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Striped Bass, Ninigret Pond, Rhode Island, June 12-14.

State Number 34.

This was our third trip to Rhode Island to catch a fish. Kris caught a nice striped bass last year, but user errors have plagued me. I could hook fish, but then I couldn’t land fish. What I’ve learned though is that I really like Rhode Island. It’s good fishing, and you can’t throw a lobster roll without hitting a clam shack. Clam shacks are one of the best things going. Lobster rolls, fried things, chowdah . . . I could eat at clam shacks until my arteries clogged, which might not take long.

I may even prefer the clear Rhode Island clam chowder to the New England chowder with cream. I’m not much of a fan of Rhode Island clam cakes though–that’s the big lump of fried dough in the picture above. They are beloved by Rhode Islanders, but seem to have all the character of a sugarless donut, and I’m dubious that they include any clams. If I really need a cholesterol boost, give me a hush puppy any day.

The two prior times that we fished in Rhode Island, we fished from big boats–well, big for fly fishing–out from Newport where the Atlantic meets the Rhode Island shore. I usually fish inshore in saltwater, in shallow Texas bays with marshes and sea grass and, if we’re fishing really deep, two feet of water. Meanwhile New Englanders seem mostly to fish nearshore, and as far as I’m concerned there’s nothing nearshore about it. Fishing in Rhode Island, if you face north and look to your left, sure ’nuff you see a shoreline, but look right and there’s nothing but Atlantic Ocean between you and France. And I get seasick.

I was game to go to the big water again–we certainly saw plenty of fish on our prior trips, and last year with Captain Rene Letourneau Kris caught a fine striped bass–but Kris wouldn’t let me. She loved it, but she didn’t trust me. She had read somewhere that there was flats fishing in New England, and shallow water was the only thing she would agree to if I was along. No more mister nice girl for her, no more overdosing on scopolamine for me.

Read the directions. Don’t replace the patch with another when the first patch falls off. And that advice about looking at the horizon to calm your nausea? It’s nonsense. The horizon is tilted.

We booked two days with Captain Ray Ramos. Ray fishes Rhode Island salt ponds from a Mitzi Skiff. If you saltwater fly fish inshore, you know about skiffs: they’re the antithesis of big water boats. They’re built to fish the shallowest possible saltwater, and if you fly fish for bonefish or redfish you either wade or kayak or fish from a skiff.

Ray’s Mitzi Skiff is 17 feet long and 6 feet wide, which is pretty normal for a flats boat. Compared to most New England saltwater boats, it’s tiny. Ray estimates that there are maybe ten flats skiffs in New England, and that his is the only Mitzi Skiff.

We fished two days with Ray. Ray warned us that the weather reports were terrible, and that rain was forecast both days, but what can you do? We went, and we got lucky. The first day it didn’t rain, but there was heavy fog. I spent the morning blind casting to likely spots along the shoreline. I’d cast, then I’d cast some more, and then I’d cast some more. Kris wanted to make sure I caught a fish, so she left me on the bow to cast until my arm fell off, and it did! Ok, not really, but it was a near thing, and I didn’t catch anything either.

Conditions have to be reasonably favorable to sight fish anywhere, and none of the favorable conditions include fog. You need sun. If the sky is hazy or cloudy or if it’s foggy, it’s hard to see into the water even when the water isn’t cloudy. With fog all you can do is blind cast to likely spots and hope you get lucky. I did a lot of unrequited blind casting.

Of course as soon as we stopped fishing the fog cleared. It was clear, bright, sunny, perfect . . . And miracle of miracles the great weather held for our second day.

Where we fished, Ninigret Pond, is about 1500 acres, which is about the same as a medium-sized freshwater lake. Big lovely New England coastal homes surround a lot of Ninigret, and all those homeowners own big lovely New England boats. The mean depth is 4.3 feet, but of course the depth isn’t uniform. There are channels so the big boats can reach the big water, and there are acres of shallow sand flats, at most a couple of feet deep. In the late spring, schools of striped bass come into the ponds to eat cinder worms, and then for the rest of the season big stripers come onto the flats chasing bait.

We were after big stripers chasing bait.

You see that right there, right in that next photo? That’s a ball of a thousand sand eels in Ninigret Pond. In the water from a distance they look like clumps of weeds, except that they mosey across the flat like they know where they’re going. That’s what our flies mimicked. Striped bass believe them delicious, though I never much cared for them. I guess I’ve never had a batch fried up at a clam shack.

We were fishing floating lines on 8-weight rods with 16-pound leaders, and the retrieve was relatively short strips with a pause to let the fly dive. Stripers are picky fish though, and at least twice we got follows from good stripers that wouldn’t take the fly. We could see them follow the fly, and then just when we thought things were going to happen the fish would turn. Both times the fly had picked up a bit of grass, a tiny, insignificant, soupçon of eel grass caught on the hook, and that was enough.

But even the failures are great when you sight-fish, and we couldn’t have asked for better than Ray at spotting fish. Once he told us where to look we could see it all. We could watch the big dark stripers move across the flats, sometimes straight at us. Even when they were too far away to see in the water we could see them explode the surface crashing bait. They seemed different in the pond than nearshore, and I kept comparing them to other fish I knew. They shied from the boat and were picky about flies like permit; they crashed the surface like jack crevalle; I could watch them glide through the water like bonefish, but really big bonefish. . . .

It was thrilling. Every fish we saw in the water, every surface explosion we heard was thrilling. Frankly, I don’t know why Rhode Islanders ever fish anywhere but those salt ponds. It’s a good thing they don’t though, because if they knew what they were missing the ponds would be packed. I’ll leave them the big water, and I’ll borrow their ponds.

I finally did catch my Rhode Island fish. It was one of those amazingly stupid bits of business when you get lucky, and you can pretend that you planned it all along. A fish crashed close behind me, and I made a short over the shoulder fling, almost directly backwards, and it worked. Ray could see it all from the platform, and he said that as soon as the fly hit the water the striper hit it.

Like I said, I planned it all along. And big stripers on the flats fight like redfish.

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Delaware Packing List

Gear

We used rods and flies from our guide, Terry Peach.  We took our waders and wading boots, but otherwise we used Terry’s stuff.

On Brandywine Creek we used Terry’s two-handed rods. Casting two-handed rods is a peculiar exercise. I’ve done it some, and I’m not much good at it.  I don’t fish much in the rivers where they’re used, and in most rivers I use single-handed rods. Without practice, I’ll never get better, but if it’s done right you can cast a lot further than with a single-handed rod. It’s also supposed to be less strain on my aging body.

Those are good things, but the big advantage is that there’s no back-cast. To cast in front of you with a Spey rod, you don’t need to stretch the line out behind you first. Without a back-cast, you miss all those excellent opportunities to entangle your line in bank-side trees. Every fly angler has invested considerable time and effort into untangling flies from back-side brush, and if they haven’t they must fish in the desert. Even then I suspect I’d get tangled in the cacti.   

Don’t get me wrong, though.  There are plenty of unique and painful ways to screw up casting double-handed spey rods.  With Spey casting, the technique is to put your left foot out, and then your left foot in, and after you turn yourself about your line magically puddles somewhere. I have seen good Spey casters, and it’s a beautiful thing, but with me even on my best day it ain’t so pretty.

Still. It is really fun, and just getting to Spey cast is reason enough to go to Delaware to fish for shad.

Before we fished the Brandywine with the big rodsTerry took us to a DuPont pond so that he could be sure we caught a fish. We fished single-handed 6-weights on the pond, and with a single-handed rod I can’t plead lack of practice for my screw ups. Kris used a 6-weight rod built by  Waterworks/Lamson. That rod, a Center Axis, incorporated the reel into the reel seat.  Kris loved it.  I tried it and it made me nervous.  I did get Kris out of Terry’s shop without buying a new rod, though it was nip and tuck.

Large, zoomable image of Waterworks/Lamson Lamson Center Axis Rod & Reel System. 2 of 15

Lamson recently quit making the Center Axis, and I think it almost broke Terry’s heart. I suspect he’s got a lot of the remaining stock stowed somewhere. He really likes that rod, and so did Kris.

We took our own boots and waders. When you fly somewhere to fly fish, carrying wading boots comes right after delayed flights and missed connections as a source of misery.  Even without boots there’s a lot of gear.  There are reels, rods, waders, nets, some more reels and rods, wading staffs, some extra reels and rods, nets, fly boxes, wading packs, and then there are boots.  Here’s the thing about boots. When you pack your boots they weigh about 2 pounds, 5 ounces.  They are the incredible lightness of being. Then you get them wet.

A boot will absorb 72 times its weight in water, and take two months to dry. Wet boots will inevitably boost your luggage above the checked bag limit of your air carrier. When there were still newspapers, you could stuff your boot with newspapers and that would soak up some of the water, but those days are done.  Just try to find a newspaper anymore. There was something very satisfying about stuffing the style section and the news of the day into wet wading boots. It almost felt like performance art. I might like to stuff my boots with Fox News, but it don’t hold water.

In another kind of performance, I’ve driven highways at 70 mph with our boots tied to the rental car roof. It helps, but it makes Kris nervous. I guess it probably isn’t very smart. Sixty-five would be safer, and the boots might make less racket when they flopped around. 

Phillies Fans

To get to Wilmington, we flew into Philadelphia, then drove to the Phillies’ stadium and watched part of a day game between the Phillies and the Diamondbacks. I like to visit baseball stadiums. The Phillies stadium, Citizens Bank Park, is relatively new, and because of the open food courts behind center field it’s oddly reminiscent of the Twins stadium. Twins fans though are among the politest people on earth.  Phillies fans are not.

Kory Clemens, Roger Clemens’ son, is the current first baseman for the Phillies.  I am certain that notwithstanding the DWIs he is a fine young man, and of course he’s from Houston, so we paid particular attention to him.  He’s currently got an OPS of .797 or so, which isn’t scorching, but neither is it terrible. That afternoon he had one hit, a single, on four at bats with a walk and a strikeout. When he struck out, a guy behind us screamed–and I do mean screamed–“Clemens, you bum, why don’t you cheat like your old man . . .” 

It was a packed stadium, which surprised Kris, but then she never snuck off from work to go to day games. We didn’t stay for all of it. On the way out we were talking about the peculiarities of the fans (and there were some mighty peculiar peculiarities, not least of which was the guy sitting next to me who kept score and performed voodoo incantations).  Kris said that she was surprised that the Phillies fans let an Arizona fan heckle Kory Clemens without giving him grief.

Oh Kris. You innocent. That was a Phillies fan.  

As a postscript, after the same game (in which the Phillies overcame a 4-run deficit to win), shortstop Trea Turner’s mom left him a note in the clubhouse. “Good game, except for your fourth at-bat. I was booing you.” It must be tough when your mom’s a Phillies fan.

Wilmington, Delaware

Delaware produces two major commodities, corporations—more than 50 percent of publicly-traded corporations are incorporated in Delaware—and corporate bankruptcies.  If you’re a corporation and you’re going to go bankrupt, you file in Delaware.

My understanding is that you can pick up bankruptcy plans of  reorganization at the Wilmington Walmart.

Hotel And Restaurants

We splurged and stayed in downtown Wilmington at the Hotel DuPont.  It’s a beautiful 1913 hotel, nicely restored, and they were the friendliest of people. The place breathes Gilded Age elegance. The bathtub had a special rack just for reading, which seems to me about the peak of Western Civilization.

After we checked in we walked down to the park from our hotel. Driving around the next morning we discovered that had we turned right instead of left we would have made it to the old downtown, with lots of cute shops and many nifty bars and restaurants. It looked mildly Bohemian and very lively.

We ate dinner at Le Cavalier in the hotel. I don’t remember what we ate because I was too busy admiring the dining room.

In the morning we ate at a neighborhood diner, Angelo’s Luncheonette, which may be the best place for breakfast in the entire world. It was tiny and old, in a neighborhood of small old row houses, and everybody but us knew everybody else. A lady from across the street came in and asked if the waitress, Ann, would move the box off her porch to the back stoop when it got delivered. A guy came in from West Virginia and said he was making a special stop at Angelo’s because he had to move his mother out of the neighborhood to West Virginia. Everybody was greeted by name, and all the customers seemed to know each other. I felt like one of the chosen just being there.

We flew out again from Philadelphia, and it was complicated. We left the river late, and our flight to Houston was early the next morning. Philadelphia is at least semi-famous for pizza, so we called ahead to pick up a pizza from Pizzata Pizzaria near UPenn. It was out of the way, and then we had to fill the rental car with gas and get checked in at the airport motel. We managed all of this with only the statutory minimum of marital breakdowns.

I left Kris at the Hampton Inn and dropped off the rental car, took the rental car shuttle to the airport, took the airport shuttle back to the hotel, and devoured more than half of the pizza and a couple of beers. Even cold the pizza was delicious, but I was overeating pizza out of manic energy and nerves and by then it was almost midnight.

I didn’t sleep because of too much pizza and beer and too much muchness. We got up at 4 a.m. to go to the airport.

We had caught our fish in Delaware though.

Playlist

I put together a Delaware playlist almost two years ago, and it was short, George Thorogood and the Destroyers, David Bromberg, and the 70s New Wave band Television. That’s it. My friend Mark Marmon and I discussed it on the way to Port O’Connor a couple of weeks ago, and he said I had to have missed some jazz guy. I had, Clifford Brown.

I knew of Brown. He was born in 1930. He had tremendous tone and creativity, was a fine composer, and was the greatest trumpet talent of his generation. After he moved to New York in the early 50s he was an immediate star and played with everybody. Dizzie Gillespie and Miles Davis were admirers. He was an early member of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, and he was to be the co-leader of the Max Roach/Clifford Brown Quintet. His reputation today is of a brilliant talent, a hard worker, and an authentically nice guy. He was killed in a car wreck in 1956, before he turned 26.

Brown c. 1956

Guitar

I didn’t take a guitar, which goes against my rule of playing at least one chord every day. The trip was just too fast.

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Shad, Brandywine Creek, Delaware, May 25, 2023.

We were in Delaware last Thursday to try again to catch American shad. We fished in Brandywine Creek in Brandywine Park, only a mile or so from downtown Wilmington, with two-handed rods, long 11-foot rods that don’t require a backcast. Shad are anadromous fish, just like Atlantic and Pacific salmon, only not so glamorous. From northern Florida to southern Canada, in rivers all along the East Coast, American shad migrate into freshwater rivers and streams to spawn. Each spring in Delaware the shad run into the Brandywine from the Atlantic. Unlike Pacific salmon, American shad don’t necessarily die after spawning, and most will return to saltwater. They’re not as big as spawning salmon, but in the Brandywine a hen might reach eight pounds.

At least according to those who know they are great fun to catch. I’m assured that there are those who know.

In the ocean shad are planktivorous, which is an extravagant way to say that they live on plankton with a smattering of insects and tiny fish and crustaceans. Like salmon, when shad reach freshwater what they eat doesn’t matter. They stop eating. They will take a fly, maybe out of anger, maybe habit, or maybe just to show off. Who knows? But they will take a fly.

At least I’ve heard they’ll take a fly. This is a spoiler. We didn’t catch shad again.

You know what though? We toss the dice every time we go someplace to fish. There’s always a chance we may not catch fish. That’s ok. With Delaware shad we’ve tried to hit a window when the fish are in the creek. Last time we went, in May 2021, it was still too cold, and the shad stayed out of the creek in deeper water. This spring Wilmington hasn’t had significant rain. Unlike salmon, shad don’t jump obstacles, and when the water’s low the remains of the first Brandywine dam block the shad. Last year when we didn’t go the migration was reportedly great, and someday soon the Wilmington forecast is for rain . . . . Last year. . . . Someday . . . . We can’t control this year, this week. You pays your money and you takes your chances.

There are now lots of states, Maryland, Florida, Kansas, Hawaii, Delaware, where we’ve gone back to catch fish. Next month we’ll make our third trip to Rhode Island, and not because the fish weren’t there. Rhode Island is purely user error. Some day we have to go back to North Dakota, but then who doesn’t want to go back to North Dakota?

What I’ve learned is that every time I go back to a place, there’s something I like more about it, there’s something more to be discovered, and there are always other things I wish I had seen, or done, or eaten, or fished for. There are plenty of places where I secretly half wish I hadn’t caught a fish, just so I’d have an excuse to return.

And this time I really enjoyed going back to Delaware. I liked fishing for shad again, even if I didn’t catch one. Standing in a river practicing my spey cast makes a pretty good day, with or without fish, and we were standing in the middle of Brandywine Park, a park designed in consultation with Frederick Law Olmstead. I would cast my line across the current, trying to remember to quarter down river about 45 degrees, then watch the line arc across where the shad should be. Half the time I’d make my cast, then spend the drift watching joggers and picnickers and dog walkers, or a group of adolescents up to minor mischief, or a man throwing sticks to a dog. It is a lovely place, and it was a joy to watch people take joy from it.

And good guides bring such knowledge to the table. When I called Terry Peach a few weeks ago to set up our day, it was like talking to an old friend. He remembered us from two years ago. He was happy to guide us again, and when we fished last Thursday Kris and I talked to Terry about most everything open to polite conversation, and only 90% or so of our conversation was about fishing. Before we left Houston, Terry called me twice to warn us about the low water flows, and talked us into moving our trip around so that we could fish in the evening.

Terry didn’t sound too hopeful, but he thought our best shot would be after the Atlantic tide pushed the lower Brandywine up two or three feet, and that maybe that push would be enough to get the fish upriver. That evening it wasn’t enough, but it was our best shot at shad.

I did catch one fish in the Brandywine, a small yellow perch, 8 or 9 inches. I don’t know much about perch. I’ve caught one other, in Connecticut, but apparently the Delaware perch spawn happens earlier, in March, and according to Terry it’s a big favorite for local fly fishers. While the fish are small, there’s a mass of ’em, and they’re aggressive. Finding my perch in the creek so late in the season was peculiar, and I was too surprised to take a picture. It was pretty though, bright yellow, with dark vertical bands.

File:Yellow perch fish perca flavescens.jpg

Raver, Duane, Yellow Perch, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2016, public domain.

That yellow perch was enough to check off Delaware, but Terry had already taken care of that earlier in the day. Suburban Delaware may be one of the gentlest, prettiest places on earth. It’s pretty like Kentucky horse country, or the Connecticut second home region in full summer spate. It’s not wild, it’s in no manner rugged, it’s domestic and fat and happy. If you lived there you’d have to belong to a country club. You’d have to own a 1968 Chrysler Town and Country station wagon, or at least a Defender. You really wouldn’t be surprised to discover a mess of Hobbits living down by the Brandywine.

At the heart of suburban Delaware is the DuPont family, who began manufacturing gunpowder at a site on the Brandywine in 1804. There are numerous DuPont and DuPont kinfolk estates scattered here and about, with Winterthur being perhaps the most famous. Across the road from Winterthur is another passel of DuPont heirs–I never did get quite straight who or how they were all related. However they fit in, Terry had permission to take us there to fish their ponds, and before we went to Brandywine Creek we stopped off at a DuPont pond.

There are all sorts of exotic fly fishing destinations in the world, and all sorts of exotic fish, and for all of them I’m at best nothing but a duffer. Give me a pond, though, and I know how to fish. I may be one of the world’s premier bluegill fly anglers.

And during our hour or so on the pond we caught fish. We were fishing 6-weight single-handed rods with floating lines and various surface bass flies: poppers, sliders, gurglers . . . . Kris caught a crappie and a nice bass, maybe two pounds, or at least it might have been two pounds pre-spawn, and I caught a couple of crappie and a bluegill. Crappie, pronounced crop-ee, are what my parents loved to fish for, and the first fish I ever caught was almost certainly a crappie. Fishing a bass pond on a DuPont estate and catching crappie, I couldn’t have been happier. I may not have caught a shad, but I caught a crappie. I’m one of the world’s premier crappie fly anglers.

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Missouri Packing List

It’s been a few weeks and a trip to Cuba since we went to Missouri, but there are interesting things to add about Missouri, and by now the tornado is mostly forgotten.

Gear

We fished part of a day at Roaring River State Park. It’s a pretty Ozark mountain river, and it’s easy to wade. It was a bit crowded though. Why do I ever fish on a Saturday? Since Kris and I are both retired we don’t have to anymore, and having a place to ourselves is such a joy. Still, it was a pretty park, and we used typical trout set ups, 9′ 5-weight rods with floating lines. I caught two fish, both rainbow trout. We fished until the park trout permit pinned to my cap blew off and floated downriver.

The river is stocked from a nearby hatchery, and it was a mix of wild and stocked trout. For some folks stocked fish may seem like opportunity, but it’s always less desirable to fish for stocked fish than wild fish. I can’t usually catch much of either one, so I guess it’s not that one’s harder to catch than the other. Wild fish are just better.

I caught both trout on the Roaring River on a mop fly over a hare’s ear nymph, both fished under the surface. Mop flies are tied from one of those fuzzy mops, and are considered by some as a cheap trick. Don’t tell anyone that I used one.

I kinda like mop flies because you can get a lifetime supply of tying materials with a single trip to Walmart.

The next day we fished Crane Creek in Crane, Missouri, which is another pretty Ozark stream, and which is almost but not-quite famous. In the late 1800s, railroad workers dumped California McCloud River rainbow trout off of a railroad bridge into Crane Creek. Cane Creek hasn’t really been stocked much since, and the fish there today are the descendants of those original fish without significant interference. They may be the purest genetic strain of McCloud rainbows in the country, including those in the McCloud River.

Cane Creek

Stocking trout in rivers that support wild trout is controversial. It introduces non-native fish and diseases, and the stocked fish are just enough competition with the natives to hurt. The stockees don’t survive much either. The best-managed states, Montana for instance, have stopped stocking where there are wild trout, and a lot of the nation’s best rivers are never stocked. A creek that hasn’t been stocked, or a creek where stocking was abandoned, is a bit of a gem. That’s why a place like Crane Creek is someplace to look for.

We were there on a Sunday, and Crane Creek was also a little crowded, but I swear they were the nicest people I’ve ever come across on a river. We were at th park in the Town of Crane, population 1,495, and people invited me over to fish next to them. It was unnatural.

Crane Creek fish are small, and I fished with my tiniest rod. This is where I get goofy. Goofier. The truth is I buy fly rods and reels not because they’re better–almost every fly rod and reel is better than I am–but because they’re pretty. If I’m going to buy a reel, I don’t go in thinking that I want this reel because it has the very latest drag system and faster line retrieve, I buy it because I think it looks good. Of all the fly fishing gear I own–and I own a stupid amount of fly fishing gear–this is my prettiest rod and reel:

It’s an 8 1/2 foot Winston Boron IIIx 3-weight rod made in Montana, a rod that is way too lightweight for most of my fishing, and it’s just the loveliest shade of emerald green, with nickel silver fittings and a burled maple reel seat. The reel is a tiny Hardy Marquis 2/3 reel made in England. Are they appreciably better than any other 3-weight rod or reel? No. Could I have found a perfectly decent rod and reel for a third of the price? Absolutely. Are there any rods that look better? Well, maybe some custom classic bamboo. My goodness they’re pretty, and when the fish are small enough it just makes me idiotically happy to use them.

On Crane Creek I caught two small trout on a size 16 hare’s ear nymph under a size 14 royal Wulff, and Kris caught another. I picked the hare’s ear and royal Wulff because, well, they’re classic flies and I thought they matched that rod and reel. I’ve got standards, and I’m not fishing any mop flies with this rod.

Royal Wulff

Branson

I don’t like Branson. Am I being a snob? Of course. I have friends and family who love to go to Branson. I don’t.

There is a Trump Store, and there are shows.

I can’t think of anything worse than going to a show, unless it’s going to a Trump Store. You say the word show to me, and I feel queasy. Las Vegas? Oh lord, don’t make me go. I don’t gamble, and in Las Vegas there are shows. My daughter says the shopping is great in Las Vegas, but how can that be? I don’t think there’s a single fly fishing shop. Las Vegas at least has a minor league baseball team. I don’t think there’s any baseball in Branson.

The last show I went to voluntarily was Cirque de Soleil some 15 years ago, and I know those performers were miraculous, and that there are otherwise rational people who think that Cirque de Soleil is the best thing going. I know in my heart of hearts that that very show I went to was in all ways wonderful, but me? I was bored out of my mind. I’m still bored just thinking about it.

Maybe I need to go to a show with some mostly-naked ladies. At least I’d like the costumes.

In Branson, there are shows a-plenty, and what’s worse they’re all shows that revel in clean living. There’s Dolly Parton’s Stampede Dinner and Show, Hamners’ Unbelievable Magic Variety Show, WhoDunnit Hoedown and Murder Mystery Show, the Grand Jubilee Show, All Hands on Deck Show, Legends in Concert Show, Shepherd of the Hills Outdoor Drama Show . . . The list just won’t stop. You think you’re on a river in the Ozark backcountry away from all the shows, and you come across a flier for the Amazing Acrobats of Shanghai Show.

I’ve got nothing against clean living, and I consider myself a reasonably clean liver. I know and love several devout Baptists, and even some vegetarians, but clean living commodified into a show? I can’t think of a less appealing combination. Branson is one of those rare places where a soupçon of depravity would improve the moral tone.

I guess they do fish with mop flies, and plenty of people consider that depraved.

Donuts

We found two donut shops, though I’m sure there were more.

Parlor Doughnuts was a bit off the beaten path in a strip center. They sold gourmet donuts,((I’ve created a donut shop classification system, and there are four categories. Traditional shops include Houston’s Shipley’s, Krispy Kreme’s, Dunkin’, or the very best donut shop in the world, Ocean Springs, Mississippi’s Tato-Nut Doughnut Shop. Parlor Doughnuts is a chain in the Gourmet Category, and gourmet donuts are a bit more creative, with upscale whatnots coming to the fore. Portland’s Blue Star or Albuquerque’s Rebel come to mind. Experiential donut shops have let creativity run amock, and they are my least favorite kind of donut shop–I’m talking to you, VooDoo. A Cambodian donut shop is a clean, well-lighted place that is almost certainly located in a strip center. Everything is basic but good enough, and the owners are at the counter. Cambodian donutries can have flashes of brilliance–the boudin kolache was invented in a Cambodian donut shop and that deserves a Michelin star, or at least a James Beard nomination. It’s fusion cuisine at its finest.)) and the donuts were a bit elaborate for my taste, but I’d go back. I’d certainly go back if the choice was the other place we tried, Hurts.

Hurts is experiential. It’s next door to the Trump Store on the main drag, and it’s huge for a donut shop. There was a long line for the donuts. There were flavors like cotton candy, and cookie monster, and dirt worms, and every donut seemed created for a 9-year old, which I’m not. When I got to the counter, they were out of plain glazed.

The donuts were cold and forgettable. Kris wanted to chuck them and go back to Parlor.

AirBnB

We stayed in a nice pet-friendly AirBnB on the lake on the edge of town. It was just far enough from Branson’s center to forget where we were, and the owner left us a plate of cookies. They were good home-made cookies, too. There was an old canoe and a beat up bamboo fly rod hung as decorations above the fireplace, and I took that as a good omen. I sat on the enclosed porch and read Huck Finn, and, notwithstanding the No Trespassing signs, took the dogs for walks down to the lake. I’m pretty certain those signs weren’t meant for me.

Fly Shops

There are at least a couple of fly shops in Branson, but we only went to one, River Run Outfitters. We were supposed to fish with guides from the shop, but they talked us out of going. It was cold, in the 40s, and all the floodgates on the dam were open. The wind was gusting up to 40 mph. It was dangerous, and what’s worse we weren’t likely to catch anything. They gave us free coffee and good advice on where to fish instead. I bought some mop flies.

Restaurants

Branson is not a restaurant town. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of restaurants, but they all seem to have names like Hungry Hunter or Pickin’ Porch Grill. There are lots of barbecue places, but I’ve made the mistake of eating Missouri barbecue once before, in Kansas City, and I won’t do that again. Those people eat melted cheese on brisket, which should only be done in leftover brisket enchiladas.

The Keeter Center at College of the Ozarks promised farm to table dining, and I guess it was, but mostly everything just seemed big. Big room, big appetizers, big iced tea. . . Big ideology. I don’t know, it just didn’t click.

See that dish right there? That’s the Brussels sprout nachos appetizer, which as i recall was a lot of chopped up Brussels sprouts and feta on a lot of fried wontons. Had they artfully arranged four or five of those on a plate and charged me $12, I would have eaten them and said that’s ok, but that pile of stuff for $12 was too daunting. All I could think was man-oh-man, that’s big.

All of the waiters at Keeter Center are students at College of the Ozarks, and the hostess told us all about it, and then the waiter told us all about it. It’s a free Christian college, well, free in exchange for work. I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t have gone there without lots of conversations with a dean.

The next night we played it safe and went to two of Branson’s sushi joints, Mitsu Neko and Wakyoto. They were fine, and there were no Brussels sprouts. There was some kale, but I think it was purely decorative.

Playlist

Missouri has produced some magnificent music, and I’m still listening to that playlist. Josephine Baker was from St. Louis, and maybe I might have enjoyed one of her shows. From Wikipedia:

Her performance in the revue Un vent de folie in 1927 caused a sensation in [Paris]. Her costume, consisting of only a short skirt of artificial bananas and a beaded necklace, became an iconic image and a symbol both of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties.

Now that’s a costume, and there are some fun recordings of her singing jazzy French stuff.

Missouri had great jazz. You wouldn’t think it, would you? But in the 1920s, Prohibition wasn’t really enforced there, and 18th and Vine in Kansas City was as lively as anyplace in the country. The Kansas City Big Bands had their own style, blusier than New York or Chicago, with a frantic quality that makes you drive just a little faster if your foot’s on the peddle. There are great black big bands, Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra, Andy Kirk, George E. Lee, Count Basie . . . Two of the great jazz saxophonists, Lester Young and Charlie Parker, both came out of Kansas City.

There’s rock ‘n roll, too. Big Joe Turner is a joy, then there’s Chuck Berry, Ike and Tina Turner, Sheryl Crow, Michael McDonald, and T Bone Burnett. The Beatles went to Kansas City, or at least they were going.

St. Louis Blues has been covered by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, Louis Prima, Doc Watson, Herbie Hancock, Eartha Kitt, Art Tatum, and Ella Fitzgerald, and if your name is Louis, you can still meet Judy Garland there.

Ojon Mill, Photograph of Lester Young, 1944, Time Magazine, Volume 17, Number 13, Public Domain.

Guitar

I took my old Kohno classical, and spent some time at night playing. I don’t remember what, but I’ve been working on an arrangement of Gershwin’s Somebody Loves Me. That’s likely.