Why Bethlehem Township Hates Mrs Housenick and the Monocacy Creek, oh and other non watery shit.

Nerd fight!

Fluff piece first, eh? I engage in an entire spectrum of dumb nerdy shit. Oh, and don't kid yourselves, people, tying little flies out of dead animal bits then obsessively chuckin' em to fish so you can put the fish back is pretty fucking nerdy. Amongst other shit I do, I play role playing games. The real kind, with paper and dice and shit, not that lame computer based shit. My friend, he writes them, which is either more nerdy or more creative, don't give a fuck... He blogs that shit up, and has once asked me to write up a review for a minis game. I did that right here. Am I rad, or what?

However, there's more stuff afoot. Dare I say actual, important stuff for once. The Bethlehem Township commissioners evidently hate open spaces, joy, and life. They do love money, though. So, that pits Bethlehem Township directly against the Archibald Johnson Housenick Estate.

There's a little tract of land that's set aside as a nature preserve or some shit in what's now Bethlehem Township. Seems some lady named Housenick died and left huge tracts of land to the County, the Township, and her church. Seems that there's a movement afoot to take part of that land, build some shitty apartments, and wreck the lovely little patch of unspoilt land by filthing it up.

Three hundred sixty five. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. And then?

This post is gratuitous  and pointless. Deal. Its my shit, I can make these whenever I feel like it.

The thing is, I can't be assed to take fish pictures. Oh, sure, I tried today. I figured I'd go out and make this momentous sort of gesture in a return to proper fishing, since I'm tired of life kicking my ass around for the last six months.

So, the plan was to do this big presentation all sorts of wonderful visuals of stream life, still life, grab a picture of my first post-cancer troot and be all awesome.

Nope. Never bothered. Honestly, I don't fucking care.

Not that I catch many giant fish, lots of pretty wild ones, sure, but not giant. Still, its not a size thing, lack of them thing, or inability thing, its well... Somehow, I feel that its proper to put them back in the water as quickly as possible after I've jammed a steel hook through their face, drug them through the water, hoisted them out to drown in air as I rip the hook out..a picture, well, it just seems gratituous, no?

So no fish pictures. Fuck, no pictures of anything except a tired one of the shit I dropped on the hood of my trucklet when I was done.

But, whatever. I had a good time. I fished a ninety-six year old Hardy 8' Fairy rod (Hemingway's preferred tool, from what I'm lead to understand) and a seventy-six year old Pflueger 1496 reel swinging leadwing coachmen across-and-down.  One hundred sixty-nine years of accumulated fishing mojo in my hand, and a one hundred ninety-six year old fly pattern still worked well enough to take enough fish to keep me amused for the first time I went proper trout fishing since Father's Day.

What's old is new again.

It was nice to be back.

Alas, my waders leak. Goddamnit.

Trout Unlimited, back in action-ish; Return of the LVLS Book Club: Bush Pilot Angler.

-Ish.  That's the key here. The Monocacy Chapter of Trout Unlimited resumes their meetings for fall through spring this month. Next week, to be exact. Tuesday, to be exacter. The fourth one of each month, even. 7pm. Be there or, well, have something better to do, I guess.

But don't be a  douche. Isn't it time you do something for the local waterways? Not that I think many locals (or anyone, fwiw) reads this crap, but whatever, that was my design theory, and I'm running with it. This meeting isn't going to be entertaining, but its chance to help set the tone and course for the coming season.

Now, onto something more interesting....

You know, there's something about Lee Wulff that I find compelling. The guy's legend is just cool, and God himself handed him the secret to the greatest fly, evar (although I'm willing to concede Fran Betters' was on the receiving end of the most killing fly, evar).

So, anyways, Lee Wulff. The man's got a legitimate legend about him, and I really enjoy reading his exploits. I figured an extended hospital stay was an idea time to start reading his memoir, as I'd been putting off buying a copy for some time now.

Of course, with my winning streak in full effect, it didn't come in until about 3 or 4 days until after I'd left the hospital. Whatever. I've been slowly working through it since then, and its inspired me...

Pointless gear reviews: Cabela's Custom Glass Rod 5'9" 3 weight. (insignificantly updated 9/18)

Hi there!

Well, I was pretty enticed by the other end of the the CGR line, the 5'9" 3wt. I didn't have a very practical use for it, but fuck it, I truly do expect them to be limited availability, so I pulled the trigger a couple weeks ago. Not that I had a chance to use it, nor do I know when I will, but sometimes I do dumb shit.

So, with that said, even though I've only taken it out for some lawn casting and about 15 minutes in a very limited test on the water, I've got opinions (fuck yeah, do I ever!) on the baby of the CGR line.

Why this blog sucks so badly.

Thursday morning I received full nephrectomy of my right kidney.

It was growing an approximate 2" tumor across the top of it. They found it as a byproduct of MRI scans during my bout with bi-lateral Bell's Palsy, itself because of Lyme Disease. They assumed it was a cancerous, Stage 1B Renal Cell Carcinoma because it had the outward appearances of such and because that's the cause of my mother's death, which is evidently considered by some to be a hereditary problem. However, official results won't be back until sometime next week from Pathology.

The good news is that they're confident the whole thing has been removed, and no further treatment will be needed for this incident. My light reading says its a 90% Five Year Survival Rate, and while I'm not exactly a gamblin' man, I'd say 9 outta 10 is almost a sure thing, so I'm not sweating it.  The bad news is they told me to expect pain, discomfort and to "take it easy" until sometime well into the second month after removal.

You can expect an almost useless blog devoid of useful the past amount of even moderately useful information to continue into the future. Sorry 'bout that.

Update, 9/14: Renal Cell Carcinoma was confirmed to the tune of a ~5.5cm tumor. It has been excised completely, with no signs of spreading outside the margin of the kidney, and no sign of spread via the blood. That's it, boys and girls, I'm clean. Fuck you, love me.

An introduction to the casual vacation shore fly fisher: Part Final, Where to cast.

So, you've been told by one opinionated jackhole on the Internet what you need to casually enjoy fly fishing your summer beach trip, what you need to gear up with, what you need to tie on, and now, finally, where you need to fish it.

Water. Shit, that was easy. No? Fine, fine. Moar words. I can do that. Ask my wife, you can't shut me up, and yet it took me awhile to sit down and write this because its hard to not sound like some sort of grandiose jerk who knows all, and I don't. I do, however, understand the concept of keeping it simple and just going out there to give it a go, and sometimes you don't need to study books, build a home astrolab, or sacrifice virgins to Cthulhu. Sometimes, well, you just need someone to kick start your brain....

So, the thing is that ocean's a big fuckin stream, and, unlike the trouts, the fish are transient. This means you need to find a place where the fish will likely be, at a time they'll likely be there. The other thing is, as a once-a-year sort of guy, you don't have the advantage of learning the ins and outs of what you're doing because for the other 358ish days of the year you're knowhere near the surf, and thus you look at this all from the wrong angle, and you're gonna need to tilt the odds as best you can in your favour.