THREE-WORD THURSDAY: Toxic. Phlegm. Donor.

By Mark Freeman | Published: March 11, 2010 | 0 Comments

Welcome back to Three-Word Thursday, where Fish Hack is busy polluting the cyber-Fish Wrap with what has disaffectionately been called The Medford Crud by those who are sick with this crap for a couple weeks at a time.

Toxic. Phlegm. Donor.

Raspy cough. Rancid throat, a 45-psi buildup in the nostrils. These are symptoms Fish Wrappers have been handing off to each other like some toxic baton.

Germophobe Bill Kettler, the Fish Wrap’s medical reporter who squats next to Fish Hack, bathes in hand sanitizers just at the sight of me.

He’s not invited to my Phlegm Farm.

Been hacking enough greenery that I either need to get better soon or get an EPA permit for this, umm, discharge.

Lucky the Rogue is rising for a few days and winter steelhead fishing success will be like Fish Hack’s name on the dean’s list in college: non-existent.

Still, that gives Fish Hack plenty of time to reach out to The Donor on the day he leaves his 60s in the dust in favor of Septuagenarianism.

Dude was only 24 when he threw his DNA toward The Host Organism at just the inopportune time to create  Fish Hack ‘lo these 46-plus years ago.

He survived Hack’s teen years, the midnight calls for bail, his own immaturity (wrestled my 19-year-old cousin when he was 62. Who woulda thunk he’d break his collarbone?) and 50-some years of sucking down Kools to make the big 7-0.

For his birthday, all Donor says he wants is to play three good games of basketball with his lunchtime buds at work and remember how to get home.

So, let us all raise a can of Ensure. To Donor.

Really, I never coulda done any of it without you.

In other words … It’s your fault, Dude.

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HAIKU MONDAY: On Avatar, Rupert and Hack’s Expense Account

By Mark Freeman | Published: March 7, 2010 | 0 Comments

Welcome back to Haiku Monday, where Fish Hack is sharing some Oscar love with James Cameron.

OK. So This-here cyber blog has got virtually nothing to do with Avatar. But, as fellow NewsCorp employees, we fill out the exact same expense accounts.

Avatar?Fish Hack?/Can’t consider us the same./Hack can’t out-gr0ss Jim.

You remember Haiku Monday. Fish Hack busts out a few non-rhymes in Japanese poetry fashion. Three lines…five syllables, then seven syllables, then five.

It’s barely rocket science. Just Hack being a hack.

Avatar didn’t rock like we expected at the Oscars…us being homes rooting for the NewsCorp holdings that range from Avatar to this-here blog.

Fish Hack’s soul is owned by Rupert. So Haiku Monday is a homage to The Dude.

B.S poetry?/Sounds like Fish Hack’s main mantra./Can’t we do better?

S

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THREE-WORD THURSDAY:Historic. Reward. Nipple.

By Mark Freeman | Published: March 3, 2010 | 0 Comments

Welcome back to Three-Word Thursday, where Fish Hack is still waiting word from the Smithsonian guys as to whether they want to accept my donation of the sport coat I wore the day I interviewed for this-here racket at the Fish Wrap.

It is, after all, historic garb:  It’s what I wore the day I officially killed my career.

Historic. Rewind.  Nipple.

The fact that the heads of the national museum turned O.J. down for his acquittal suit didn’t come without a counter-proposal from Fish Hack. Perhaps the Smithsonian is more interested in the only suit in which anyone wants to remember Orenthal James…the orange jumpsuit that rocks his current wardrobe.

The Hall of Fame’s most infamous felon finds his way into Three-Word Thursday because today’s theme is about where were you when history happened.

Those of you too old to use Twitter remember the moment you learned JFK was shot. The rest of us can’t shake the moment we learned Challenger went fireball.

And no one shall forget where we learned Simpson got to play the worst-placed “Get Out of Jail Free” card since … umm, EVER.

But not even The Juice can eclipse what us Northwest fish-whackers can never forget  – the day we turned the first Northwest salmon’s eyes into X’s.

And it never got uglier than this.

Rewind to August 1986. Coos Bay. Pre-Fish Hack (just a Hack not writing about fish then)  loads a yellow Roostertail on a cheesy spinning rod to fish for the coho jumping all over Coos Bay. No boat. No waders. No boots, even.

So I shimmy out a wooden piling and start casting. Third cast and, whack, there’s a coho. Battle the bastard for about 5 minutes, and then it gets weird.

No net. Some dude in a driftboat rows over, puts my coho under his oar blade and flicks it toward me.

I catch my coho, still with the Roostertail in its mouth, in my right arm and pin it against my chest.

The thing goes ape-crap and thrashes around before it takes a bite OUT OF MY LEFT NIPPLE.

I start punching its head with my right fist, and finally it lets go. Not until it yanks a hole and bleeds all over the front of a blue sweater my grandma knitted me.

Haven’t washed that sweater since.  Still has that original hole, too.

Got the DNA of my first salmon addition to Fish Hack’s Biomass Footprint that day.

Do you have yours?

Some of you must have good First Salmon or First Steelhead stories that rival this one.

Weigh in and let’s see where the discussion goes.

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HAIKU MONDAY: On Canuck Win, William Shatner Non-Loss and Tailpipe Violations

By Mark Freeman | Published: February 28, 2010 | 0 Comments

Welcome back to Haiku Monday, where Fish Hack asks the question, “If Canada had lost the hockey gold medal to the USA, would that mean Montreal would have to take William Shatner back permanently?”

Bad Canuck actors:/Shatner tops list of several./Wish US had won.

You remember Haiku Monday. This is when and where Fish Hack busts a few non-rhymes about the outdoors or whatever the hell comes to mind. It’s the cyber-Fish Wrap version of  Stupid Pet Tricks, Think You’re Smarter than a Fish Hack and every Priceline commercial up-chuck on the tube.

Shatner sells B.S./Got to pitch just what you know./Fish Hack got no game.

Now that the Winter Olympics are as forgotten as last Tuesday’s lunch, let’s get back to the business at hand in Southern Oregon. That would be steelhead.

Winter steelhead.

Early March is usually kill-or-be-killed time on the Rogue, when the entire 157 miles of steelhead water is a viable option to do battle with the Rogue’s most honorable fish.

In fact, Fish Hack is partaking himself this-here Haiku Monday, floating the upper Rogue stretch from Dodge Bridge to TouVelle State Park with my ol’ mechanic Keith Mix, the man responsible for getting Fish Hack’s 20-year-old Rig through the smog test every-other year.

Even if it takes racing fuel to do so,  Keith’s got my back. So I got his.

I’m rowing his dog-lickin’ A$$ into a few steelhead today as payback for getting the rig legal through 2011. That’s when the 4Runner will be soooo old it won’t have to get the Rig version of the prostate exam — the test wand up the tail pipe.

Gotta love out-living I/M.

“Just relax now, rig./This will just take a minute.”/No reverse today.

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THREE-WORD THURSDAY: Search. Destroy. Quiche.

By Mark Freeman | Published: February 25, 2010 | 0 Comments

Today’s three words may not seem interwoven at first, but there is a connection created simply because

Search. Destroy. Quiche.

Each Wednesday afternoon here at the Fish Wrap, I bang out the various fishing, hunting and wildlife viewing outlooks, affectionately known in the business as Search and Destroy.

For many, reading the stories and columns in the Fish Wrap’s Thursday Outdoors Section is a nice little respite from reality. But it’s Search and Destroy that really pays the light bill here.

Outlook readers are looking for very specific information on where to fish for what species. The Search.

Wanna catch a steelhead? Try the upper Rogue River. Sturgeon? The lower Umpqua has them, but they’re not biting very well.

And, of course, the whole point of the search is the Destroy. Turning eyes into X’s. A carcass for the barbecue, another for the smoker.

Search and Destroy. They’re as macho a combo as a shot and a beer.

If only the Fish Wrap faithful realized that I often bang out the Search and Destroy while eating quiche for lunch. Spinach quiche, no doubt.

If the boys only knew, maybe they wouldn’t design their whole fish-whacking weekend around some stupid Quiche-Eater. That’s gotta sound half-way to vegan for some of the boys.

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HAIKU MONDAY: Curling. Chicklets. Myth.

By Mark Freeman | Published: February 21, 2010 | 0 Comments

Welcome back to Haiku Monday, which may be the last Curling-Free Zone left in America.

Fish Hack remembers when rolling one’s stones on the sheet meant doing the splits while slipping on an icy sidewalk outside a bar.

Sure, that Canadian woman rock-hurler is kinda hot. But it’s CURLING, for crying out loud.

It’s as Olympic-savvy as dodge ball or bowling or other things you do with a brew and cheese fries waiting in the wings.

Roll the rock, Canucks./This is shuffleboard, sans beer./Rather have the beer.

You remember Haiku Monday. Fish Hack busts out a few non-rhymes about the outdoors or whatever, all in Japanese poetry genre. Not because it’s smart or academic or anything but just a weird way to get a few yucks out of the day.

Best Olympic shot of the day? U.S. smokin’ the Canucks in hockey. Fish Hack has a major hockey jones, growing up in tooth-spitting distance from the Red Wings home ice, making Fish Hack the biggest pucker in Oregon.

Seeing the USA hose Canada makes up for all those overpriced Bradors bought by Baby Hack in those teenage trips to Windsor bars.

Beat you at your game?/Sounds like Japan in softball./Must nut-up sometime.

Regardless, it beats Tiger lying through his canines about just what happened on that fateful Thanksgiving.

So the Wiff didn’t really go 9-iron on Tig’s grill or double dribble the cell phone off his chicklets?

The polished Woods’ official story remains she was a hero chipping out the back window and dragging her unconscious hero to safety… through the back end of  a friggin’ ESCALADE!

Fish Hack considers that as believable as Hack’s last tax return.

I wanna see  Myth Busters test how a 120-pound model could possibly drag a 180-pound Dude through three sets of Corinthian leather chairs and out the shattered back Escalade window in a few seconds without EITHER OF THEM having any glass cuts on knees, elbows, etc.

Tiger transgressions./He’s not the only liar./Just Don’t Do It.K?

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THREE-WORD THURSDAY: Footprint. Predator. Nil.

By Mark Freeman | Published: February 17, 2010 | 0 Comments

Welcome back to Three-Word Thursday, where Fish Hack is a getting jittery lately while waiting to add to the ol’ Biomass Footprint in the very near future.

Footprint. Predator. Nil.

One’s Biomass Footprint is the culmination of all the flora and fauna one whacks and eats in his or her lifetime. It’s kind of a Zen scorecard for carnivores and gardeners alike — those of us lucky enough to have a personal  relationship with at least some of the food we eat, instead of accepting the silent screams of our chow muffled by Corporate America.

Reap it or thump it, it’s all part of your print. Own what you eat, baby.

Being the piscatorial predator I am, my Biomass Footprint is solely fish-centric. It grows geometrically during three distinct two-month periods each year. One for spring chinook salmon, one for fall chinook and one for hatchery winter steelhead.

This so happens to be nearing First Trimester…aka the Rogue River’s winter steelhead season.

But the carcass count is like the goal tally for the first half of a Euro soccer game: Nil.

I’ve cast and rowed into a decent, albeit not stellar, line-up of wild steelhead, coho and cutthroat in the past month or so, but no fin-clipped critter qualifying for the print.

A combination of work at the Fish Wrap (not legitimate work, but work nonetheless) bad weather and Tax Deduction No. 2’s weekend basketball games have conspired to, as we say, keep the stink in the boat.

No hatchery steelhead’s eyes turned into X’s. In essence, nothing landed that’s whack-worthy.

But the chance of that drought continuing by the next Three-Word Thursday: Nil.

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HAIKU MONDAY: On Dead Presidents, Not Working for Them and Being an Allegory

By Mark Freeman | Published: February 15, 2010 | 0 Comments

Welcome back to Haiku Monday, where Fish Hack is busy at the Fish Wrap not honoring Dead Presidents, but workin’ for them.

Holiday for who?/Bankers, teachers, bureaucrats./Not us workin’ stiffs.

You remember Haiku Monday…Fish Hack busts out a few non-rhymes about the outdoors or whatever, all in Japanese poetry genre. Not because it’s smart or academic or anything but just a weird way to get a few yucks out of the day.

And what a day it is. Fish Hack was out Friday doing a story on using trout spoons to catch steelhead and all it did was rain and blow. Cold day on the water, but someone has to do it in the name of employment.

Spoon-fed steelhead story runs Thursday in the Fish Wrap and this-here cyber wrap.

Check it out.

But the bureaucrats and bankers get a beautiful vacation daytoday in Southern Oregon. Go fish for winter steelhead in shirt sleeves and flip-flops.

And why? Because there are 40 dead dudes who happen tohave earned the favor of the Electoral College at one time or another. And a few are on some of Fish Hack’s favorite bills. Yeah, the same ones they take out of each pay check.

In praise of the Prez:/Don’t do an honest day’s work,/Just like they didn’t.

It’s not that Fish Hack isn’t all about not doing an honest day’s work. My career is more than pock-marked  by that business plan.

It’s just that if someone, anyone, gets an extra day off to fish in the prime of the winter steelhead season just because of some dead white Masons, then it ought to be me.

Fish Hack’s no Mason, no Mensa and certainly no Statesman. But he is a Freeman, and should be kicked free today for being nothing less than being an allegory, right?

“Mr. Fish Hack, Sir?/Take the day off, just because.”/”Thanks, Rupert. You rock.”

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THREE-WORD THURSDAY: Action. Non-Degenerates. Immoral.

By Mark Freeman | Published: February 11, 2010 | 0 Comments

Welcome back to Three-Word Thursday, where Fish Hack is well entrenched in the DTs during this cold-turkey withdrawal from football now that the Super Bowl is over and life again feels like one big ice-cream headache.

Action. Non-Degenerates. Immoral.

College and pro football aren’t just pastimes at this Fish Wrap and others across the nation. It’s a cottage industry, a cesspool of bettors and propositions, with Fish Hack usually wading in the deep end.

It’s called … action.

For the Non-Degenerates, action is having a vested interest, usually financial, in the activities and outcomes of events that otherwise would play out completely independent of the Degenerate.

With action, the Degenerate becomes part of the game without ever having to put the brew down, let alone get into shape.

The NFL provides a smorgasbord of action. With it gone, the Degenerate has to seek it out himself. And everything’s got action possibilities.

$5 says my desk phone rings before yours. $10 says the Rogue River flows at Gold Ray Dam are under 1,700 cubic feet per second today. No? OK, you take the under and I’ll take the over.

I even bet some bodybuilder at the gym $10 this week that she’d get her driver’s license suspended before May 15.

And I don’t even know her.

But I don’t care. ‘Cuz I got action.

And don’t for a minute believe it’s immoral.

Suits call it “Playing the Market.” They phone in their stock buys hoping the Dow comes through for them and consider it The American Way.

Fish Hack calls in … a parlay. Saints, plus six. Total over 57. Field goals over 3 1/2.

Just because the guy Fish Hack calls only has a nickname and a cell phone doesn’t make this transaction less moral than if Charles Schwab were involved.

 Jump on in, Stock Boy. There’s room here in the deep end.

Ooooh. That ice-cream headache is starting to go away…

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HAIKU MONDAY: On The Saints, Big Brees and Who Dat!

By Mark Freeman | Published: February 7, 2010 | 0 Comments

Welcome back to Haiku Monday, where Fish Hack is busy asking, “Who Dat?”

Remember, Fish Hack called it Saints all the way in the preseason. Didn’t bet it at Vegas, but got some Fish Wrap juice out of it.

Besides, who can root against Nawlins?

Colt fans love Peyton./’Aints are now Saints, thanks to Brees.Who Dey think Dey is?

For Haiku Monday virgins, this is the day Fish Hack busts out some non-rhymes about whatever’s on today’s agenda, but all in  the form of Japanese poetry fashion. Just a different way to have a few yucks about the outdoors and all that’s Hack-ish in this-here cyber Fish Wrap world.

The Super Bowl always has a strong outdoor twist to it, at least in that double-digit entity called Fish Hack’s Intelligent Quotient.

Indy vs. Nawlin’s. Gotta root for which town brought Hack the better angling experience.

Indy is a nice city … for the Midwest. Visited Indy last January for some Outdoor Hack meetings, and didn’t get to fish. That’s because ice fishing isn’t fishing. It’s nothing more than an excuse to ditch the Wiff and sit in your size XXXL snowmobile suit and drink brandy like it’s …. brandy.

Gulp, wince. Gulp, wince. Gulp/”Go clean out the ice hole,  Sven.”/Just why am I here?

But we did go to the best steak house in Indy. Hack ordered the smallest slab on the menu: a 22-ounce ribeye, rare.

“It’s Carnivore Night:”/Eat something someone else killed./ No honor in this.

Now, Fish Hack last visited Lousiana one year after Katrina. Fishing the Gulf south of Nawlins was AWESOME.

Hack and his fellow Oregon Fish Wrappers caught enough red snapper and cobia (for you Norwesters, that’s warm-water lingcod) that we spend $500 shipping home all the fillets.

Hack hosted Taste of Louisiana parties for a year. Fish was sooo good that s0-called friends treated Fish Hack like a … friend.

And the people of Who Dat Nation are Fish Hack’s kinda people.

Drank enough whiskey and slurred enough English while there that the locals dubbed me an Honorary Cajun.

Who Dat? Dat’s Fish Hack./Cajun life: Goal-less, just like Hack’s./Enjoy this moment.

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