Though a plethora of news venues recently reported the findings of a John Moores University (Liverpool) study suggesting that dinosaurs’ flatulence and eructations (aka belches) were significant and measurable contributors to ancient global warming, I first ran across the story on the NY Daily News site.

From their article -

…A new study suggests that dinosaurs may have helped keep an already overheated world warmer with their flatulence and burps 200 million years ago.

The research published Monday in Current Biology suggests that large dinosaurs made a significant contribution to the greenhouse effect back then. Study author David Wilkinson of Liverpool John Moores University in England estimated that about 570 million tons of methane came from dinosaurs. That’s similar to total atmospheric levels of methane today produced by livestock, farming and industry. Cows alone now produce nearly 100 tons a year of methane.

The study looks at the biggest – and presumably gassiest – dinosaurs, called sauropods. These were the long-necked plant eaters that munched on the top of trees. They were large animals that had food fermenting in their guts for long periods of time because of their giant size, said University of Maryland paleontologist Thomas Holtz, who wasn’t part of the study.

Wilkinson said dinosaur gas was just one factor at a time when the world was quite tropical, about 18 degrees warmer than now. But he said some in the media and blogosphere have misinterpreted his study to say it was the main cause of ancient warming. Wilkinson said it was only of the causes, but dinosaur gas “is big enough to be a measurable effect,” he said in a phone interview…

Media pundits of all stripes have had a field day with the study and the implications therein, not the least of which is how in the hell did such a project garner funding to be ‘studied’?

That pondered, it was on my drive to Gig Harbor that I realized the study has profound implications for my fly fishing brethren (and sistren, though probably to a lesser degree).

Many, if not most, fishers with whom I’ve kept company over the years have emitted prodigious volumes of flatulence and motley fumes via eructations.

Much more so than ostensibly otherwise normal humans that I’ve observed over the years.

No doubt their diet of greasy-dive mega-belt-busting cheeseburgers, slim Jims, stale coffee and cheap (we’re thinking of you, PBR) and not-so-cheap beer contributes mightily to these phenomena.

On a positive note noxious fumes emitted by fly fishers may have actually decreased as the utilization of neoprene waders has plummeted over the past decade, though researchers have well documented the continued use of said neoprene by certain fishers (Singlebarbed for one).

For some the mere act of producing these eruptions has been honed with considerable practice and attention to detail not unlike that of a great musician (pitch, tone, volume, vibrato and so on and so forth).

We’ve volunteered to serve as team leaders in a field trial to assess fly fisher emissions over the next year; we feel highly compelled to further this brilliant branch of global warming research.

We’ll probably be awarded a ginormous grant to do so and will be able to retire early and conduct meaningful research for the next several decades. I’m envisioning a staff of comely assistants who can also row a drift boat or fishing raft rig, piles of beverages and food stocks for testing as well as a speaking tour conducted during the coldest Montana winter months to allow year round fishing testing and research.

Volunteers needed.

Tags: Culture, Books, Art

Hat tip Pete McDonald

Tags: Culture, Books, Art

Tags: Culture, Books, Art

My grandfather’s beach house on the Texas coast (now long gone) used to be three ‘camp houses’ down from the local shrimper – Little Bob. He’d come chugging down the Colorado River after dragging East Matagorda Bay and we’d race him down the shell road to his dock to watch him unload. It’s a tough life and bears little resemblance to Bubba Gump’s empire.

Tags: Culture, Books, Art

Several days ago She Who Must Be Obeyed and I ran up to Seattle to catch Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, take in the sights and act basically act like a pair of country bumpkins on their go-to-town day.

There’s been a whisper now and again in the fly fishing world about the show and while I / we generally despise reading and writing ‘reviews’ of movies (we find that our tastes correlate very poorly with the big name critics and reviewers out there), with a bit of prodding I’ve been encouraged to share a few thoughts about Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.

That said, here’s a fly fishers’ quasi-review of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen; no plot spoilers or reveals included.

Three things Salmon Fishing in the Yemen isn’t.

• It’s not a fly fishing movie. Those who months ago projected this would be another ‘movie’ to stir the masses’ interest in fly fishing as happened twenty something years ago – you couldn’t be more wrong. It’s much more a fishy themed rom-com.
• It’s certainly not a casting clinic. As intriguing as the plot lines have been in other fly fishing movies of the past (and I’m thinking of ‘the movie’ here) how many times did you hear or read about how Brad Pitt couldn’t cast worth crap. While there is a scene centered around a truly phenomenal cast in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, casting critics will most likely find the fishing scenes painful.
• It’s not a teaser for as of yet undiscovered secret Yemeni fly fishing locales. Not to say that there might yet be some……

Four things Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is.

• It’s very well crafted. From the book (which we picked up after the show and are reading now) to the direction, cinematography and editing, this is a very, very well told story. The scenes shot in Scotland were particularly well done and made wish I’d bought that kilt on sale when I had a chance a few years ago.
• It’s very well acted. Granted SWMBO and I are consummate fans of fast-paced, acerbic British humor and the movie provides a heaping helping of it. Ewan McGregor plays the role of a pedantic, nerdy, socially constipated fisheries biologist with aplomb; you know somebody who lives a constrained life just as his character does. Emily Blount is a delight as well; the supporting cast, particularly Amr Waked as the Yemeni Sheikh and Kristen Scott Thomas as the government public relations bitch are wonderful.
• It’s a date movie. Hey, even fishers need to stoke the home fires now and again.
• It’s about fish and fisheries much more than fishing. See below.

Three things fly fishers will likely resonate with in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.

• This is a movie about fish and fisheries. With Salmon swimming prominently in many a fly fisher’s eclectic consciousness these days, the hand-wringing and debate over the fish and the donor and recipient fisheries is critically believable and adds depth to the story. People world wide are damned passionate about their salmon – as they should be.
• This movie, as is fly fishing, is about confronting a startling improbability and striving to make it a reality. Salmon fishers and steelheaders in particular model the very essence of improbability each time they step into a run to swing flies for the day. Frankly anyone who ties on a mass of feathers and fur and casts to any fish is confronting startling improbability square on. Fly fishers may not understand the secrets of the universe, but we understand this one.
• Finally, this is a movie about belief; the characters themselves use the word faith quite a bit as the story progresses. The fisheries biologist believes in science and facts, the sponsoring sheikh in the power of water (and a fishery) to transform his national economy and people, Emily Blunt’s character in the power of possibilities. It’s even as simply portrayed as belief that swinging a fly through the right run at the right time will produce fish; that’s something any fly fisher can sink their teeth into.

All in all, worth your time and your nickel. And do take a date……

Tags: Culture, Books, Art

She Who Must Be Obeyed and I just just rolled back in from a delightful day in Seattle.

While we much prefer to live in the boonies, now and again we (at least one of us) notes a drawback, typically under the heading of arts and culture.

(At least from my humble point of view I’m quite content to let my latest copy of the Drake and a full six-pack of Alaskan Amber stand proudly for necessary art and culture. My roommate of 30+ years sometimes doesn’t agree, hence our drive today.)

We’ve actually both been itching to see Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and have watched the film wander ever nearer to our new home; we had reason to celebrate a bit today and put on our go-to-town-clothes and headed to the big city.

Despite the heavy rain all day the drive up and back was a (relative) walk in the park; we enjoyed playing city tourist, people watching and a great Korean late lunch / early dinner in Gig Harbor on the way home.

The film was a delight, very well acted, shot and edited; overall, it’s well worth your nickel.

A fly fisherman’s quasi-review to in a day or two.

Tags: Culture, Books, Art

Been seeing these all over town and my phone pics were lousy so here’s a nice, shiny one….

Tags: Culture, Books, Art

Canvasfish from Cinema Digital Productions on Vimeo.

This one’s been making the rounds but we’re putting it up anyway. We’re big fans of DDY’s work…

Tags: Culture, Books, Art

Seasons Of The Steelhead from Silver Creek Outfitters on Vimeo.

Tags: Culture, Books, Art

Quinn is reading A River Runs Through It for the first time in several years. The experience has prompted him to write a series of posts about several topics, some of which are actually related to the book. And yes he wrote this slightly presumptuous italicized intro himself, so technically he is talking about himself in third person ala Karl Malone. If you haven’t read the book and you plan to, beware the spoilers.

I got a gift card for Christmas to one of the big box bookstores. I spent more than a month thinking how I might spend it, during which time I read several novels that were inordinately long and intricately plotted. This didn’t seem to help me decide how I might spend my book money. Eventually I found myself on ye olde internet perusing the big box bookstore website for cheap copies of some old favorites and some rare books that I couldn’t find anywhere else. This is how I came to own Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It for a second time.

I’m not sure where my initial copy went. It was the paperback version with honey-colored cover, the title in a red font. I read it several times, but this was years ago. I’ve moved since then at least once and somehow that copy disappeared to the place where lost books go—by which I mean that I probably lent it out to someone and forgot about it.

My new copy is the 25^th anniversary edition. It contains a foreword by Annie Proulx and it was published in 2001. A little math (or a check of the copyright page or even a read of Proulx’s great foreword) reveals that Maclean’s famous story was published in 1976, which just happens to be the year I was born. This was news to me. For some reason I never even thought about the original publishing date of the book. Probably because my first exposure to the title came in the form of the 1992 movie, when I was 16 years old.

I’ve got the rumblings of another post about the movie, the book, and a half dozen other topics swimming around in my head, so I’ll say no more about the film for now. But I first read the book in college, sometime around 1995, I suppose. I found that I liked the book, that it was different than I expected, and that I was strangely proud to tell fellow fly fisherman to “read the book” whenever the subject of the movie came up (this is something I still do, though with less pride—I’ve learned that this suggestion has the power to annoy).

If you know the movie or the book or even if you just read a lot of text about fly fishing that has been written in the last 20 years, you know that Maclean was eminently quotable. The first line (“In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.”) has probably been used in at least a six or seven published essays and books over the years. And there are other lines from the movie or perhaps unearthed from the book that are trotted out on occasion to great effect.

I have no problem with this. In fact, I would go so far as to say I enjoy it. I love that opening line, what a way to start a book, right? This time around reading the book, however, I found myself discovering dozens of new lines, turns of phrase, or even whole paragraphs that smacked me in the guts. Lines I didn’t remember from previous readings in part, I think, because I hadn’t really experienced enough life to appreciate them.

In the foreword, Proulx writes about Maclean’s penchant for describing the nuts and bolts how things work, whether it be logging or marriage or

fly fishing. I found myself noticing such descriptions more than ever. While his description of the fly cast is almost a primer in line physics, he is equally adept at describing the more mystical aspects of the sport:

Tags: Culture, Books, Art, Fish Stories

Trying to get our hands around a couple of what would have been ‘traditional fly fishing book’ projects has led us down the road of looking at digital options as well.

We’ve thrown up a post this morning over on our Dry Fly Media site waxing poetically about the way the digital publishing arena is changing at light speed these days.

With Apple’s iBooks Author last month and the announcement from Inkling today there are a couple of options for the independent and smaller publishing house that were nothing more than a wish and a dream several years ago.

Textbook focused and currently locked into the Apple ecosystem, these two tools are far from perfect, but offer an intriguing glimpse into what may be coming down the pike.

Tags: Culture, Books, Art

Guide Jim, our somewhat mysterious, former Austin-resident, sometimes Texas-disdaining, fly fishing guide / professor and new cyber friend emailed this link in just now with a thought….

Given your obvious interest in the introduction of non-native fish into desert locales I’m surprised you haven’t run the trailers (released a few weeks ago) for Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.

Should be a good one and I’m going out on a limb and placing my bets on the guess that this flick may rekindle interest in our noble sport almost at the level that The Movie did twenty years ago this year.

The novel upon which the film is based is truly comedic in nature and a worthy read.

The parallels with the tragic comedy of introducing pellet-fattened rainbows into a near-desert environ in central Texas might be consider striking by some. I’d even bet it’s easier to fish for salmon in Yemen than it is for a non-club member to get on the water in your neighborhood.

Hope you can see this film while enjoying a cold brew at one of the Alamo Draft Houses there in town; one of the things Austin does well is throw a party.

Tags: Culture, Books, Art

Until just recently I wasn’t sure why we’ve found ourselves resonating so keenly with the Southern Culture on the Fly guys and gals.

Sure, in part it has to do with our deep respect for any group that would proudly use grits so prominently in their promotional jargon.

In part it has to do with meeting and getting to know a real life, hard-core fly fishing North Carolinian, new friend Mary (fishing manager in the recently-opened Austin Orvis store), whose eyes light up when she talks about chasing wild trout in the NC hills and big reds on her ‘home flats’. (We’re pestering Mary to chat with us in more detail about fishing back home…..)

The SCOF guys hooked us with this one this morning….

Don’t get me wrong, we love looking at pretty pictures in magazines of exotic fishy locales, but for once it would be nice to see a place in a magazine that we could load the truck up and actually go fish. (Editor David Grossman)

Amen.

Southern Culture on the Fly’s issue #2 is out today. Their winter road trip edition highlights some destinations that probably aren’t on a lot of western fishers radar – Arkansas, New York, North Carolina and the Davidson – as well as the Keys, which a lot of winter-bound western fishers do think of this time of year.

Overall, we’d call the bulk of the images damned nifty (a notch below stunning, though there are a few stunners in the mix) and the mix of well-written (and actually edited according to linguist-editor She Who Must Be Obeyed) prose just seems to fit like a glove.

A couple of nice ties thrown in the mix too.

A great reminder to those fly fishers who (occasionally) posture that the quintessential fly fishing experience to be had in the continental US occurs only in the western third of the country.

Well done.

Once again, this ain’t a paid, requested, bribed or otherwise induced promotion, though we’re open to discussion of reasonable compensation. Looks to us like the South is rising again.

Tags: Culture, Books, Art

I am not sure when I first started obsessively reading the back page of Fly Fisherman magazine. I imagine I was in high school, but I might have been slightly younger or a little older. I am pretty sure I hadn’t left for college yet because I remember hunting and pecking through a stack of my father’s collection of Fly Fisherman issues from the ’80s that were stored in the wide shelf at the bottom of a massive ancient record player. I’d leaf through the stack of magazines like so much vinyl until I found one I had not read before. Then I would turn directly to the back page while ignoring the ten-year-old article on the Madison river.

I don’t subscribe to fly fishing magazines anymore, for a variety of reasons that aren’t very interesting. But when I come across one–via dumb luck or after trading some gold–I still spend some time at the back page, at least skimming the essay.

Nick Lyons’ back page column was called The Seasonable Angler. Upstairs in my bookshelf I have two collections of those columns. I’ve read them both more than once and often feel like reading them again. I don’t do it usually, because if I do I find that my own writing is for a time rendered nothing more than a poor voiceless imitation of Nick’s. I can’t help it.  He writes in a way the connects to me for aesthetic and sentimental reasons. I love his writing for its own sake but also because it reminds me that I was young once, and I remember how it felt to discover that writing about fly fishing was not limited to articles about destinations or roll casts, fly tying instructions or gear reviews.

Nick Lyons’ columns taught me that writing about fly fishing could be something else–it could be beautiful.

Lyons the writer is so self effacing that I imagine he would choke on that adjective. But I’ve read Spring Creek and I know the truth. That discovery led me to other writers like Harry Middleton and Norman Maclean and its safe to say nothing has quite been the same for me since.

***

For the past eighteen months or so I have been working on a collection of my own essays–if you can call them that. I don’t want to discuss it too much and you probably don’t care to read it. But I decided that if my book was to ever be read by more than just myself and my family I should probably try to get some of the chapters published.

So between life’s other events I have been polishing some while also trying to write new material for the collection. Occasionally I send something out. Its not very organized. One unintended consequence is the reduction of my work that is published here.

I sold my first fly fishing essay a couple of months ago. My first back page essay. And today I flipped to the back page of American Angler and there was my name. It doesn’t look right or feel right. Its thrilling and ridiculous and that makes me feel like a narcissist and a fool–just like writing this post does.  But I don’t know if I will ever sell another.  The eighteen-year-old version of me would be fiercely proud, I think, and there’s something to be said for that.

What that younger version of me wouldn’t understand is that the fly fishing magazine may be a relic of my own youth. That this blog post might get more readers. That would screw up his brain as it does mine a little. But those are thoughts for another day.  Today I’ll simply be happy that I did something I thought I might never do, even if it feels vain and slightly anticlimactic. Thanks for indulging me.

Tags: Culture, Books, Art

Ben over at Up’North Maine Fly Castings is bringing in the New Year with a new look on his site.  He’s improved the layout and added a few new features.  I like the new photography section..

Keep it up Ben, we all enjoy getting a look into the northern woods.

Tags: Culture, Books, Art