I am insulted. Following this post, I received some flak (yes, that is spelled correctly) about my new, clean-cut physical appearance. These fools presumed that the creature in the ad is me. Not in a million years. Here is a side by side comparison.

This is important. I am the one on the right. Note these features on the real Skunkmeister: facial hair (a must, and not some silly goatee), orange hat (gotta be that I-am-not-a-deer-bozo color), snow (lots of it), snowshoes (not just to hang on the wall), and a mug of hot tea (must be Smokey Joe Tea, not some frilly dress, rocking on the porch, sipping tea). If you need more evidence than this, do not return to the Skunk Report. Go instead to www.blind-as-a-bat.com and get your eyes fixed. Thank you.

If this does not convince you that humans tend to make problems worse rather than better, read this.

Note that poisoning the pike did not work a few years back, but, so what, we’ll spend more of the people’s money to do it again. Also note that this particular poison only kills creatures with gills. Great, now I feel much better about poisoning a large water system. We won’t even consider the fact that northern pike are a great gamefish in their own right (see right).

As a man of action, the vigilant Skunkmeister has referred the state of California to the UN for employing chemical weapons indiscriminately again their own people. The UN will now try to beat California down with endless resolutions and requests for bribes.

Wait a minute, maybe this poisoning technique, when applied to the Rio Grande, will help stem the tide of the little brown fish. Hey, if the little brown fish return to the river after a few years, we’ll just do it again!

A while ago, the Skunkmeister promised to do book reviews, and, therefore, procured a book. Well, that book degenerated into philosophizing after about six words. By the first 50 pages we had discussed all manner of uninteresting things, and so I put it down and said, “Fie on this nonsense.” If I want anecdotes about the minutiae of a trivial and stupid life, I’ll read my own stuff. I give it a P-factor of about 7 of 10. That is my first review.

Anyway, I have been reading about the unusual 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, whose pomposity factor was pretty significant. He led what the rest of us would consider a full life before he was 21. Anyway, a book about the last great adventure of his life, entitled River of Doubt, tells of Roosevelt’s little field trip down a previously unexplored river in the bowels of the Amazon basin. Apparently, the atmosphere was so oppressive that several North American members of the expedition swam like so:

The former president described as “a great, fat fish.” Naturally, my thoughts turned to invasive species.

This photograph was one of the first documented examples of an invasive species in a South American river system. The great fat fish, which became known south of the border as the Great White Gringo, is still a rarity, and, when spotted by locals, is greeted with much curiosity, hooting, and occasional gunfire.

Interestingly, a smaller and darker version of this fish is invading the river systems of North America, notably the Rio Grande.

These unusual variants generally swim in only one direction, and scientists speculate that these creatures have some undocumented internal compass that aims them to the north. These little brown fish spawn uncontrollably.

This is a problem that no scientist, engineer, chemist, or individual sharpshooter has been able to solve. Our government policy is to be nice to the little brown fish in the hopes that they will simply stop coming or at least stay out of sight, but that approach appears to be failing.

River of Doubt is a cool book and includes stuff about piranhas. Hey, maybe we should introduce piranhas into the Rio Grande and see if that helps reduce the burgeoning little brown fish population.

Once again, some people have been asking me how they can be advised of new posts without going through all that effort of looking it up themselves. How passive. Well, here is a quality graphic to show you where to go to subscribe to the Skunk Report. First, look up and to the right (on the screen, not in the room). You will see this link:

Click on the Subscribe link, do what it says, and you, too, can join the ranks of savvy fishermen who get an email whenever the Skunk Report is updated. Some of those savvy subscribers will no doubt be irritated that I have had to waste all this time reminding people about this process, but, tough beans. I don’t like it either. Now, back to the serious business of testing out my new fishing boat:

I’m particularly fond of the manly twin 0.005HP engines, each powered by a AAA battery you can buy at any store.

Someone told me that if this is supposed to be a fishing boat, there ought to be a rod holder. I’m sure it’s here somewhere. I’ll look for it when I’ve finished my beverage.

Email your entry to the First Annual Skunk Report Complete-the-Corny-Saying contest.

There is a real prize that you will really be ambivalent about owning and that has the potential to actually help you catch a fish, or at least have a good time while losing fish.

There are only 10 days left! Great entries are already in the hopper! Where’s yours!

Take it from the Skunkmeister. Don’t get skunked. Send entries to: bigjohn at skunkreport dot com.

I came across this bucolic scene of a man fishing off the breakwater with his wife at lunch time today:

I thought this was great, so I got out of the car and strolled down to the water’s edge. Their conversation was touching, a true testament to the institution of marriage:

Inspiring!

Every year, the boys at On The Water magazine hold an informal, totally non-competitive contest to see who can weigh in the biggest striper. At the Christmas party, the winner gets to keep all the entry fees. They let me participate because my $25 entry fee makes the pot bigger without any chance of my actually winning. It’s like free money to them. But this year it will be different.

Now, these guys know how to catch fish, and the annual OTW Striper Contest, also known as the OTW General Management Benefit Fund, is supposed to be done on your own time, but you know how that is. It’s hard to break into that elite echelon of winners. We need some fresh blood in here. So how can someone like me have a chance to win this thing? I have a strategy.

According to the OTW Striper Contest accountant, no one has put his money into the pool this year. Now, the rules say that if your money isn’t in, you don’t win, no matter how massive your striper is. So, I have quietly slipped my $25 to the OTW Striper Contest accountant, who has promised me that she will stop reminding everyone else to pay up. Now, these guys are always very busy, especially in the fall. Stay with me on this. They all forget to put in their cash, I catch one measly, barely-legal striper (or borrow one in a pinch), and voila, I win! It’s brilliant!

I am so confident that I was up early practicing my celebration dance:

Hey, wait a minute, if no one puts cash into the kitty, the only thing I will win is my own $25. Oh, well, that’s $25 more than I usually have at the end of this thing. I can’t wait to see the look on everyone’s face!

Announcing the first annual Skunk Report Complete-the-Corny-Saying contest! This year we will be completing this old corny saying: “Give a man a fish and (fill in the blank).” The winner is guaranteed to get a real prize of the judge’s choosing, plus recognition on the nation’s premier web site devoted to the fine art of fishing without catching. If your saying is morally acceptable, it may even wind up on a genuine bumper sticker! Can’t beat that!

For example, “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat and drink beer the rest of his life.”

My own personal favorite is: “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and you crush his spirit for life.”

The contest ends September 30, 2007. Send your entries to bigjohn at skunkreport dot com. If you can’t figure this out, you get this attractive booby prize:

Good luck and slack lines!

The Skunkmeister scored big last night at the Big Ditch. Here’s how it went down.

It was a dark and stormy night (really). Disdaining my map and compass, and carrying no provisions for the journey, I slogged through rain and muck, and arrived at the edge of the known world, the Cape Cod Canal. Here there be monsters.

Baitfish were hopping all along the edge, and birds lined the stony banks, hoping for fresh fish. I clipped on a brand new Hopkins and cast away. Nothing. A second cast and, pow! The Hopkins snapped off and sailed magnificently northward alone into the mist. What a cast!

I rerigged and tried an amber Hogy. A few casts later and, bam! A major league hit! But no hookup. I reeled in a shredded softbait. This was getting exciting.

I hooked on a 4 ounce leadhead with a Sluggo, lovingly prepared and donated by my friend Bill Dean. I cast that baby out and jigged it a few minutes, but nothing. I cast again, letting it slip to the bottom, and, oomph, it was sucked in by a what can only have been a monster striper! I set the hook, and the fun began.

The monster moved slowly and fitfully eastward with the strong current. I kept the pressure on and swung the monster closer to shore. Within five minutes it had hunkered down in the rocks. I slipped, stumbled, and staggered over the slick rocks in the dark, keeping that pressure on, moving toward the great monster and hoping to get around to the front of it. But this trophy was both smart and tough, and it stayed solidly entrenched. After another ten minutes of fighting, I tightened the drag just a smidgen and gave a mighty but steady pull on the rod and, snap! It was gone.

I will never know exactly what that monster fish was. I think it was a big-time, canny striper. Uber-piscator Andy Nabreski says it was probably a rogue lobster trap.

In any case, the evening was a great success. I did not drown. I did not break an ankle on the dark rocks. I hooked something large and spooky and fought it valiantly like Captain Ahab for almost fifteen minutes. I even came home with some gear to use next time. As you can see, here I am at the brink, with this here big yellow popper thingy that I plan to use next time.

Not bad for an evening’s work at the Big Ditch!

Check out this article.

These Colorado state biologists are hereby admitted en masse into the Skunk Report Hall of Fame! Congratulations, guys. Maybe you can come out here and get rid of our pesky brook trout population.