to just. Catch. A. Fish.

And the first cast, the first freakin' cast! The suddeness of the strike is like a splash of color in a grayscale world. You feel that familiar jolt of unbridled savagery and you are finally, finally, into a fish. A good one. Not huge, but good. You cast again, and this time the spinnerbait disappears mere feet off the bank, right in front of you. You feel the violence spread into your arm. You judge the serious weight on the line and make the calculation that - in the parlance of our times - you have done hooked yourself a hawg.

The fight is brief, violent, wet and right at the rod tip. You lip her, gravid and huge, bring her half out of the water. No time for dicking around trying to get the hero shot. You slip the spinnerbait out of her yawning maw, hook the digital scale in the corner of the mouth, gape at what it tells you and then quickly slip her back into the water.

You move her back and forth, then release. She stays there for a second, suspended, brooding with those thick, hulking shoulders. Mottled sunlight and shadow play on the water, give it a rainbow kaleidoscope quality. And then, just like that, she's gone. Your high, however, remains.

If, as they say, the tug is the drug, and we are but willing junkies, then I guess it doesn't really matter what conveyance we use to fall off the wagon. Fly rod, baitcaster, hell, they're all good...

Not Valuable, Just Sorta Cool

2011-05-02T12:34:00.000-05:00

A few years ago, I - for reasons of pure nostalgia - started collecting old paperback sci-fi novels of the kind I used to rummage for in the local bookshops of my hometown. They certainly weren't worth anything, but it was cool - in that bittersweet way that looming middle-age tends to foster - to thumb through their yellowed pages and look at the now-vintage and hopelessly dated cover art. Frankly, it kind of reminds me of myself...

Just a harmless, mildly eccentric (and cheap) pastime, but soon it started to spread beyond the sci-fi pulpies and classics into pretty much anything I liked to read. I just like old books. Some of them, like my slipcased, 1965 Lord of the Rings trilogy are worth a fair bit of coin. Most are not, but I was in ye olde hometown this weekend rummaging, and came home with a few books, these three among them.

The copy of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five is an early 1969 printing Dell (under the Delta imprint) softcover. This makes my fourth version of that title, and it's a really nice clean copy, though I still mourn the loss of the mint hardback book club edition (with dustjacket) that I found in an OKC bookshop for fourteen bucks and stupidly passed on...

The copy of A River Runs Through It is an early trade paperback published by The University of Chicago Press. It's my third version of that particular title, along with the requisite movie tie-in edition and an old large-print softcover edition. A first-printing of the original hardcover wouldn't be worth quite as much as what a first-printing Vonnegut would, but it'd be close.

The copy of Hemingway's A Moveable Feast is nothing special, a 1965 Bantam printing, but since I don't currently have a copy, and since Paris is just about my favorite non bird-hunting or fishing place in the world, I brought it home.

I brought home a few others, nothing of note, really, just interesting titles. I haven't had any amazing or even mildly exciting book discoveries lately, but I keep looking because you never know what you'll find on those musty, dusty old shelves, and it keeps me out of those sterile, soulless, wincingly well-lit wi-fi hotspot/bongo drum venue/hipster cafes known as the big-box bookstores.

Ok, so I went there, too, but only to cruise the remainder tables...

Links, pics, music and such...

2011-04-28T10:12:00.000-05:00

An old photo of Holly, my first chessie and the meanest, toughest, surliest old school bay dog bitch I've ever seen. She loved me beyond measure, tolerated my wife, and everyone else could go to hell. I hope I never have another one like her, but god, how I miss her sometimes...

My second post over at Mouthful of Feathers is up, as is my latest Quail Forever blog. Feel free to check them out if you get a chance...

And for today's edition of Mallard's Infinite Playlist... well, pretty conventional stuff, really: the Cowboy Junkies and their exquisite, haunting, beautiful cover of the Velvet Underground's Sweet Jane. As much as I like the original, when the Cowboy Junkies' version came out in '88 I thought then - and still do today - that it was simply one of the most beautiful songs I'd ever heard.

Was I in love with a girl at the time and did playing this song over and over and over in my ~~iPod~~ Walkman hone my adolescent heartbreak to a razor's edge? Silly question...

To Whom Can Freethinkers Pray for Rain?

2011-04-25T13:45:00.000-05:00

Christians, Muslims and Jews have their God. Buddhists have their spiritual advisor. Wiccans, Celts, Druids, Shintoists, heathens and other animistic and pagan followers have their God(s). But if you're a Texas freethinker then Governor Rick Perry just tossed you a theological sticky wicket...

From Fox News

Gov. Rick Perry, a devout Christian, is calling on all Texans to pray for rain as most of the state battles an extreme and exceptional drought. Perry has proclaimed a three-day period, from Friday to Sunday, as Days of Prayer for Rain in the state. "I urge Texans of all faiths and traditions to offer prayers on that day for the healing of our land, the rebuilding of our communities and the restoration of our normal way of life," he wrote in the proclamation.

So if you're a good, patriotic Texan as well as an atheist, freethinker or other secular-humanist (is that a mutually exclusive condition? I kid, I kid the Texans...) to what or whom are you left to pray? The accuracy of computer climate modeling? The jet stream? The evaporative cycle? The laws of probability?

Incidentally, early this morning while we slept, our little corner of the Great American Desert (21st Century Edition) received its first measurable rainfall for the month of April, a whopping .02 inches of rain. Just enough to dampen all the dust that had collected in the bottom of the rain gauge.

That bears repeating: our first measurable rainfall for the month of April (you know, the "April showers bring May flowers month") came on April 25th. In the past month, we've officially received a grand total of .06 inches of rain (but considerably less at our house), in the past three months a total of .59. Our last rainfall of more than .25 inches came some 163 days ago. Unless we get some good soaking rains interspersed with a few toad-stranglers, the rest of spring is trending grim and summer is starting to look downright terrifying.

The weather this spring has been weird, to say the least. Last week, we had a days-long windstorm that produced (I shit you not) wind gusts of over 70 miles per hour and sustained winds of well over fifty. Depending on where you sit in the theological/secular-humanist/ancient pagan prophecy matrix, the weather's starting to look either biblical, Mayan or human-induced climate-change confirming....

I don't want to start any rancorous debate on the matter, so in the spirit of the times, here's my non-denominational, religion-neutral, spiritually agnostic plea/prayer/sacrifice/reasoned and logical secular request for rain...

Dear Monotheistic Supreme Deity(s), Polytheistic Horned God(s)/Karmic Cycle/ Immutable Laws of Natural Science:

I am sending you this prayer/incense/goat/good thought/scientific theory based on a complex probability algorithm in the hopes that it will persuade you to send rain angels/rain spirits/a slight change in drought-inducing climatological parameters.

We need rain very badly, and as your loyal subject/child/disciple/carbon-based product of the evolutionary process I am pleading with you to hear my prayers/accept my offering/confirm my hypothesis.

Amen/Shalom/All Hail the Divine Moon Goddess/Empirically yours,

Chad Love

A Modest Proposal

2011-04-22T15:30:00.001-05:00

This morning I got up insanely early, pulled on my boots and went turkey hunting at one of my usual public quail hunting spots, a place that during quail season was absolutely covered up with turkeys, but no quail.

Today, however, I neither saw nor heard a single tom, but I was kicking up pairs of quail seemingly every few yards. So it goes. It was nice to see quail doing well, even in our continued drought, so I didn’t mind getting skunked on the turkeys. After last quail season I was beginning to think that perhaps the bobwhite quail was a mythical creature that inhabited the realm of cryptozoology.

All in all it was a singularly pleasant morning – until I made it back to the parking area. I had gotten there and walked in well before dawn, so I hadn’t noticed the bullet-riddled sign and wads of toilet paper strewn everywhere.

And as I stood there trying to comprehend the mind-boggling idiocy of such an act, it occurred to me that perhaps science – in its never-ending quest for new sources of energy - has for all these years somehow managed to overlook the single most powerful, limitless and ever-renewing force known to Man – stupidity.

Think about it: Fossil fuels still reign, but are on the downslope of Hubberts Peak. Forget nuclear fission and all its attendant issues of safety and radioactive waste, while cold nuclear fusion still occupies the realm of science fiction. Solar and wind have major scale issues, destroy upland bird habitat and are completely dependent on the vagaries of weather and climate. And biofuels? Maybe if we all want to live in a global cornfield.

But stupidity? Well, that shit’s everywhere, all around us, occurring naturally and in such profusion that I sometimes wonder if we’re not all drowning in a sea of the stuff. So when life hands you stupid, why not - to paraphrase the old cliché – make stupidaide, or stupanol, or stuplear power (we can work on the name later…).

Seriously, if there were some way to harness the kind of potent, high-grade stupidity it takes to completely trash the parking area of a public hunting area and then convert that stupidity into an energy source for spinning power plant turbines, we’d be set for life…

And if any physicists out there want to take a crack at it, I know where you can start mining your raw material…

Mystery Of The Day: Teacher Edition

2011-04-19T13:38:00.004-05:00

Yep, a new semi-regular filler feature for days when I can't think beyond a paragraph or so. It's called "Mystery of the Day."

And since I'm married to one, here's a mystery for all you public school teachers out there. I'm confident you can all identify with this one. But really, it's a one-size-fits-all mystery, because if there's one constant to the human condition, it's injustice without reason...

So without further ado, I give you my inaugural "Mystery of the Day."

Personally, I couldn’t care less about the fundamental mysteries of the universe or existence. The forces behind things like quantum physics, metaphysics, dark energy, extraterrestrial life, unified field theory, the source of John Boehner’s weird skin glow, what went with Schrodinger's cat, the name of Glenn Beck's home planet or any of our other great scientific and philosophical imponderables are completely lost on me.

To me the greatest mystery, the most vexing question of human existence and the human condition is not who we are or why we are or what we are or whether we got this way by crawling up out of the primordial ooze or the result of some divine plan. I’ll leave that for those who care about such things.

What I wonder is simply this: Why do a relative few undeserving shit-asses get ahead in life while so many good, decent, unappreciated people doing good, important work don't?

If science can figure that one out, then maybe there’s hope for the rest of it...

A Very Brief Q&A...

2011-04-19T11:45:00.000-05:00

Question: "So what kind of writing would you like to do?"

Answer: "The kind that doesn't require sidebars."

The Mallard's Infinite Playlist

2011-04-18T16:55:00.002-05:00

I've always admired Scampwalker's scribbles on music, even though I'm not nearly as deep into the outlaw-alt country scene as he is. The dude needs to be writing for publication.

Myy musical tastes, on the other hand, tend to run broad, shallow, disjointed and, quite frankly, bizarre. But that won't stop me from ripping him off. Well, not ripping him off, because I can't write about music to save my life, but I am starting yet-another regular blog feature I'll promptly forget about and neglect, one I like to call "The Mallard's Infinite Playlist."

And yes, I ripped off the movie title. Everything is derivative...

Anyway, it's just music I like for no particular reason. It's also - if I'm being honest here - a cop-out for those days when I can't think of anything to write. Which is most of the time.

So without further ado, here's my first installment...

I was in fourth grade when I first saw The Clash on MTV. I was spending the night with a friend, and his big sister - with whom I was in extreme ten-year-old love - was glued to the TV watching videos. I had no idea who The Clash were. My father was and is a strict country traditionalist. My parents were still married at that point, so it went without saying that I lived in a Clash-free household.

I could tell you who Hank Snow, Hank Williams, Jim Reeves or Merle Haggard was, but for me "punk" was what my father muttered at the college students in Norman as we drove by. It sure as hell wasn't a musical genre in my little world.

But sitting there on my friend's living-room floor (his family was from Ohio and were considered "liberal Yankees" so my parents didn't let me spend the night often) sneaking peeks at the woman I loved (remember, I was ten...) as she made moon-eyes at Joe Strummer I finally realized that yes, there really WAS music out there that didn't include steel guitar. I mean, these guys seemed to yell and scream a lot, but if she liked it then damn it, I liked it, too.

A few months later my parents were split, my mom moved us from our house in the country to Norman and we finally got cable, and with it MTV. And while I eventually lost touch with that fourth-grade friend as well as the love of my life, fourth-grade-edition, I credit her with unintentionally turning me onto The Clash and a larger musical world beyond twang (even though I hasten to add I still dig twang...). I've been a huge Clash fan ever since. This may be the first Clash song on the playlist, but it won't be the last.

So this one's for you, girl of my pre-adolescent dreams. Sorry, I've forgotten your name. And it was actually Rock the Casbah you were listening to that night. But I like Rudie Can't Fail better. And it's my blog...

A Little More Crappieness

2011-04-13T22:37:00.000-05:00

Yesterday at lunch I decided to take a few minutes and run over to the next-door park pond for a few minutes of fishing with the three-weight.

Since I feel guilty about taking such outings when I could be home eating lunch productively in front of the computer, I always set a strict twenty-minute time limit to these mini-trips on the rare days when I take one. It's a nice way to get away from the computer for a few minutes and refresh the mind and soul.

It didn't disappoint. First cast, fish. Second cast, fish. Third cast, fish. A brief lull. Then another fish. And another. And another. A brief lull. Then another fish.

It almost looked like I knew what the hell I was doing. And then my alloted time was up and I was forced to leave a hot hole with only seven delicious crappie when I could have, should have, stayed and sacked them up. But then I would be forced to explain to my wife why I spent all afternoon fishing when I could have been home working on something, anything. Not like there's a dearth of that...yard work, that is.

Incidentally, I was only thirty, yes, thirty away from my limit. For reasons known only to...someone, Oklahoma's daily limit on crappie is 37. Not 35. Not 40. But 37. Don't ask me, it's that kind of state.

So I reluctantly turned away from the water and trudged back to the car. But I have to admit thus far I'm digging the warmwater flyrod action. Who knows, if I keep practicing holding my pinkie in the air as I cast I might make an angler of the fly yet...

We Are All 'Bots In The Machine...

2011-04-13T11:01:00.000-05:00

Here's an interesting story in The Atlantic I think is pitch-perfect metaphor for the current state of critical thought and discourse in this country.

From the story:

One day last February, a Twitter user in California named Billy received a tweet from @JamesMTitus, identified in his profile as a “24 year old dude” from Christchurch, New Zealand, who had the avatar of a tabby cat. “If you could bring one character to life from your favorite book, who would it be?,” @JamesMTitus asked. Billy tweeted back, “Jesus,” to which @JamesMTitus replied: “honestly? no fracking way. ahahahhaa.” Their exchange continued, and Billy began following @JamesMTitus. It probably never occurred to him that the Kiwi dude with an apparent love of cats was, in fact, a robot.

JamesMTitus was manufactured by cyber-security specialists in New Zealand participating in a two-week social-engineering experiment organized by the Web Ecology Project. Based in Boston, the group had conducted demographic analyses of Chatroulette and studies of Twitter networks during the recent Middle East protests. It was now interested in a question of particular concern to social-media experts and marketers: Is it possible not only to infiltrate social networks, but also to influence them on a large scale?

The group invited three teams to program “social bots”—fake identities—that could mimic human conversation on Twitter, and then picked 500 real users on the social network, the core of whom shared a fondness for cats. The Kiwis armed JamesMTitus with a database of generic responses (“Oh, that’s very interesting, tell me more about that”) and designed it to systematically test parts of the network for what tweets generated the most responses, and then to talk to the most responsive people.

But here's the best part...

After the first week, the teams were allowed to tweak their bot’s code and to launch secondary identities designed to sabotage their competitors’ bots. One team unleashed @botcops, which alerted users, “You might want to be suspicious about JamesMTitus.” In one exchange, a British user confronted the alleged bot: “What do you say @JamesMTitus?” The robot replied obliquely, “Yeah, so true!” The Brit pressed: “Yeah so true! You mean I should be suspicious of you? Or that @botcops should be challenged?” JamesMTitus evaded detection with a vague tweet back—“Right on bro”—and acquired 109 followers over two weeks. Network graphs subsequently showed that the three teams’ bots had insinuated themselves into the center of the target network.

The more I am confronted with the increasingly invasive ubiquety of social media and its frenzied, orgasmic craving for constant connectivity; the superficial, utterly banal white noise it generates in lieu of even half-assed genuine and organic thought and/or dialogue, the more tempted I am to just say fuck it all, pull the plug on everything and go raise goats for a living.

Granted, the conversations may be a little one-sided, but at least they'd be real.

Yes, I Really Did...

2011-04-08T12:23:00.000-05:00

...and it felt wonderful. Good riddance, you sonofabitch. You've given me your last "Line Error"...

Some Vintage Bantam Awesomeness...

2011-04-07T14:31:00.001-05:00

I recently found this damn-near-mint little jewel in an OKC pawn shop. A little ogling, a little dickering and a few minutes later I walked out fifteen bucks poorer but holding the nicest vintage Bantan 1000 I've ever run across.

This little baby was state-of-the-art back in 1982. Can it hold a performance candle to a modern baitcaster? No, not really. From a purely technical and performance standpoint there's no doubt; modern baitcasters are just better (longevity? Eh, that's another issue...).

But just like the feeling you get from playing an old Atari 2600 or listening to albums- real albums -there's just something about holding those old reels that elicits a mournful tinge of nostalgia and longing for a time long gone by.

What can I say? I was the world's biggest fishing geek growing up, and much of my adolescent memories are wrapped around fishing adventures and delinquency (there's a co-dependent relationship there...).

I have written previously of my nostalgic penchant for the old Bantams, and really, you just don't see too many early Bantams in this condition anymore. What good examples you can find are really starting to increase in value. They're not super-collectable, but there are enough guys out there looking for them that if you want a nice one, you'll pay for it.

Unless, of course, you find one in a pawn shop...

I got it home and mounted it on an equally vintage five-and-a-half-foot custom Phenix boron rod, which was also state-of-the-art at the time, so what you see before you is exactly what I would have been lusting after in the pages of BASSMaster magazine back in 1981-82.

Well, that and girls. And interestingly enough, I did recently run into a girl I was madly in love with back in 1982 (need I even mention the feelings weren't reciprocated?). And I gotta say that - some twenty-nine years later - I'm glad I ended up with the reel (cue rimshot)...

So Long, It's Been Good To Know You, Deux*...

2011-04-06T13:31:00.009-05:00

*I don't know what my fixation with the word deux is today, but I seem incapable of refraining from its use, however appropriate...

A few of my approximately four regular readers may remember a Dust Bowl-themed blog post I wrote almost a year ago. April 14th to be exact, the 75th anniversary of Black Sunday, a storm that defined the era (and the term). I entitled it "So Long, It's Been Good To Know You." If so inclined, you can read about it here. If not, here's a snippet...

No, I'm not quitting just yet. It's the title to a song penned and sung by the greatest artist and one of the greatest individuals the state of Oklahoma ever produced.

And it may be an apocryphal story, but legend has it that Woody Guthrie penned the opening lines to "So Long It's Been Good To Know You" while hunkered down in Pampa, Texas, on April 14, 1935, riding out what would forever be known as "Black Sunday." Seventy five years ago today a whole lot of people in my part of the world were convinced that world was coming to an end. It didn't, but that massive April 14th, 1935 storm was the one that coined the term "Dust Bowl."

And here is where the deux part kicks in...

From today's Oklahoman...
Oklahoma sees driest 4 months since Dust Bowl

"In most years, the dark clouds over western Oklahoma in the spring would be bringing rain. This year, they're more likely to be smoke from wildfires that have burned thousands of acres in the past month as the state and its farmers struggle with a severe drought. Oklahoma was drier in the four months following Thanksgiving than it has been in any similar period since 1921. That's saying a lot in the state known for the 1930s Dust Bowl, when drought and high winds generated severe dust storms that stripped the land of its topsoil."

That's right, in terms of moisture we're technically drier right now than we were during the same timeframe for any year in the 1930s. The wind is still blowing like hell, but we've not seeing any exodusters...yet.

Why is that? First, let noted regional author and rapier wit Chad Love explain in this beautifully-written, award-winning feature story from the March-April 2003 issue of Oklahoma Today, entitled "The Story of Wind."

Then, just to show that I'm a persistent, single-minded sonofabitch, I'll explain why this, too, ties in with this week's debate on the future of our hunting, fishing and conservation programs.

Take it away, Chad...

"...In those early years, Oklahomans, like those in other plains states, learned to live with wind, but unfortunately they failed to learn from the wind. The result was one of the greatest ecological disasters the world has ever known.

Wind and drought do not have a causal relationship, but one of exacerbation. Wind is the gasoline that fans the flame of drought. On the vast sweep of the plains wind and drought have been playing out these roles for eons, and climatologists are just now starting to grasp the significance of drought in the natural cycle of the nation’s grasslands. Recent findings suggest that historically the plains have gone through extended periods of extreme drought and that it is a regularly occurring phenomenon. It’s not a matter of if the plains have a tendency to dry up, scientists say, it is merely a matter of when and how severely.

But Oklahoma farmers in 1914 did not have the luxury of modern science to help guide their land-use practices. All they knew was that, thanks to the outbreak of World War One, wheat prices had soared to unheard-of levels and advances in farm machinery were allowing them to plow more and faster than they ever had before.

Some historians have dubbed what followed “the Great Plow-Up.” According to historian Donald Worster, over 11 million acres of native grass were turned under between 1914 and 1919 in Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska and Texas. The 1920s saw unusually wet years, unusually high wheat harvests and even more conversion of grassland to wheat. Worster estimates that by 1935, with the rain gone and the nation in the fifth year of a widespread drought, over 33 million acres of ground lay exposed.

That’s when the wind started blowing and a large chunk of the continent took flight.

Seventy years later, the national conscience has largely healed, but if there is one group that still feels the sting of blowing dust, it is Oklahomans. Rightly or wrongly, the specter of the Dust Bowl and the cultural identity with which Oklahomans were seared as a result of it continue to resonate today. That’s why many Oklahomans still view Steinbeck with so much anathema and Rodgers & Hammerstein with so much adulation.

But the real lessons to be taken from those blowing winds aren’t academic arguments over whether the word Okie should be viewed as pejorative or compliment, but the conservation ethos which came out of the Dust Bowl’s aftermath.

“The real conservation movement in the United States, in terms of institutionalizing conservation practices, especially in regard to wind erosion, was born in the 1930’s, and the Dust Bowl had quite a lot to do with that,” says Oklahoma State University Professor Dr. Terry Bidwell.

"...Bidwell says there was, and continues to be, a push to permanently return highly erodible cropland to grass. “Since the thirties there’s been a pile of money spent on programs to get those soils taken out of production and into permanent vegetation.”Those broken parcels of land were eventually designated as National Grasslands.

Grass. More than anything, the choking storms of the Dust Bowl highlighted its importance, and its primacy in the Great Plains ecosystem. The extensive root systems of prairie grasses act as billions of tiny anchors. Lose it, and you lose the soil. Shelterbelts and strip cropping helped, but shelterbelts alone could not hope to quell the blowing wind. In extremely hard-hit areas erosion was so severe revegetation was the only hope, so in 1934 the federal government began purchasing some of the most heavily eroded farmland and re-seeding it to grass. By 1947, when the program ended, over 11 million acres had reverted to federal ownership.

In a very real sense, much of Oklahoma’s current public lands were made possible by wind, because two of those grasslands areas are in Oklahoma: Black Kettle in Roger Mills County and Rita Blanca in Cimarron County. Combined they represent over 46,000 acres of formerly destroyed land, a living monument to folly and (at least on public land) redemption.

So, what are we debating in Washington this week as being "too costly?" That's right, the very same type of conservation programs that brought us out of the Dust Bowl and have kept us out of the Dust Bowl, even through droughts (as in the Fifties) that were as severe or even worse than the Dirty Thirties.

History's a cruel old bitch, isn't she? Once again, I'll leave you with a little Woody (a song, that is...)

If You Read Just One Thing Today, deux...

2011-04-06T09:23:00.000-05:00

...then pop on over to Vanity Fair and read this essay by Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

Can you draw a connection between that and yesterday's If You Read Just One Thing Today ?

Hey, I'm just throwing it out there. Call me a class warrior if you must, but I don't see many hedge-fund managers or ex vice-presidents out there with the rest of the unwashed masses hitting public CRP fields, waterfowl units or other such commoner-infested areas...

Miles Law famously states that "where you stand depends on where you sit." And from where I sit in the cheap bleacher seats staring up at the luxury suites, the view is starting to look pretty shitty for the odds of hunting and fishing remaining the great American egalitarian tradition it once was.

But I'd love to be wrong...

If You Read Just One Thing Today...

2011-04-05T09:26:00.001-05:00

...then please, make it Hal Herring's blog post on HR1 over at F&S. I don't want to sound alarmist or anything (oh, horseshit, yes I do) but as Hal points out, these proposals - if passed - are total, landscape-level game-changers for American conservation.

Just go on over, read it, and please leave a comment to show editors you care about conservation and appreciate the continued coverage. They do take notice of things like that.

And for god's sake contact your reps, your senators, anyone who'll listen to express your support for the continued funding of America's conservation programs like CRP, the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, the Clean Water Act and everything else in the crosshairs of this misguided, dangerous, punitive, unnecessary and completely short-sighted proposal.

We All Gotta Eat, But...

2011-04-04T09:36:00.002-05:00

...sometimes a little anthropomorphic monkey-wrenching with the natural balance of things is OK in my book.

Such was the case this morning as I was sitting in front of our back window, drinking my last cup of coffee and watching the woods behind the house.

Just as I was getting ready to get up and take my coffee cup back to the kitchen, a female Harris sparrow came swooping and jinking on to the back porch with our resident assassin sharp-tailed hawk right on its tail. The sparrow slammed into the window, then turned and slipped into the space between our glass and screen door.

Smart move, but the sharpie swerved right with it, and just as it was about to pin the sparrow between the doors and have breakfast, Walt Disney here came to the rescue. I beat my hands against the glass, made my best bird-scaring warface and shouted, I don't know...something (shoo bird, shoo! or something equally stupid) which caused the sharpie to flare off and fly away.

Normally I don't mind at all the birds our resident accipiters (mostly sharpies and Cooper's, although I could swear I saw a flash of an immature goshawk last year...) take, and indeed, I enjoy having them around to make things interesting. I call them our "keepin'-it-real" birds. Because nothing reinforces the basic, unsentimental truth of nature more than watching that cute little junco being torn to pieces and eaten right there on the pole feeder.

And this particular sharpie ( I think it's the same one) is particularly bold. A few weeks ago it pinned a cardinal against out windowsill directly in front of my wife, and then calmly devoured it right there on the back porch. Now that's haughtiness...

So why interfere with this one incident? It's not like we've got a shortage of Harris sparrows or anything. And despite the fact that our bird-feeding certainly makes it easier, it's no easy thing catching a bird in flight, and the sharpie - like all wild birds of prey - lives on the ragged edge, expending much precious energy with each pass it makes at a bird.

No deep philosophical meanderings or explorations needed. I'm feeling plainspoken today. I saved the little bugger (who in all likelihood will end up getting eaten, anyway. Such is a bird's life...) because sometimes it just makes you feel good to see the little guys cheat death, if only for a little while.

A Small Pointer on Eroticism...

2011-03-31T12:56:00.003-05:00

Well, what'd you expect, you pervies? She was a small pointer, and when we built a fire she liked to stretch out in front of it and strike a tasteful, understated yet sexy pose, that's all. Geez, get your minds out of the gutter...

The Hypochondriac's Revenge...

2011-03-29T10:04:00.000-05:00

Since my creativity is currently RIP, I give you one last headstone from the wacky, wonderful Key West cemetery...

I'm not dead, I'm just resting my eyes...

2011-03-28T14:23:00.001-05:00

She, on the other hand, is definitely TU, despite what the headstone says...

Have you ever just not had anything to say? That's been me the past week or so. I haven't really been on the computer, haven't responded much to e-mails, haven't had a decent idea for a blog, a story or a query, haven't been fishing, haven't done any dog training, haven't felt social in any way. I haven't, in fact, done a damn thing beyond the bare minimum dictated by involuntary bodily functions, contractual work obligations, parental duties and the necessary avoidance of spousal wrath.

Maybe it's the weather. My wife has long accused me of being SAD (as in Seasonal Affective Disorder, not my general appearance or mood, although that could be argued as well...) and the past few days has me thinking there might be something to that. What the hell happened to spring? All I see are variations of cold, dreary, and miserable. And wet. But not a good, soaking, break-the-drought wet, but rather a misty, damp, barely-above freezing wet that will - as soon as the weather turns warm again - put us right back in the middle of what is shaping up to be a pisser of a grass fire season.

Last night I poured myself a glass of good inspiration, grabbed the laptop and sat down in my office writing chair, determined to write...something. Two hours later, no inspiration, and my glass was empty, too. So I just went to bed.

Just been that kind of week. Incidentally, the picture was taken in the very entertaining and interesting Key West cemetery. And what I wouldn't do for a few days in Key West right now, kitsch and tourist-trap tackiness be damned. Just give me a week, two rods, one bottle and a nice, dry bridge to sleep under...

Eat Me, I'm Irish

2011-03-17T16:07:00.000-05:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day! The Mallard's been on a spring break hiatus of sorts. Things will be back to normal next week, but in honor of the occasion I wanted to post a photo of the lovely wife's delicious Blarney Stones.

Not being Irish, I have no idea what the hell a Blarney Stone is, but I will eat them until the pan is gone, then I'll crank up the Dropkick Murphys and the Flogging Molly and wash them down with a Guinness*, but only because the bastards - whoever they are - have stopped importing my beloved Mackeson Triple Stout.

*Actually that's a wishful lie. I'll eat one with a glass of milk and then go back to working my ass off building a retaining wall for our back yard. Because that's what old married dudes do...

Random Friday Yearning

2011-03-11T13:22:00.000-06:00

When you're in the "Bargain Cave" income tax bracket, you've got no choice but to make your flyfishing dollars stretch to the elasticity of say, Plastic Man . So I've been slowly trying to cobble together the gear I'll need for my flyfishing experiment from bargain bins, pawn shop finds, clearance racks, garage sales and stealing it from friends (Greg, you'll get that stimulator - or whatever the hell you call it - I "borrowed" from you when you pry it from my cold, dead fly box).

So when I noticed yesterday that the Cabela's 24-piece All-Purpose warmwater fly assortment was featured in the Bargain Cave for twenty-nine bucks, I bought it, along with a cheap bass popper assortment. The good thing is that since I know absolutely dick about the relative quality of house-brand flies versus the Umpquas of the world, and indeed know dick about flies period (they're all fuzzy, right?) I won't know if they suck or not. All I know is they were cheap, and cheap rules my world.

I don't envy (too much, anyway) the rich, globe-trotting anglers or the well-connected fishing writers their high-end flyfishing gear. And that's a hard admission to make for a guy for whom fishing tackle has always been a huge weakness. Maybe I'm getting older and such things just don't seem to matter as much as they used to.

But I do envy them their experiences, the bastards. And one of these days, one of these days, don't know how, when or where, I want to find myself in some exotic sun-drenched location, a saltwater flat, maybe, or perhaps deep in the rainforest, and I want to be able to utter the phrase (shout it, actually) "He's into the backing!" (provided I ever learn how to double-haul, of course).

It's just a cool phrase, and it evokes everything I love about fishing: the adventure and excitement, the power of the fish, the uncertainty, the fear. And if I get the opportunity to someday shout it to the heavens (other than when I practice it in front of the bathroom mirror) I won't give a damn what brand of reel the fish is destroying, just as long as I'm there to watch it.

Getting To Be That Time...

2011-03-10T10:48:00.000-06:00

As I was walking down to the mailbox this morning, a neighbor starting up his truck elicited shock gobbles from two different toms skulking around the neighborhood. It won't be long before the crazy, lovesick bastards will once again be attacking the sliding glass door on the back porch, strutting endlessly in the yard, crapping everywhere and generally making a damn nuisance of themselves.

That and $3.50 a gallon gas is almost enough to make a guy forget travel plans and instead just stay home for turkey season. Gobble, gobble...

When Hipsters Duck Hunt, circa 1957

2011-03-09T10:19:00.001-06:00

An interesting Fifties-vintage clothing ad featuring a Chesapeake Bay retriever, a sneak boat and one seriously dapper dude. The hunter's steely-eyed gaze rises toward the duck-filled heavens, or whatever the model (obviously a disciple of the method acting school of retail clothing modeling) imagines duck-filled heavens to look like.

Meanwhile, the chessie is staring directly at his real master with a look that says "Another take? Are you shitting me? When the hell can I get out of this boat and away from this tool? Because I'm just about ready to bite off this dude's nuts."

Of course, on the other hand, maybe I shouldn't mock. Could you imagine an ad like this running today? Would today's ironic hipster embrace yesterday's earnest hipster fashion? Or would that be too ironic? WWRCD? (What Would Rivers Cuomo Do)...

Coincidentally, this is exactly how I dress when I go duck hunting...

Take the Gun AND the Coe-nnoli*

2011-03-07T15:13:00.002-06:00

Only in Oklahoma. I'll say that again, because it bears repeating: Only in Oklahoma. First Hillbilly Handfishin' and now this. Sigh. Take my state, please...

From this story in the Oklahoman

A self-proclaimed “redneck” stole a David Allan Coe country music album and cash from a CD Warehouse store in Oklahoma City last week, according to a police report released today.
The man walked into the store at 4001 N Pennsylvania Ave. about 4:20 p.m. Thursday and asked a clerk if he knew where the David Allan Coe CD was, an officer wrote in the report. The robber followed the clerk to a shelf, the clerk handed him the CD and they walked to a register.

The robber pulled out a chrome semi-automatic pistol and demanded money from the clerk, according to the report. After the clerk gave him the contents of the cash drawer, the robber said, “I'll take this (CD) too. I'm kind of a redneck.”

The robber made the clerk get on the floor, then walked out of the store and got into an older model cream-colored Lincoln car with a spare tire on the trunk, the officer wrote. The clerk and a witness described the robber as a white man in his mid-40s who is about 6 feet 1 inch tall, weighs about 220 pounds and has shaggy light brown hair and a full beard. He was wearing a camouflage jacket with the sleeves rolled up and blue jeans.

Any commentary from me would be completely superfluous. This one stands on its own...merits?

*with apologies to the Godfather and Sarah Vowell

A Really Crappie Day

2011-03-04T11:45:00.002-06:00

Chad's Excellent Flyfishing Discovery Year, in which this diehard metal-chunking, baitcaster-loving basshead attempts his redneck piscatorial pursuits wholly with the fairy wand, kicked off yesterday when I snuck off for a twenty-minute lunchtime sanity break at the local state park pond/trash dump/teenage copulation pit.

It's a nasty little hole, but I can be over there in literally less than a minute, be casting in less than three and back to the house in time to eat a sandwich and get back to work in less than thirty. For that kind of convenience I can overlook the slimy water and wormy-looking unemployed (rather than underemployed like me) guys in wifebeaters sitting on the bank with their Chinese Zebcos propped in the fork of a limb jammed into the mud, watching yellow bobbers while they diligently and completely un-ironically work their way through a case of PBR.

And I'll be damned if I didn't (alliteration alert) finally find a fun way to catch crappie. They're a useless but delicious little fish, and unless I specifically want to eat them, I rarely fish for crappie because I can achieve the same sporting effect by snagging a little bit of slimy moss.

But with the little six-foot three-weight and a Clouser minnow, it's actually kind of - dare I say - fun, in a way that catching them on even light conventional tackle never was. I caught four in quick succession and you can bet your ass I'll be back over there next week with a little more time and a stringer...

It 'aint Montana, but it's what I got...

Gun Trading: A Cautionary Tale...

2011-03-03T10:42:00.003-06:00

;

Greg over at Shotgun Chronicle had a nice post yesterday about Miroku shotguns, specifically the Charles Daly-branded Mirokus that were imported back in the sixties and seventies. Miroku still makes shotguns for Browning, but Charles Daly is, alas, no more, except for a few of those horrid Turkish autoloaders you sometimes still see floating around, but I don't consider those plastic-and-pig iron travesties shotguns...

I do, however, have a superior-grade Charles Daly Miroku 12 gauge almost exactly like the one Greg linked to in his post, except mine has much nicer wood and lacks the gold-filled engraving. It's a great gun, but my acquisition of it is a cautionary tale to anyone who thinks newer is automatically better...

...Fade to gun store. A man (perhaps not me, maybe a fictional composite...) walks in with a Springfield 1911 he recently traded for. He got into it really cheap, super cheap, and is looking to turn that liquidity into shotgun steel. He walks over to the rack and spies a new O/U leaning there amongst the mass-market junk.

"Hmmm, what's this?" the man says to himself, and as he picks it up he realizes it's a very, very nice superior grade Charles Daly Miroku. Twelve gauge, 28-inch tubes, mid-rib bead, nice wood with a fair bit of figure to it. Blueing is 100 percent. Finish is 100 percent. Bores? Like chromed glass. The gun is so stiff he has trouble breaking it open. He takes off the fore-end, breaks down the gun, looks it over, wipes away the ancient, crusty grease and becomes convinced that this gun, made sometime back in the mid-seventies, has never been fired outside the factory.

"So what's the story on this one?" I - I mean the man - asks the shop owner.
"Guy brought it in yesterday," he replies. "He said his dad bought it new but he doesn't think his dad ever used it."
"Really? Why'd he get rid of it?"
"He wanted to trade it for one of the new Charles Daly over-unders."
The man - who by this time is in full-on scheming, horse-trading mode - knows he can't exhibit the slightest emotion or the shop owner will be on to him. But upon hearing this stunning revelation, he can't help himself.
"You're shittin' me? Really?"

Now at this point I must explain that this scene may have taken place a number of years ago at a time when the Charles Daly name was still a going concern and was being put on a series of uber-cheap Turkish-made over-under shotguns that are best left undescribed. The fact that someone would be stupid enough to actually want one of them in the first place, and then would be so colossally, monumentally stupid as to trade a pristine, unused (unused!) high-quality Japanese Miroku for said Turkish piece of shit simply buggers the noggin'...

"Nope," the shop owner continues, "he said he wanted a newer shotgun with (wait for it, wait for it...) choke tubes."
"Hmm," the man replies. "So did he trade it straight across for one?"
"Nope, made him give me a hundred dollars boot."

At this point I must explain that my local shop owner is a ruthless and cunning bastard who would screw the eyeballs out of a tethered goat if it meant coming out on top in a gun trade. And what he had just done to this poor, clueless schmuck bordered on the criminal. It was brilliant.

"Hmmm," the man says. "What you gonna put on it?" A dangerous question. I - I mean he - had to feign casual disinterest. One whiff of desire, one subtle indication that I wanted this gun and the shark would smell blood in the water.

"Oh, I don't know," says the shop owner. "We don't really move too many used over-unders." This was true. "I was thinking maybe four, five hundred bucks."

Now it was my - I mean the man's - turn to smell blood. That was a stupid cheap price. Just the week before he had seen a nice but well-used Miroku superior grade in a shop in Oklahoma City with a $900 price tag on it. The shop owner had just tipped his hand that he didn't know its true value and would probably be interested in a trade. Time to make the move.

"I've got this Springfield here I might trade you straight across, out the door."

Silence, as the shop owner's scheming lizard brain ponders the offer, calculates his profit.

"OK, I can do that," he replies. And so I - I mean the man - walks out the door with the Miroku, the latest link in that long daisy-chain of screwings known as a gun trade. He thinks "boy, I really got to him." Meanwhile, the shop owner, who despite having the man get to him will still make money on both ends of the deal, sits at his counter and thinks "boy, I really got to them."

And the poor, ignorant dude who started the whole sordid process sits on an upturned bucket out in a dove field somewhere, watching others shoot as he looks at the useless hunk of metal and wood in his hands, screaming "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH MY GUN? WHY WON'T THIS FRIGGIN' THING WORK RIGHT?"

But hey, at least it's got choke tubes...

The Difference Between Smarts and Intelligence

2011-03-02T17:02:00.000-06:00

I'm an intelligent guy. I'm also poor, which means I'm not very smart.

But this girl...

...may be intelligent or she may not. But she's smart. Very smart.

From the New York Daily News
Sarah White, a 24-year-old psychology buff, conducts online therapy sessions in her birthday suit. The naked therapist's unique approach to helping people solve their issues has, she says, aroused interest from dozens of suffering New Yorkers.
"For men especially, who are less likely than women to go to therapy, it is more interesting, more enticing, more exciting," said White. "It's a more inspiring approach to therapy."
White begins her sessions with her clothes on. But as the hour-long appointments heat up, she gradually sheds all of her duds until there's nothing left to take off.
"Freud used free association," she said. "I use nakedness."
The initial sessions, which cost $150, are conducted via a one-way Web cam and text chat. Once she develops a rapport with a client, she'll move on to two-way video appointments via Skype and even in-person consultations.
White said her roughly 30 clients are an eclectic mix of college students with sexual issues, middle-aged men with relationship problems and even a couple of women who just enjoy chatting with a nude peer.
A freelance computer programmer, White said she got the idea to perform therapy sessions in the nude after being uninspired by the theories she learned as an undergraduate psychology student. She conceded that naked therapy is not approved by any mental health association. And she is not a licensed therapist.

A $150-an-hour striptease marketed under the guise of a "therapy" session? Damn it, that's brilliant. And she's getting all kinds of national press out of it. Book deal, anyone? Reality show?

But every time I hear a story like this, about someone who's identified a niche, a schtick or a gimmick, some savvy hustler who hops on the the prevailing zeitgeist and then rides it all the way to the bank, I just get depressed. Why? Jealousy, of course. I mean, it obviously helps that she's pretty hot, but she identified a unique way to generate income and publicity and went after it.

I never could do that. I'm just not smart enough. No matter how intelligent I believe myself to be, I'll never be smart enough to convert the shamelessness and chutzpah that's demanded of modern success into riches.

Damn my ordinary looks and my tasteful and understated aesthetic sensibility! I knew they'd always hold me back...

Happiness Is New Decoys

2011-03-01T15:31:00.001-06:00

Includng two dozen divers and two dozen standard-size mallards.

Sadness is new decoys in March...and not having a boat in which to carry them.

Stupid Literature Games

2011-03-01T13:50:00.001-06:00

A few pithy quotes from a favored author I've been re-reading a lot of lately. Won't say who but I'll give you a few hints as to the book. Yes, it's a lame post, but my brain is tired and I really, really need to go fishing...

1. Abstract Expressionism.

2. Sateen Dura-luxe.

3. ARGHHH!

"If anyone has discovered what life is all about," Father might say, "it is too late. I am no longer interested."

"Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?"

"And what is literature, Rabo," he said, "but an insider's newsletter about affairs relating to molecules, of no importance to anything in the universe but a few molecules who have the disease called 'thought.'"

Winner gets a temporary (alas, always temporary) sense of smugness...

*** If you're wondering, no, it doesn't have anything to do with hunting, fishing or dogs...

*** Out of curiosity, I just Googled a couple of my clues and immediately came up with the answer. You know, sometimes the Information Age is just a damned joy killer. Isn't there any useless and/or obscure information out there any more that you actually have to work for? Whatever happened to the thrill of discovery? Kids these days are doomed to a life of unearned instant gratification...

First Post...

2011-02-28T12:19:00.001-06:00

...for Mouthful of Feathers is up and as with the Quail Forever blog feel free to read, criticize, praise, ignore or mock at your leisure...

Playin' Twister a little early this year...

2011-02-27T15:27:00.002-06:00

In honor of our first tornado watch of 2011, a re-post from last year. Because I'm lazy.

Just east of my back porch, the tailing edge of a line of storms sweeping off to the northeast into Kansas. Grapefruit-sized hail and tornado warnings for them. A cold beer and a spectacular sunset light show for me.

We'll get ours, eventually, and when we do I'm sure some distant backyard observer on the safe side of the dryline will pop the top on a cold one, stretch out in his lawn chair and think to himself "sucks to be them" as he watches the sky boil up and violently erupt over my house. Turnabout. That's just early fall on the southern plains, a period of transition that's often every bit as violent as spring. New England this isn't.

But right now the sky over my house contains only hot, still air. Summer air. I watch the dragonflies weave and dance in the welding-arc glow of the distant lightning stitching its demented pattern across the sky. I watch the boys play with the dogs in the evening heat. Beads of condensation roll down the side of my beer bottle. I long for fall. Real fall. Hunting fall. Dogs-and-shotguns fall. Not sweat-your-ass-off-for-a-few-dove-and-teal-and-the-gawddamned-teal-aren't-even-here-yet-and-the-gawddamned-dove-are-already-gone fall.

But that's still a long month away. So I sit back in my lawn chair, take a pull from the cold, wet beer, watch the sky and think to myself "sucks to be them."

F&S Website a Finalist For National Magazine Digital Award

2011-02-25T15:20:00.004-06:00

The National Magazine Awards, or the "Ellies" are sort of the magazine equivalent of the Pulitzers. For the past few years the Field & Stream print mag has been a finalist in several categories, and in 2009 it finally won its first Ellie. It was also arguably the most prestigious, the one given for general excellence.

Despite the fact that the trophy itself (above) looks more like a Klingon battle ax than a literary award, it was a big honor and I was of course excited for everyone at the magazine, but at the same time I must admit that excitement was tinged with a wee bit of melancholy. I don't write for the print side and therefore couldn't - even on an ancillary and/or self-illusory level (a level I'm quite comfortable with) - bask in the collective glory.

Well, the list of the 2010 Digital Ellie finalists was released yesterday. My editor forwarded the press release to me and lo and behold, there we were...

General Excellence, Digital Media

Honors the best magazines published on digital platforms; the award is presented in two categories based on content and audience
News and Opinion: The Atlantic; The Daily Beast; The New York Times Magazine; Slate; Wired.com
Service and Lifestyle: Epicurious; Field & Stream; POZ; Runner’s World; SELF

So I did what any self-respecting, attention-craving, accolade-seeking self-promoting writer would do: I immediately e-mailed my editor to ask if F&S actually won the award could I then claim to be "part of a National Magazine Award-winning team?" To which he replied "give me a hundred bucks and you can say whatever you want."

OK, so I made up that last part. Other than the multitude of blogs I crank out, it's not like I'm an integral part of the website or anything but hey, it's a dog-eat-dog world so you gotta grab whatever ancillary and/or self-illusory glory you can, right? Winners will be announced on March 16, and I'd sure appreciate any incense and/or livestock you see fit to burn and/or sacrifice on the website's behalf...

A Craven Plea for Eyeballs

2011-02-24T11:08:00.000-06:00

Recently my plan for world conservation non-profit blogging domination commenced with the introduction of my new blog on the Quail Forever website. Since birds, ducks and fish are where my primary conservation interests lie these days (sorry turkeys and big game, you've already got plenty of advocates) I will now turn my attention toward infiltrating DU or Delta, then perhaps the Ruffed Grouse Society (when I learn how to hunt ruffed grouse) and Trout Unlimited (when I finally learn how to flyfish. Correctly).

However, until those monopolistic goals come to fruition you'll have to make do with my thus-far meager and somewhat hesitant offering on the QF website. Every new blog stumbles around a bit until it finds its stride and voice (except this one, which stumbles by design) and the QF blog is no different. But I have high hopes for it, because I believe wholeheartedly in what Pheasants Forever is trying to do with QF.

As much as I am deeply divided between my love for upland hunting and waterfowl, the bobwhite quail is and always will be my totemic bird (ironic, I know, for a guy who didn't get his first pointer until after he got his first chessie). I've been in love with the little rockets ever since the day I kicked my first covey out of a shinnery thicket when I was ten years old. Or maybe nine. Hell, I can't remember. All I know for sure is that I missed. And possibly wet myself.

So anything I can do to help increase awareness of the bobwhite quail's intrinsic worth - as well as its plight - I will gladly do, including shamelessly plugging the Quail Forever website and blog at every opportunity.

So give it a read. Or even better, give it a read and then give me suggestions for making it better or more interesting or more relevant or more whatever. I'd love to hear what you have to say...

Hoist a Brew for Climate Change...

2011-02-23T18:23:00.002-06:00

Two weeks ago, I was shoving wood in the stove as fast as I could while enduring -15 temps and fifteen inches of snow.

Last week I sat on my back porch soaking up sunshine and a warm, gentle, seventy-degree breeze while drinking a beer and listening to the turkeys talk to each other out in the woods.

Ultimately we're all doomed, but catastrophic planet-level climate change does have its short-term benefits...

Name This Lure...

2011-02-18T14:46:00.000-06:00

Most people don't realize that in addition to my other interests, I'm also a part-time lure designer. Here's one I've been working on and tweaking for quite some time now. It's a completely original design; pliant yet stiff. The knobbies are for, uh, increased sonic hydro-harmonics as the bait is retrieved. I envision this lure as a swimbait-jerkbait hybrid, sort of a cross between a Zara Spook and a really big fluke.

I can't wait to try it out this spring. I think it's going to be a fish-catching machine, but for some reason the dogs love this thing. I can't keep 'em away from it...

I'm working on the marketing and distribution plan now, but I need to come up with a name. Any suggestions?

A New Blog For Scattergun Junkies

2011-02-16T11:03:00.000-06:00

Shotgun Chronicle is a new blog penned by my trout fishing/pheasant hunting, griping-about-the-state-of-the-world pal, Mouthful of Feathers blogger and soon-to-be-Idahoan Greg McReynolds.

Now Greg and I share similar tastes in many things: scotch, politics, books, music, fishing and above all, shotguns, so when Greg said he was starting up a shotguns blog, I couldn't wait to read it, even though my faith in his judgement had been shaken a bit after he started talking about the "classy little side-by-side" he was planning on bringing to our recent pheasant hunt, and then showed up toting this...

(OK, I kid, I kid...he actually showed up toting a sweet little AyA he had just finished refurbishing. It really was classy, and I wish I he'd sell it to me really, really cheap...)

Anyway, he's been penning it for a few weeks now, and if you're into shotguns - good, classic shotguns - it's worth a read and a bookmark. Greg knows his stuff, and writes about it well.

Son of Seriously?

2011-02-14T09:52:00.002-06:00

I got the latest Harper's in the mail recently, and was delighted to see that it had a feature written by William T. Vollmann.

Vollmann is, quite frankly, a weird dude, brilliant in sort of a dense, mysterious Thomas Pynchon way. He writes much about life and people on the margins, and Harper's has published a number of such stories in recent years. Like say, Cormac McCarthy, people tend to be binary about Vollmann, either loving him or loathing him with little middle ground.

Personally I like him, but then again I've never tried to read one of his Tolstoy-sized books, either...

Anyway, I digress. In the current Harper's Vollmann has a feature on his experiences among the homeless of Sacramento, where he resides. As always, it's an interesting read, but one graf in particular caught my eye...

From Harper's

Safe Ground is a movement to protect the homeless in their itinerary. It was formed in 2008 in response to Sacramento City ordinance 12.52, which makes it illegal to sleep even in one's own backyard for more than one night at a time. The law specifies: "It is not intended by this section to prohibit overnight camping on private residential property by friends or family of the property owner, so long as the owner consents and the overnight camping is limited to not more than one consecutive night."

That's right; in Sacramento, California it is against the law to sleep in your own backyard for more than one night at a time. So from that bit of trivia I can only infer that it must suck to be an adventurous child, a Boy Scout or homeless in Sacramento...

Seriously?

2011-02-11T07:49:00.003-06:00

I don't generally get too political on this blog, but sometimes the absurdity just slaps you smack in the face. And here's a perfect example: A Republican-controlled Colorado state legislative committee has killed a proposed conservation vehicle license plate because the money raised from the sale of the plate would go to aid and abet that radical socialist environmental tree-hugging long-haired granola-crunching hippie extremist threat to free market capitalism group known as...Trout Unlimited?

From the AP...

A special Colorado license plate saying "Protect Our Rivers" has been rejected by a Republican House committee because the tag would raise money for Trout Unlimited. Trout Unlimited is a conservation group that sometimes clashes with development interests over water habitat. The House Agriculture, Livestock and Natural Resources Committee voted 6-5 Monday against the "Protect Our Rivers" tag. Trout Unlimited agreed that money from the $25 additional tag fees would be banned from going for lobbying or litigation. But members of the Republican-controlled committee feared that despite the limit, tag fundraising would allow Trout Unlimited to spend more on those activities. Trout Unlimited said it had hoped to raise $75,000 over three years with the tag, which would have showed a blue stream cutting through snow-capped mountains.

A license plate showing a blue stream cutting through snow-capped mountains and with the words "protect our rivers" on it. I don't know about you, but that sounds like an obvious piece of anti-business propoganda to me. I shudder to think what horrible things may have happened had the proposal passed, what cherished corporate freedoms may have been lost had those six deep-thinking defenders of liberty not sent it down in flames. Thank gawd we can sleep easier at night knowing we have elected officials like this looking out for our (our?) best interests...

Now that is something I'd expect from say, Oklahoma, where political and corporate corruption and the routine usurping of justice and due process for the benefit and profit of vested interests are expected. But... Colorado? Rocky Mountain High and all that? Hippies and mountain bikes? The Peoples Republic of Boulderstan?

Damn, Colorado was on my short list of places for relocation and opening of my book/bullet/bottle store. Now where am I gonna go?

Bits and Pieces

2011-02-03T13:18:00.002-06:00

Back from Omaha. A little less than two weeks until the odometer rolls over on another season, two weeks to get the pup on some close-to-home birds before it's all over. But here I sit, shoving logs in the stove and freezing my ass off, just another victim of the Great White Death Storm of '11.

Oh, well. It's been a good season overall, I guess. I didn't waterfowl hunt nearly as much as I wanted (thank you drought and weather) and when I did the experience was somewhat tempered by the lingering memory of Lewey's absence. I also noticed for the first time this year that Tess seems to be slowing down just a bit. She'll be eight soon. Not old, but not young, either. Like me.

And the pup? Geez, the pup. She's something, that's for sure. Long on legs and personality, a bit short on using the nose and discipline, but we had a lot of fun, and now that she's got her first season of running (I'm not going to call it hunting...) under her belt, there's plenty of time to work on that other stuff. She's a sweetie, if a bit of a rogue, and I think she's going to make a helluva nice dog. She spent a lot of time on the road with me this year traveling to Texas, South Dakota and Kansas, and last week in Kansas she finally, sorta, after a fashion, in a manner of speaking, somewhat, loosely, in a roundabout way, kind of pointed her first wild roosters (then immediately took off chasing them when they flushed). Progress. I guess it's measured in boot leather and hoarse voices...

I also got to see my oldest son shoot his first dove this year. That was extremely cool, and now that he's ten he's finally old enough to start tagging along on some of the more physical hunting trips next year. More dove, deer, hopefully some low(er)-impact pheasants and quail hunts, and if I can scrounge him a pair of waders by next fall, ducks.

I'm not a particularly gregarious or sociable person and therefore I am mostly by choice, circumstance and natural inclination a solitary hunter. However, I also met, hunted and fished with several new friends this year and I have to admit, it was nice having the company. Greg McReynolds is a fellow shotgun nut who helped me catch my first cuttthroat this summer, and despite my cruel mocking of his choice of headgear on that trip he actually agreed to go pheasant hunting with me. I'm still trying to figure out what I can make fun of this time around. Probably that obsolete scattergun he was toting. Everyone knows real guns have accessory rails...

I also met several other like-minded individuals this past year whose company I enjoyed and certainly hope to hunt with again. Ted Gartner from Garmin International is a fellow bird hunting loonie I got the opportunity to hunt with and get to know this year. James Card from Ducks Unlimited magazine and his cool little American Water Spaniel/Mississippi Leghound cross Radar made the looong drive from Memphis to join us in Kansas. On the same trip I also got the chance to meet and hunt with (at least for a half a day) fellow bloggers Scampwalker and Four Seasons of Bird Hunting. And I had a great time in South Dakota with Bob and Anthony from Pheasants Forever.

So I guess I can't complain too much about being cooped up in the house. Besides, it's supposed to warm up a bit next week, so there's still a chance for a couple more quick trips.

Looking forward, there are a few changes in store for me. One, it looks like beginning next week the Field & Stream gundogs blog will be written wholly by me. My co-blogger David Dibenedetto has done a great job, but he's also the full-time executive editor at Garden & Gun, and I'm guessing the time commitment involved with that played a big part in his decision. I'm very excited, however, for the opportunity to start putting my own stamp on the blog. So look for more gundog, shotgun, conservation, upland and waterfowl-related content in the coming months.

Second, I'm also very excited for the opportunity to begin blogging for the folks at Quail Forever. I love all upland gamebirds, but some I love just a little more equally than others and the bobwhite quail I love above all others. So last week at Pheasant Fest when Bob and Anthony from PF hit me up about doing some freelance work for the organization, I didn't even hesitate. Still working out the details, so I'll let you know more as we get it rolling. I'd certainly appreciate the traffic...

And third, I'm extremely honored and excited (see a theme here?) to be asked to contribute to the Mouthful of Feathers blog. What can you say about the guys at MOF? Simply the best bird hunting prose out there, print, web or otherwise. Period. It's where I go for my inspiration.

And of course I'll keep plugging away at this little blog, purely for my own amusement. At least until I get that fine books/fine guns/fine tackle/fine spirits shop opened. So far I've got one book, one shotgun, one old reel and a half-empty bottle of scotch.

It's a start...

T*ts Up on the Tailgate, With No Apologies.

2011-01-27T12:11:00.002-06:00

Late season. The endless driving down rutted, washed-out, half-assed roads. The endless walking through section after section of worn-out prairie. The rancid burgsville cafe lunches washed down with iced tea that tastes of catfish. The constant wind moaning over empty plains devoid of any warmth or softness. The stinging dust, the freeze-drying cold. The two-track section line that keeps going on the map but in the real world ends at a locked gate. The bleary-eyed, windblown, horizon-spanning quest for land not grazed, beaten, grubbed, trampled, disced, cultivated, plowed, posted, drilled or center-pivoted into a choking, talcum-fine, anhydrous-soaked oblivion.

And when you finally find it, that one promising spot not littered with the tire tracks, empty hulls, potato chip bags, beer cans, feather piles and other detritus of asshole slobs gone before, there's the plan: The carefully-orchestrated truckside tactical plan, one conceived in the optimism of roadside dust, then falling completely to shit the moment boots and dogs start kicking through the stubble and grass and the birds, those devious friggin' bastard-birds, find where you aren't and then fly and run and cackle out of range. Always out of range. Screw your plan, screw your silly shotguns and screw your stupid, slobbering dogs, too. Looosers...

You hurl invective and rage at their ass ends and keep walking, stewing in humiliation and dreaming of payback. It's a beat-down, and you know it. Back to the truck, defeated, to start the whole damn thing over again. And again. And again. And again. Why? Who the hell knows why? I sure don't. Because you're a masochist, maybe? Beat me harder, may I have another...

Until finally, in a little patch of cover on some anonymous piece of ground you'll never share the location of and hope like hell will still be there next year, one of them does something wrong; commits a tiny little bird-brained mental error. Perhaps zigging where he should have zagged, or maybe hesitating for just a moment where he should have run like hell. And suddenly he hears the crackling of the boots, the hot, eager panting of the dogs and he's in the air. Close enough.

There's no contemplation, no naval-gazing, no tears other than those of the joy kind, no quick pang of angst or question about how this devil bird's death might affect your inner man-child, no solemn prayer of thanks for his sacrifice, no imagined communication with the bird's recently departed soul, other than perhaps a heartfelt "Gotcha, bastard!"

Nope, there's none of that shit. Just a deep, personal satisfaction at having finally outwitted one of the taunting little bastards. Gratuitous tailgate shot? Hell, yes. Gloating? Fer sure, dude. Will you be back next January to be humiliated yet again? Absolutely. Because you're a masochist. Beat me harder. May I have another...