NON-FISHING ITEM OF THE DAY: The Coffee Switch.

NOODLING: 61-pound cat wins the Okie hand grabbin' tournament. A few years ago I spent a day with Don Brewer and Jerry "Catfish" Rider, probably the most well-known Okie noodler, for an article I wrote on the subject. Brewer's a big man, he pulled a 50-pounder out the day we went and wrestled it like an alligator. Crazy stuff, this noodling. On a side note, I took a picture of Catfish Rider in the water with a big flathead on his shoulder (above) that ran with the article. Coincidentally, a certain famous gentleman's magazine with a pajama-wearing owner decided to run a small bit on noodling shortly after. They called and paid me for the picture, so now I can honestly tell people that I'm a Playboy-published photographer.

CARP: An excellent article about the sagacity of the carp as a gamefish. The opening sentence disparaging trout and bass, two of the most revered gamefish, made me laugh out loud. One, because it reminded me of a conversation I had with a phenomenal striper fisherman when I first started trying to catch them on fly. I was talking about striped bass like I was in awe of them, and he said, "You damn fly fisherman...they'll hit a f***in' clam belly on a six-aught hook, it's not like it's rocket science." Two, it reminded me of a line from 40-Year-Old Virgin, "You've got to stop putting the ***** on a pedastal." While the article gives the carp a lot of credit, the article's first sentence reminded me that sometimes it's easy to give the fish a little too much credit.

(Link via Midcurrent.)

GULF OF MEXICO: Blogfish, the place to go for news about the state of our oceans, has another post about the Dead Zone.

REALITY BITES: It has now been over a week since I last put line to water. My "year of fishing like it's my job" has been side-tracked a bit by, well, reality. I had hoped to go out fishing yesterday evening. I spent the day pressure washing and cleaning the boat, then installing a fishfinder on the console. All was going well, with a scheduled relaunch at 6pm, when a colleague caused a technical glitch that left the boat on its trailer and awaiting a service call today. Ironically, I actually have the day off but I'm spending it dealing with (wait for it...) carpenter ants. The exterminator promised to be at the house between 9am and 1 pm. Then the wife is coming home early for another home-related appointment at 4pm. So I have about a two-hour window. Hmmm, there's a carp pond about ten minutes from my house...

VIDEO: Some footage from a spring striper trip.

WORTHY CAUSE: Saw this checking Moldy Chum, another of my daily must-reads,about coming to the aid of Gulf Coast fishing guides and other watermen who are still struggling to put their lives and livelyhoods back together after Hurricane Katrina.

POLICE BLOTTER: On my daily perusal of Midcurrent, I came across this little gem. I will add that anyone who's accidentally hit themselves in the back of the head with a heavy clouser will attest that a fly can be a deadly weapon.

TROUT: Dave Richey sings the praises of a little rain. Money quote..."Me and rain have always been buddies on the trout streams."

FISH STORY: 800-pound marlin impales a fisherman. This is crazy. Money quote..."The fish all of a sudden changed direction and jumped. The fish made a leap and Ian just happened to be in the way..."

CONNECTICUT: Fishing as therapy on the Housatonic.

NEW YORK CITY: Capitol Fishing Tackle is moving. This place is an iconic store among the urban angling set, a place I like to go on my lunch break because it's a ten minute subway ride from my office. The good news is the new location will be even closer, and a convenient pit stop when I run to catch my train home from Penn Station. For me, there are three stops in the NYC fishing store rotation, which I hit for various reasons...Capitol Tackle, Orvis New York, and the Urban Angler. Some people call the last one "the Urban Strangler" because of its high prices, but its got a great selection of non-Orvis fly gear and the guys on staff are incredibly helpful, and tie some great flies. For all non-fly tackle, Capitol is it.
On Long Island, I have a few shops I hit as well. Orvis Greenvale is 15 minutes from my house. For all my non-fly fishing needs, my favorite place to hit is Sea Isle Tackle in Freeport, about a 15 minute drive from my house in the opposite direction. And when I go fish the Connetquot River I hit the Parkwood Outfitters shop.
When I go to these stores, I feel a compulsion to buy something. I can't just walk in and look around, I've got to buy new flies to test or new lures to try. My wife counted 19 rods in my fishing closet, yet I'm always looking to find the next one I need to complete the collection. (It's always just one more and then I'm done.)
The last time I went into Sea Isle, for instance, I walked out with Shimano Butterfly jigs that I wanted to try. When you get all the gear needed to make them work, they cost about $18 apiece. I'm sure I'll think about that when I snag bottom with one, instead of the $2 bucktails I typically use to jig. Then there are the $20 bunker flies from Urban Angler, which look and act like adult menhaden and are about as difficult to cast. Then there's all the superhair and epoxy and junk I buy to tie mutated flies that always seem to increase my "bluefish" stash...So I wind up buying flies online from ArtsNFlies and The Fly Shop.
When you think about all the people who are ten times worse than me with all this, is it no wonder that fishing is a multi-billion dollar a year industry?

CATCH AND RELEASE: John McMurray of reel-time.com has some info in his weekly report on proper catch and release handling. I've been guilty of the following Boga grip sin, but will try in the future to properly handle fish: "Wet your hands when handling the fish and always support it beneath the abdomen as hanging a large fish by a boga tool can and will tear the fish's internal organs."

A LITTLE SHARK...

ENVIRONMENT: Mark from Blogfish has a post about the cause of red tides.

VIDEO: A toothy fish in Texas. This video is shocking for many reasons.

FISH STORY: Angler catches the same fish twice in one week.

PENNSYLVANIA: New trout season proposals greeted with silence.

NON-FISHING ITEM OF THE DAY: Fighting the rise of luxury boxes. I'm posting this on a fishing site because I HATE luxury boxes. They're less fun to watch a game from than a dank basement. The people in the boxes I've sat in seem to care about anything but the game, depriving those who do care of the best part of a live event, getting caught up in the rush and excitement of a big crowd. Growing up in South Florida, I hated it when the Dolphins left the raucous Orange Bowl for the corporate Joe Robbie Stadium, and living in New York now, I'm dreading when the Yankees leave The Stadium for a new, more luxurious one. OK, just needed to vent about that. Back to finny creatures.

NEWS: Midcurrent has a post about the decline in fly fishing participation.

UP IN ALASKA: My colleague Dan just got back from one of those trip-of-a-lifetime type adventures. He personally boated a 33-pound king salmon, but while in Katmai National Park watched these experts work a stream.

ETIQUETTE: Fishing the "tube hatch."
(Link via Outdoor Pressroom.)
UPDATE: Meanwhile in California, Trout Undeground posts about a revealing tube experience.

BASS: The difference between a Carolina rig and a Texas rig. (I know both at one point employed coach Mack Brown.)

IDAHO: Fly fishing the South Fork. Complete with news footage.

NON-FISHING ITEM OF THE DAY: A group of concerned citizens has started a petition to bring back the Chicken Enchilada Grilled Stuffed Burrito at Taco Bell.

GEAR: An angler who lost his arm in a farm accident invented a rodholder that helps him fish.

STRIPED BASS: The place right now for ridiculous striper fishing is Lake Texoma...in Oklahoma. I've got to get out there and try this.

FLY TYING: Here's an article about an award I'll never win. Actually, it's about a guy who won six.

EVENING TROUT FISHING: With the temperature spiking to 94 degrees yesterday, the idea of spending the early evening in a spring fed, tree lined trout stream seemed a good one. The shady banks I fished held some sporadic risers. Walking back to the car in the gloaming, I thought about how my casting has gone to hell, because of a frustrating case of "tennis elbow" that won't go away. Despite that I caught a beefy brown, and several tinies, which led me to another conclusion...The definition of a good fish: Any one that will strike a dry.

NORTH CAROLINA: An article about Capt. Gordon Churchill and stalking tailing reds.

NEW YORK CITY: I just went to the Orvis New York store on 44th Street and 5th Avenue. Right now they are displaying some cool stuff from the American Museum of Fly Fishing, including Babe Ruth's E.F. Payne fly rod and Ted William's Shakespeare. They also have a few cool old reels and salmon flies. As a Yankee fan I was psyched to find out that the greatest of them all liked to cast the long rod. As a Ted Williams fan in general (even though he retired 11 years before I was born) I already knew about his excellence in fishing, so enjoyed the display for that reason.
(Oh yeah, they've also got some discounts going because of the 150th year of Orvis. So I made out on some fly line and backing.)

COLORADO: Now's the peak time to hit small streams.

FLY FISHING: School wins grant for fly fishing classes.

CATCH AND RELEASE: A new study shows that deflating fish improves their survival rate.

SEAFOOD: An updated "Best & Worst Seafood Choices" guide.

TOURNAMENTS: The 2006 Rolex/IFGA Inshore Championship. How come I wasn't invited to participate? Oh wait, I'm not even the best angler in my own family, let alone one of the top 37 fly and light tackle anglers in the world.

NEWS: A fly fishing event to help women recovering from breast cancer.

(Thanks as always to J.R. Absher of Outdoor Pressroom, who's got a knack for finding news links, which is why he's also the blogger for ESPN Outdoors.)

PASSINGS: Florida Fishing has a post about the loss of Bonefish Bob. You couldn't drive down US1 in Islamorada without passing his store with the big "Bonefish Bob's" sign.

CONSERVATION: Blogfish has a post about the plight of salmon on the Klamath River.

BASS: Blue collar anglers compete in a world of big business.

FLIES: On the wooly bugger.

BLOG OF INTEREST: Fly Fishing in Yellowstone kept popping up in my referrals, so I decided to check it out. It's full of information and links and well worth a visit. I love that if you can think of a topic...fly fishing for carp, urban trouting in Glasgow, Scotland, flats fishing in Key West...there's probably a blog about it.

NEW YORK CITY: A great article about bass fishing in Brooklyn. My sister lives near Prospect Park. Next time I visit, I'm going bassin'.

FRIDAY UPDATE: We finally got the Boating Magazine summer project boat (above) in the water, and today I cruised the beaches and inlets along the south shore of Long Island just looking for fun. I didn't expect to catch a fish, which is a good thing. I came across several pods of adult menhaden swirling in formations so tight they formed little hurricane eyes in the center of the swirl. But I couldn't find any predator fish lurking underneath. My best shot would have been bluefish. Reports indicated they'd been biting strong and that's all I could hope for fishing in the middle of a sunny day. Next time I need to get out before dawn.

WISCONSIN: A road-clogging mother of all mayfly hatches.
(Link via J.R. Absher of Outdoor Pressroom.)

PENNSYLVANIA: Toxic spill kills thousands of fish.
(Link via ESPN Outdoor's News Hound.)

FISH STORY: The joy of finding secret ponds, and lying about them.

FLORIDA: A swordfish story.

PERSONALITIES: Russell Chatham, master painter and fly fisherman.
Money quote..."At first I thought it was the best fly fishing homeless man I had ever seen...”

PANFISH: Popper fishing for bluegill.

COLORADO: Fly fishing the Rio Grande.

CONSERVATION: Will global warming affect Florida recreational fishing?

MONTANA: Madison River has few peers.