Fish Hack at the Fish Wrap: Southern Oregon Outdoor Blog

Here we are at Haiku Monday, where Fish Hack is looking for someone to sit in the front of the driftboat this morning for a steelhead drift on Fish Hack’s home waters…the upper Rogue River.

Tax Deduction No. 1 was gonna man-up and fish today, but then a blonde called with an invite to snowboard. And away they go.

Fish with Dad or board?/TD2 hits Mt. Ashland./Be your own man, Dude.

For you few Haiku Monday virgins out there, this is when and where Fish Hack waxes on and waxes off non-Brazilian style about the outdoors and whatever, with some bad forms of ancient Japanese poetry as the schtick that sticks.

Helps web traffic, and it’s all about the hits, baby!

Act stupid? So what./Just develop the web hits./Haiku Monday stands.

Did a rare thing Saturday. Fish Hack and MT uber-shooter Jamie Lusch hit the upper Rogue sans cameras and notebooks for a day of pure recreational fishing.

For close to three years, we’ve manned up together for Oregon Outdoors packages everywhere and every time we’ve hit the water during these non-work jobs we have.

Lusch spent a whacky weather day in the front seat, Fish Hack on the oars. Went three-for-five, boating three steelhead and turning the eyes into X’s on a 7-pound chromer whose picture you won’t see.

Early winters rock./Chrome-bright fish before Prez Day/Make for a good run.

Got rained on, sleeted on, hailed on, snowed on, and got a sun-burnt nose between fronts. Funky, for sure.

Best part of the day, though, is seeing the year’s first bald eagles and turkey vultures, the two top scavengers we have.

Turkey vultures are Fish Hack’s fave: Ugly, feast off the misfortunes of others and even pee down their legs to cool off in the hot sun.

Sound familiar?

Fish Hack is all about the Vulture Culture.

Dis on vultures? No./Professional courtesy/Says leave vultures be.

Here comes another Three-Word Thursday, where Fish Hack is wondering what has brought all these foreign kings, princesses and attaches to Jacksonville?

Only Diplomatic Immunity would explain why virtually everyone walking a dog on the Jacksonville Woodlands trails Sunday morning was violating the dog-leach requirement as if the law of the land somehow didn’t apply to them and theirs.

Diplomatic. Leash. Rupees

Can’t get my arms around why most dog people think leash laws target only other people’s dogs and not their precious pekes or mindful mutts.

It’s not that difficult a concept, people. Walking your dog on the city’s trails means you must have it leashed AND controlled at all times.

City Code 6.04.030.

The code doesn’t have exemptions for cute dogs, fat dogs, old dogs, well-groomed dogs or even dogs that look like their owners. No “Opt Out” box to check because you think your boxer doesn’t deserve the humiliation of being tethered to your wrist.

It also doesn’t say it’s OK simply to carry a leash and consider putting it on your dog should you encounter another hiker or runner on the trail. And — yeah, I’m talking about you, Bald Guy with the terrier — there’s no exemption for your dog running free in front of you if you’re riding a bike.

City Code also says the fine for a violation is a minimum of $25 and no more than $200.

An officer could stand at the base of the Petard Ditch Trail and make it rain in tickets. Raise enough money to buy the city’s first stop light.

And don’t try to pay the ticket in Euros or Rupees in protest.

That wouldn’t be very diplomatic of you.

Welcome back to Haiku Monday, where Fish Hack is stuck in the Fish Shack with a bunch of Tax Deduction No. 2′s friends and fellow basketballers so bad that the Shack smells more like Teen Spirit than steelhead fillets.

Teenagers so reek./Spray Axe or smell like themselves.’Either way…it sucks.

For you Haiku Monday virgins, this is where Fish Hack waxes on and off non-Brazilian style but in the form of bad Japanese poetry, as long as some of it is about the outdoors.

It’s like a fake Geisha, without the robe or the happy ending.

Think’ poetry, dude./It’s seventeen sylllables/’Bout nothing,Well said.

Steelhead fishing will be marginal on the Upper Rogue River — Fish Hack’s home waters — until flows stabilizeTuesday.

When that happens, look for a good steelhead bite river-wide and a good catch in the Applegate River as well.

Steeelhead time is now/Bite earlier than normal.//Still tough to get ‘em. 

Here we are again at Three-Word Thursday, where Fish Hack has his ass screwed into his seat at the Fish Wrap cranking out the entire Oregon Outdoors section today.

Making up for doing next to nothing the past few days.

Too bad. ‘Cuz it’s shirt-sleeve weather today and the winter steelhead are in the upper Rogue, which is Fish Hack’s home waters.

Shirt-sleeve. Steelhead. Anise.

It’s not like the upper Rogue is chock-full of winter steelhead. So far, though, there are 209 that made it all the way to Cole Rivers Hatchery, meaning the entire Rogue is seeded.

And the water looks gorgeous.Emerald green and barely a boat on it.

Yarn balls soaked in anise would be just the ticket.

But here’s Fish Hack, banging out the goods for you Friday faithful.

Welcome back to Haiku Monday, where Fish Hack is nursing a sore back from sitting on a wallet loaded with dead presidents from Sunday’s Super Bowl bets.

Gave you Fish Wrappers two bets that both came through on the biggest holiday of the year.

Giants, the under./Parlay two for two, baby!/Cash last bets of year.

For you few Haiku Monday virgins still out there, this is where Fish Hack waxes on and waxes off about the outdoors not Brazilian style, but in the form of ancient Japanese poetry.

Gotta have a schtik to stick out in the cyber world.

Fish Hack’s just happens to be 17 syllalbles broken into three lines.

blah blah blah blah blah./Seven more syllables here./Then five more like that.

So Fish Hack failed to boat a winter steelhead for the Sub Par Bowl party, but got very close in Wes Welkerian fashion.

Had a 10-pound chromer to the boat, but it rubbed Fish Hack’s leader on a rock and busted off.

Game over.

But unlike the Patriots, Fish Hack had a back-up play in a mess of Diamond Lake trout carci in the freezer.

Had the smoker humming right up to kickoff.’

Still good after all these months.

D-Lake trout smoke great/Even after months on ice./Can’t say that ’bout Hack.

Welcome back to Three-Word Thursday, where Fish Hack is knocking out the Search and Destroy for Friday’s Fish Wrap a little early to make time for getting a lttle ink on this-here blank Salmon/Steelhead kill tag.

Gotta whack a Rogue River winter steelhead, admission into the Super Bowl party Fish Hack takes the Tax Deductions and The Most Significant Other annually.

Sans steelhead and Fish Hack might have to listen to the game parked outside…again.

Sans. Peeps. Winner

It’s widely known that Fish Hack’s smoked fish gets invitations to parties that my mouth can’t get me kicked out of, until the fish is gone.

And what better time than killing that first hatchery steelhead of the year and using it to feed Fish Hack’s peeps during the only real national holiday we have.

So that kill-or-be-killed document in the Fish Wrap known more commonly as the Fishing Outlook must get all its lies and misconceptions written early so Fish Hack can partake.

Andif you haven’t make sure you phone in that Super Bowl bet sooner rather than later.

The Giants opened at 3 1/2-point dogs and already have been bet down to 2 1/2-point dogs.

Consider that they’re probably going to win anyway, you might as well get as many points as you can.

It’s the last bet of the season, so you might as well go out a winner.

Welcome back to Haiku Monday, where Fish Hack is glad he got the Giants plus 4 last week before the line took a dive not unlike Fish Hack’s career in the blogosphere.

Got the Gints plus 4./Could be even by kickoff./Gotta bet the Bowl.

For you few Haiku Monday virgins out there, this is when and where Fish Hack waxes on and off — not Brazilian style, but in the form of bad Japanese poetry about the outdoors and whatever the hell spews out of these fingertips.

It’s like Turret’s, but written.

Today was supposed to be the day Fish Hack partakes in that rarity known as January winter steelhead fishing in the upper Rogue River, Fish Hack’s home waters.

With almost 100 winters at Cole Rivers Hatchery as of last Thursday, there should have been plenty of steelhead for a morning trip.

Early steelhead rock./Should mean for a good season./Steelhead bums take note.

But noooooo.

Hack has to stick around the Fish Shack waiting for the damn cable guy to fix the mess the last cable guy caused trying to fix the mess the first cable guy caused.

Talk about job security…three guys to screw up what one could fix.

I’ve called that automated trouble-shooting line so many times that the Techno-Chick has threatened a restraining order on me.

But for $130 a month, the Tax Deductions expect Internet to work with the television on.

So does Fish Hack.

That’s why it’ll be a few days before Fish Hack gets some ink on that steelhead tag.

Whack a winter soon/Biomass Footprint widens./Smoke one for The Bowl.

Here we are again at Three-Word Thursday, where Fish Hack is hanging out at the Fish Wrap waiting for the Rogue River to clear up enough to take a whack at the first winter steelhead to reach the upper Rogue this season.

That little gully-washer of a storm last week brought just enough warm water to get steelhead upstream and well-dispersed in the Rogue and Fish Hack wants nothing more than to turn a few winters’ eyes into X’s.

Gully-washer. Harvest. Kill.

Any steelhead bum worth his fly box will tell you that walking around with that fresh and unmolested steelhead tag is just sick and wrong.

You gotta get some ink as soon as possible on that thing known as the combined salmon-steelhead harvest tag — the piece of paper that says you can fish for steelhead and where you must log the fish you kill.

That’s right, kill.

When you decide to initiate a critter of any kind into the Aluminum Club, you kill it. It’s not harvested, like wheat.

The only time you harvest a steelhead is when you run over it with a combine.

.On, Deere.

Welcome back to Haiku Monday, where Fish Hack is waiting out the high water that is Southern Oregon while happy and lucky to be 2-0 on weekend NFL bets.

Bet what Fish Hack writes/And you push. Bet Hack’s real bets/And you cash, big time.

Gave you all the Giants to win, and told you in Three-Word Thursday to take the Pats and lay the points.

Then I heard Saturday that the Ravens under Jim Harbaugh are 64-8 against the spread when it’s 7 or more against them.

Got me to switch horses.

Ravens lose, but Fish Hack wins.

It’s a beautiful thing.

New info, change bet./Forgot to blog about it./Sucks for you, loser.

Might as well fight about football picks because the Rogue and other South Coast streams will be rip-roaring all week with high and dirty flows and hardly worth discussing.

Friday’s Outdoor Journal column by yours truly details the yin and yang of high-water events like this one.

Check it out HERE

Makes Bleacher Butt watching the Tax Deductions ball it not so bad.

Big water, stay home./Watch the runts play basketball./.Hack loves being dad.

Or…

Bleacher Butt is worth/Seeing Tax Deductions rule./Fish another day. 

Here we are again at Three-Word Thursday, where Fish Hack is sittin’ in the Fish Wrap workin’ up Sunday’s NFL bets and lookin’ at the Rogue River gauges to see just how big this-here storm will raise Southern Oregon’s Rogue River.

Expect the flows to peak early Friday, dropping and clearing enough by the weekend to bring the first decent waves of winter steelhead this-here way.

Sunday should be a perfect days for non-Niner fans to hit the middle Rogue and get that first tagger for 2012..

Tagger. Event. Bets.

Fish Hack always gets geeked over storm events, having covered water and whatnot at the Fish Wrap for 23 years now. While it’s freaking out mountain drivers has the snowboarding Tax Deduction back on Mt. Ashland, this event isn’t eally much of a storm – but it’s all we got.

When it shakes out, this is likely to come as a 1-year event…a storm you can expect to move in 100 times over a 100-year period. Pretty average stuff as far as the wild Rogue watershed goes.

But Rogue flows have been so damn low and cold the past few weeks that the change in water volume will be enough to jump-start the winter steelhead season in the Grants Pass area. That’s gonne be the place to go from now into April.

When you get back from the middle Rogue Sunday afternoon, look for some sad faces around town as Niner fans will be crying in their beers and stealing their kids’ lunch money to pay off their bookies.

The New York Giants are getting 2 1/2 points, but probably won’t need them. Smart money’s on the Giants.

And while you’re at it, don’t expect Joe Flacco to muster enough points to match with the 7 1/2 points Baltimore is getting against that Patriots arsenal.

For the Ravens, it’s Never More.

Take the Pats and lay the points and pick out the new Beulah fly rod you can buy with your winnings.

BOOK IT!