indiana autumntime smallmouth

My parents arrived on Friday and we dined together and my brother and I drank half yards of Guinness at the Irish Lion. Then we played Contra on his laptop until midnight and drank Wild Turkey Rye. The following day we went to the IU-Penn State football contest where the boys from Happy Valley squeaked one out with the help of four IU fumbles. We tailgated the hell out of that game. Mom and dad rented an RV and everything.

It was good to see them. I'm just starting to realize that my family is funny. Not weird funny, but comical funny. Not goofy comical, but comedically comical. You know, they make good jokes. Here is a good picture of my mom "cannonballing" jungle juice with some other Penn State fans at the tailgate (my father laughing in the background). It's 10:30am. Click for bigger.




I awoke at 7:30am this morning to see them off. The box on wheels literally lumbers down Maxwell into the rising sun. It's early. Might as well go fishing.

8am I'm out the door, heading west on a deserted Sunday autumn morning through Spencer and onto Gosport to try for another beautiful bass. The air is crisp and cool, the sky clear like it doesn't exist, the sharp angle of the sun slices through the void like soft lasers. The West Fork of the White River is big water. And it flows almost exclusively through farmland, for over one hundred miles before Gosport. It was a bit muddy. We got heavy rains on Thursday.

I fished it anyway. But didn't catch nothin'. There are big fish in there. I know it. I will catch one.

This is what happens when you aren't catching fish. As for those of you who haven't seen me since oh, about June, this is what my face now looks like. I guess I do need to trim it up a bit. Although I think a full beard will be something I emphasize in my MIP2K7 speech. Click all for bigger.








I packed it up after about an hour and headed back towards Bloomington and down 37 to Ketchum Road and Clear Creek which is much smaller and had probably cleared by now. It was also during this drive that I heard Robert Plant and Alison Krauss signing together. Apparently they have made an entire album? I will have to purchase it. The song was good.

I've developed a bit of a bond with Clear Creek. Fished it probably fifteen times and I know how it smells and it looks and where to walk and where the fish are. And it was a very pretty little creek today. Click for bigger.








And had a very good day today. I didn't catch any huge fish. I got my big fish on Wednesday. Today I caught a lot of decent sized creek smallies and it pretty much ruled. The fish were really quite pretty (for bass). Not the dull olive-yellow color I've seen there before. They were killing the little Clousers. As far as colors go chartreuse worked the best but I lost the only two I had to rocks. The "weedless" design with the dumbbell eyes is great and all, but those eyes get caught in rocks pretty easily. Caught a couple on orange and fire tiger as well. They didn't seem interested in olive. I picked up fish in deep holes, smaller holes, riffles, wide flat sections, everywhere. I was finally thrilled to be fishing in Indiana. Click all for bigger.








I'm holding a beautiful bass like a trout! Holy shit!

out damn skunk!

There are so many things I want to post here, Pennsylvania's performance at the Great American Beer Festival, the recent bear attacks in Pennsylvania, other ways in which Pennsylvania is the best state etc.

But I went fishing tonight instead.

And caught a fish.

Lord have mercy. I cried. Loudly. Last week. With Michael. When I caught no Steelhead, when I caught no Chinook, no Coho on Trail Creek. Fourteen hours of fishing effort. Slogging up and down the muddy creek bank boulevards. Casting and casting. Driving and Driving. And Mike had to drive back to Missouri on Sunday.

Despite the fact that no fish were caught, over all I'd say the trip was a success. Further scouting of the creeks, familiarizing myself with the highways and byways of Porter County. Eating chicken and butter and ham and potatoes and butter and onions cooked in tin foil on the coals with Mike Pell and bottles of Marzenbier and Wild Turkey Rye around the fire? Good times.

Despite loud people in the next campsite.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

I start awake with mad face. Sneering in my dreams. Alcohol is prohibited in the National Lakeshore buddy, I'll call the goddamn security presence down on your ass unless you shut your fucking trap. Piece of shit.

"Who you callin' piece of shit? Piece of shit."

"I'm callin' you a piece a shit. It's 3:30 in the am and we have to wake up in less than three hours to catch the salmon. I mean, dude, cut us some slack."

"Um, yeah, sorry about dat dude. Wer gonna, ah, go on over ta da, ta my buddies site, ova dare by da, by da thing, the dumpsta."

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Here's Mike above a really good hole on Trail Creek were the river narrow and deepens and all the fish have to come through here. We saw somebody hook up with a fish in this hole on Saturday, and saw several large fish move through and hold there, we put everything we had right over their noses. Several times. Nothing. But this creepy picture. Click for bigger.



Saw these guy's fish flopping in the water and I yelled at Pell, "I see a fish! It's freakin' out!" They claimed to have hooked these fish on spoons. Big spoons. They had incredible Chicagoland accents. Really incredible accents. I can't even begin to come up with a homonym. The one guy said "spoons" in a very cool way. I'll just put it like that. Click for bigger. (note purple plastic sled in background)




After we passed these guys we came upon an older couple fishing the absolute hell out of a hole much like the one we were at earlier. The dude had like three rods out, supported by sticks, and one in his hand. His wife was standing at the head of the run flingin' spinners into the hole, methodically. Again and again and again. These people accused those damn kids of snaggin' them fish. "You don't catch two like that one right after the other. They snagged 'em in the face." I really don't know. The fish weren't cut and battered looking. Looked Quite clean actually.

And the Pell again. Click for bigger.




So we got skunked. We had a good time though. However I was a little concerned that some of Mike Pell's skunk streak wore off on me. It came up a few times. "Skunk streak this, skunk streak that. Put a glow stick in a bottle and shot it with a pellet gun, skunk streak, skunk streak." Like that it came up. It was weird. You're right.

But no matter, for I have caught a fine bass tonight! And I think I'll be ok until next week.

I decided to try a new spot because all I hear about Indiana is that it has great bass fishing. I've caught a few decent fish down at Clear Creek, but there are other rivers around that are known to be better smallmouth fisheries, like Sugar Creek, Blue River, and the West Fork of the White River, which happens to be the closest to me.

Thirty minutes past five and I've arrived. Gosport. Public Access. This river is large. I thrash about the brush trying to hike up the far side which is more clearly not somebody's property. But the fishing sucks there. Way too deep. Can't wade out in it. So I grow a set and walk back across the old bridge and down through more jaggers and out into a rocky section only one to two feet deep. Eight or ten huge carp stacked up about twenty feet out, I could see them from the bridge. They created quite a wake, hoovering the silt and slim off the rocks. Really quite active. Black and pink and shiny from above like some elegant mahogany koi. Much paler down here. And bigger.

I cast at them for while with nothing to show for it. I caught a carp this summer on a Clouser in New Mexico, so maybe. But no. I tied on a popper and cast it about, slurp, slurp. Slurp, slurp. Missed one fished. Couldn't tell how big it was. Cast it about some more. Nothing.

Tie on the small Clouser again. These are Clousers. I tied a shit ton of them for Wipers about a month ago. But then I never went fishing for Wipers. Click for bigger.




This time I pick up two small bass on two consecutive casts. These were quite small, about five inches. But things were picking up I could tell. It was getting fairly dark and the clouds to the west and north were menacing. Possibly tornadoes tomorrow. Nobody comes to class when there's a tornado warning.

But I start to notice more fish feeding on the surface. Probably a hatch of some sort, but all my dry flies are back in the car so I tie on the popper again but get no looks for ten minutes. It's pretty much dark now, low glow orange hum on the horizon. So I tie the little Clouser back on, begin false casting and strip gobs of line off at a time until the cast is difficult to handle, maybe sixty feet for me. I haul on the back cast and haul on the forward cast and shoot the last few feet of line out, just into the deeper water at ten o'clock. I strip the line in fairly fast and regularly so as not to hang up on the rocks. About half way back and a strong bass made a big take pulled line from my reel for five minutes before I grabbed his lip and held him up for this picture. Click for bigger.



And this one. Which I call, "Fat Pink Hand with fish." Click for bigger.




Well look at that? An all "click for bigger" post. Astounding. I don't know how he does it.

Also, I think you should check out this website, er, magazine. It's called This is Fly. I'm not so keen on the beer reviews, but read this article. It's pretty good. A great website. Smart, easy, aesthetically appealing with the great Flash (?) turn-the-pages thing. Incredible photography. Perhaps a bit too hip in general, but they do have an eye for design.

It's raining hard now. It's supposed to continue for some time. Several days perhaps. Flush out Trail Creek, waft the scent of home to Steelhead in the lake. I'll be back. Hopefully in ten days.

4-H

The 4-H has an online Flash game they call Horseland where players breed and raise their own show horses. It's somehow affiliated with a kids show on CBS called KEWLopolis. The basic membership is free, but only with the premium membership can you "own stables and host shows. They also get a larger allowance of play money each week." Horseland is "easy to learn, but you can play it for years."

The internet continues to blow my mind.

Unfortunately, after trying the game myself, I have to say it sucks. The only fancy pants Flash animation was on the first page. After that it's really pretty crappy. Lots of people playing though it seemed. Over 12,000 registered American Mustangs.

So anyway, what brings me to this delightful Interwebs crossroad is that I was trying to find out, for whatever reason (none of your business), about 4-H, the organization that I thought was exclusively about kids raising farm animals. Never doubted it, like P or not-P. 4-H = kids and farm animals. Maybe the Harrisburg Farm Show too.

I went to their site (the National 4-H Council) and there is virtually nothing at all about farming. From their PDF document "an overview of 4-H today" in the About Us section: "4-H has three primary program areas: science, engineering and technology; healthy living; and citizenship. Youth learn leadership, citizenship and life skills through more than 1,000 projects with topics as varied as rocketry, GPS mapping, DNA analysis, public speaking, photography, nutrition and community service."

Where's farming?

You can kind of guess that 4-H is involved in agriculture by the list of companies that sponsor it: Carhart, John Deere, Monsanto, ATV Safety Institute, and The Farm Credit System Foundation. But the list also includes: The Annie E. Casey Foundation, New York Life, Met Life, Toyota, and JC Penney.

If you look very carefully in the Programs area of the site in the Science, Engineering, and Technology section, there is a small pie chart that is rather difficult to read which says that 41% of 4-H youth participate in Animal Science, 11% in Agriculture, and 13% in Plant Science. The others participate in Engineering, Technology, and Other Sciences (16%) and Environmental Science (19%). But they point out in a tiny footnote that members often participate in more than one project. So really it could be that almost every single person in 4-H does Animal Science (read: birthing cows) and ALSO have participated in at least on other project in one other area.

Anyway, I think they're trying to hip it up a little over at 4-H and I think it's kind of silly to hide all the slimy lambings and brutal slaughters behind Science and Technology. I don't think it's dishonest though (perhaps not mentioning farming in the "overview" when 65% of 4-H members do it might be dishonest), but 4-H folks know a lot of science and they are probably more likely to go onto careers in science or technology.

I mean, check out this incredibly charming webpage about raising sheep from the UC Irvine 4-H farm. Very cute, like a kid wrote it, from the Why Raising a Sheep is Fun section: "walking a lamb every day after school can be relaxing" and "Wet sheep smell like wet wool." Followed by explosions of science: "Watch for the afterbirth. You can discard it right away or let the ewe eat it. In the wild this is what mothers do to remove some of the birthing smell, hoping to discourage predators. The afterbirth also contains hormones that, when consumed by the mother, stimulate the uterus to contract and return to its normal size." And those that are somewhere in between: "The second hardest part is identifying a lamb's body parts when your hand is exploring the inside of the ewe's reproductive tract."

He leans back in his chair and it squeaks. He kicks up his feet and slowly places his hands interlocked behind his head while exhaling, "Ahhhhh, the internet.

dear Feist

Is it so wrong that I should want to lick your lemony eyes? That I should worship at the tips of your dangly bangs? Brush gently your well formed cheeks in dutiful reverence to your siren song? Dare to kiss the wide horizon of your mouth? Sunset. Breathe in your breath. I am obsessed.

Last weekend I went to the Brookville Tailwater and caught these beautiful brown trout for you. Their beauty reminds me of your beauty. Their spots of your spots. The way they shake, slippery and slidey, away from me as I stalk upriver.

I had your delightful songs in my head while I spoke with local Kevin about crossbow season and catching seventy pound catfish with chicken liver. And the Schaffer boys from Rasselas who helped pour the foundation for uncle Joe’s new house ten years ago and how I went squirrel hunting once with their grandfather Wally and how the boat ran out of gas and he didn’t swim and was quite scared actually and I had to swim to shore with a rope and pull the boat in and how Tim Bremen and I walked back to the truck and he siphoned gas out of the tank and it got in his mouth and it looked intense what with the burning and the spitting and the coughing and the red eyes. And psoriasis Glenn who fishes there five or six times a week and smokes those little cigar cigarettes and has a yellow mustache and who is a very good fisherman.

It seemed rather tenuous, too many irons in the fire if you will, to keep your songs on my mind while I spoke with these men. How funny it would be if they knew. But I kept them there anyway.

I am going to catch steelhead and salmon for you this weekend Feist. I’ll mail you one.

all the way west: a new movie

I finally got around to looking through all the shotty video footage from my road trip out west this summer. I made a movie. My brother, Adam "the Heed" Dunn, master of Flash, built this sweet player for me, note how the player maintains the theme of the website. He's the man. He does this stuff for a living. The video is big, ~50mb, so let it load before watching.

Director's commentary below.



I took the first shots while driving east through Western South Dakota on my way back. There were big thunderstorms on the horizon to the south. The song is Feist's "The Water."

Part 1: this shot is of Greenback Cutthroat trout in the stream below Spruce Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. Then a greenback in Fern Lake in RMNP. Then pictures of some fish I caught: a brown trout in the Big Thompson River below RMNP in Colorado, a rainbow I caught in Indian Camp Creek, a tributary to the Middle Fork of the Gila River in New Mexico, a rainbow from the McCloud River below Ah-Di-Na in Northern California, four greenbacks from RMNP, and a Volcano Creek Golden Trout from Golden Trout Creek in the lower Sierra Nevada. Then a magnificent sunset near the California-Oregon border. A Golden Trout I accidentally killed in Mulkey Creek (the only dead fish of the whole trip that I know of). My shadow and the same trout. Shadow of the ferry from Vancouver Island to Vancouver. Driving through dusty western Kansas. Driving toward Denver in Colorado.

Part 2: driving north on the east side of the Sierra, just south of Yosemite I think. Driving south through northern New Mexico. Driving east through eastern Wyoming I think. A lizard along the Middle Fork of the Gila River. My brother in Lake Quinault on the Olympic Peninsula. The same. Mythbusters and my brother's Havoc Heli in our room at the Quinault Lodge. The music is Feist's "My Moon My Man."

Part 3: in the tent, seeking refuge from mosquitoes near Fern Lake in RMNP. Stretching out near the Fern Lake trailhead in RMNP. Chris fixing some wires somewhere in windy Kansas. My brother on the windy ferry from Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula to Victoria on Vancouver Island BC. Ian fly fishing for the first time on the Big Thompson River. He likes poker better. But he has good nymphing mechanics. Should have used an indicator though. Ian fed up with fishing after he fell in a river somewhere in RMNP. Mt. Lassen in California. Again (or maybe Shasta?) Sunset in Oregon. My brother fed up with the video in Quinault Rain Forest. Sunset near the Illinois-Indiana border. My car plastered with bugs after the drive back. The song is Old Crow Medicine Show's "I'm Stickin' to the Union." That is all.

Indiana steelhead: the Charles Bukowski of great lakes fishing

The highway hums persistently in the background. The river is flat and muddy mostly, yellow and brown mostly, sandy in some places. Beer cans, styrofoam worm containers, plastic bags, garbage can lids: various Michigan City cultural artifacts litter the log jams. It’s ninety degrees and humid. The ever present sheen of grease on my forehead does little to dissuade the multitudes of blood sucking insects that swarm exposed skin. My hands are exposed. I swat at the back of my hand with my other hand killing three and four mosquitoes at a time, smearing swaths of blood over my knuckles. They get into my nose. Stinging nettles rake my legs and with no balsamic Jewel weed around I plunge into the cold river to ease the burn. It’s better like this anyway. The mosquitoes can’t bite underwater.

Indiana is a pit of hell and despair. But there are steelhead here. And salmon.

I woke up at 3am this morning to drive more than two hundred miles to the shores of Lake Michigan where the anadromous fishes of autumn are beginning their annual migration up Trail Creek, Salt Creek, and the Little Calumet River, following their biological orders like good soldiers would. The commando is strong. Little do they know their efforts are mostly in vain. They too were once hatchery brood. They’ll spill their futile gametes all over the river in a sad genuflection to their native cousins swimming strongly in the Pacific. Then they’ll get snagged in the face, taken home on ice trying to breathe the thin, foreign atmosphere, feeling dizzy and disoriented. The youngest son will help dad with the “cleaning”, but while father’s sharpening the knife, junior pokes at the still gleaming eyes until one pops crooked, exposing plastic looking, layered white tissue underneath. Dad tells the kid to stop. Then sticks the knife in the fish’s asshole and cuts open his stomach and his guts spill out. Then he dies.

It’s a cheery day.

I arrived at Trail Creek around 6:30am. Still dark. I strapped on my headlamp, rigged my rod, and had filthy, sweaty unprotected sex with a disgusting 47 year old Michigan City prostitute behind the porta potty in the Public Access parking lot along route 20. Several people saw us.

The sun rised. I fell.

I raced up and down the dirt banks of the river, over tripping tree roots, cigarette butts, and half buried bottles of beer. The mosquitoes were horrible. The worst I’ve ever seen. They feasted on my fat blood. They feasted through my shirt. I let my hair down and tried to evenly distribute the tendrils over my face, forming some sort of faux mosquito netting. It worked pretty well actually, but was incredibly uncomfortable considering it was so hot. And I couldn’t see.

After several hours of racing around, possibly trespassing, I hadn’t seen a single fish of any consequence. Where were the forty pound Chinooks? The silvery Cohos fresh from the depths of Lake Michigan’s blue-green purity? Fresh from BP’s last illegal ammonia discharge?

I kept my muddy wading boots on and got back in the car. I ate three hardboiled eggs with Tabasco sauce and sliced ham. And some carrots. I drove to another Public Access parking lot further downstream. There were no prostitutes there unfortunately.

I walked through the woods to the translucent yellow-brown waters and immediately saw my first real fish. A behemoth to be sure. Thirty five, forty inches long? Twenty, thirty pounds? It was a big one and swam away rapidly like a log alive as I blundered in for a closer look.

I fished my way upstream through the swarms of mosquitoes, around impenetrable tangles of logs with cans and lawnchairs pushed tight against the upstream side. Eventually I stumbled across two dead steelhead. So they are here. One was still alive, it turns out. Belly-up in a stagnant pool, but still alive. I wrapped my hand tenderly around his massive tail and gently maneuvered him into cooler, clearer waters. I cradled his soft body with my left hand and held his tail with my right, keeping him upright, his gills pumping quietly while I absurdly sang to him in a low voice, “and I know loving you is not enough, and you know future is as future does.” When I gave up my grasp he turned over, fat white belly like a ball floating down the river over wood and rocks roughly.

A long green shape shudders on the shallow edge of that pool. I’m in a good position. I cast an orange egg at his nose. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Several more times. Nothing. Change flies. A red egg. Several times. Nothing. A chartreuse double bunny. Several times. Nothing. Turks Tarantula with a Caddis nymph dropper. Several times. Nothing. I’ll try my plastic eggs. Smaller than the glo-bug eggs. But when I have the new fly tied on the large green shape has disappeared. But then a pod of ten fish move into the pool, fish of all sizes, just like that. I sink the eggs into the pool for thirty minutes. Nothing.

Thoroughly chewed and exhausted at noon I start to head back downstream to my car. I’ve had enough of Charles Bukowski’s great lakes fishing adventure. Screw Indiana. I trespass briefly to access a shallow bit of river so I can cross to the public side. I walk for ten minutes then cross the river again when the brush becomes thick. I walk another ten minutes. I don’t recognize anything. Where am I? That dark blue pine tree is very conspicuous. I would remember that. Am I lost in Indiana? In the Chicago metro area? Are you kidding me? I had lost the trail so I head away from the river and walk parallel to it hoping to hit the main trail back to my car. I do. I was actually nervous. What if I got lost in the woods in the Chicago metro area? After spending weeks in the western mountains this summer without incident? I thought about getting bit by a poisonous snake in Indiana. That would be funny. Kind of.

I’m relieved to find the trail and decide to take another shot at actually fishing, as opposed to walking around the woods getting progressively itchier. I tie on an egg sucking leech (black wooly bugger with a pink chenille head). I step into the river and think I see a large tail flick in a long, deep run ahead along the bank. I cast the fly several times and strip it back slowly. The marabou tail undulates like a hula dance or an experienced stripper with wide hips and a narrow waist. The silver flash tied into the tail throws light in a quick, disorienting pattern. It looks delicious.

I readjust the faux mosquito net and swat a fresh batch of mosquitoes from my hands, smearing their little crushed bodies with blood. I just want to catch a fish. A fish for all of this my wish. On the next cast a fish hit my fly with fifteen pounds of salmonid ferocity so stunning that I cried out loud, “holy fucking christ!” The fish made a long first run upstream, stripping forty or so feet of line from my reel, the drag screaming its scared little whine. I palmed the reel to slow the fish and eventually he turned and I took up the line as fast as I could. He was running for the log jam just ten feet below me. If he gets in it he’s gone. I hold him back and hope that the 10lb 2x leader holds. It does.

I capture many pictures of the fish during the fight as backups in case I can’t get a good one of him once landed. Turns out that was a good idea as he slipped away before I could properly photograph him. The last picture below is of the fish I tried to revive.

I’ll be going back as soon as possible. To brave the mosquitoes and tie into another beast of a fish. I have a problem with fishing.

Click all for bigger.

rainbow hawk

Well, the new blog is coming along nicely. I've had to change the concept around some, but it will still probably blow your mind. Plans are under way for a rather extravagant MIP2K7. The steelhead and salmon are running into Indiana from Lake Michigan and my new 8wt arrived yesterday, so I'm headin' up to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore on Thursday night. I'll also post something about the rest of my time in England one of these days, new and improved with 200% more beer!

But now, I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the toughest, the coolest, the rainbowest, the most well mannered raptor this side of Sesame Street: RAINBOW HAWK! (applause, applause) Click for full size.




Rainbow hawk was born in Columbia Missouri on the 16th of September, the year of our lord 2007. Rainbow hawk's father is Matthew D Dunn of Bloomington IN. Rainbow hawk's mother was copious amounts of beer and drugs and some crayons and a large beef roast. Also present at Rainbow hawk's birth were Robert "Bobby no no" Norris, MB Pell, D$, and Chris "Rasputin" Saunders.









Click evil Chris for bigger.




The birth of Rainbow hawk.




Rainbow hawk also had a retarded little brother called One eye fish. D$ drew a picture of me and Bob and Mike. I'm the short little red one. Bob is the tall green one. Kind of fucked up if you ask me. D$ was taking jabs at me all weekend. Insult after insult hurled from the catapult of her mind. I'll get even with that bitch. I'll send Rainbow hawk on a vengeance mission. He'll come streaking out of the clear blue sky, shrieking his shrill shriek and pluck out one of D$'s eyes. Sure, Rainbow hawk isn't much given to violence as he is a rainbow. But he's also a hawk so, you know, he has to kill little animals to survive.

Click for bigger.

cleaning house, going corporate

Well, not quite corporate but I have big plans for a new blog. A brand new blog. Big plans. Have no fear. This one won't go anywhere. It will be mainly a repository for bad poetry. The new blog will be focused exclusively on Beer and Fish. Hopefully it will be exclusively Fancy Writing but I can't promise anything on that score. I'm definitely going to take it upscale though. Only post the best writing and photos. Quality over quantity. 18 year old biddies from Connecticut that drive daddy's Range Rover over slam pigs, as MB Pell might say. Get my own domain name. Make it respectable.

My brother, java juggernaut, Knight of the php, HTML pimp, said he can help me with all the hard stuff, like, you know, the code. I'm pretty excited about it actually. A radical new idea in the world of blogging sure to awe and impress, daze and bewilder, confuse and obfuscate. I'll be honest, it might be pure shit, but right now, in my head, it is the coolest thing I've ever thought of. Hopefully it will happen in the next month or so.

But in the meantime...we drank a bunch of hoppy beer Wednesday over at Y-to-the-niv's house.

Courtney was making venison and trout stew for her dogs. I am not kidding.



After six hours of drinking things deteriorated quickly. The once academic conversation collapsed in a fit of political rage and flying spittle. "The president of the IMF is, in fact, the devil. He skewers African children and roasts them over dung fires on the open savanna, slurping gristle from their bones, smearing his lava countenance with the fat of their millet fed bodies."

But we did manage to try some interesting beers from all over this fair nation of ours.

Mishiwaka Hop Head: this beer is from Indiana and I don't really like the labeling very much. The beer is pretty average. The palate is dominated by a harsh piney bitterness.

Hoppin' Frog IPA: I'm pretty sure this was the IPA and not the double IPA, but I could be wrong. This beer drives a rusty iron spike through my tongue with a large sledge hammer. Not a huge fan. Had it once before. Same opinion.

Founder's Pale Ale: skunky.

Ale Smith X: interesting hop character. Smooth, glassy, citrus.

Bear Republic Racer 5: a sunny, shiney Lake Tahoe fills my glass as I stand on the porch looking through fir trees. I had this beer for the first time in Lake Tahoe a couple years ago and was really quite fond of it. I still am.

New England Brewing Sea Hag IPA: this beer comes in a can. I love that. Good hop character. Big. I think pale ales from a can, e.g. Dale's Pale Ale, always taste bigger to me than they do from a bottle or a glass.

Highland Brewing's Imperial Gaelic: the truly incredible Dr. Sean O'Connell gave this very rare beer to me last Spring. This is Highland's anniversary beer. It was bottled in one liter swing top bottles. It's a big beer at 8.7% abv. Best nose ever? Warm, whole grain bread delivered in a basket made of fresh hop bines. Big barleywine-esque palate that is extremely malty and sweet up front but finishes abruptly with a strong hop bitterness. Excellent.

Moylan's Hopsicle Imperial Ale: what a stupid name. A skinny ice dancer falls. Her skate lacerates her tongue. She has a huge bruise on her ass.

Two Brother's Hop Juice: not a great name. Mellow compared with the others. Malty with a pleasant hop flavor. I like Two Brothers.

Founder's Devil Dancer: offensively hoppy. Talk about lacerating. But this beer comes prepackaged with a goopy salve that one can apply to the salty fire. However, take heed of the goop. It will suffocate you.

Dark Horse Double Crooked Tree IPA: I had this beer a couple years ago and loved it. I still love it. A malty mountain climbed with fresh hops in hand, spilling, crushed underfoot releasing pleasant resins.

Lagunitas Sneak Release Undercover Investigation Shut-Down Ale: what a stupid name. Good beer.

The beers. Click for bigger.



Other beers.



Yaniv with a glass from his new favorite brewery.



Chris with broom.



Rockit's Famous Pizza.



Phil discussing politics in his typically calm manner.

I feeshed for 11.5 hours today

chapter 1: bh = p

I realized something of great phonic importance this evening as I struggled to stay awake on my drive home from Brookville. I realized that if you pronounce the 'h' in 'Bhudda', it sounds like you're saying pooda. Of course then I realized that you don't spell the name of the Buddha 'bhudda'.

This thing of great phonic importance was on my mind because Ben, one of my now slightly less-new housemates (story at 6!), who you may remember from such classic posts as "the friday ramble" and "halloween 2006"! introduced me to a singer/songwriter by the name of Mason Jennings. I really like Mason Jennings. Another activity that kept me awake on the drive was thinking about all the people he reminds me of: Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, a little bit of Jack Johnson for the kids, G-Love, and I swear to god Matthew Mcconaughey. But I also think Mason Jennings has his own style and it's hard to describe, but his melodies are particularly distinct, lots of small steps. Great melodies. And the way he blends the fantastic and metaphorical with mundane, modern life, e.g. "I went in to twelve bookstores looking for Ulysses, Motherwell led me to believe all my questions would be answered, Now i have it here sitting on the table, Another word for the universe, Loose green tea and a bonsai tree, an underground apartment, Check my e-mail and wash my clothes while my rice is cooking, Oh jesus christ, how I hate making phonecalls". Good stuff.


Chapter 2: we're on the watch list

Had a big party on Friday night. Good times, good times. I got very drunk and was quite "jolly", according to Grant, my other new housemate (story at 6!), that you may remember from such classic posts as "NYC Mayhem" and "holy shit I'm a slacker and my understanding of Indianapolis is still fucking iron clad bitches". And that's not all! For the same low, low price you can also read about Grant The Other New Housemate in that new new goodie mob "native brown trout and bovey tracy too!"!


Well, the cops came at 12:15am and issued myself and the housemates (story at 6!) $50 tickets and about half the party left. Which is actually a good thing because they wouldn't have all fit in the house. Cracking down. First weekend. Cops were younger than me. Everytime they have to come back this year the fine increases. $100 the first time. Up to $1000 fucking dollars. What a scam.

But I'm not going to rant about this mistreatment here despite the myriad ways injustice was served. People at the party voluntarily took up a collection and we have enough money to pay all the tickets. Which is pretty freaking cool. Good people here in Bloomington. Good people. Someone also put a blunt in the collection jar. Feels funny to type 'blunt' so bluntly. Get it? That's ambiguity kids. And use/mention distinction all in the same sentence. It will be on the first exam. Study hard.

Chapter 3: it could be worse, at least I'm not a Michigan fan

Suffice it to say that watching Michigan football at the bar with [EDITED] is a risky proposition, particularly when they lose. Particularly when they lose to Appalachian State. He was three or four shots of Wild Turkey deep at half time and by the fourth quarter was berating a fellow Michigan fan at the next table for not "believing hard enough," slurrily threatening to "stab him in the heart with this fucking knife" (holding butter knife in air, making stabbing motion). Needless to say I got the hell out of dodge as soon as the clock ticked down to 0:00. No reason to get involved with what would surely be an ugly scene.

Chapter 4: southern Indiana sunrise, fly fishing in the heart of America

Left for Brookville today at 6:00am and watched the sunrise over cornfields in the glorious very early fall weather. A swollen blood orange fresh squeezed rich fuzzy velvet red juices dripping and bleeding onto the horizon as the half-crispy tall corn stalks stood guard by the highway for miles (I also came up with this last sentence on the drive to stay awake).

The Tricos were hatching, the hoppers were hopping and the tailwater called my name with its sweet siren song from across the state: "come waste a day with me Matthew, we know you're addicted to fishing". Indeed.

I caught somewheres around 10 fish which isn't so good for 11.5 hours of fishing, but I did take an hour break for a turkey sandwich and carrots. But still, the fishing was slow. The water is extremely low and the fish are extremely selective. They were feeding voraciously all day long but only occasionally deigned to sip my offerings. The Tricos were coming off but they didn't want the females I tied. Perhaps they were too big? #18 and #20 were probably too big. Perhaps the parachute style wasn't right? The tails were probably too long. So many variables. I tried the flat wing spinners to no success and they're just so freaking hard to see. Luckily I tied two all-black #24 flies and they liked those good enough. But fishing for good-sized browns with #24 flies and 7x tippet means two flies aren't going to last very long. And they didn't. But luckily I managed one fat pig of a brownie before I broke the second one off. The Brookville tailwater is going to hold some very large fish if things stay on track for the next few years.

I caught most of the others on #24 parachute ants (yes I'm way into tying parachute style dry flies these days, they just look cooler than the standard Catskill style) and a tiny, #28?, rainbow-sparkle midge emerger thing that a guide in Colorado gave me this summer to use in the lakes in the mountains for the Greenbacks. Only had one and broke it off as well. I also tied a bunch of Turck's Tarantulas for grasshopper imitations and broke one of them off on what seemed like a very large fish. That was early this morning and they showed no interest in that gangly, behemoth of a fly for the rest of the day. Grant was worried the Tarantula might scare the fish. Maybe that was it?

So I'm getting to the point with my fly tying where I think I'll try taking some pictures and posting them here. A new stage in the addiction? Photographing your flies? It's a slippery, slippery slope folks. Best to just stay off it altogether.

A #24 parachute ant pattern I tied. I like using just thread for the body of such a small ant and the fish seemed to like it pretty ok.



A #20 (?) female parachute Trico I tied. Tails are long.



A #6 Turck's Tarantula I tied. Spun deer hair heads look much better before you chuck around through the air, slappin' the water, etc. Now it looks like I deliberately shaped it to look like a dog's head.



The fat pig brown trout and its rippling blubber. Maybe she's full of eggs? That would rule. I hope I didn't mess that up. I'm not sure when Brown trout spawn in Indiana tailwaters. My giant paw and tree limb forearm make this trout look smaller than it really is I think. I'm just sayin. Click for bigger.



Hello little buddy.



Caught a nice rainbow which is a bit of an unlikely bonus as you're allowed to take up to five a day and most have gone the way of worm and bobber fisher dinner. Say that five times fast. Worm and bobber fisher dinner.



Ahhh trout fishing in picturesque Indiana. This is just below the dam. Obviously. Most of the river is actually bearable what with the trees and more or less natural banks. But this section is loaded with fish. Note the rise.



Now let's make some fun and easy fish art! Here's how: release fish and photograph under riffly water in full sunlight. Voila! Poppin' fresh dough! Click all for bigger.

The last one is my favorite. Make sure to check it out full size, particularly the top of the photo. It kind of blew my mind. Dude.