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Offshore Drilling is Not The Answer: Restore the Moratorium

Take Action. The Surfrider Foundation's site is set up to send feedback to your local representatives. Click here: Offshore Drilling is Not The Answer: Restore the Moratorium. Image via the Surfrider Foundation. 

Rogue

A great video detailing activities to stop development on the Rogue River in Southwestern Oregon.

Run, Rogue Run from Epicocity Project on Vimeo.

WTF

BP posts a live feed of their ruptured pipeline on their web site. Get the damn thing fixed already. Jesus Christ. A Purdue professor estimates that oil equal to the capacity of the Exxon Valdez is being pumped out every three days.

via: Moldy Chum

DJD Interview

David James Duncan Interview from Epicocity Project on Vimeo.
via: Moldy Chum

I would walk 500 miles...

Ok, maybe kilometers, and not me... her. This hippy chick might be a bit out there on the "corporations are out to get us" scale, but she's right on regarding the effects of fish farms on wild runs.

The Migration Begins! - The "Get Out for Wild Salmon" Video from Twyla Roscovich on Vimeo.
via: Moldy Chum

Well said...

Via: Buster Wants to Fish

Hoh River Conservation

After nearly 10 years of work and more than $11 million, one of the largest single conservation efforts in Washington has permanently protected some 7,000 acres of land along the Hoh River.

From The Seattle Times via Gig Harbor Fly Shop

These guys are rad...

via: Buster Wants to Fish

Ringlee ties the worm

Pink Worm: Chenille is cheap, and time is money. from Dylan Rose on Vimeo.

via Gig Harbor Fly Shop

That John Denver is full of shit...

I had a great trip out to the Denver area a few weeks ago to hang out with one of my buddies and do a bit of snowriding and flyfishing. We had a beautiful day up at A-basin and a couple of nice days on the river even if it was freakin cold with no hatches coming off. Nymphing is definitely the way to go out there this time of year.

Come on Summertime!

I just returned from a great trip to Colorado (more later) doing a little snowboarding and fly fishing. Since arriving back in town last night I can't think of anything but summer... which sucks because it's 50 degrees, rainy and blowing like stink here in Seattle today. Can't wait for summer time, Duck Dodge, wakeboarding and casting Royal Coachmen to hungry rainbows like this guy...

Steelhead Summit

Date: Saturday, March 27, 2010
Time: 9:30 AM – 3:00PM
Location: Western Fisheries Research Center, Seattle, WA

Hosted by the Steelhead Summit Alliance in conjunction with the Wild Steelhead Coalition and the Wild Fish Conservancy.

The Steelhead Summit is a regular gathering of concerned anglers and other citizens meeting to discuss current issues facing steelhead throughout their range in the Pacific NW and California. Jointly these steelhead advocates make up the Steelhead Summit Alliance which works together for the protection and restoration of native, wild steelhead.

This Summit is an emergency meeting designed to investigate the IHNv disease that has invaded our steelhead fisheries, most recently on the Olympic Peninsula. This disease has been found in both the Bogachiel Hatchery and the wild stocks in the Sol Duc River. The disease is moving throughout our rivers and estuaries and has the fast potential of not only significantly damaging our important coastal wild fish, but also spreading into Puget Sound.

We are hosting a daylong session to meet with scientists who will educate us on this issue, including Gael Kurath (Western Fisheries Research Center), John Kerwin (WDFW), Ray Brunson (US Fish & Wildlife Service) and Jim Winton (Western Fisheries Research Center). Jim has offered to be our host and we will meet at his lab in Seattle. The address is: 6505 NE 65th St. and is at the junction of Sandpoint Way near the University District.

For more information contact Marianne Mitchell, Steelhead Summit Alliance Chair, heritagesea@aol.com, (206) 669-6263.


via: Gig Harbor Fly Shop

Brush your teeth!

My buddy Eric left the islands off La Paz, Mexico yesterday on a singlehanded crossing to the South Pacific aboard his Cal 33 SECRET AGENT MAN. The video above is from the Vic Maui race a few years ago on the Santa Cruz 52 VOODOO CHILD. He's the guy in the companionway brushing his teeth as we surf down huge waves at speeds in the mid teens. I'm on the left grinding the kite. The Cal is a very different boat. It's about 2800 miles in a straight line to the Marquesas Islands where he'll make his first landfall - and anyone who has done an ocean cross knows that you never sail in a straight line! If we say 150 miles is a banner day in that boat (which it is - that's a 6.25 knot average!), that's an 18 day trip. The reality is that it could take a month - give or take - depending on weather conditions. Being in a small boat with limited diesel and water capacity, he's got some interesting problems to confront with the doldrums to cross and only a day or so of motoring capability - and he needs to retain some fuel for charging batteries to run the GPS, electronics, running lights, radios, etc! As you can guess, weather routing becomes a prime concern! He has a single sideband radio with a fancy "Pactor" modem turns the digital signal to analog and allows him to send and receive short email messages and weather reports. He's got a shore crew who will update his blog with these emails. The link is on the list to the right of this post, or you can click here. Below is his post from Saturday evening just before departure. Good luck Rone and catch some fish!

Hey guys,

I am in El Cardonal, and am just about to go to bed. I am going to leave tomorrow. I have been really tired doing boat work the last two days. The scope of the voyage made me really want to do a bunch of things that were coming up on the list before being at sea. Cleaning the bottom down here sucks. You get hundreds of baby barnacles all over you, in your hair and ears. But I got the bottom really clean. I checked the rig, and did full maintenance on the engine, including bleeding the fuel system which I learned how to do today. I also put the check valve in the bilge hose which I wish I had done a long time ago because I can now leave the float switch on all the time. Lots more but I have to keep it short. I joined the pacific seafarers net which is a ham net and why I got my license. The propagation is brilliant right now and I am talking to people all over the world on these frequencies... including people with stations in Washington state like we were on the telephone. You guys should get a station at your house it is a really good spot.

Eric

Pebble Map

Skytruth (http://www.skytruth.org/), an organization that uses aerial images to convey impacts of human activities on our planet has put together a map showing the latest plans for the Northern Dynasty Pebble Mine superimposed over the city of Seattle. How is that for a sense of scale? See their comments below: 

Revised footprint of the proposed Pebble open pit copper/gold mine superimposed on the city of Seattle for scale. Mine plan is based on permit applications and public statements by Northern Dynasty Minerals predicting that a total resource of 10.78 billion tons of ore is economically recoverable. That resource would generate a total volume of waste material of at least 13.5 billion cubic yards, based on the average tailings density calculated from the permit applications. We've predicted the additional tailings impoundments that would be required to store the additional waste. The other option for tailings disposal, suggested by NDM in their permit applications, is to dump the tailings in Lake Iliamna. 

via: Moldy Chum

Best of Craigslist

Primed

Oh, yeah... movin along!

Awesomer

Red Fang - Prehistoric Dog
via: Buster Wants to Fish

Fifty-two

Some cool footage from the TP52 circuit. Pretty awesome how quick these boats are.

Stripped

Just a few more finishing touches, then primer and paint. Look at that sheer!

This is Fly 22

The new issue of THIS IS FLY is out. Check it www.thisisfly.com. 

Pebble Mine

 ”It’s premature for any reasonable person to formulate an opinion on whether this project’s benefits outweigh the risks.”
- Bruce Jenkins, COO of Northern Dynasty Minerals


And... Buster Wants to Fish with a good take on fines recently levied on Northern Dynasty for unauthorized use of water at sites they are exploring. http://busterwantstofish.com/?p=1751

Victorious?

Well, America's Cup 33 is all wrapped up. BMW Oracle Racing swept the Swiss catamaran in two straight races to win the best of three series. Let's not take my attention to this race to mean that I agree in any way with the stupid legal squabbles that have been going on for the past couple years, but you have to admit that this match produced some amazing boats. Two of the most advanced course racing boats of all time and an epic wing sail. 

And maybe my favorite - a day after the race, Bertarelli is heard trashing the victory:

"They got a little help from the legal system in New York. That always makes things difficult for us Europeans to get the same advantages," Alinghi owner Ernesto Bertarelli said. "It's not the Europeans' Cup; it's America's Cup. It's very difficult for a European to win.”

Hey buddy, quit whining - you didn't lose the cup in court - you lost it on the water! You won it twice and we'll give you due credit for that. You built a better boat and put together a better crew (ahem, hired New Zealand traitors), but you still won. But the challenger was simply better prepared this time and Alinghi 5 was far inferior. Get over it, put together a new program and come back in a few years. I'm sure they'll let you race without trying to change the rules in their favor.

I'll just leave it with this cool video from onboard the big tri. I read somewhere that Spithill was bummed that they'd probably never get to sail her again. I'm sure he was! One of the most sophisticated boats ever built - and it probably costs a couple hundred thousand dollars a day to run. My guess is that she's dismantled and parted out. $200 million bucks for two races. Classic.

Bull shit.

“If we capsize, it’s going to be a disaster,” Alinghi crew member Ed Baird told reporters. The boat “will explode in a thousand pieces.”


It will be interesting to see how this transpires. Two days of racing cancelled now because of either too much wind or not enough. It appears that Oracle wants to get out on the race course, but Alinghi is still working as hard as they can to stack the deck in their favor. Bertarelli continues to make himself look like a total dumbass.

Ed Baird quote via: Bloomberg.com

Sharks with Laser beams

Some killer video of downwind Laser sailing action. Actually makes me miss sailing those boats.

Fish food

I think I'm in love...

I had the chance to get aboard Sam Devlin's Storm Petrel 34 at the Lake Union Boats Afloat Show yesterday. What a  sweetie! A great blend of Maine lobsterboat lines and practical simplicity. If only I had enough space to build something like that... Here's a link to some more information on Sam's website.

Freaking Epic!

There are only six days until the showdown between BMW Oracle's behemoth trimaran and the Alinghi boat. Whether or not you agree with the fiasco that this Cup has become, you have to admire the engineering marvel that these boats are.

Flashback

Found this photo in an old cruising guide for Puget Sound. Horsehead Bay circa late 1940s.

Surf Wax America

My friends Brian and Erin are sailing in Mexico right now aboard their 53' Amel Super Maramu DELOS. I sailed with them from Seattle to San Francisco in August. Since then, they've made their way south past Puerto Vallarta and will be making the trip across to the South Pacific this spring. Here's a link to a great post on their blog which is a great glimpse into the cruising lifestyle. Oh yeah, and I got a good kick out of the video of their "commute to the break". See below.

Under Water

Some epic underwater mark footage of a mark rounding at the 2009 Melges 32 World Championship.

Looks tasty...

"Bead Head Lifter". See the recipe on the Gig Harbor Fly Shop blog.

Fly Fishing Film Tour

 The dates have been released for the 2010 Fly Fishing Film Tour. In Seattle at the King Kat Theater Wednesday, February 10th.

River Y?

The Bend, Oregon based 1859 magazine did an interesting interview with writer and conservation activist David James Duncan. Duncan's classic novel The River Why is being made into a Hollywood film. He shares his thoughts on the movie and controversial ideas on salmon management here.

via Moldy Chum

RED GOLD Premier at the Tides

The Gig Harbor Fly Shop will be hosting premier showings of RED GOLD on Wednesday, February 3rd and Thursday, February 4th from 7-9pm at the Tides Tavern in Gig Harbor. Tickets are $5 and all proceeds will go to benefit the Sportman's Alliance for Alaska. Tickets can be purchased at the Gig Harbor Fly Shop or on their website. I'm told they will have some great door prizes as well as happy hour prices on food!

RED GOLD is a documentary by Felt Soul Media about the Bristol Bay region of Alaska and giant open pit and underground mines that are being proposed at the headwaters of two of the largest sockeye runs in the world. The mine has the potential to be a huge environmental disaster despite promises by Northern Dynasty Minerals and Anglo American, the two mining giants involved in the project. The types of mining proposed have poor environmental track records especially in areas as fragile as Bristol Bay. The proposed mine area is the second largest deposit of gold, copper and molybdenum ever discovered and has an estimated value of over $300 billion so there is a lot at stake.



Felt Soul Media also produced RUNNING DOWN THE MAN (a great flick about beach fishing Baja if you haven't seen it). Check out their website www.feltsoulmedia.com.

Tri-Power

Some cool footage of BMW Oracle's epic 90 foot trimaran.

Science Friday

For those of you who didn't know, there's a very distinct correlation between global warming and the fall of pirates.

Tiny flies

Another great pattern posted over on the Gig Harbor Fly Shop blog. This euphausid pattern is super effective in the South Sound December through February for resident coho and sea run cutthroat. You can fish it alone, or as a trailer fly to another pattern.

Materials: 
Mono thread fine
Gami SC15 size 6 or 8
Black small bead chain eyes
Pearl Krystal Flash
Pearl Gliss n Glow

Shark Fishing

Looks like good, clean fun to me.
Via: Moldy Chum

EPIC

The return of Squirrel Man...

Spey

Just stumbled upon a great thread "the making of a spey reel" on Spey Pages. Here's the link.

This is Fly #21

Check out the latest issue of This is Fly, just released.