Fishing

I’m not an ice fisher, so when the lakes begin to thaw, I have to go searching for my tackle box that I put in some dark corner of my house in October, thinking that I wouldn’t be needing it anytime soon. My tackle box is generally at the bottom and back of a large stack of outdoor gear, mostly because it’s made of a sturdy plastic, which makes it ideal for stacking other boxes on top of it. After finding the tackle box, I always experience a wave of depression: all my Power Bait is too dry to use anymore, my pre-tied hooks are all tangled up because I didn’t take the time to organize them before shoving them in the tackle box, and more than half of the lures I bought the previous year are missing because they got caught on a rock or other obstruction while fishing and I had to cut them loose.
As I’m sure you can tell from my tackle box, I’m also not a fly-fisher, although I can tie flies. A mentor from my youth tried to show me how to fly-fish once, but I was only 13 and neither my patience nor attention span were my strong suits then. Fly-fishing appeals to me now (even though I still don’t know how to do it properly) because I find it to be the poetic form of fishing, and if anyone would like to show me the finer points of the sport, I’m available most Saturdays (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). The movie “A River Runs Through It” is one of my favorite films, and the fly-fishing scenes always make me want to run out and buy a bunch of gear to go fly-fishing with. However, when I arrive at the sporting goods store, I realize that good fly-fishing gear is not exactly within my budget, and I end up buying a Frisbee or something else so I don’t walk out of the store looking like I can’t afford anything.
The only kind of fishing I’ve ever really participated in is the “lazy” kind. You know, where you find a lake, find a big rock or log near the lake, cast your line out, lean your pole against that rock or log you found, set up a camping chair and veg out until the pole starts to jerk. That kind of fishing requires minimal effort, especially if you’re fishing for trout. Trout are so easy to fish for, considering the fact that they’ll swallow fluorescent pink Power Bait. I tried that stuff once (I didn’t ingest it, I just licked); it tasted like Play-Doh. I’m guessing the trout are swallowing it because it’s so pretty and smells like it should taste good (to a fish anyway; I never cared for the smell). Once a trout has swallowed the Power Bait, though, it probably thinks, “Omigosh! That tastes nothing like it looks or smells!” and then tries to spit it out. Unfortunately, the pretty pink Power Bait is stuck to a hook and as the fish spits it out, that’s when the hook catches in its lip. That’s how the stuff works. Pure physics.
The only part of fishing I don’t enjoy is the gutting. I remember going fishing with my brothers, dad, and some friends, and after catching 20 or so fish, I was the only person who had ever gutted one. I sat there for about an hour as my brothers watched on, both of them fascinated with the insides of the fish, yet neither one wanting to get their hands dirty. Oh sure, they’d catch the fish, but I had to finish the job. I felt like a Mafia goon. Since then I haven’t cared for ripping out the guts of a fish. It’s like plucking a chicken: it’s not fun, but if you want to eat it, someone has to do it. The only thing that makes the gut-ripping worth it, is when the fish is hot off the frying pan and sprinkled with lemon pepper. So here’s to fishing with Power Bait on a line that’s leaning against a rock!

What I Want

I want to go on a hike.
Alone.
I want to find myself
in a secluded meadow
where I can lie down
and enjoy the wildflower-soaked breeze.
I want to think thoughts
that the noise of the city
cannot drown out.
I want to sit up
and open my backpack
and retrieve a pad of paper
and a pencil.
I love pencils more than pens.
Pencils are much more reliable than pens.
And I can always
correct my mistakes
by simply erasing.
With pen, I scratch out mistakes
and they become more ugly than they started out.
I want to sit in that meadow,
listening to the wind
wander through the trees,
and imagine what I’d write in my notebook.
I’d write nothing,
but I’d think about what I’d write
if I were to write anything.
I’d allow my thoughts
to fill up the blank, white spaces of the world,
only to look down
and see a blank page.

Grillin' Time

Spring has supposedly sprung. The trees and plants outside my house still don’t know it, but I sure have noticed a difference in temperature. I like every season of the year, but I must admit that Spring is slightly less favored in my eyes. It’s too muddy for me. When Spring hits and the sun is shining so brightly, I want instant access to hiking trails. Unfortunately, I have to wait until the sun dries up all the slush leftover from winter, which typically takes a couple months or more.
With all of the blossoms and other plants growing, Spring is a beautiful time of year. I am the type of person, though, who wants to interact with nature, not just admire it, and as such I grow impatient during Springtime. Don’t get me wrong; there is plenty to do outside as the earth unthaws, but Spring activities, such as flying kites and planting a garden, are not as adventurous as Summer, Fall and Winter activities can be.
Waiting for hiking trails and campgrounds in the higher mountain areas to open can wear on a person. To avoid going crazy, there is one activity that can help while away the hours: grilling. Number one, grilling food can sometimes make you smell like you’ve been sitting around a campfire, thus cutting down on the campfire craving that mainly men inexplicably experience every year. Number two, grilling gives you an excuse to invite a bunch of people over and enjoy each other’s company as you wait for the shish kebabs to cook. And number three (this is for the women), it gets the man, and sometimes multiple children, out of the house.
Now, I grill all year-round, while most people put their grill in storage from October until April. I’m also a grilling purist, which means I only grill over charcoal. None of that gas stuff for me. Two to three times a week I can be found outside my house staring in a trance at the flames dancing in my grill as they consume the briquettes. I love grilling at night after the flames have died down and the charcoal shimmers, ripples and glows. Sometimes I get the urge to light a bunch of briquettes on fire, even though I don’t have any meat or veggies to cook, just to watch them burn. Fire will never lose its intrigue. Mostly because it’s magic. The modern man is able to allow such a primitive technology as fire to captivate him because it’s like the television: magic.
I’m always looking for new things to grill. I once went to one of those fancy Brazilian restaurants, where they bring spits of meat around to each table and cut you off a slice. Sometimes the waiters brought out boring old meats, like steak, pork and chicken, but every now and again one would bring out something exotic, like rattlesnake or buffalo or chicken hearts. Those Brazilians aren’t afraid to grill anything up. They’ll even tackle fruits and vegetables. Crazy. Ever since eating grilled pineapple at one Brazilian restaurant, I’ve had to grill my own pineapple at home once a month or so. There is nothing like hot pineapple juice dripping down your chin onto your shirt as you sit there and say, “Hot, hot, hot! Oh, oh, oh!”
Besides grilling new foods, I also like to experiment with seasonings. It’s like Chemistry class, except I’m usually pretty sure nothing’s going to blow up unexpectedly. I’m not sure if I should be ashamed that I have more seasonings and spices for grilling in our spice cupboard than my wife has for “indoor” cooking. I’ve recently been using a lot of a seasoning called “Tuscan Blend.” It’s got a nice overall taste as well as a nice little spicy kick. Lately, the spicy kick has helped me forget the pain of not being able to hike up to the top of a mountain in the high Uintahs. Spices have become my whiskey. My wife has woken up many a time in the middle of the night and has had to remove a canister of Tuscan Blend from my hands. Someday, though, Spring will end and Summer will take over with its exciting array of outdoor activities. Until then, I will continue to grill and bide my time.

Cougars

I grew up in Rose Canyon, Utah, a cozy little community just south of the Kennecott Copper Mines. That was before the big housing explosion and there were virtually no houses where the bulk of Herriman now sits today. Not much has changed at my parents’ house, luckily. It is just as secluded as it was 15 years ago. Every winter we had to be aware of the wildlife coming down the mountain, foraging for food. The most dangerous animal we had to worry about was the cougar, or mountain lion.
Last week three young cougars were sighted near the University of Utah campus. I watched the surveillance video from the parking complex where they were playing. They looked like three teenagers who had just skipped school just to waste time. You could almost hear one of them as he perused the facility: “Hey, bros! I just totally found a sweet drop-off into a snow pile like ten feet down. Who’s coming with me?” And then one-by-one they leapt from view off a ledge to the snow below. The young cougars looked like they were having the time of their lives. Their moms had no idea they had skipped out on “How to Attack Humans From Behind 101.”
When cougars were sighted around Rose Canyon, my parents would always remind us children, “Cougars prefer little humans, so stay close to the house or you’ll probably get eaten.” Cougars quickly replaced the Boogie Man in bedtime stories. Interestingly enough, I found out later in life that the Boogie Man is purely fictitious, while cougars really do prefer child to adult.
I remember waking up one morning when I was 13 or 14 and hearing my little sister cry as she ran in the house, “Bows is dead! Bows is dead!” Bows was our cottontail rabbit we kept in a chicken-wire cage just outside the house. We had a couple of rabbits, Bows and Thumper (original, I know). When I walked outside to take a gander, I noticed big paw prints in the snow outside the cage. The wood that formed the bottom of the cage was splintered and pieces of wood were strewn about in the snow. The tracks matched those of a cougar. That was the first day I saw physical evidence of a cougar, and judging by the paw size, I knew cougars were not cute little woodland creatures that simply waited around for princesses to sing to them. They were killers. A cougar had killed Bows. Well, actually Bows died of fright, I’m sure, but the cougar had technically instilled that fright.
Bows may not have died if he had not panicked. Apparently, big cats can sense emotions much better than men (women are pretty good at that game), and panicking is like throwing up a red flag for cougars. Riles ‘em up. If cougars know they are supremely dominant, they make sure they prove it by destroying their opponent. Don’t play the dominance game with cougars. If you look them in the eye, they take that as a challenge, much like poker games in the wild, wild West: Carlos looks Old Man Crandall in the eyes and squints, then moves his gaze over to Bruce, who stares right back, and suddenly guns are appearing from nowhere and everybody else in the bar is trying to figure out what happened, because those poker players had been so quiet for so long. Don’t stare a cougar down, and don’t try to win at the quick-draw. Cougars don’t carry guns, but they do carry some pretty wicked claws, and they’re fast too.
If you happen to find yourself near a cougar, try to remember a few things: Don’t panic like Bows; Avoid eye contact; Don’t run or turn your back to them; Walk slowly backward as you raise your arms to appear bigger and yell. I would suggest imagining that the cougar is an annoying co-worker or neighbor. Then you can use the same insults that you may have used on that person and it might help relieve some stress on your part. If the cougar takes offense, though, and decides to attack, fight back. You may not have claws, but you may be able to knock it out with a good uppercut or blow to the neck. If you’re lucky, you’ll encounter one of those school-skipping cougars and they won’t know how to fight very well anyway.

Get On Outside!

Pierre Bourdages has appeared in a previous column of mine. He is a ski instructor at Deer Valley Resort. Pierre is also an inspirational speaker. I would call him a motivational speaker, but he is adamant that he does not motivate. His presentations are all about attitude. ‘What does any of this have to do with the outdoors?’ you are quietly asking in your mind. ‘I’m getting there; hold on,’ I reply even quieter in my mind.
During part of Pierre’s speech he addresses the change in trends regarding the playing environment of young people today. He says, “Back in my day, if I was a real pest, my mother used to say, ‘Pierre, if you don’t stop right now, you will not go out and play with your friends!’ but I would say, ‘No, no, no, mother. I want to go out and play with my friends.’ Nowadays, I say to my son, ‘If you don’t stop right now, you will go outside!’ and he says, ‘No, no, no, father. I don’t want to go outside!’” I’m sure a few of my readers can relate to this phenomenon of children staying indoors to play with their friends.
I grew up in a neighborhood near Salt Lake City where we played night games every night during the summer. Kick-the-Can, Commandos, and Hide-and-Seek never seemed to get old. Now kids play soccer, basketball, and football from the comfort of their couch…on a video game console. I learned how to play basketball the old-fashioned way: I waited to be picked last, other people bounced the ball around and never passed it to me, and the only time I touched the ball was when it bounced off the back board and hit me in the face.
I’m getting closer and closer to the great outdoors with every paragraph, I promise. In this one I’m going to jump right in. What ever happened to camping on the hard ground and enjoying dinner made over a campfire? Sure, people still do it, but many campers roll up in a big ol’ trailer with their unnatural yellow and white trailer lights casting weird, pale glows over the shrubs and pine trees of the forest. I have a hard time replacing my campfire with unnatural light. Number one, you can’t tell a good ghost story over a bright white light. Number two, you can’t cook a marshmallow over fluorescent bulbs. They get a little warm, but they don’t do much.
With technology today, it is easy to forget about the wonder and charm of nature. I would like to challenge everyone within reading distance to plan more outdoors activities this year. 2010: The Year of the Outdoors. That’s what they’ll call it in history books; I can see it now. But seriously, leave your Gameboys and laptops and fancy iPhones at home and go enjoy the beauty of a serene mountain lake, or listen to the complex sounds of wildlife. I cannot wait until the mountains are green with new vegetation and the trails are just begging to be hiked. There is so much to see and so much to explore, and I’ve only got two eyes and two feet.
We live in a time when most of the land on earth has been explored and catalogued in atlases and maps. That doesn’t mean that we, as individuals, cannot explore and rediscover the splendor of Mother Nature. Once again, I challenge you with the task of discovering and rediscovering amazing landscapes, sunsets and peculiarities that are unique to the Utah outdoors. Learn about the plants and animals. You could learn about them on the Internet, but it’s not as fun and the Internet won’t allow you to experience poison ivy for yourself. There are certain things that technology just can’t improve on, and I hope you know what those certain things are. If you don’t, I’ll see you on a mountainside or on a hiking trail. Just make sure you hide the iPhone before I see it, though.

Forever Young

When I asked my friend if she would like to go tubing, she replied, “What? In the middle of the winter?” Apparently, we were both speaking different languages. I am a winter person who enjoys the occasional summertime activity, and my friend is a summer person who seems to enjoy wintertime activities as an afterthought. I ski; she kayaks. Snow excites me; a warm breeze makes her daydream. When I said “tubing,” I was referring to the act of riding rapidly down a snowy hill on a piece of rubber shaped like a donut; she imagined us floating down a frozen river in our swimming suits on pieces of rubber shaped like donuts. I suppose I could have cleared up any confusion by simply asking if she would like to go snow tubing, but I am male and it’s in my nature to resist clearing up any confusion.
After the confusion finally cleared, we agreed to plan a snow tubing trip with our spouses. Being the spry, young people we are, we chose to go tubing at a groomed hill, where all we had to do was hook our tubes to a tow rope and let it carry us to the top of the hill. Sure, it cost some money, and I’m not sure if the two hours of tubing were worth $20 (yes, I paid $20 per person to ride down a hill on a tube; I’m ashamed), but I wasn’t sore the next day from using muscles I only use while running up a snowy tubing hill.
As we stood in line waiting for a hook to take us up the hill, other tubers would look at us, wondering where our children were. But the joke was on them. We didn’t have any children. Between four twenty-something adults, there wasn’t a single child. Not even half. I must say our little group was quite the oddity. I almost felt like grabbing someone else’s kid and paying them to stay with us so we didn’t stick out.
Even though we were childless, we were giddy with tubing excitement. After sliding to the bottom of the hill, we would jump up and run (despite the sign that clearly read, “NO RUNNING”) to get in line again for the next ride. I think I saw my friend at one point shove a six-year-old out of the way trying to get to the front of the line. Or maybe that was me. Anyway, we were going to get our $20 worth of tubing that night one way or another.
I believe we set a speed record for tubing that night. Unfortunately, the Guiness Book of World Records staff wasn’t around and so we can’t prove that we were actually tubing at speeds of 70-80 mph. You’ll just have to take my word for it. By linking ourselves loosely to each other, we were able to kick and shove our neighbor’s tube down the hill, increasing our speed at alarming rates. We often overshot the small hills at the end, which were designed to slow tubes down. Those small hills proved no match for us.
If you are now jealous and want to try tubing for yourself, you have a few nearby choices: Gorgoza Park near Jeremy Ranch, Soldier Hollow near Heber, or the hill behind your house. The hill behind your house is the cheapest option, and there isn’t a fancy rope to pull you up. As far as the “upscale” hills go, I enjoy Soldier Hollow just a tad bit more than Gorgoza Park, but both will sate all your tubing desires. Hurry though; the weather is fixing to melt all the snow before we can really enjoy it this year. Before you know it, I’ll be a winter person writing about an occasional summertime activity.