Magnitude 3.4

As a loyal Californian, I have become all to accustomed to anything that naturally substitutes another shot of espresso. Few things are a better substitute than a little shaker.

Let Your Weather Do The Talking

Drawn by this weirdly warm weather I went to the mountains. Well, I think the fish hunker down in anticipation of the next deluge of snowmelt (of course that's not happening yet) so a 3+ hour drive each way and bruised shins and knees got me one 5 inch rainbow. Not to be discouraged, I shall hit this spot again and now I have a nice picture of the bottom contours. Water was unusually clear. Saying prayers for spring. That said, while the rest of North America freezes, I am gonna hit the waves....

Nettles In The Stream, That is What We Are

As toyed with in my last post, sometimes you look through two photos and a weird connection manifests itself. While on holiday, my mother prepared an amazing nettle soup. Yes folks THAT nettle!

More recently, I floated a stream and saw a beautiful green patch of stinging plants ... same beast.

Ride the Tiger! or The Ongoing Relationship Between Cats and Trout

As I look into the crystal trout ball I see so many connections between shapes and objects and what they teach us. A random search for references to Jefferson Starship's song "Ride the Tiger" from way back had me find the curves of this terrifying work of art

and the bouncy spikes of some January snowmelt on a California stream

Scary to say that early January shows daily spikes as temps heat up, melt snow and then cool off and re-freeze the water on the ground ( be it snow or ice ). One thing that I will confess to is that it has me eyeballing a spot and already checking my knots. Am I a global warming parasite?

For those of up who grew up with Legos

You can't resist this video!

Department of "Dynamic" Fish and Game

All too often the DFG gets a bad rap and I would like to be the the first to wave a fist of frustrated protest at the times I have called Cal Tip and watched poachers waltz off with a massive stringer of illegally taken trout BUT I also wish to sing praises of the many times that the DFG has proven a source of great information and ideas. For one who really studies their web resources, you will find that in many ways they ARE serving the public and those who pay for permits, licenses etc. For several years now I have subscribed to the hard copy of California Outdoors. The publication has a great mix of articles from conservation issues to DFG sting operations on a myriad of strange crimes against nature. All that said, there's a neat dynamic feature whereby one can submit questions online and get answers online in a public forum. Here's the link: http://groups.google.com/group/CaliforniaOutdoors
* At the time of this post, I was unable to generate a clickable link. Strange I agree. It may be because one has to join to log in. I am not sure. *
B

The Trout Phreak

Rarely does Wikipedia fail us. In other words, I am NOT using the "Ph" just to be hip. The Wikipedia definition of the classic geek term "Phreak" is as follows:

Phreaking is a slang term coined to describe the activity of a subculture of people who study, experiment with, or explore telecommunication systems, like equipment and systems connected to public telephone networks. As telephone networks have become computerized, Phreaking has become closely linked with computer hacking.[1] This is sometimes called the H/P culture (with H standing for Hacking and P standing for Phreaking).

Well whether you buy into the "Ph" or just enjoy the letter "F", let's celebrate the online gauge. Whiling away my holiday nights, I watched as a local stream's flows plummeted after some rains and continued to plummet while snow fell. When weather warms and the snow melts, this slope will reverse and spike back up. I even made a hike to see what it all looked like. The fish were not very cooperative and the water was very cold to say the least. What I did get out of the experience was a better look at holding water. Knowing that the fish are not in the mood to move very much allows one to explore sans the fear of spooking a potential "fish of the day". I now know where some insane undercuts and eddies are located. Let's get some more rain and snow. A toast to 2009!


Phreak out, c'est chic!