Archive for February, 2008

“Rules that allow only the catching of larger fish may encourage their replacement with slower growing, more timid varieties.That, at least, is the concern of researchers who studied test populations in two artificial lakes and report their findings in this week’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Peter A. Biro of the department of environmental science at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, explained that it’s the fast-growing more aggressive fish that tend to get caught, removing them from the breeding pool.

That leaves reproduction up to slower-growing fish who are more timid, he explained in an interview via email.”

~ More at The Toronto Star

Not fly fishing related – but my cousin sent me some pictures from high school. Here’s one:

The school had a competition to see who could come up with the best “Hill Billy” costume. I had an advantage as I worked on a farm (probably why I was so skinny – using up thousands of calories haying and cleaning stalls). The hat I wore also had some fishing flies and other lures attached to it. As well, I had a corn cob pipe.

Imagine taking a rifle to school today, too? Yes, I’m holding an old .22 rifle.

One of my most proudest moments! Winning the Hill Billy Competition!

The Bait

Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines, and silver hooks.

There will the river whispering run
Warm’d by thy eyes, more than the Sun;
And there the enamor’d fish will stay,
Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swim in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously to thee swim,
Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.

If thou, to be so seen, be’st loath,
By Sun, or Moon, thou dark’nest both,
And if myself have leave to see,
I need not their light, having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,
And cut their legs, with shells and weeds,
Or treacherously poor fish beset,
With strangling snare, or windowy net:

Let coarse bold hands, from slimy nest
The bedded fish in banks out-wrest,
Or curious traitors, sleavesilk flies,
Bewitch poor fishes’ wandering eyes.

For thee, thou need’st no such deceit,
For thou thyself art thine own bait;
That fish, that is not catch’d thereby, Alas, is wiser far than I.

~ John Donne