Month: September 2018

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Scott Walker and Donald Trump

In 2016, historically liberal, progressive Wisconsin voted for Trump, not by much but enough for Trump to take Wisconsin’s ten electoral votes. Wisconsin may have been one of the biggest shocks of election night. Of course for most people it was still a distant second to President Trump winning.

Wisconsin’s liberal bent came honestly. German immigrants, including Bohemians and Czechs and Slovenians, were often ideological refugees. Norwegian culture, the other large source of non-Yankee immigration, was more communal than the nation as a whole, the sort of culture that would embrace sitting around together naked in saunas. The Republican Party was born in Wisconsin, but it was the radical anti-slavery party, not the party of Karl Rove. Urban industrial Wisconsin developed on skilled labor, and there is a strong union tradition. Wisconsin enacted the first progressive income tax, the social insurance legislation that was the model for the New Deal, and collective bargaining for public employees.

That collective bargaining business didn’t last long.

Things have changed, sort of. Scott Walker and Paul Ryan are obvious, and both the state senate and assembly are majority Republican. U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin is one bright spot for the Democrats, but for the 2018 election Senator Baldwin is the primary target of the Republican Party. Republicans are spending more money on the Baldwin race than all other Senate races combined. Wisconsin is the laboratory for modern Republican political infrastructure, but Baldwin is leading in the polls, and in the polling for the Governor’s race Scott Walker is trailing.

I don’t know Ms. Baldwin, but friends tell me she is a lovely woman. We don’t really have a lot of lovely U.S. Senators.

The striking thing about the 2016 presidential vote in Wisconsin is the striking thing in Oregon, in Louisiana, even in Texas. Urban areas, Madison and Milwaukee in Wisconsin, Portland and Eugene in Oregon, vote blue. Rural areas and small towns mostly vote red. 

It doesn’t surprise me. Rural and small town residents face personal economic pressures and limits that urban residents don’t face and don’t understand. Local business ownership is dead. Agriculture is mechanized and ownership is centralized. Locals’ interactions with state and federal government are as often as not burdensome–taxes and regulatory restrictions–and the benefits received are often not obvious. The average resident may receive indirect benefits from crop subsidies, for instance, but that’s not obvious to the small town parts manager at a struggling car dealership. Even in areas where a thriving local economy is driven by recreation and tourism, land costs price locals out of the market.

Rural residents could potentially benefit from increased government services, universal health care for instance, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t rational reasons for rural residents to deeply distrust government, and to have preferred Trump to Hillary. Hillary didn’t visit Wisconsin during the 2016 campaign, so why would a rural Wisconsin resident think the Democrats shared their concerns? Nobody likes to be taken for granted. Of course that doesn’t mean there aren’t other irrational reasons for rural Republican votes, race or homophobia or religion or whatever, but those reasons aren’t peculiarly rural, and drive urban votes as well. It’ll be interesting to watch how rural Wisconsin votes in November.

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Wisconsin

Saturday and Sunday we fish with Abe Downs in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. I have to be in Chicago, and we’re driving north Friday evening. I’ve seemingly given Wisconsin short-shrift. Oregon and steelhead have taken so much attention that in some ways I have, but I’ll be damned if I’ll read Little House in the Woods.

We’re fishing for muskie, which is probably a mistake. Muskie is the new glamour girl of the fly fishing world. They are big, which is always appealing, and they’re apparently hard to catch–one hears ad nauseam that they are the fish of 10,000 casts. Steelhead, which are ridiculously hard to catch, are only the fish of 1,000 casts. I guess if I’ve given Wisconsin too short of a shrift, and if I don’t catch anything, I’ll get to go back. It’s kismet.

Herbert, Henry William (1851) Frank Forester’s Fish and Fishing of the United States and British Provinces of North America, New York, NY: Stringer & Townsend

For a glamour girl muskellunge surely are ugly.  They are ambush predators, lurking and attacking with short bursts. They eat big stuff, and a big muskie will eat fish more than half their length. They also eat ducks and muskrats. Muskie flies are big and expensive, flies on the internet can cost $15 apiece, and apparently 10 weights are the rod of choice, in part for the fish and in part for the flies.  We’ll be using whatever Abe brings. He’s told us to bring waders, and boots without studs, but I think it’s for warmth, not wading.

National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame, Hayward, Wisconsin

IGFA records the world record all-tackle muskie, caught in Hayward, Wisconsin, in 1949, at 67 lbs 8 oz, and slightly longer than five feet.  Hayward, Wisconsin (home of the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame and a 143′ long giant muskie) has been banking off that fish ever since.

Muskie average about 30″, and are the largest of the pike family. They remind me of gar or barracuda, which are also sharp-toothed, long-snouted lurkers. The difference, at least for barracuda, is that barracuda are reportedly fun to catch. Muskie apparently give up pretty quick.

Unknown – (1896) First Annual report of the Commissioners of Fisheries, Game and Forests of the State of New York, New York City, NY: Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford Co., Printers

Muskie are North American, but east of the Mississippi have a pretty broad range, from Georgia to southern Canada. They’re concentrated in the upper Midwest, particularly northern Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota. In Wisconsin they seem to be the right color of fish. They spawn in the spring in the shallow area of lakes, but don’t nest. Their spawning consists of a hooked-up lakeside stroll distributing milt and roe hither and yon, wherever it may land on sand or rock, but preferably not mud or silt.  The males do a lot of tail-slashing, either to spread the fertilized eggs or because they’re guys. Eggs hatch in about two weeks. Juveniles grow to about a foot their first year.

Muskies otherwise live in slower rivers or river backwaters. They prefer clear-water lakes. For such an ugly fish they are surprisingly sensitive environmentally, particularly to over-fishing.

As for Wisconsin I have been twice before. Once after college I drove late at night from Chicago to Minneapolis on US 90 and 94, and remember huge fiberglass animals, a Holstein and a dinosaur, looming up from roadside attractions. I don’t remember a giant fiberglass muskie, but apparently giant fiberglass animals are quite the thing in Wisconsin.

The second time I drove from Chicago to Milwaukee to see the Astros play the Brewers at Miller Field. It was an uneventful meaningless end-of-the-season baseball game.  The Astros won, there was good beer and sausage, and there were people wearing cheeseheads, not many but some. I think they got their sports confused.

Traditionally Muskie haven’t  been a fly fishing target. There’s even a series of Wisconsin mystery novels, the Loon Lake Mysteries by Victoria Houston, where the heroine fly fishes for trout and the hero fishes gear for Muskie. Now though on YouTube muskellunge are all the rage for fly fishers, mostly by young guys with trucker hats and beards. I didn’t get through enough of the Loon Lake Mysteries to know whether the loss of tension, muskie versus trout, gear fishing versus fly fishing, damaged the novels. Hope not.  They couldn’t take much damage.  

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Oregon Packing List II

I had some random thoughts about Oregon that I didn’t know what to do with, so they’re going with my Oregon playlist.

Donuts

Baked goods are essential to fly fishing , and fried donuts are baked goods. Portland is famous for its donuts, Voodoo Donuts specifically. We went:  I wouldn’t go back. It is the donut equivalent of birthday cakes, more surface than substance. The counter help is there to move you through the line, the donuts, while highly decorated, aren’t anything special, and I’m sorry, but I don’t really want to contemplate a penis-shaped donut, not early in the morning, not any time. 

Blue Star donuts, on the other hand, is outstanding. It bills itself as adult donuts, and that’s fair. Generally I’m not so much a fan of cake donuts (which their donuts are), but that’s a quibble.  Blueberry bourbon donuts are a flavor to be beholden to, and are delicious.

Lesbians

For most places we’ve gone, there’s been a kind of unanimity of response from Houston folks.  When we said we were going to Annapolis, we were told eat the crab cakes. When we went to New Orleans in August, friends said it’s the best time of year to go: it’s no hotter than Houston and you can get restaurant reservations. For Portland, we were told my girlfriend’s lesbian daughter, or my ex-boyfriend’s lesbian aunt, or our former lesbian law school classmate is there.

It was never our gay nephew (or boyfriend’s gay son) lives there. It was never my girlfriend’s daughter. I’m sure there are plenty of gay guys in Portland, and plenty of straight daughters, but the lesbian response was just inevitable.

When I got back to Houston I found an older Gallup poll, 2015, on LGBT populations in US cities, and Portland ranked second after San Francisco for percentage of overall population. Portland might beat out San Francisco if there were some gay guys.

Fake News

You couldn’t have more confusion about Oregon fish facts if they were reported by Fox News. Ask a simple question, do steelhead feed? You will get many more contradictory answers than steelhead. The best answer seems to be that winter steelhead don’t feed, and that summer steelhead feed, but not a lot.

We heard that jack Chinook, which are undersized male Chinook salmon, are mature small fish that are biologically necessary for low flows, but that kind of begs the question: if low flows are blocking big males, why aren’t they blocking big females?  Why aren’t there lady jack Chinook? We heard that they were confused juveniles who were not sexually mature but were pesky. We heard that they were mature males that just hadn’t gotten big.

The best answer seems to be that they are sexually mature, but precociously mature: they’ve matured too soon.  The number of jacks may be higher among hatchery fish, which genetically doesn’t sound like a good thing.

We constantly heard that Deschutes steelhead are a different fish than Deschutes resident trout. One of the more interesting things I read was that out of any given trout or steelhead population, scientists can’t predict which fish will go to the ocean and which fish will remain resident. Which fish will which has more to do with nurture than nature. If the local environment isn’t optimal, Pacific Coast trout will head for the ocean. It’s the principal reason that trout and resident steelhead are considered the same species. It’s a lifestyle thing.

I could never find fish population numbers. Whatever they are, the future of Pacific Coast trout and Salmon looks pretty grim.

Where We Didn’t Go

I’d spent time in Oregon before. I’d seen the coastline, I’d crossed the Cascades, I’d been to Eugene and Bend.  I’d like to see the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland.  I wish we’d had time to fish the Umpqua.

Conservation Groups

I’ve been making contributions to local conservation organizations, and their websites are more often than not the best sources of information about a fishery. You’d think with all that ecological consciousness there would be an obvious conservation organization to join in the Pacific Northwest.  There’s not, not that I could figure out anyway. We found the Deschutes River Alliance, and they make a great video, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they may not be right, and they get as much grief from locals as they get praise. 

Maybe Trout Unlimited is the right organization, but I’m surprised I didn’t find a more localized umbrella group for salmon and steelhead. Maybe the Deschutes River Conservancy would be good.

BattleFish

One of our guides on the Deschutes, Barret Ames, is on a reality show, BattleFish, about commercial albacore tuna fishing. It debuted Friday. The show is kind of brutal to watch, but the fish is delicious. 

Playlist

Dolly Parton wrote a song about Eugene. Jack White and Loretta Lynn recorded a duet about Portland. That right there is reason enough to visit.

  • The Decembrists, The Hazards of Love, Her Majesty, The King is Dead, What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World. I love the Decembrists. I thought I was being very au courant, until my daugher (who’s 32) told me that they were her favorite band in high school. I did get that song about the father murdering his children in my head for about three days, and I’d rather not hear it again anytime soon.
  •  Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Pastures Of Plenty. One of the Woody Guthrie Oregon songs.
  • Esparanza Spalding, Chamber Music Society, Radio Music Society. How a short black girl from Portland became a great jazz musician is a story worth contemplating.
  • She & Him. M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel. We had Volume 3, and found ourselves listening to it in high-stress situations, like when I’d tied my wet wading boots to the roof of the car to dry and Kris freaked out.
  • The Shins, Port of Morrow. 
  • The Kingsmen. The Best of the Kingsmen. Louie, Louie never cycled through, but they were just as bad as I remembered. 
  • Paul Revere & The Raiders. Greatest Hits. They were better than I remembered, but there must have been something in the Portland water in the 60s that churned out garage bands.
  • Todd Snider, Songs for the Daily Planet. 80s music. Dated. 
  • Woody Guthrie, Columbia River Collection.
  • Sleater-Kinney, Dig Me Out. I might get Sleater-Kinney in 30 years or so, or die trying.
  • John Fahey, The Portland Cement Factory.
  • Joan Baez, Portland Town. It took me a while to figure out this was Portland, Oregon, not Portland, Maine.
  • Johnny Cash, Lumberjack. They don’t make songs like this any more. It goes well with Sometimes a Great Notion.
  • Dolly Parton, Eugene Oregon. 
  • Carrie Brownstein & Fred Armisen, Dream of the 90s.  We watched a lot of Portlandia.  It’s addicting.
  • Elliott Smith, Alameda. 
  • Sufjan Stevens, Carrie & Lowell.  I’m not sure what this has to do with Oregon, but I liked the song. In 2005, Stevens announced he would record an album for each state, and he released Michigan and Illinois, but later he said it was just a promotional gimmick.  This is a man of my own heart. 
  • Michael Hurley, Portland Water. 
  • Steely Dan, Don’t Take Me Alive. The best driving song of the lot. Well I crossed my old man back in Oregon/Don’t take me alive/Got a case of dynamite/I could hold out here all night
  • Lorretta Lynn (feat. Jack White), Portland, Oregon.  
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Oregon Packing List I

We didn’t take many clothes to Oregon, and that was just about right.  Ok, we may have taken a few too many layers of polypropylene, and I took a pair of shorts I never wore, but here’s the most important thing you need to know about Portland: You can wear your nylon fishing pants into any restaurant in the City and fit right in. If the only clean shirt you have left for that elegant tasting menu restaurant s a mid-weight Patagonia underlayer pullover, it’s ok. It’s stylish. Stylish. One pair of Keene sandals, my running shoes, and a pair of wading boots would take me anyplace in the state unless I needed some other kind of technical sports shoes. Hiking boots, skiing boots, cycling cleats; those I might need. I wouldn’t need a dressier pair of shoes.

Oregon is an outdoorsy milieu. There are as many Subarus in Portland as there are F150s in Houston. There are a lot of Subarus.

Unlike New Orleans, I didn’t take a blazer, and unlike New Orleans I didn’t need one. I did worry that in a Nike town my New Balance running shoes might not be quite the thing, but Portland folk seem pretty tolerant.

The homeless like Portland, at least in the summer, but I don’t think it’s because they don’t need a blazer. Our first morning I took an early-morning run around the river. There were colonies of the young and ragged sleeping in doorways and camped on the riverside. Someone told me that much of Portland homelessness is about heroin, but I also think it’s some about accomodation. Portland has long been particularly tolerant of  the homeless.

When we first got to Portland we went to Portland Fly Shop. Ok, that’s not true. We first went and ate Pacific Coast oysters at Olympia Oyster Bar. For Gulf Coasters, Oysters on the West Coast are high dollar, about $3 each, but happy hour oysters were half price. They didn’t serve Saltines with the oysters, and I’m not sure they understood the value of salt and lemon or a classic mignonette, but the bread was good. The oysters were good.

So we went to Portland Fly Shop after the oysters and met Jason Osborn, who had helped me buy my 7 weight Beulah Spey rod long distance. Kris finally committed to a Spey rod, a Beulah Onyx 6 weight, and we bought some sink tips and some leaders. Here, though, is the bizarre thing about steelhead fishing:

To fish for steelhead, you honest-to-God could fish for days with two flies, one wet and one streamer.

If there are no tugs by the end of the swing, one doesn’t agonize about whether the fly is the very thing, you take two more steps downriver and cast again.  Changing flies ain’t in it. “Jason,” we insisted, “sell us some flies.” I’d tied a good two dozen flies getting ready for Oregon: multiple fish tacos in many colors, steelhead coachmen, skaters, black things, brown things, orange things. . . Jason seemed baffled that I wanted more flies. He clearly thought we had plenty flies enough. We insisted. He sold us some, but his heart wasn’t in it.

We only changed flies when the spirit spoke to us, or when the light changed.  In the morning or when it was overcast, we cast wets three-quarters downstream on Skandi lines. When it was full sun we cast streamers 90 degrees straight across the river on Skagit lines.  Then we did the two-step (or the four-step). The idea was to cover water. Maybe people who know what they’re doing change flies, but for us, what’s the point? Within the realm of decent steelhead flies one fly was as good as any other.

I was told that the Clousers I brought weren’t in the realm of decent steelhead flies.  What fish doesn’t like a Clouser?

As to other stuff we didn’t need, we took a bunch of trout rods. When we arrived at Maupin and met Travis Johnson, I said that I was in Oregon to catch one fish. He looked concerned and asked if I’d brought a single-handed trout rod, I think in part because trout are easier to catch than steelhead and in part because he worried that my casting would be even less competent than it was. Because I’d caught a Chinook the first day, I never took my single-handed rods or trout flies out of the suitcase. My fish was caught and everything after was gravy.

I took along a better guitar than usual, a 1973 Kohno, because I would be sitting by the side of a river for a few days and that deserves a better guitar.  The Kohno is a bit beat up, but has a lovely tone. My hands though were a wreck.  They were sore, I guess from the rod, and cracked and bleeding from the dry weather and the water.  I worked a bit on the Sor Variations on a Theme from the Magic Flute. I was playing it early in the hotel the first morning–we were running two hours ahead of everybody else on the West Coast–and the person in the neighboring room banged on the wall.  I’d never had that happen before, but they banged on the wall in the middle of the fast 6th variation, so maybe the song was a bit raucous.  Maybe they just weren’t Sor fans.

We spent a long time in Powell’s Books, which is one of the great bookstores. I bought Tom Robbins for Washington and Seattle, which isn’t scheduled, and replaced my copy of Sometimes a Great Notion. Mostly I was reading Faulkner’s Absalom Absalom, getting ready for Mississippi.