Paraflynalia

In Sex, Death and Fly-fishing, John Gierach discusses how fly fishermen may fancy themselves philosopher/poets, thereby pulling off the very neat trick of feeling more and more superior by way of catching fewer and fewer fish. I myself enjoy the warm, smug glow I get from getting skunked while sticking with zombie-like steadfastness to my chosen technique/fly/rod/spot. However, whenever one feels less like a philosopher and more like interfering with fish, there are few things one can do that are more productive than tying on a woolly bugger. Woolly buggers can be tied in a size or colour to catch pretty much any kind of fish that has ever grabbed a hook. It's not always possible to even know why a particular fish takes them at a particular time, except that woolly buggers look a lot like lunch. Or dinner. Or something they want to kill. Or something to pick up and move out of the way, or something to taste, or- someth...

I'm not retired. I am enjoying (I hope) the start of a mini-break from the world of attending a regular day job. We, unlike fish, mostly have choices. Like retiring. Who wouldn't enjoy a permanent respite from drudgery, danger and labour? Apparently fish can strive for retirement too, according to this U of Washington article . Interesting read, but it might be worth following the links to the research. The writer of the article seems to have some difficulty distinguishing between char and trout. At least the author capitalized the D and the V in Dolly Varden; one of the few animal (or fish) names that should actually be spelled with capitals. That is because the fish was named after a (fictional) person, a character in a lesser-known Dickens novel. Interestingly enough, another character in the same novel- Grip, the titular character's pet bird- provided E. A. Poe with the inspiration for the The Raven . I have heard that raven feathers can be...

I'm going to rant. I'm going to wail and gnash my teeth. Expound, pontificate, clarify, muddle, question and hypothesize. Share what I feel like sharing, bury anything I don`t want to hear. Show off, own up, divulge secrets and ask for help.   I`m going to say anything I bloody well feel like saying, as long as it`s about fish, fishing, water, stuff in water, stuff around water. But it`s mostly about the fish, what they eat, and how to bridge the gap between their world and ours. My preferred tool is a fly rod. Let`s go fishing.