Sold up the River

"I don't take away 5,000 miles of public rivers often, but when I do I prefer to give them to private interests that include my brother-in-law. Stay wealthy my friends."

- The Most Mysterious Governor in the World

I penned the above satire today after confirmation that Utah Governor Gary Herbert (R) signed HB 141 into law. This legislation flies in the face of Utah's outdoor heritage, which has roots in over 100 years of history.

Wilford Woodruff, the man who oversaw Utah's statehood, was a fly fisherman circa 1847. He took to nearby rivers frequently, and recognized the importance of water in a desert landscape. The State's constitution was drafted with specific protections, explicitly proclaiming that water resources were owned in their entirety by the public.

An easement allowing recreation to take place on the public's waters - even where rivers and streams cross private land - has been upheld all the way to the Utah Supreme Court (Conatser v. Johnson, 2008).

Wealthy private interests (including Governor Herbert's brother-in-law) stand to profit from the privatization of these valuable resources. By wielding influence, back office politics, and the all-mighty dollar HB 141 is now a reality.

If you live in Utah and do not own waterfront property, your rights have been sold up the river. I urge you to review the voting records and determine how your representative voted. Individuals voting "YEA" sided with the money, and have placed Utah's $700 million recreation industry at risk during the biggest recession of modern times.

FIND YOUR REPRESENTATIVES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 141 VOTE

SENATE 141 VOTE

Run Silent, Run Deep

SOFTWATER....AT LAST.

Hitting stillwater after the long winter is as close to Nirvana as I can imagine. With a new season, I decided to experiment with a few new techniques. This image was captured by wetting the front element of my housing.

A deep breath after seeing the light of day...

Mass = Having weight & taking up space...

Another rainbow is homeward bound:

The leopard submarine:

When Shaggy isn't on the set of Scooby Doo, it is a little-known fact that he puts fly to water with reckless abandon. Cody applied hook to lip so many times on the trip that we had to begin using exponential notation.

JayMorr captured a healthy dose of images from the trip as well, so make sure to pay his blog a visit and continue the story at FlyFishermanForum.com.

iCarry 2 Much

Last weekend I traversed a river carrying what onlookers initially thought to be an adolescent pachyderm on my back. In actual fact, it was my photo pack carrying 2 camera bodies, 3 lenses, 1 strobe, spare batteries, various filters, and a full size tripod.

While staving off compression fractures of the L1-L5 vertebrae, it occurred to me that I should lighten up. Literally.

As an exercise in enjoyment, once in a while this season I am going to shoot on my iPhone. Using a measure of creativity and a layer of abstraction to overcome the technical limitations of the camera, smart phones can be powerful tools. Even better, many offer applications which can perform basic post processing, also eliminating the need to download and re-work images later.

Float like a butterfly, and sting with 3G.

Defrost

Winter really steams my olives. The seemingly interminable combination of short days and vast expanses of hard water get me feeling more bound up than a wheel-of-cheese diet. This morning dawned crisply enough to freeze my rod guides solid, but the sun was out and I was itching to flex the new Sage VT2 that I’ve had in hibernation the last 2 months.

Kind of a fun image - this was captured and post processed entirely on the iPhone. I will be posting some product photography and more thoughts on the VT2 down the road.

It was more of an exploratory venture today, checking out a piece of water that was entirely new to me. Fishing was slow but I enjoyed unfurling some casts with the new stick and putting fly to water for the first time this year.

Thanks to JayMorr for showing me some new stomping grounds. Check his blog over the next few days to see more imagery. This shot is courtesy of Jay, which I “cartoonified” in Photoshop.