You Are Here, and This is the Only Here You Will Ever Have

Earth (see arrow), as seen from the rings of Saturn. Taken last week by the Cassini spacecraft, from 900 million miles away. A bit humbling, no?

(stolen from I Fucking Love Science's Facebook feed...)

"Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. 

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."-

                                                                                Carl Sagan


There is no heaven. There is no hell. There is no Rapture coming to take you to a better place ruled by kindly, bearded Caucasian father figures or populated by horny virgins waiting to screw you silly. This little dot is currently, and for the foreseeable future, the only place you and I have. Screw it up, and we're screwed. Utterly screwed. Cosmically screwed, as it were. That doesn't seem to be stopping us, though, does it?

Drought, Rain, Birds, Story

The choking, wind-whipped dust gusted across the desiccated pasture at ground level. Impeded by nothing, it undulated in long, serpentine tendrils across a landscape devoid of vegetation or any discernable moisture or humidity. The earth had the texture of ancient porcelain, spiderwebbed with a lattice of interlocking cracks so wide and so deep that when the dogs  ran across the shattered clay hardpan they almost had to hop from one piece to the next like some crazy game of hopscotch. 

Last fall there had been a seasonal pond here, a playa, as they’re called on the southern plains, and I had shot ducks over it, watched as my old retriever swam across the same area where now my two setters sent up tiny plumes of talcum-fine silt with every tentative step. In a good year, when the rains came, the edges of the playa grew up in a thick, lush scrum of weedy forbs, and the dogs would slam into quivering, beautiful, motionlessness, the hot scent of quail filling their noses.

But there were no quail here now, nor ducks. Just the moaning of the wind under a white-hot orb of sky that burned from one horizon to the next, withering everything under its relentless, implacable gaze. I called up the dogs and we slowly trudged back to the truck, three tiny, defeated figures crawling across a vast whitewashed canvas shimmering with heat.

Drought had once again come to my part of the world. And once again, as we have always done, those of us locked in its grip could only look to the sky and wonder when - or if - the rains would return.

...From a feature story on drought I penned for the current issue of Living Ready. Please go buy it and tell them you want more from that Chad Love guy. I wrote that intro with the memory of the last two hellish years fresh on my mind. But although the worm hasn't exactly turned, it is wiggling just a little...

Actual rainfall in my part of the world, at a time of the year when we don't usually get much, and none at all the past few years. I'm becoming cautiously, yet slightly increasingly optimistic about quail season this fall. Rain in June and July means cover, bugs, and a respite from the August-September heat that's sure to come. We've had one or two weeks of extreme-ish (100-plus) heat already, but they've been interspersed with rain and cooler temperatures. Eighties in mid-July? I'll take 'em. All in all it hasn't been nearly as brutal a summer this year as it has the past two or three.

We still have the Sauron-like spectre of August ahead of us, and I doubt we'll get lucky and catch another of those weird, blue moonish east-to-west-moving lows that brought this last round of rain and cool, but at least the vegetation and birds aren't baking. And that's good news to me. It makes my hopes for fall seem a little less tenuous and a bit more attainable.

Because at one point, those hopes were looking rather grim. I'll admit, when I stopped writing for F&S, about the only thing I truly mourned was that damn handy "it's for work" excuse for hitting the road to go hunt other states, either on pressers or for stories. Why? Well, besides the obvious reasons (Free gear! Free booze!), it was because the hunting close to home has sucked so badly. I wanted birds for the dogs. There were no birds here. Ergo, if I wanted birds for the dogs I must travel far, far away and expense as much of it as I possibly could, you know, for work...

Those "work" hunts, some good, some bad, allowed me to supplement - if not outright replace - the truly execrable bird hunting in my home state with a modest number of escapist trips elsewhere, trips I wouldn't have had the opportunity to take if not for the cachet of having "Field & Stream writer" before my name.

Now, however, I'm back to being just another mook with a shotgun. Which is cool, truly. The occasional piece of free swag aside,  I much prefer being truly independent in what I write and how I write it rather than having a bunch of career magazine industry dandies who know fuckall about what they're supposed to be experts at telling me how and what to write while prancing around Manhattan whoring for circle-jerk publishing industry awards and play-acting at being total outdoorsmen while being wet-nursed on their own press hunts, by golly.

Of course, that all sounds defiantly well and good and "live free or die" and all, but for three things: One, when done right, some of those press hunts were pretty damn good affairs; two, with those pressers and work trips gone, the vast majority of my bird hunting this fall will, by necessity, be close to home here in Oklahoma and southern Kansas, and three; it does no good to be able to write in some wild, primal, uncaged Voice if the birds are simply not there and all you're going to be writing is multiple variations on "The dogs and I went out. We walked for miles. We saw nothing. I felt pensive and introspective, yet satisfied. We came home. The end."

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure I'll be writing a shitload of "The dogs and I went out. We walked for miles. We saw nothing. I felt pensive and introspective, yet satisfied. We came home. The end." stories. 

But thanks to this rain, maybe, just maybe, I might also be able to write a few "The dogs and I went out. We walked for miles. They went on point. I shot at a bird. I missed. I cursed. I felt angry, yet satisfied. We came home. The end" stories. 

I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but in the meantime, here's my new favorite song...

Just a warning....

 ...that you may not be hearing from me for quite some time. Why? Because I just scored, in one fell, fortuitous swoop, and after a maddening three-month wait for the library to get them in, volumes three, four and five of George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire."

That's right, close to three thousand pages of dense, violent, fantastical awesomeness just begging to be read in a single, hallucinatory, methamphetamine-and-coffee fueled sitting. OK, so I just made up that part. But I have shoved all my other reading to the side until I've finished them, and I'm not apologizing a bit for it, either. Sometimes you want to ruminate on Deep Thoughts, and sometimes you just want to gorge on popcorn. And these books are some damn fine popcorn.

Like most everyone else, I hadn't read the books until I got hooked earlier this year - quite by accident - on the HBO series "Game of Thrones" (which is based on the books) when we got one of those free, one-week premium channel previews on our television. I was bored one evening flipping channels, stumbled across an episode, started watching it, and freakin' loved it. I then promptly drove to the library, checked out the first two volumes of Martin's "Ice and Fire" saga, and finished them in a blur of several late-night readings.

I then went straightaway back to the library to check out the next three volumes, and was informed to my horror that some dirty, low-down, book-thieving, hyena-humping sonofabitch had stolen the last three volumes, and that I'd have to wait until the library could order replacements to finish my Ice and Fire infatuation.

Damn. Only my steely resolve (and insolvency) kept me from immediately going out and purchasing not only the entire (two more books are planned) five-book series, but the first two seasons of the show as well.

Now, I must admit that I'm not a serious fan of fantasy. In fact, I'm not even a semi-serious fan of fantasy. Casual, at best. I've read all of Tolkien, of course, and C.S. Lewis, and Lloyd Alexander's excellent "Chronicles of Prydain," and some other scattered classics and semi-classics of the genre, and I enjoy it to a point, but I don't wear a genuine reproduction One Ring, I've never used the word "verily" in conversation, I've never wielded a wooden sword to defended m'lady's honor at a Renaissance Fair, and I've never translated the collected writings of Uknor The Brave from the original High Elvish. Because all that shit is just a bit silly.

But I have to say that I am infatuated with Martin's highly imagined, violent, disturbing and disturbed world. If I had to characterize it, I'd say (and I apologize if this analogy has already been made somewhere, but it immediately popped into my head) "Ice and Fire" is what you'd end up with if you took Quentin Tarantino and the ghost of Sam Pekinpah, locked them in a room together, handed them a copy of Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" and said "here, re-write this damn thing."

Good stuff. Each volume is as long as Joyce's "Ulysses" and only slightly less confusing. And like most things that are bad for you, also highly addictive. If you haven't read them, give them a try. If nothing else, your arms will get a good workout holding them up.

So for now, Good Ser Chad is checking out. I've got foes to slay and wenches to bed before I do the dishes and feed the dogs.  

A Two-Weight Conundrum

Ever since I got my little St. Croix Imperial/Sage 3200 three-weight outfit a few years back, I've been smitten with ultralight flyfishing on small waters. In fact, if the fishing gods decreed that I could no longer fish with anything larger than a three-weight, ever, I'd probably just shrug my shoulders and go on fishing. It's just so much fun, and so much more in line with my personal flyfishing ideal  (no offense to all you 12-weight-slinging saltwater guys and gals...).

Anyway, some time back, in pursuit of going ever lighter, I came into possession of a sweet little Redington Drift fly reel in size "Holy Shit That's One Tiny Sumbitch!" which, for non-Okies, roughly translates into a size 2/3. My idea was, and is, to pair it up with a short (seven-foot or under), cheap, moderate-action one or two-weight fly rod, and then give it a name like "The Bluegill Bomber" or maybe "The Panfish Prowler" or some other equally hoaky, alliteratively-strained nickname. Because I'm stupid that way.

The problem, however, is that I can't seem to find a rod for it. There are plenty of one and two-weights out there, but most of them are either too long (I really want one in the six-foot range), too expensive, (it's perch in a creek we're talking about here) or too long and expensive.

There are a number of very nice custom and semi-custom right-sized glass rods being made, but again, virtually all of them are beyond my means. Such is the life of the terminally broke.

Enter the Cabela's CGT fiberglass fly rods. Normally, at $150 they'd be out of my price range, too, but as it turns out they're on sale right now for $79. All of them. Even the 6'2", two-piece, two-weight model that would fill my bill perfectly.

But here's the catch: the CGT rods have gotten somewhat mixed reviews from the fiberglass fly rod crowd, with the main complaint being that, though nice, they fish a bit too much like a graphite rod. When Cabela's first introduced the original CGR fiberglass rods in 2011, they received almost universal praise, including a good review in Field & Stream from the late John Merwin. They were also only $99. I, of course, didn't buy one back then, and by the time Cabela's updated the line with the CGTs, the original rods were long-since sold out.

Also, I have to admit, I've never been a huge fan of house-brand rods and reels. Don't get me wrong: by and large I like Cabela's and own a lot of Cabela's-branded stuff. Much of it is great (for example, their waders) while some of it (for example, some of their bird-hunting gear) is sort of meh. Just like any other retailer. But when it comes to rods and reels I've always preferred companies that actually make rods and reels rather than retailers that re-brand or outsource their own lines. OK, I admit it, I'm a rod and reel snob.

But for 79 bucks, especially for a rod that will be plying the depths of the piscatorial low-rent district, perhaps I should tell my innate snobbishness to go get stuffed? On the other hand, I'll also be using the rod for fishing small trout waters (must keep up appearances, you know...), so maybe I should just keep using the three-weight for now, save up a few more pennies, and get a custom fiberglass rod built just for me?

Here's where my flyfishing noobishness comes in. Considering my casting skill (which I describe as "Flailing Stork") would I even be able to tell the difference between a $79 dollar Chinese-made rod and a (roughly) $300-400 custom job? Aesthetically, sure. Custom rods are prettier, and nicer. But what's also nice is actually being able to go fishing now rather than waiting while you sell 27 pints of plasma  to pay for a new custom or high-end rod.

Any suggestions or advice, oh flyfishing brethren?

Skinny Jeans, Chickens and Bloodsport

Alas, it looks as if the once red-hot backyard chicken fad is losing ground amongst the Michael Pollan-inspired urban pioneer set, because chickens are, well, a big pain in the ass.  And they don't accessorize well, either.

From this story on nbcnews.com 
 
Despite visions of quaint coops, happy birds and cheap eggs, the growing trend of raising backyard chickens in urban settings is backfiring, critics say, as disillusioned city dwellers dump unwanted fowl on animal shelters and sanctuaries. Hundreds of chickens, sometimes dozens at a time, are being abandoned each year at the nation’s shelters from California to New York as some hipster farmers discover that hens lay eggs for two years, but can live for a good decade longer, and that actually raising the birds can be noisy, messy, labor-intensive and expensive.

"...It’s the same scenario at the Chicken Run Rescue in Minneapolis, Minn., where owner Mary Britton Clouse has tracked a steady climb in surrendered birds from fewer than 50 in 2001 to nearly 500 in 2012. She traces that rise to the so-called “locavore” movement, which spiked in popularity in 2008 as advocates urged people to eat more food grown and processed close to home.

“It’s the stupid foodies,” said Britton Clouse, 60, who admits she speaks frankly. “We’re just sick to death of it.” People entranced by a “misplaced rural nostalgia” are buying chickens from the same hatcheries that supply the nation's largest poultry producers and rearing them without proper space, food or veterinary care, she said.

Because chickens are notoriously hard to sex, some backyard farmers wind up with roosters, which are often culled and killed because they can be noisy, aggressive and illegal, and, of course, they don’t lay eggs at all. In addition to the noise, many urban farmers are surprised that chickens attract pests like rats, and predators including foxes, raccoons, hawks, and even neighborhood dogs. When they get sick or hurt, they need care that can run into the hundreds of dollars, boosting the price of that home-grown egg far beyond even the most expensive grocery store brand.

Enthusiasts who start out with good intentions frequently wind up posting messages like this one delivered to Britton-Clouse last month: “One of our hens grew up into a rooster and our neighbors are starting to complain. Do you know someone who might take him?” “People don’t know what they’re doing,” Britton Clouse said. “And you’ve got this whole culture of people who don’t know what the hell they’re doing teaching every other idiot out there.”

But Ludlow, the backyard chicken enthusiast, said that “it’s very rare” that people make such mistakes or underestimate how difficult it is to raise chickens. “While we definitely want to see more education around the lifespan and laying lifespan of chickens, we find that most people become so attached to their hens as pets, that even though they planned to eat or cull their hens at the end of their laying life, they decide to keep their girls around even without laying eggs,” he said. Coston, the Farm Sanctuary shelter director, said she wished that were true. Most people don’t realize that chickens are funny, with quirky habits and affectionate personalities as distinct as any other pet’s. 

A few thoughts...

It may be easy for the more smug among us to scoff and sneer at those naive, sensitive fools who become attached to the livestock, as it were. I'm not one of them. You're currently reading a dude who has three pigeons in his coop right now, pigeons that were among a large lot purchased for the sole purpose of dog training, but for a variety of reasons (daddy, I like the white one!) have become de facto pets. They eat my feed, crap, mess their water, take up space and basically serve as living, breathing mockeries of why I built the damn coop in the first place, which was to serve as a holding pen for the feral barn pigeons I trap for training the dogs. Others have come and gone, but those three sit there like Macbeth's witches, cooing and laughing at me.

The truth is, it's natural to grow attached to the animals you raise. In fact, the only two animals I can recall feeling not the least bit of remorse for as they were led to the freezer was a pair of monstrous pigs that haunted my childhood like a pair of porcine Freddy Kruegers. I'm quite convinced those two were waiting for the right time to eat me as I fed them, and the day they were loaded up and sent to the butcher I made it a point to tell them I couldn't wait for them to get back home, all wrapped up nicely. Yeah, fuck you, Wilbur.

Having said that, however, if you're going to raise chickens (or anything) for food, you've got to be pragmatic about such things. Chickens only go so far as a cool example of your hip, idiosyncratic personality or as an environmental or socio-cultural statement. Beyond that, they become simply eggs and meat. And responsibility.  

And that's the basic problem I have with much of the locavore/slow food/urban self-reliance movement. Not the movement itself, which I admire and support, but rather many of the stupid fuckwits who comprise it. I'm all for knowing where your food comes from, and in playing a larger, better-informed individual part in obtaining said food. The less power and influence wielded by the Monsantos and Cargills and ADMs of the world the better. 

The problem, it seems, comes when people realize that actually doing so takes some effort, and forces you to make the kind of honest and sometimes painful decisions you never have to make in a supermarket, at least in regard to animals.

This applies, I believe, even more so to hunting, which has enjoyed something of a foodie-related rise in popularity these past few years. Which I think is great. I really do. But I'd be lying if I didn't say that, to me, anyway, more than a bit of the current urban hipster foodie interest in hunting/gathering (and much of what's been written on the subject) has the definite chicken-like whiff of faddishnes and zeitgeist-hopping swirling about it. 

Not for everyone, of course. I'm sure, and thankful for the fact that there are many out there for whom an introduction to hunting has been a fundamentally transformative experience, one they'll continue for the rest of their lives. And I for one would love to see more weird, eccentric, laid-back, gun-toting hippies in the woods to help balance out the inordinate number of rednecks (and I say that with one foot firmly planted in each camp...) tearing about on those goddamned four-wheelers, invoking Jesus and tossing beer cans.

But I simply don't buy into the argument, espoused (fervently) by many in the industry, that hunting's recent popularity is sustainable and/or permanent. Everything, but especially Groupthink, is cyclical, and fickle. This isn't a movement. Hunting is not the next big thing, it's simply a modestly popular now thing, and for many, many people currently intrigued by and/or flirting with bloodsport, it'll eventually be a discarded and forgotten thing. Like a bunch of unwanted chickens. 

And I'm cool with that, too. Doesn't bother me in the least. The (probably) relatively few people who are meant to find hunting will find it. The people who aren't will move on to the next Search For Deep Meaning and I'll start scoring some A. solitude in the woods (and hopefully water. Damn duck commanders...) and B. some sweet, barely-used gear in the thrift shops. And that is a win-win... 

 

Round Reel Fanboys Rejoice!

In August of 1979, a much younger, sweeter, slimmer and more optimistic version of the current me was driven (because I was too young to drive) to the TG&Y department store (now long-defunct) on Main Street in Norman, Oklahoma.

Mini-me walked up to the sporting goods counter, a fantastic, magical place that he spent hours haunting (back in those pre-Wal-Mart/Bass Pro/Cabela's big-box days small regional departments-store chains like TG&Y had wonderful hunting and fishing departments), took out his blue plastic Santa Fe railroad change purse and plopped down virtually every cent of his net worth.

This small fortune, almost sixty dollars amassed from a combination of means both legitimate (birthday money, Christmas money, chores) and not-so-legitimate (the ill-gotten lucre of sofa diving, action figure/Hot Wheels selling and the illegal schoolyard trafficking of reptiles and amphibians) was handed over to the clerk. In return, the clerk handed mini-me a box containing a shiny, brand-new midnight black Ambassadeur 5600C.

It was my very first "real" reel. In the years since that day I have fished with, bought, sold, traded, lost, broken, fixed, praised and/or cursed literally hundreds of baitcasting reels from pretty much every manufacturer out there. But I still have that one (yes, that's the actual receipt), and in fact I still have just about every old Ambassadeur I've ever owned. Some reels were sexier, some reels were smoother, or easier to cast and palm. But none of them, not even my beloved Shimano Bantams of that same vintage, were as rugged or reliable or simple to work on as my old round Ambassadeurs. Even a dunce like me could keep them going with a minimum of care and maintenance.

Every one I've ever bought, new or used, every one, is still working and catching fish. That's a claim I can't make with any other model of reel besides my Shimano Calcuttas, which are classics in their own right, but a much newer and more modern reel.

I do not claim that my old Abus can compare to modern reels, performance-wise, although with some fairly simple and easy super-tuning mods (upgraded bearings,drags and polishing) you can get damn close. Reel technology and refinement have come a very, very long way since then. Modern reels are wonders, they truly are. Hideously ugly, most of them, with their bulbous, misshapen sideplates covering those ridiculous over-sized gears (so you'll be prepared when a three-pound bass suddenly rips off sixty yards of line and strips your main gear, because that happens like, you know, never) but I cannot argue with their casting performance and their smoothness.

Despite that, I just can't seem to warm to them, which is why I own but a few modern low-profile reels that are relegated mostly to catfishing, back-up and loaner duty in favor of my Calcuttas and my Abus. Which guy catfishes with a $160 Daiwa baitcaster because he doesn't want to get his 35-year-old, $50 Ambassadeurs icky? Yeah, this guy.  I guess I'm just a round-reel guy in a low-profile world.

At any rate, this entire post is merely a roundabout (get it?) way of introducing a really cool-looking new documentary on the history of Abu Garcia that I read about over on the Fishing For History website last week. Now I don't know how, exactly, this documentary will present the latest chapter in Abu's long and storied history, specifically its ownership by Pure Fishing/Jarden, because an awful lot of die-hard Abu enthusiasts are not too keen on what they perceive as Jarden's unforgivable cheapening of the brand (Chinese-made Abus? The horror...).

I'm assuming, since the documentary was sanctioned by Jarden/Pure Fishing, that all will be ice cream and roses. Personally, I can't speak to the relative quality or lack thereof, of any of the new Abus because, well, hell, my old ones haven't broken yet...

Interestingly enough, however, I also happened to see this bit of news from the press release about the documentary...

In 2014, Abu Garcia will re-launch its iconic Swedish made round reels. Set to be unveiled at ICAST in Las Vegas, July 10, 2013, Abu Garcia will present the newly updated editions of its original Record, C4, C3, Pro Rocket and Morrum Swedish-made round reels. With upgraded performance and style, the new line of round reels embodies the trusted durability and engineering that generations of anglers have come to expect.

To mark this occasion a poignant and beautifully shot documentary has been produced that traces the history of one of the most revered fishing brands in the world. The trailer of "For Life, The Story of Abu Garcia" is currently viewable at www.abugarcia.com/forlife. The full length documentary premiers online via YouTube (http://bit.ly/YouTubeForLifeTrailer) and Vimeo (http://bit.ly/VimeoForLifeTrailer ) at 3pm ET on July 10th.

"Chronicling the history of one of the world's most legendary fishing brands was a huge task and we are very excited to give an insider's look at how this company started," said the film's Director, Dustin Hoye. "The stories were so genuine and provided many different points of view for a great perspective of the lives influenced by Abu Garcia."

Highlights in the film include Lennart Borgstrom, former Abu Garcia owner, and Henning Karlssom who began working in the factory in 1940. Henning was just 14 years old when he started with Abu Garcia and to this day, still volunteers as curator of the museum in Svangsta, Sweden. Everyday anglers provide their heartfelt stories which underscore the way fishing shapes some of the most memorable and defining moments in their lives.

Now that's some good news, indeed. I used to lust after those Morrums something fierce, but never could afford them. Still can't, come to think of it, unless I find one in a pawn shop.

Even more interestingly enough, the PR firm that put out that press release, and indeed handles all of Abu's/ Pure Fishing's press/marketing, is an outfit called Blue Heron Communications. Blue Heron is based in my hometown of Norman, Oklahoma. The guy who owns Blue Heron, a helluva good guy named Gary Guidice, was instrumental in getting my writing career started lo those many years ago. He even scored me my very first press junket to cover the Bassmasters Classic, back when said junket was an all-inclusive, expenses-paid week-long vacation. It was a helluva lot of fun.

The press were, of course, expected to fish with the pros during practice days, so what reels did I choose to fish the Bassmasters Classic? Yep, a couple Ambassadeurs; a 4500C and that old 5600C you see in the picture above.

Small world, 'aint it?

Of Summer Lulls and Endearing Parisian Snobbery

Apologies for the lack of content. In addition to the normal summer posting slowdown due to typical summertime family activities and the sense of miserable torpidity brought on by 100-degree heat, most of my work time has been consumed by finishing up a few assignments for which I have looming deadlines as well as a writing project I hope will eventually pan out into something more substantial than an idea.

An appalling number of years ago this very month, my wife and I were in the midst of our first visit to Paris (and my first trip to Europe), a wonderful 10-day stay with expat friends who lived there. Some days were designated as typical tourist destination days; the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre, Montmartre, Latin Quarter, that sort of thing. Other days we'd spend walking and exploring the rest of the city, assiduously avoiding visiting and/or eating all things tourist.

It was great fun, and one day as we were walking along a Parisian side street I noticed a window lined with guns. Not knowing anything at all about French gun laws, nor even if it was lawful for me to enter, I asked our friend if she'd ask the proprietor if I could come in and browse. She did so, came back out with an affirmative and informed me that he even spoke English. Guns. Paris. Dude who speaks my language. How lucky could a guy be?

I walked in the door and right up to the patrician-looking gentleman, gave him a slight, world-weary shrug and said, in passable French, "Bonjour, monsieur, I see that you and I share a mutual love of fine guns and existential philosophy. I, too, find that a world without shotguns is a pointless world, indeed. May I please handle this beautiful Darne? Merci."

At least that's what I recall saying. What I've been told I actually said is a bit less world-weary intellectual, a bit more, uh, Gomer Pyle, or perhaps redneck Clark Griswold...

"Hello (in English)! I am a loud, overbearing American ass who enjoys invading your personal space and proffering opinions, loudly, where none have been asked for nor desired. Thank you for letting me browse your store. I will now stomp around, again, loudly, for a few minutes, taking pictures and getting fingerprints on your guns. I will then proclaim, again, loudly, that my old 870 will kill a bird just a dead as any of these fancy guns. I will then inform you that you need to to stock a few more 3 1/2-chambered guns. I will then ask for directions to the nearest McDonald's because I've been wanting to try one of those Royales with cheese. And before leaving, I will also ask to use your bathroom while complaining about pay toilets."

Or something to that effect.

The man glanced up from the copy of Sartre he was reading (OK, so I made that part up), slowly looked me over like I was a NASCAR-edition Big Mac with extra sauce and super-sized fries that had somehow made its way onto his plate at a Michelin-starred restaurant, shrugged, shook his head, then indolently went back to his book.

I then tried my patented Inspector Clouseau French-accented English (if you want more info on that, click here) thinking this might help. Again the shrug and head shake, but punctuated this time with a condescending sigh. There would be no international meeting of shotgun minds this day. I wandered around the shop for a few awkwardly silent minutes, snapped one or two hurried pics, then quickly exited in shame.

Back outside, the only thing we could figure out was that he got pissed off when I walked in the shop and started speaking English without first attempting French, or at least a French greeting.

That's just one reason of many why I love the French. I really do. You've got to respect and admire that kind of attitude. It was a funny, yet damn effective lesson in international etiquette, and one that has stuck with me.

Since then I've never forgotten to start off any conversation or question with a proper French greeting, and in turn I've never failed to have anyone in France go out of their way to help me after that first halting, painful butchering of the French language to show my due respect. And almost always in English, of course, because bilingual is how most of the rest of the non-Murkan world rolls.  If I'm ever lucky enough to make it back to Paris I'd love to find that shop again.   

Old Pics of Importance Only To Me

 I was prowling around in my old computer a few days ago and found a ton of photographs that I had completely forgotten about. Dogs, fishing, hunting, landscape, weather, animals, lots of stuff, including a few early pics of my beloved male chessie, Lewey, whom I believe has been reincarnated as my young male English setter, Ozzie.

Their personalities and behaviors are eerily similar, and I'm not just engaging in some maudlin, cross-species emotional transference or supernatural anthropomorphism, either. My wife has noticed the same thing. It's weird, I tell you.

Or maybe it's just that the heart tends to see what it wants to see and many young male dogs simply have a tendency to be big. lovable, goofballs who act human. At any rate, the pics of Lewey as a pup were an interesting find because a few days ago I noticed a litter announcement on the Teamchesapeake website (a forum for folks who hunt and trial with chessies) out of one of Lewey's littermates. As far as I know it's been the only breeding out of Lewey's litter (other than my accidental litter), or at least the only one I've seen, which in turn was the only litter that Bill Burks ever produced out of his fantastic trial dog, Suite Judy Blue Eyes.

Time marches on, I guess. The first pic was taken not long after I got Lewey, during a training day with the old retired pro trainer who first got me into my serious (or at least semi-serious) retriever training phase. Lewey was just along for the ride that day, but as he got older he got to know that dog trailer well. Of course, both he and the old man are gone now, and these days I find that having an old dog and no training partner a bit of a melancholy combination. It's mostly bumpers in the back yard any more, but at one point it was a helluva lot of fun to train two young dogs.

Tess, (on the right) bless her homely little heart, has never been a terribly attractive dog, but Lewey was always a looker.

When I saw the puppy as on the chessie website, I quickly entertained the notion. You know, the puppy notion. Then just as quickly I shot it down. Tess probably has a couple seasons left in her creaking old bones, and right now I'm simply too preoccupied with the setters, anyway. But I can still think about it...

Mallard's Infinite Playlist: Missed Opportunity Edition

Damnit, damnit, damnit. How the hell did I miss this?

NORMAN — People lounged on blankets, sat in lawn chairs and danced on the grass as the annual Summer Breeze concert series got underway Sunday at Lions Park with a performance by The Gourds. Singer/songwriter John Fullbright had been scheduled to kick off the season on May 19, but his performance was rained out. An appearance by Fullbright has been rescheduled for 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the park at Symmes Street and Flood Avenue. The outdoor concert series is sponsored by the Performing Arts Studio. All concerts are free and are held in Lions Park. For a complete schedule, visit www.pasnorman.org.

I mostly enjoy living out here in the middle of nowhere some 170 miles removed from my hometown, I really do. True, I must take my fishing where I can find it, which kinda sucks, but in the fall I can load up the dogs, pull out of the driveway and literally be on the ground hunting in twenty minutes. That's worth a lot. I generally don't like people, and there are relatively few of them out here to piss me off. That's worth a lot, too. But I must admit that sometimes I really miss the experience of growing up and living in a nice, progressive (for Oklahoma), culturally diverse (again, for Oklahoma), large-but-not-too-large state university town. Things like free and funky outdoor music festivals that draw bands like the Gourds...

I think that song should be required listening for all middle school geography classes. And since I believe it's actually against the law to mention the Gourds without also mentioning their classic, infamous, universally loved, much-mistaken-for-Phish, Best Cover Ever version of Snoop Dogg's "Gin and Juice" here it is, too (NSFW, or kids...)

Pledging Fealty to the Silver King

Longtime blog readers (i.e., Suburban Bushwacker and my mom) may recall that back in 2009 I took a trip to New Jersey in hopes of realizing my lifelong dream of catching a bluefin tuna, only to strike out on tuna while accidentally bumbling my way into realizing another lifelong dream of catching a blue marlin.

It was a fantastic, once-in-a lifetime experience, and I'm glad I finally got a taste of true big-game fishing. Having said that, I doubt I'll ever do it again. Not that I don't want to, but the fact is, offshore big-game fishing is way, way beyond my means, and likely always will be. I lucked into the one trip. I won't be lucking into another. For the same dismal financial reasons, my prospects of catching a bluefin before that magnificent species disappears are also fading quickly into shouldacouldawoulda territory.

But the last two points of my saltwater Holy Trinity+1 are inshore species, within reach (just, both physically and financially) for those of us with big dreams and small budgets. They're both still beyond my means, but unlike marlin and tuna, I can at least imagine the possibility of someday being able to catch a big New York/Jersey coast striper or a Florida Keys tarpon.

Especially the tarpon. Probably no other fish (including marlin and tuna) haunts my imagination like the tarpon. Maybe it's the fact that unlike offshore fishing, the process itself of fishing for tarpon seems somewhat familiar to me. Or if not familiar, at least not something utterly alien, like being strapped into a fighting chair on a sixty-foot yacht ninety miles out in the open Atlantic, cranking on a huge Penn International 80 with a pit crew of deckhands all around me.

But tarpon? The tackle, the tactics, the boats, the setting, they're not entirely unlike what I'm used to. It's a true big-game fish species, but one you can reasonably expect to catch on relatively normal-sized tackle, in relatively normal-sized boats, in relatively normal-sized waters.

And the fish itself. Wow, what a fish. When my wife and I visited the Florida Keys a few years ago (one of those ramen noodle shoestring budget vacations that didn't allow for us to go out on a real fishing trip) I remember looking over the edge of a dock on Islamorada, just watching and dreaming as those impossibly large, half-tame tarpon cruised around the pilings like rippling, muscled quicksilver. Norman Maclean may have been haunted by waters, but I am haunted by the memory of a monstrous tarpon with its head hovering in the gin-clear water a foot or so below mine, which was hanging over the edge of the dock. Eyeball to ping-pong ball-sized eyeball we were, until I, producing no tidbit, was summarily dismissed with a flick of a tail that boiled the water's surface like an outboard.

And that's as close as I've ever come to a tarpon. These days, hoping to avoid stoking currently irrational and impossible dreams, I try to stay away from tarpon-related stories. Best not to think about it until I can think about affording it, right? But last night on my local PBS station, I got hooked by this excellent hour-long documentary on tarpon and the birth of modern big-game fishing.

It's called "Silver King: The Birth of Big-Game Fishing" and it's pretty damn cool. If you're at all interested in fishing history, it's a must-see (there's a streaming video link, I believe). Lots of awesome vintage tarpon-fishing footage. I haven't yet seen the "Tarpon" DVD,  that ode to Seventies-era Key West weirdness, mainly because it's a bit pricey. But now I'm afraid I must order it, because that damn "Silver King" show  has gotten me all worked up and dreaming.

Right now, raiding the kids' meager college fund, throwing the kayak and a tent in the back of the pickup and heading for Florida sounds like a perfectly rational thing to do for a 42-year-old looking for a midlife crisis that doesn't involve Vegas, Corvettes and/or fake tits.