A workshop for practicioners

I spent today--from 8:30 this morning until roughly 9:00 tonight--in day one of a two-and-a-half day climate change litigation workshop.  In reflecting back on the day, I'm not sure if I should dedicate my life to fighting climate change or move farther inland, build a bunker and stockpile supplies.  Between government programs to fight climate change that do so little to solve the problem they're hardly worth doing, corporate subversion of the public interest, and a carbon emission trajectory that puts us well beyond levels that any sane person could consider safe, it's all too easy to conclude the problem is insurmountable and head for the hills.

I heard a notable climate scientist today explain in one breath that 350 ppm should be our target, then in his next breath describe how increasingly difficult it would be to obtain even a "conservative"--his word--goal of 450 ppm.  If it's "conservative" to contemplate a goal that all but ensures a fundamental and unpredictable change in the ability of our planet to sustain life, we're screwed. 

* * *

I've read of soldiers, hunkered down on the beaches of Normandy, forcing themselves to move onward up the beachhead only after realizing that staying put meant certain death.  Yeah, the incoming barrage of bombs and bullets may have made hiding behind a chunk of debris or in a crater the safest place on D-Day, but stay put too long and you're dead.

War analogies may grow tired and certainly are overused, but become completely appropriate where the ability of the earth to sustain life is concerned.  At some point, we must recognize that business as usual is certain death--if not for you or me, for many others--and push on up that beachhead.

Tomorrow morning, I'll venture back to the conference room, load up on coffee, consider the fact that my home is barely above sea level, and brainstorm what the hell to do about it.  Do I charge up that beachhead or seek shelter?  Dedicate myself to the cause or head to the hills? 

In truth, I think I'll do a bit of both--and I suggest you do the same.

A gluttonous tragedy

I first ventured to Alaska in earnest in 2003, well after the heyday, to work a seasonal fisheries job for the U.S. Forest Service in southeast Alaska.  I had just been accepted to law school and was looking for one last epic opportunity to chase fish. 

You really ought to click that picture and make it a bit bigger.

Having, to that point, been almost exclusively a catch-and-release angler who valued fish first and foremost for their intrinsic and sporting value, I was disgusted to see people with readily-available alternative food sources setting gill nets across entire stream widths that effectively blocked entire salmon runs, dipnetting more than they possibly could consume in a single year, and generally killing everything in sight in an orgy of overabundance and shortsightedness.  Yeah, your freezer might be full this winter, but what about the winter a few years from now?

I was disappointed, but not surprised, to later learn that one of the most prolific sockeye fisheries in that area had been closed.  From a 2008 news release:

The weir count to date is 90 sockeye. The weir count in 2007, as of the same date, was 2765 . . .

***

As I eluded to in my last post, The Wife and I spent the Fourth of July weekend fishing and camping.  I had pulled an all-nighter on Thursday in order to meet a work deadline and was in no condition to go anywhere after work on Friday but bed.  It had been a rough week.

Come Saturday morning, we geared up and headed north with our good friends Sam and Liz.  Because King Season was in full swing, we had planned to avoid the combat-fishing crowds and target areas farther up stream for rainbows.  Seemed to make sense at the time since few things repulse me more than rubbing shoulders on the stream bank with people too self interested to see beyond the tip of their fishing rod. 

From some exploring I had done last year, I had some ideas about where to go.  We drove down a too-narrow-for-my-truck two-track road to the river with hopes that we might have the place to ourselves.  Of course, we did not:

The first day only afforded us an afternoon on the water before calling it and heading back to the rig to set up camp and cook some grub.  Of course, the camera wasn't around when I hooked into my best fish--a feisty rainbow around 20" that almost got away from me down a side channel on the far side of the river.  By the time the camera came back, all I had to show for my efforts was this stick, broken roughly to the proper length and every bit as exciting to Karta as the real thing:

With the camera back in tow, Liz grabbed a hold of this guy:

 Got's to put forth the effort (there's a dog in there too):

Of course, it rained all night and by morning the too-narrow-for-my-truck two-track road turned into a too-muddy-for-my-truck two-track road:

Yeehaw!  With much coercion, we forced things along and made it back to pavement after only an hour or two delay.

While neither The Wife nor I managed to take a single picture for the remainder of Sunday the Fourth, we worked our way north, exploring new streams before ultimately enjoying beers in Talkeetna, then turning back to a nearly vacant campground that allowed us to stretch our legs a bit.  We definitely saw more people on the water than I cared to see, but I can't complain about the crowds where we chose to camp.

Having fished hard for two days with very limited success (no fish were caught on Sunday), we headed back to a familiar stream hoping to up our catch rate.  Sam found some Chinook schooling up in this big bend:

And soon thereafter we started hooking fish:

And the rainbow version:

The Wife sending it:

After all was said and done, we had had a great weekend.  We fished hard, ripped a little lip, shotgunned a couple PBRs, and generally had a great time--but something was missing.  Something was off.  For the peak of Chinook season, we only saw a handful of salmon.  There might have been more people on some of these creeks than salmon.

Little did I know, since we were planning to chase rainbows all along, but the Chinook fishery was in such dire straights that it had been closed.  This is Alaska folks.  What the hell?

Thinking back to my days in southeast Alaska, I couldn't help but wonder about the individual and collective greed that likely led to these low salmon abundance numbers.  Apparently, I'm not the only one with these thoughts.  In more eloquent words that I might provide, you really ought to give this opinion piece by a Mr. Wittshirk a read.  It's better fare than anything the ADN typically provides.

Since it's late, I'll leave you to come to your own conclusions here . . . but I can't help but look for some sort of lesson.  With our ridiculous history of overfishing and short-term fisheries management--in southeast Alaska, here locally, and in nearly every other fishery in the world--perhaps . . .

The quiet sport, my ass

I always find it interesting when people try to relate to me by professing their deep appreciation for fly fishing as a relaxing endeavor or, even worse, as "the quiet sport."  I try to remain polite, but these people must never have caught a fish of any real significance.  The only time fly fishing has ever been relaxing for me is when I give up on catching fish and take a nap on the bank.

Large fish rising to dry flies nearly give me a heart attack every time.  I've topped my waders and nearly drown more times than I care to remember, not because I was "relaxed" or enjoying a "quiet sport," but because I was so delerious with big-fish syndrome I couldn't think clearly.  Self-preservation takes a back seat to the pursuit of the perfect drift any day.

To put things another way, the first time I ever swore in front of my dad (without getting in trouble) was while playing a large steelhead.  It was a bitter-cold November morning and I had driven to my folk's home in Oregon from my place in North Idaho.  Although quite a drive for just a few days, I wasn't deterred and didn't think twice about making the ten-hour drive for a couple days of prime steelhead fishing.

Waking up at some God-awful hour, my dad, brother and myself drove down to the river and bellied up to our usual spot on the bank, just below a right-hand bend in the river.  Just upstream, the water ran through a fast riffle before crashing into a submerged rock, scouring a deep slot in the top of a run by the near bank.  Although I was new to steelhead fishing, I'd seen enough to know that the slot held big fish.

I always insisted on getting to the water before sunrise despite the fact that my brother and I had always had our best luck between 8:00 and 8:30.  This day was no different.  After spending the first hour or so breaking ice of my guides during a 30-degree drizzle, I finally felt a big tug around 8:15.

Holding on for dear life, the fish turned away from me, out of the slot and into the main current.  My reel began to scream as line ripped off.  It was the classic scene where my fly line ran straight out into the middle of the river but the fish was jumping far downstream.

Just as the chaos was at it's climax, and I clearly no longer was in charge, my dad asked "do you think it's a big one?"

Let's stop for a minute and realize the ridiculousness of this question.

[one minute]

"IT'S A FUCKING FREIGHT TRAIN," I exclaim.

The rest of the fight is a bit of a blur, but I do recall that, as I sat there on my knees dehooking the fish and getting positioned to lift it up for a proud picture taken by my dad, my brother whispers to me "dude, you said 'fucking.'"  Yes, it was a very relaxing experience I assure you.

Fishing with the Fam, Part 3

With Mom, Dad and Josh having departed Alaska, and the Ducks resuming their winning ways, things have returned to normal around here. Mom and Dad took off on Thursday of this past week but, with Josh hanging around a little longer, we decided to hit the local waters up one last time.

After dropping Mom and Dad off at the airport, we drove back North in search of grayling--a species I managed to hook lip with a few days earlier but which had evaded Josh. Things were looking up and the day delivered. Before long we all were hooking into fish.

Although we were catching fish, I managed to lose flies at an amazing rate. At one point, I had caught two fish and lost five flies. My brother and I both fish and tie flies with the philosophy that flies should be disposable--after all, it's better to fish near the bottom, in amongst the hazards where the fish are and lose a few flies than to fish tentatively and never hook lip. However, after spending all fall fishing the same particular pattern with great success and losing five of the seven remaining flies of that type in my box, I started to second guess my disposable-fly philosophy.

We were moving down river at a pretty good clip--cherry picking the prime holes and skipping over much of the rest. On one particularly good run, I stepped in a little below Josh and started to make my casts. Had it been anyone else, I'm sure Josh would have objected to me poaching his water; however, he would get his revenge. On my second or third cast, two very large fish followed my fly out of the depths and into the shallows only turning away at the last minute. On my next cast, I hooked the sticks on the far bank and broke off my fly. Josh didn't hesitate to step in and take a cast. If it wasn't his first cast, it was within his first five when he hooked into a nice coho.
It was a beautiful fish.
But it gets better. After having retied my tippet and fly, it was my turn to get after it. On my second cast I hooked into this guy.
But it gets better yet. By this time we could see a number of coho swimming around in the run. I'd guess there were twenty or so fish, but wouldn't be surprised if there were many more. We could tell it was on and The Wife wanted nothing to do with getting left out of the action. Before my fish was even released, she had started her casts. In short order, she hooked up with a fish every bit as large as Josh's, and much larger than mine.
In the end, each of us pulled a coho out of this little run with no more than ten casts, combined. Unbelievable! Deciding we had harassed this small school of fish enough, we moved on in search of a grayling for Josh, which he found without too much trouble.
All in all, one of the more successful days I've ever had on the water. There's something to be said for figuring it out. I'm not so naive as to think that I could go back tomorrow and repeat everything all over again (since I know I'd just as likely get skunked), but every once in a while it all comes together. While some fishing trips can blend into others and fade after the passage of time, there's been a handful of trips that really stand above the rest. Whether it's the fish, location, company, effort that goes into the trip, some other factor, or some combination of the above, last Thursday was one for the books.