All fisherman are liars

East coast fisherman Linda Greenlaw had it right when she stated, “All fisherman are liars.“  I tell you, fishermen are physically incapable of telling the truth, the whole truth and nothin’ but the truth, so help us cod. It’s in our DNA. Fisherman does two things.   We lie about the amount of fish we catch, the amount of fish we don’t catch.  We lie about where we caught them and when and how we caught them. We lie about how big it was…or wasn’t. We catch fish and we lie. 

So when asked if this blog is true, true to form, I answered, “as true as any fisherman can tell a tale.”  I stick to that.  Having said that, some names that I use in my blogs have been changed in order to protect the innocent, or the guilty, whichever the case may be.   Being that I’m talking about fisherman, the latter is probably more often the case.  Having said that, I want to revisit my disclaimer, which I wrote when I started this blog a few years ago, which is, as follows.  Here goes: NOT ALL THIS IS TRUE!  In fact, none of it may be true at all.  Or, a little may be true or true-ish. Or, it may have actually happened, but years ago.  You decide.  So, when I poke fun at the skipper or tell a story about a trip, or whatever, I may not be talking about the current trip, or even the current season.  You pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down?  This blog is for entertainment purposes only and the scuttlebutt is all in good fun.  OK, just needed to clarify since I live in a small town and rumors fly and someone just gave me a pillow that said, “Be nice to me or you’ll end up in my novel”. 

Having said that, I do really fish.  Honest.

In fact, fishing has been pretty good this year on the Copper River so far.  Near record runs have the counter going like crazy.   The count to date is 306,816 fish up the river verses and anticipated 129,500. The next opener is for 48 hours on Thursday, May 31.

The last opener, which was Monday, though a bit slower than the rest, was still pretty good, even if the weather did turn to shit.  East 35.  Rain. .  “A hair parter” according to my buddy Philbert.  The forecast isn’t any nicer for this next one, either.  E 45 seas 13 feet. I ran into my other buddy Lyle and said, “Yeah, did you hear the forecast?  45.”  “45 degrees?”  Asked Lyle.   Valid question being that is been hovering around the mid- 40s for the past few days. “Both.”  I said,  “It is 45 out right now but its supposed to blow 45”.  That’s not going to be much fun.  Its never a good time when the temperature is the same as the wind speed.  A good diet plan though.  It will be too sloppy to cook, might be too sloppy to eat and what you do eat might re-visit ya anyhow.  That South Beach diets got nothing on the Copper River Flats diet.  Between that and the cold weather, the pounds should fall right off.  I know I’ve been freezing my butt off lately, though more figuratively than literally.  45 degrees is colder than I experienced all winter!  I’m not acclimatized being that I spent my winter sailing in Florida.  As a matter of fact it’s colder in this house than it was all winter in Florida.   My emergency Patagonia order arrived just in time.  I had to order a warm vest, ski socks and fleece hoody, then I trotted down to Copper River Fleece (http://www.copperriverfleece.com/hoodiefemale.html) and picked up another spare fleece hoody just in case to go with my long johns, hat, multiple jackets and liners for my gloves.  I think I’ll get some of those hand warmers, too.   Yes, it is that cold out there.  Between the wind and the rain and the cold fish and the cold ocean. Brrr.  I know it’s been hot around the country and has been in the 90s in Ohio so it probably hard to imagine that we still have snow and did I mention cold? There’s nothing too much worse than picking cold fish with ice-cold hands.  Kind of makes the process a bit more unpleasant.  Honestly.