What's your favorite fly fishing book?

On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 08:12:05 GMT, "Charlie Wilson"
wrote:




"George Cleveland" wrote:
Anyone ever tried to fly cast in the days immediately after having
their gall bladder removed? What was it like. Mines coming out on the
19th (free to a good home) and I'll be off work for a couple of weeks.
Would hate to spend all my recuperation time sitting in front of my
computer monitor.

I had mine out about five years ago. I was able to do just about
everything except sit-ups within three or four days.


Thank you Mr.Wilson. Just the sort of info I was looking for.


g.c.

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
Boy scouts? ROFL! Church committees disguised as men? We tried 3 troops. I
could tell you such stories about those pussy brigades. Remember the Borg,
from Star Trek? One mind, lots of wires connected to the central brain.
What
a hideous example for a kid to follow. My son was beyond that when he was
three years old. Pass the barf bag, please.

In my youth (admittedly several decades ago), the variety among troops was
amazing. At the annual "jamboree", we would set up camp amongst dozens of
troops from the region; and the variety of behavior, discipline, abilities,
was readily apparent. Some kids practiced their skills while some ran amok
through the campground. Some read their Boy Scout Handbooks while some
snuck away with a Playboy. Just as with any large group, you had variety.

Although I have issues with what the BSA now represents, and I would never
consider enrolling my own son, I have to concede that a great deal of my
present responsibility and knowledge come from what I learned and
accomplished in those days. OTOH, I had an involved father who took me
fishing and camping outside of the organization; and that's worth more than
all the knot-tying lessons in the world. Sounds as though your son has the
same.

Joe F.

"Charlie Wilson" wrote in message
...



"George Cleveland" wrote:
Anyone ever tried to fly cast in the days immediately after having
their gall bladder removed? What was it like. Mines coming out on the
19th (free to a good home) and I'll be off work for a couple of weeks.
Would hate to spend all my recuperation time sitting in front of my
computer monitor.

I had mine out about five years ago. I was able to do just about
everything except sit-ups within three or four days.

Were you able to play the piano?

Wolfgang
who always wanted to.

wrote in message
...
On Tue, 06 Apr 2004 19:58:17 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:


OK, fine! :-) But, if you set up OE the way I told you, it would be
graphically clear that some of this thread had gone off a cliff of its
own,
while the rest had stayed on the subject of books. I'm really trying to
help, Tim. :-)


I'm in some newsgroups where there would be interesting remarks about
using OE as a newsreader. I'm just barely acceptable there as a real
user because I use Agent. You can't assume that most, or even many,
'Net users have OE. In this case he's said he does, so it works, but
others of us are not in it.

In my case, I read the lovefest in a previous session, and, had I not
put a lock on it, I'd have had no clue what you were talking about as
any unlocked messages go away when I sign out of my reader. We won't
go near what happens when power users in 'nix are in their fav
readers.

Agent doesn't offer hierarchal threading of messages, as in OE or
Mozilla/Netscape?

"Willi" wrote
Maybe things have changed or maybe it just depends on who the leader is.

But I was a member of Scout Troup "Traveling" 80 and I have many good
memories.........
(charming reminiscences snipped)

i can't believe they didn't give you a load of **** about that mustache
and long hair!

yfitons
wayno

Doug Kantner:
My son was beyond that when he was three years old. Pass the barf bag,
please

Amazing. Not many three year old children are capable of navigating cross
country with map and compass, pitching an ecologically correct campsite and
finding sufficient food in the wild to sustain life while enjoying the
experience. I am also amazed at the concept of a three year old being able
to sharpen and swing an axe with sufficient skill to allow him to prepare
firewood and lay and maintain a fire. Few kids can tie a sheepshank before
they can pronounce the word. Must have been difficult to childproof your
house.

I agree with Joe, who described the variant nature of scout troops when he
was young. The character of various troops and the amount of skills
education one could acquire from those troops varied with the parent
organization but even more so with the adult leaders and thus the junior
leaders. My experiences as a scout were quite positive. In the late '50's
and early '60's it was still possible to learn the old pioneering skills and
older outdoors skills that are no longer taught. The average age of scouts
was slightly older and retention allowed a different organization that
passed on skills through practical application. I count myself fortunate to
have been a scout in those days. And I very much enjoyed my years as an
adult volunteer.

Like Joe, I also find the current status of BSA.inc. to be something I can
no longer work with. The litigious nature of our society has changed the
scope of activities that scouts can attempt. The cultural and social
changes have impacted the program. Ecological concerns prohibit many of the
old skills being taught. And the competition for membership numbers has
resulted in a lowering age of entry and average age of membership that
adversly impacts the overall program, IMO and experience.

I'm sorry you failed to find a good troop for your child. While you may be
an excellent father there are some things that are best passed on by group
experience. As Willi said, there was a magic of its own in our program, a
real sense of discovery of nature, history, and self. What I learned as a
Boy Scout has never failed me.
--
Stev Lenon 91B20 '68-'69
Eagle Scout, Vigil member OA. Metab 216, Ni-Ka-Ga-Ha 91

"slenon" wrote in message
om...
Doug Kantner:
My son was beyond that when he was three years old. Pass the barf bag,
please

Amazing. Not many three year old children are capable of navigating cross
country with map and compass, pitching an ecologically correct campsite
and
finding sufficient food in the wild to sustain life while enjoying the
experience. I am also amazed at the concept of a three year old being
able
to sharpen and swing an axe with sufficient skill to allow him to prepare
firewood and lay and maintain a fire. Few kids can tie a sheepshank
before
they can pronounce the word. Must have been difficult to childproof your
house.

He knew how to pitch a tent when he was 3, although obviously, he needed
help because of his height. But, he understood the order of things and was
able to help by assembling parts and having them ready. He knew the pattern
for which things went into building a campfire (kindling, small wood, large
wood) by the same age, although obviously, he wasn't lighting matches at
that age. But most important, he was well on his way to understanding that a
position of authority in no way indicates competence. And, he knew that it
doesn't take 38 hands to do something more easily done by two or three
people working together. He learned these things from his mom and I.

For the doubters, here's a bit about our scouting adventures. There is no
exaggeration here.

1) Trip 1: His last year as a cub, went for a 3 day thing at a camp in the
Finger Lakes. The kids were pumped, and the troop had more than enough
enthusiastic parent volunteers, in addition to the normal troop personnel. A
perfect setup, in other words. The weekend began with orientation. This
involved standing around listening to a woman barking rules for 3 hours.
Remember: No exaggeration. The explanation: Certain activities weren't ready
yet, so they had to keep the kids occupied. Myself and another father
suggested that we could've used an hour to show the kids how what sorts of
things to collect for the evening's campfire. Told the leader that based on
my experience fishing late in the day in the surrounding hills, everything
would be covered in heavy dew by 9pm. The leader disagreed. Result: Soaking
wet wood - no campfire.

Parents were told it might be best if they didn't follow the kids to all the
activities, so they could develop a bit of independence. Good idea, and most
of the kids liked it, too. This left a few adults at loose ends for an hour
or two at a time. I went to my bunk and read a book. A female camp official
saw me and told me that for safety reasons, everyone had to have a buddy,
all weekend, so I couldn't be alone reading a book. I won't go into detail
about how that conversation ended, except to say that she declined to be my
buddy for the shower I intended to take an hour later. I wanted to query her
as to how the BSA's policy toward gays would apply to the need to have a
male buddy when taking a shower, but I thought better of the idea.

One of the activities was a great idea: They put the kids in canoes, with
life vests, and they had to "attack" other canoes and knock their foes out.
I don't recall the method, but the kids had a blast. Later, after dinner,
there was a gorgeous sunset over the lake. My son wanted to fish, but there
were a few other kids rough-housing on the dock, so I told him he had to
wear a vest. I did the same. I also said there could be no casting, just
dunking or flipping lures, unless the crowd cleared off the dock. Another
camp official stopped by to say we couldn't fish on the dock because of the
danger of drowning. I pointed out that my son had passed a swim test
designed for much older scouts and that we were wearing vests, SAME AS
DURING THE CANOE GAME. No dice. No fishing. By the way, the official did
nothing about the kids romping on the dock without vests.

2) Trip 2 - Rochester NY to Gettysburgh PA: Troop leader chose a route
(route 15, 2-lane undivided most of the way) through PA. A parent, who was a
truck driver, pointed out that there was construction on that route, and
that even though the miles were longer, we'd be better off taking an
all-highway route. Leader said "Yeh....never mind". Method of travel was
designated as "convoy style", so we could all stay together. Leader would
not provide the names of the stops we'd make until the morning we were
leaving. When she *did* provide them, she only gave us the names of
restaurants, not the towns or landmarks. Nothing.

Travelling in a convoy is almost always a mistake, and this was proven (for
the first time) within 15 minutes of leaving the real highway and getting
onto the undivided route 15. The leader was driving a sedan, and she
designated 2 SUVs to be #2 & #3 in line. This way, we couldn't see what she
was doing. At one point, there was a farmer hauling a triple disk plow rig
on the shoulder, a normal occurrence anywhere there are farms. Part of the
plow rig was hanging out into the driving lane, something unavoidable
because of its width. The leader didn't notice until she was right on top of
the guy, at which point she slammed on her brakes. Because of the SUVs and
the curve of the road, those of us in the back found out the hard way. It
almost initiated a multiple car accident.

We pulled over to see if anyone had wet their pants. Myself and another
father informed the leader that the convoy idea was over and that we were
going ahead without her. This worked well (for us), even though we had to
stop once to ask someone where our meeting place was so we knew when to
start looking for landmarks. The kids in my car were looking at maps (what a
concept!), and figuring out how long before we'd hit the rest stop, based on
what the locals had told us and the speed of my car. Pure genius.

Later in the trip, another leader begged us to come back into the convoy
fold because the big shot was getting upset. We reluctantly agreed. Keep in
mind that only one or two cars out of 10 had a cell phone. We were
travelling through some back roads and at one point, we came to a traffic
light in a small town. The leader and the first two cars made a right, at
which point the light turned green. The space between the 3 lead cars and
the remaining 7 was quickly occupied by 20-30 vehicles which came from the
now-green side of the intersection. The leader didn't stop - she just kept
going. Keep in mind that she still hadn't provided the name of our
destination town. We had a description of some sort of Amish "settlement
museum". Pretty specific for an area that's huge and full of Amish
attractions. We decided to make the turn and take the kids into McDonald's,
and see if the moron realized she'd lost everyone. Maybe she'd come back.

One father was a Rochester city cop. He suggested that if someone could take
the kids from his car, he could do some fancy driving and catch the moron.
Seemed like a good idea, even without flashy cop car lights, but then it
began precipitating wet snow. Not a good environment for stunt driving. I'll
shorten the story and say that we got back on the road, drove for 2 hours,
and got lucky & ran across the convoy on the side of the road, where one kid
was vomiting. The Amish "museum" turned out to be a strip of country-style
shops where no man would be caught dead unless his wife dragged him, and he
had a guarantee that they'd stop at a tackle shop next. Scented candles. You
know the kind of place. The scouts were horrified. The leader thought they
might find the place "cute".

The camp was 10 minutes from route 81, at a point somewhere south of
Scranton. The leader thought it would be cute to snake our way west through
country roads in the rain until we reached route 15. I informed her that my
car would be taking the correct way home, route 81 to the NYS Thruway, a
route loaded with services and troopers - plenty safe. She informed me that
I couldn't do that without a buddy car. I gave her 10 minutes to pick a
buddy, and to inform the buddy that they would remain behind me and not expe
ct me to be aware of their existence during the whole ride home. The cop
volunteered. We had a GREAT ride home. He was very good at following a
single car on a near-empty highway. Sometimes I followed him. Pretty easy.
Together, we tried something never done before in the scouts: Discussing
which exit numbers to stop at for food, etc. Patent pending.

3) Trip 3 - Rochester to camp Massawepie, in the Adirondacks near Cranberry
Lake: This began with a benediction by a Catholic priest, in the parking lot
of the church which sponsored the troop. There were a handful of Jews,
Unitarians and a couple of Islamic kids. They stood politely and quietly
while the Christians repeated the prayers they were familiar with. Later,
their parents were told that their kids should be polite enough to recite
those prayers. Yeah. OK.

Different leader, but connected to the same Borg central computer. Leader
did two smart things: Told kids to make sure they had enough drinks, but
that the drinks could not be in cans - they had have tops which could be
screwed on, for the sake of the parents' car seats. Some kids didn't have
drinks, so our first stop was at a convenience store. Leader also told us to
signal him somehow if we (in the convoy) needed to stop. Not smart. Not
likely to work on winding roads in the mountains. This time, we had cell
phones, but none of them had a signal in the hills.

So, the kids have drinks, and they're drinking them, as kids do. Two cars
including mine had kids with full bladders. We pulled over at a parking
area. This took 3 minutes. When we got back on the road, we saw the leader
coming back the other way. Shortly thereafter, he was behind us, flashing
his lights like an idiot. We pulled over and he informed us that he was the
leader and had to stay in front. :-) If you can't get hard any other way,
this must be how you deal with it. Meanwhile, we all had directions to the
camp, fresh off the internet.

Upon arrival at camp, the kids were made to stand around for 2 hours while
someone got something figured out. Then, they were told to drop their stuff
in the tents and proceed to the shooting range where they were subjected to
a 90 minute speech on range rules. Good idea, but our group was informed
that they couldn't use the range anyway because they weren't old enough.
Next year. So now, we've got a bunch of kids who've been stuck in cars for 4
hours and made to stand around for another 3-1/2 hours. One of the dads had
the Adirondack Mountain Club trail guide for the area, and pointed out to
the leader that there was a 45 minute easy hike whose marked trail began
right by the entrance to the camp. Three of us parents were willing to go on
the hike while the Borg got themselves all figured out. It would certainly
take the edge off the kids, right? The leader said we had to stick around
for planned activities. The next activity was a trip to the mess hall where
the chef spent 1/2 hour explaining the rules of his domain.

Keep in mind that if we'd been camping, my family would've had a tent
pitched, sleeping bags unrolled, and the whole camp set up inside of 30
minutes. We would've been doing something fun by this point. So, my son was
not in a good mood. He asked if he could go fishing, and was told he needed
a buddy. Fine - that's a good idea. But, parents weren't staying for this
event, so I wasn't available to be his buddy. They assigned a kid who said
he knew how to fish. Within seconds, the kid got his Mepps spinner stuck on
an underwater log and began crying. I'd just bought my son a dozen lures and
told him to share. He told the kid to chill out, cut the line, tie on
another lure and just enjoy the fishing. Instead, the kid ran back to the
group. No more buddy for my son, so no more fishing. Instead, they hung out
at camp watching the leader's son trying to ignite an aerosol can of insect
repellent. This, after the leader specifically said "no aerosol cans on this
trip". The kid introduced himself to new scouts as the troop's official
pyromaniac. Oh, and there was one older kid who was headed for Eagle scout
the following year. A real wacko. He spent most of his time marching around
the camp, and inspecting his footprints to be sure he was marching in
perfectly straight line. He also liked to make perfect soldier-style left &
right turns. My son stayed away from him as much as possible.

The final report was that they spent the majority of their time standing
around holding their dicks, while camping in one of the most beautiful
places in NY. And, by the way, there was no instruction in fire building or
the use of axes, sharpening stones or compasses. My son *was* informed by
another leader that his favorite fishing knots were bad choices.
Funny....he's been tying textbook-perfect knots since he was a toddler and
those knots have never failed. Not once.

In retrospect, he says he learned one thing: If he ever joins the armed
forces, he'll insist on being part of the smallest possible team, or kill
himself. :-)

In article , Doug Kanter
wrote:

"slenon" wrote in message
om...


In retrospect, he says he learned one thing: If he ever joins the armed
forces, he'll insist on being part of the smallest possible team, or kill
himself. :-)


You're beginning to make me regret volunteering to teach the FF'ing
merit badge this year!

I guess I just lucky during my years in scouting that we didn't have to
put up with this nonsense yet. I have nothing but good memories (even
the soaking wet ones!)

Allen
Catonsville, MD

"Allen Epps" wrote in message
...
In article , Doug Kanter
wrote:

"slenon" wrote in message
om...


In retrospect, he says he learned one thing: If he ever joins the armed
forces, he'll insist on being part of the smallest possible team, or
kill
himself. :-)


You're beginning to make me regret volunteering to teach the FF'ing
merit badge this year!

Memorize this, for when the military wannabees wander over to turn your
activity into a committe-based affair: "Would you like an up-close
demonstration of what fish see when we're throwing streamers at them?"

In article , Doug Kanter
wrote:

"Allen Epps" wrote in message
...
In article , Doug Kanter
wrote:

"slenon" wrote in message
om...


In retrospect, he says he learned one thing: If he ever joins the armed
forces, he'll insist on being part of the smallest possible team, or
kill
himself. :-)


You're beginning to make me regret volunteering to teach the FF'ing
merit badge this year!

Memorize this, for when the military wannabees wander over to turn your
activity into a committe-based affair: "Would you like an up-close
demonstration of what fish see when we're throwing streamers at them?"

My nearly twenty years in the military have been dedicated to keeping
morons out of my cockpit so that, along with your guidance should work
well!

Allen