Archive for July, 2006

Yesterday during an informal part of the “Are Fish Sentient? Symposium” at the University of Guelph in the pub, I had occassion to be sitting with Dr. Braithwaite, a woman who’s name I sadly did not get but who I believe works at the Toronto Zoo, and a beautiful U of G student who is studying the use of morphine in fish.  Hmmm.. anyone noticing a theme here about some of my interests?  Yeah… fly fishing, wine and women.. not always in that order either… but I digress except to also point out that while sitting with these three women, Dr. Braithwaite asked me a question that I found curious.

She asked me what I thought of women becoming more involved in fly fishing.

Anyone that knows me well, likely can predict with certainty my response to that.  Personally, I think it is wonderful that there are more women becoming interested in the sport of fly angling.  I would be the first person to encourage any woman that is interested in fly fishing to get out there and give it a try.  I also pointed out to the three women I was with that many instructors will tell you that women are far easier to teach the art of fly casting to than men.  Indeed, many women “pick up” on it more swiftly and end up being superior fly casters. Dr. Braithwaite asked if I had opinion on “why” this might be so.

Now, once again others that know me well will likely chuckle on someone wondering if I have an opinion on something. I told the group that it seemed that women at times could be better listeners than men (yes, I mean this in a very general way) but even more importantly, women seemed to grasp the idea of using the fly rod as a lever instead of feeling some need to “muscle” a cast.  Therefore, again generally speaking, women seem to have a better chance of realizing sooner the techniques in fly fishing.

The woman associated with the zoo chuckled and thought that perhaps of the company I was in, I was being “politically correct” in my response.  But no, seriously – what I’ve written here, as I discussed yesterday, are my thoughts on the matter.

This brings me to the point of this blog post. (Again, some that know me will know my tendency to ramble on and on).  I’ve just added a link to Mato’s Fishin’ Hole, a blog maintained by Deb.  I’ve never had the opportunity to fly fish with Deb but I met her a year ago at a fly tying class instructed by Ian James.  Since then, we’ve had the odd email, and this evening, during one of those emails I discovered that Deb had a blog.

Hopefully Deb will continue to add content to her blog – I think it would be wonderful if she did. The more women that discuss and talk about this passion of theirs can only be a positive thing to encourage other women who are interested to actually get out there and give it a try.

By the way, I did offer to take Dr. Braithwaite out on the river before she had to return to Scotland on Monday.  I think if there had been more time, I could have convinced her to at least experience standing in a river waving a stick – maybe with the “Buddhist Fly Fishing” practice of using a fly with the hook point broken off of the fly.

Well, if you ever want to meet pretty, intelligent woman who are very interesting, attend the next “Fish Sentience Symposium” in your neighbourhood!

I just arrived back not long ago, and my first thoughts are that it was a very interesting event and I also found it personally worthwhile even though I continue to disagree with some of the conclusions or “beliefs” that were presented.

The organizers, Georgia Mason and Rich Moccia were both very gracious hosts and I have to admit that it was appropriate for me to apologise to Ms Mason after the event for an email that I had originally sent in which I made some assumptions that were incorrect.

The event was well attended – apparently the organizers expected about 40 people to be in attendance but in fact, the number was 98.

I walked in a bit late because of extremely poor instructions from a University of Guelph parking attendant who told me that the Animal Sciences building was “right across the road.” Well, what was right across the road was the Ontario Vetrinary College – at first I figured that maybe the OVC and the Animal Science building were one and the same. I wandered in that building before finding out that the Animal Sciences building was indeed a different building, and a bit of a walk away yet.

Because I was late, I missed out on casting my vote on the questions that were something like:

Are fish capable of conciousness?

Can fish suffer from pain?

I didn’t really mind missing out on this as I don’t think these issues will ever be solved by debate anyhow.

The first speaker was Gary Varner of Texas A & M University. He discussed philosophical arguments and some different philosophical thought on determining sentience in a being. I found this quite interesting, and at one point, wondered if he had read my article (over here) as he just about stated word for my word, my argument,

” Those who suggest “I can feel your pain” are perhaps being empathetic, but it is IMPOSSIBLE scientifically and in reality for someone to “feel MY pain.”"

Anyhow, more on Gary Varner’s thoughts on a later date.

After Varner, Dr. Braithwaite gave her presentation, most of it a summary of the Sneddon Study along with some other interesting studies that I’d like to research a bit myself. I don’t think Dr. Braithwaite came anywhere near proving fish sentience as she relied on studies (it seemed to me) in regard to fish behaviour – which I have major issues with if someone is trying to prove conciousness and the ability to suffer. And to be fair, Dr. Braithwaite admitted that “fish experience” is not the same as “human experience” and that there has not been enough work done to be able to come up with anything definitive.

After the event, some of us headed over to a pub at the University to talk and eat food and drink beer. The food was gratis, the beer we paid for. Both Gary Varner and Dr. Braithewaite attended this informal session and I had the pleasure of speaking with both of them on a variety of topics. I found both to be very engaging and more than willing to answer specific questions. In fact, I brought along my print copy of the original Sneddon Study with Dr. Braithewaite participated in, and had her autograph it for me.

I’ll try to put together a more formal report on what I heard, learned, and my over all thoughts on the event at a later time.

As far as my first paragraph on this post, I had the pleasure of accompanying a very beautiful woman who is a student at Guelph University, to the pub.  Along the way, we discussed her research studies, my love of fly fishing, some of the different “issues” and definitions of words used to suggest “suffering,” “pain,” etc., and other general subjects.

Immediately after the seminar, I also had an opportunity to talk with Silvia D’Amelio who was in attendance.  Silvia was one of the members of “The Featherweight” team that participated in the Canadian Fly Fishing Championships.  I haven’t decided if Silvia is better looking while wearing waders or not wearing waders.  In fact, it’s just a silly question!  But it was quite interesting to hear Silvia’s thoughts on the symposium as well.  I’ve asked her if she’d be willing to help me write a review of the event.

During the informal pub session, I also met with a delightful woman who is studying at Guelph and who hails from Spain originally.  We discussed angling issues in her home country as well as other general interest subjects.

Indeed, all the attendees that I was able to speak with were all very open to ideas, willing to discuss their thoughts, and for the most part, I was impressed with the level of discussion.

One of the google search terms that people seem to find my site using include sexy women wearing waders.  Now, this might have something to do with the fact that I’ve written about “The Featherweights,” the first all women team to compete in the Canadian Fly Fishing Championships.  Or maybe it’s just because I’ve written about women, including sexy women, and women in waders; whatever it is, people are searching, looking and are interested.

Now first my own disclaimer – I am SURE that all the women who competed with The Featherweights would object to being solely described as sexy women in waders.  Although I can assure you that indeed, they were all quite sexy.  But far more than just sexy, they are great anglers – some are quite accomplished in guiding, fish biology, and other professional pursuits.  But.. as a man that is very heterosexual – I gotta admit they are all quite “sexy” as well.

Now, I had the privilidege of having my picture taken together with three of the women but it must have been with someone else’s camera as my camera, sadly, did not have the image.   But I do have some individual shots of me with some of the women – they all graciously agreed to have their picture taken with this dirty old fly angler.  For the ones that I don’t seem to have on my own camera, I shall be doing my best to make special arrangements to rectify this!

A shot of the entire team:

From Left To Right: Dil Perera, Brenda Atherne, Jeanne Jenkins, Silvia D’Amelio, Chari Cohen

Ok, for those of you that don’t believe that such beautiful women would ever agree to pose beside a guy like me, well… photographs never lie, right?  Ok, ok… forget about the fact that “photoshopping” can create images of just about whatever you want – I promise you these images are legitimate!

Yuck!  Red eye.. but by the time this picture was taken, we were all exhausted, so it’s appropriate. The good looking person in this picture is Brenda Atherne.

And the good looking person in this picture is Chari Cohen.

And the good looking person in this picture is Jeanne Jenkins.

So, sadly I’m missing the picture of myself with Dil, Silvia and Jeanne – that should have been a really nice foursome shot.  I’ll put out the word and see if anyone has it – and if not, well – I’ll just have to hit the river with Silvia and Dil, together or separately, and make sure I have a camera.

But there’s more about Jeanne.. and she has given me permission to share this.  Jeanne has a tatoo.  Well.. I’m told she has three tatoos.  And no, I have not seen them all..   But that brings me to something I’ve often thought about.  Yes, all three of Jeanne’s tatoos.. (get your mind out of the gutter) – but getting a tatoo myself.  I don’t know what the fascination is, but I’ve thought about.  Problem is, I could never decide “what” or “where.”  Jeanne however, has given me some specific ideas of “what” with this one of hers:

That is the “Jeannie Fly,” a salmon fly that Jeanne is sporting.  Awesome idea, huh?  Sadly, there is no “Ian Fly” and I don’t know what my favorite fly is, or what among my favorites would make for a good tatoo.. but I’m thinking about.

Anyhow, those are some of the beautiful (and sexy) women who participated in this year’s Canadian Fly Fishing Championships, and every one of them is much more than just beautiful or sexy.