Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Blogstipation

I tried to blog yesterday, but nothing came out.

It's not that there was nothing there, I just kept getting inturrupted. People expecting me to do stuff and all. Then when I got home, V. was firmly entrenched, playing Warcraft. He has just gotten a new subscription card, and it has been over a month since he was able to play, so I figured "WTF let him play, I'm blogstipated anyway."

Sunday I got up at zero dark thirty to go fishing. Here I live in a major metropolitan city, and at certain times, you can go catch a limit of salmon in the lake right here. There is a sockeye salmon run that goes up the Ballard Locks, through Lake Union, out into Lake Washington, down thru Renton and up the Cedar River to spawn.

They linger in the lake for a couple of weeks until whatever internal clock drives their lives clicks over and they get the urge. That urge must be pretty powerful, because the minute they hit fresh water, they start breaking down.

Spawning=death.

I am all enthusiastic about sex and everything, but death as a consequence would definitely make me think twice.

"Oh baby, oh baby I need you so bad"

"OK, but you're going to die"

"Can I reconsider this?"

At least with fish, it is equitable, because the fish BOTH die.

Not like praying mantises where the female literally bites the males head off WHILE they are copulating.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, sockeye.

The thing was, I also has a family reunion on Sunday, and I had to go pick up my mom.

So down to the lake, catch my limit of two fish, back home to clean and filet them, back down to bring my mom fresh salmon and pick her up for the reunion, back home to pick up Mrs A., off to the ferry terminal to catch the boat to Vashon Island. And all of this before noon. We missed the first boat by three cars, but that was OK with me. It gave me a chance to catch my breath.

Sockeye are wierd.

You don't use any bait or anything. By the time they hit the fresh water, they have quit feeding. So you use a flasher and trailing behind it about 18", bare hooks. For some reason they strike at bare hooks.

Oh, not just any bare hooks, they have to be red.

Why do they do it?

Not a clue.

4 comments:

Stacy The Peanut Queen said...

Not like praying mantises where the female literally bites the males head off WHILE they are copulating.

Yeah, I would think that's not good for ANYONES libido....;)

I love to fish and have often got up at dark-thirty (here it's usually about 3:30 or 4:00 AM) so I can sympathize with you. It's fun to fish but it sure sucks getting up that early, doesn't it?

Al said...

Denny: What, was I a little unfocused this morning? Or was that yesterday?

PQ: If I wanted to get up that time of the morning, I would have stayed on the Dairy Farm!

Rick said...

No offense, but I don't understand the whole "fresh salmon" thing. How is it fresh if it was scheduled to die of old age in another day or two? ;-)

Al said...

Rick. Better "Fresh salmon" which was still alive when I got it than "Aged beef" which has been slaughtered and then allowed to hang aound dead for a couple of weeks brfore it is cut up..