What's Your Frickin' Problem with my Crocs?

Sometimes a HHMM needs a comfy pair of shoes; a pair of shoes that cushion those tired dogs at the end of a long day in the pursuit of the HHMM arts.  What features would the ultimate pair of end of day shoes have?  The would have to be lightweight... if you have been lifting a pair of mud caked boots or sopping wet wading shoes all day, you want to free those tired lower appendages from unnecessary burden.  Those shoes would also be well ventilated... if you have been hiking or wading all day, chances are your feet are the color and texture of a good old fashioned English crumpet, and they need to be air dried.  Finally, they need to have good cushion and be slip on... nobody wants to bend over to tie shoes onto sore, swollen feet, and those feet need a firm, but tender bed in which to rest.  Thanks to the marvel of modern molded foam resins, such a shoe exists, and thank goodness for Crocs.

Good to see these old friends at the end of a cold, wet morning.

I have become acutely aware in recent weeks that there are many people in this world that hate Crocs.  At least four people have teased me about my love and use of that most comfortable shoe. The ultimate insult came, however, when I was watching the latest Sacha Baron Cohen film The Dictator.  In the film, the main character General Aladeen, wonders why he has just been derided by a subordinate for wearing Crocs.  The subordinate replies, "because they are the universal symbol of a man who has given up hope."  A piece of satire on The Daily Rash claims the same, and that Croc wearers are using the shoe to let the world know they are low-self esteem losers.

WTF?  Sorry my slippers don't come from J. Crew.

Turns out, Crocs are actually pretty bad ass in a number of outdoor settings as well.  Crocs are light enough to be strapped on a backpack and barely be noticed, yet they meet all of the comfort requirements described above.  They may be the ultimate relaxation shoe for a weight conscious backpacker.  Something about the tread design also makes them fairly sticky on wet rocks, which also make them nice for a stream crossing... keep your boots dry.  Sticky on wet rocks? Wear them fishing too!  Perfect for a warm day in the drift boat. If you want to get out and cast an Adams to fish rising in a riffle, no problem!

I suppose they are a little silly.  They are a bit like little girls' jelly shoes for adults, and they do come in a whole rainbow of colors.  You can even purchase little plastic charms to put in the holes, effectively adding pieces of 'flair' to your plastic shoes.  That does hint of throwaway consumer garbage crap.  Are they an anti-fashion statement? Perhaps that is the problem.  Does it bother people that I couldn't care less if my feet look cute. They certainly don't fit the search image of what some hipster girl wants when looking for a dude wearing women's pants and a pair of Italian leather elf shoes.

Don't take this as a Croc advertisement.  Go buy yourself a pair of Marlins or some other knock off.  They might not last as long, but they sure feel good when you are mixing the brine and sharpening the fillet knife at the end of a day of whacking and stacking whitefish and trout.  Trust me, you want your girl to care a whole lot more that you put an elk in the freezer than you remembered to buy your Sperry Topsiders before Greek Week.  Chicks dig a provider.

The Mini-HHMM demonstrating proper fashion for the production of backyard foodstuffs.  He is living proof Crocs don't affect fitness (in the evolutionary sense, Frat Boy).

Christmas in July.

Fall hunting season begins well before the first arrow is nocked in an antelope blind, or the first smoking shells are ejected from a family heirloom in the grouse woods.  Hunting season begins in the spring and it begins with a cup of coffee and a fresh copy of the new big game regulations.  Any self-respecting HHMM (or HHMW) spends many hours pouring over the newspaper print pages trying to piece together the most epic fall possible.  Google Earth tabs stay open on the computer for weeks on end.

Of course there is always dreams of drawing that once in a lifetime trophy hunt, but really it always comes down to how to put the most meat possible in the freezer.  You know the phrase "make hay while the sun shines?"  That applies to hunting big game.  You should always get as many cow tags, extra deer tags, and antelope tags as you can.  Why?  Because you never know when you will have a few tough seasons, or when life gets in the way of shopping for gourmet cuts in the prairies, canyons, and wooded ridges.  For example, the Mini-HHMM was born right around the start of the whitetail deer rut.  Getting out to hunt deer isn't all that easy with a newborn keeping you on your toes at 2:30 in the AM, but lean red meat is important to a healing, breastfeeding, new mom.  Good thing I had gone on safari in eastern Montana the previous fall.

So we waited with bated breath for that fateful moment in July, when that all important mailing comes from the state.  Like a letter from your number one college, you want to see the word congratulations in the first sentence.  Damn, didn't draw that antelope tag again.  Somehow I never do, even when the odds aren't that bad.  Pop pop and I didn't get our tags for fat cow elk either.  At least the letter from my safely school is more positive.  Emily and I will be doing our best to fill the freezer with a couple of mule deer tags this fall.  It isn't exactly the Christmas in July we were asking for, but it sure will be epic!

100% (Chicks!!! Part IV)

It is all paying off!!! Right?

$36 for chicks
$50 for feed
$30 for brood box and equipment
$150 for coop and run supplies
$40 for various chicken how-to guides
$40 for something I am sure I forgot we bought
------
$346 (somebody check my math)

We have now collected 7 eggs from our flock (~$50/egg).  Quite the deal, right?

We have eaten five of those oeufs, and they really were spectacular (in taste, certainly not size).  In fact, Emily and I celebrated our first four eggs by showcasing them in a special meal.  Emily had the brilliant idea that we should eat a meal where 98% of the ingredients were produced on our little third of an acre.  The remaining two percent (not including the minimal spices) was gathered HHMM style.  Here is the recipe:

Enough romaine lettuce and arugula for two
7 new potatoes
3 beets
1 red onion
10 camas bulbs, sliced in half
4 fresh eggs
2 tablespoons olive oil

Quarter and roast the vegetables (not the greens!) in the oven until the onion is caramelized at something like 425 degrees.  Season with a little kosher salt and pepper.  Place roasted roots over a bed of greens, then fry eggs over easy (HHMM) or over medium (Emily).  Place fried eggs over the roasted roots.  Puncture the yolk and let it drain into the roots and greens and enjoy a heavenly and rich dressing.  Eat a meal that is 100% DIY.

Actually, this meal, as Emily pointed out, was rather poetic.  The one major ingredient that came from outside our short little property line was the camas, which I dug near the headwaters of the South Fork Clearwater River in a wet meadow that not too long ago was flooded with spring snow melt.  That meadow has since drained and those waters percolated, gurgled, bubbled, raged, and surged down Red River, down the South Fork Clearwater, down the Clearwater River, where a tiny portion of that water was sucked out of the river by the pump owned collectively by those of us who live in our little neighborhood.  Finally, that water was sprayed out over our garden, where beets and onions and potatoes have been growing.  So really, the same water that helped sprout that lavender colored camas, also made our potatoes sprout little lavender flowers.  How many meals give you a sense of place like that?

Yes, I know the olive oil was probably imported from Spain or some such... but hey... not too shabby!

So has it been worth it?  You be the judge...

 

A Contrast in Styles

Encyclopedia authors have a thing or two to say about a couple of the rivers of Idaho.  The St. Joe is the highest navigable river in the world.  The Snake River's dammed slack waters make Lewiston the most inland seaport on America's west coast.  In addition to their extremes of navigability, these rivers also boast world class fisheries.  Nevertheless, those fisheries, and the reaches of the river where they occur, couldn't be a greater contrast in styles.  I fished them last week over consecutive days.

Sturgeon are big fish and require big gear.  Rods designed for giant saltwater fish, reels with hundreds of yards of 60 pound test monofilament and 80 pound leaders, railroad spikes for sinkers, slabs of bait the size of your palm..  You can use rafts or fish from the shore when chasing these beasts, but a jet boat works better... you might have to chase a eight foot long fish down to the next pool and back up again.

Catching a sturgeon in the Hells Canyon Reach of the Snake River is one of the truly exhilarating sportfishing experiences of the Pacific Northwest.  Hells Canyon is a stunning example of Idaho's country.  It is steep, deep, hot, nasty, rocky and hot.  Yep, I mentioned hot twice.  During our journey up the river Monday, the high temperature in Lewiston surmounted the 100 mark.  Constant evaporative cooling from regular dips in the river was the only way to feel good.  Water temperatures were perfect, though.  Sturgeon like to eat when the water is 65 degrees.  Our group landed 11 sturgeon, 6 over 6 feet long, and one taped in at 8'9".  What amazing animals.

That's Emily's first Sturgeon... a 7.5 footer

Fishing for Sturg in Hells Canyon

In contrast, westslope cutthroat trout are considered big when they hit about 13 inches.  Delicate flyrods designed for casting hand-tied weightless flies on the end of invisible tippet, bait is illegal (at least on the Joe) and would be eschewed.  We used a raft to float a long and catch many fish, but we also strolled along side channels and good runs and casted our flies to fish rising on the other side... you could reach 'em, as long as you had a big enough mend.

Flycasting to cutthroat trout on the St. Joe River is one of the truly poetic sportfishing experiences in the Pacific Northwest.  The St. Joe River is lined with cottonwoods in its lower reaches, but cedars dominate the upper reaches I most like to fish.  The day was warm, but the emerald and gold waters were cold and full of fine, fat trout.  The river bottom is paved with colorful cobblestones and mortared with garnet sand.  Sips of cold microbrew and the jovial banter of three anglers made the day feel good.  Our group landed dozens of fat westslopes, some as big as 14 inches.  Couldn't have been a better, more relaxing way to spend the day.

Pop Pop with a fine westslope on the Joe

My Home River

These fishes are my current favorites to chase.  They represent the ends of the Idaho native sportfish spectrum.  What I like most about my two days of fishing last week is that the diversity of these animals mirrors the diversity of Idaho's riverscapes, and the diversity of ways to experience them...

Happy Father's Day, Pop Pop

Pop Pop didn't become Pop Pop until the Mini-HHMM came along.  Before that he was Dad, or Pa, but mostly Dad.  My insatiable thirst for rivers, my unrelenting hunger for mountains and prairies, and the critters hidden within them... that came from Dad.  By the time I had attained memorable consciousness, my dad was an idealistic biologist, whose love for wide open spaces, productive rivers filled with fat trout, and a world of unstudied resources, endowed him with a whimsical curiosity and a contagious sense of purpose.  In his mind's eye, he could see the high deserts of the Snake River Plain still dotted with herds of bison, with a grizzled trapper covered in animal skins moving between them on his way to a rendezvous in Jackson Hole.  His imagination was powered by the magical country in which he ran, and by the history of those who ran the country before him.  That kinda thing rubs off on a kid.

When Dad went fishing, I wanted to go.  When Dad went bird hunting, I wanted to go.  I wanted to see the country that impassioned my father.  When I was small, I couldn't always tag along... you can't fish as hard or walk as many miles of railroad tracks chasing birds with a six year old slowing you down.  I certainly understand that now, and maybe I understood it pretty well back then too, but when I got to go fishing with Dad, that was a big deal.  I don't know if he did it on purpose or not, but he sure made me crave the opportunity to be outside, to float on the river and catch fish, to sit in a blind and hope to fool a duck.  Sometimes I feel like I can't remember the vast majority of what I learned in ten years of higher education.  I certainly can't remember how to prove a theorem in geometry.  The experiences I have shared with Dad in the magical landscapes of Idaho... those are etched, seared, tattooed, engraved in my most cherished memories.

So for Father's Day, I thought I would put together a timeline of the greatest hits of some of these memories.  The dates may be off by a little, but the experience is right at the heart.

~1985~ Dad puts me on my first fish, a mature, gravid, female Yellowstone cutthroat in the stream where he did his master's studies.  I broke his heart when I made him kill the fish so I could eat it, then didn't like how it tasted.

~1988~ Dad takes me on a camp-out under the cottonwood canopy of the South Fork Snake River.  We did a little fishing, but most importantly we shared a campfire together and he helped me make warrior sticks (my descriptor), which are nothing more than dead tree branches with a sharpened end.

~1990~ Dad takes me on a father-son camping trip to the Jarbidge River.  This is a remote corner of Idaho... really, it gives me my first taste of wilderness.  I find marmot skulls and catch rainbow trout at will, thus making this the coolest place I had ever been, bar none.

~1990~ Dad takes me, my cousin Robb, and my Uncle Bill on a float down the South Fork Boise River.  I enjoy my first true Idaho whitewater experience, Robb and I catch monster rainbows on Rooster Tails.  Dad is a demi-god for rowing Raspberry Rapid.

~1991~ Dad takes my Uncle Chris and me fishing on the St. Joe River.  Uncle Chris moons me.  I get skunked all day long until I throw my Panther Martin into "The Wonder Pool," the most picturesque fishing hole I have ever seen on a trout stream.  I catch what may have been my very first westslope cutthroat trout.  The St. Joe becomes "The Family River."

~1993~ One day before my 13th Birthday, on my first duck hunt, I harvest my first animal that doesn't have gills, a fat hen mallard.  Dad gives me the shotgun I killed the bird with as an early birthday present.

~1993~ As punishment for some wrong I committed against my mother, I am allowed to go duck hunting, but I am not allowed to take my shotgun with me.  This may have been the last time I was grounded.

~1994~ With no wetsuits or drysuits, Dad, Uncle Chris, and I run the Moyie River during spring runoff.  Dad nearly flips the raft at Eileen Dam, I witness the true power of river hydraulics for the first time, and Uncle Chris nearly floats out of the raft and down the river.  Dad saves the day with one final desperate stroke to keep the boat from flipping.

~1995~ Dad teaches me a lesson about hormones getting in the way of good judgement after he kills a sex-crazed tom turkey on a spring hunt.

~1996~ Dad hands me the keys to our Isuzu Trooper, Gus, for the first time.  In this vehicle I get my first taste of being an independent mountain man, though not so hairy yet.

~1997~ Dad and I share one of the most exciting moments of each of our lives when, after an hour or more of tracking, we recover my first elk after I made a poor, albeit ultimately fatal shot.  One day later, Dad kills his first elk and we learn together what it is like to make multiple five mile hikes with a load of meat on our backs.  I drink my first whisky in elk camp.

~1999~ I graduate high school.  Dad builds me a fly rod for my graduation gift.

~2001~ Dad, our hunting partner, and I each kill cow elk within 40 yards of each other, within half an hour of each other, on the last day of our elk hunt.  We learn what it is like to carry 2/3 of an elk in one trip.  Good thing my elk was a calf.

~2003~ Dad and my beautiful mother give me a canoe for my college graduation gift.  I have paddled that canoe with Chinook salmon in Idaho and with roosterfish in Mexico.

~2003~ For the first time, Dad takes me on his annual Male Bonding fishing trip in October.  This is a legendary trip full of larger than life participants.  This was a true right of passage into manhood.

~2004~ One day after I harvest a deer, I put my dad on the same spot and he harvests a fat whitetail doe.  This is the only time either of us has had whitetail deer hunting dialed in 19 years of hunting the damnable creatures.

~2005~ I move to Montana for graduate school, but Dad and I still kill elk together in Idaho.

~2006~ I meet the woman of my dreams and take her mule deer hunting.  We hike to the spot where Dad and I killed our first elk.

~2007~ Dad puts me on the last elk I killed (I know, it has been too long!) on the first morning of our hunting trip.  Emily (the woman of my dreams) and I harvest our first Montana mule deer on the first day of our hunting trip.  The first person I call is Dad.

~2008~ I marry the woman of my dreams on the banks of the river where I am doing my doctoral research... studying westslope cutthroat trout... Dad stands next to me as my best man.

~2010~ I determine that my skills as an angler surpass those of my father :)

~2010~ Dad kills his first Antelope with Emily and me in Montana.

~2011~ I move back to Idaho and Dad and I rediscover our love of waterfowl hunting together.  Dad becomes Pop Pop.

~2012~ I net Dad's first Steelhead on a fly rod.

~2013~ ...Hey Dad, we can't spend Father's Day together, but will you go fishing with me next weekend?  Are you pumped about hunting season yet?

Happy Father's Day, Pop Pop

Green Peas and Garlic Scapes

Early treats from the garden are some of the most exciting.  Nothing drives away the doldrums of winter and the dreary rains of spring like the first greens and peas harvested from the garden.  Over the last weekend, we harvested garlic scapes.  These are the flower-like tips of hardneck garlic varieties.  Cutting the scapes encourages greater growth of the garlic bulb, but it also provides nice kitchen fodder for the evening meal.  Think crunchy vegetable, like fresh asparagus... and yes, they are garlicky.  We made two meals over the past weekend that included garlic scapes.  For the second of these meals, we did nothing more than saute sections of the scapes in butter and sprinkle them with some kosher salt.  Then we served them with some rare grilled whitetail deer backstrap, an arugala salad, and homemade marinated mushrooms.  We ate it on our back patio while the mini-HHMM played under a giant green sycamore tree with sunlight filtering through the leaves and a warm early summer breeze keeping the smoke from the Weber away from the table.  Does life get any better than that?

According to the World-Wide-Web, this is a good time to harvest scapes... when they make their first full curl.

One of my favorite ways to put fresh off the vine vegetables to use is in a stir-fry.  Cooking in a carbon steel wok over high heat and for a short period of time is one of the best ways I have found to cook vegetables and still showcase their freshness.  We employed the wok to render us an epic snow pea, garlic scape, and venison stir fry.  Here is the recipe (remember, I don't measure so you probably shouldn't either, use the volumes and quantities described as a rough guideline only.  Just keep adding the stuff listed below until it tastes good):

1 small pile of snow peas picked from the garden
1 slightly smaller pile of fresh garlic scapes, cut in to 1"-2" lengths
1/2 pound venison strip steaks cut from backstraps or hind quarters, shaved in to even, bite-sized chunks
1/4 cup canola or peanut oil
1 tablespoon chili paste, Sriracha, or other Asian chili sauce (adjust to taste)
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon garlic powder, or 3-4 crushed cloves
1 teaspoon ginger powder, or 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon ground mustard

For the marinade: combine the chili paste, fish sauce, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, and mustard in a bowl and whisk.  Add the meat and allow to marinade for an hour or more.

Add the oil to the wok and turn the heat to high.  Remove the meat from the marinade (save the liquid) and put the meat in the wok once it starts to smoke.  Stir fry the meat until it is brown on the outside (won't take long) then remove the meat and set aside.  Add the peas and garlic scapes and stir fry for a minute or so.  Add a portion of the left over marinade as a cooking liquid and stir fry for another minute or so.  The vegetables should still be bright green when you remove them from the heat.  Add the meat back into the wok and stir.

Assuming you remembered to start cooking your rice on time, dinner is served.

Urgin' For Sturgeon

I don't like to pay for "seafood."  Fish and the like are expensive, and, as often as not, they are harvested in an unsustainable manner.  I have a problem... I like to eat fish.  The clear solution is to harvest fish in sport fisheries within the bounds of the rules, limits, and regulations.  Over the last few years, I have become increasingly focused on harvest when I fish.  Fish taste good, they are good for you, and they are especially satisfying to body and mind when collected on one's own.  I like to harvest perch, mountain whitefish, rainbow trout (including steelhead), smallmouth bass, bluegills, catfish, burbot, and just about any other teleost with tasty muscles.

There are two kinds of sportfish I like to fish for that I do not like to harvest: 1. cutthroat trout (preference only applies to their native waters), and 2. white sturgeon.  Let's not delve into my preoccupation with catch and release cutthroat fishing, let's save it for another day.  Where I fish for white sturgeon, no harvest is allowed, and with good reason.  Sturgeon species, as a group, are generally long lived (up to and over 100 years), slow growing, and they mature late in life (20 years old before they spawn), which makes them the opposite of a good candidate for a sustainable harvest fishery.  There are rivers and reaches where sport harvest of sturgeon is allowed, and sturgeon are delicious, but I am just not sure I could do it... take a club to a fish that might be as old as me.  They may grow slow, but they grow long.  White sturgeon have the distinction of being North America's largest freshwater fish, and rank among the largest freshwater fish in the world.

In the Hell's Canyon reach of the Snake River Idaho/Oregon/Washington, it is rumored that there are still white sturgeon pushing 12 feet in length.  I have personally seen fish approaching nine feet, and they are as amazing as you would expect for a fish weighing well over 300 pounds.

I always described catching my first sturgeon, which was about five feet long, as a religious experience.  Why  religious?  Because the first time you feel a good one, you are in awe of the power of the fish.  I have hooked, landed, and lost many big rainbow trout.  Yes, they are fun.  Yes, they are fast and they jump and they run and they thrash about, but sturgeon pull really, really hard.  When a big sturgeon wants to run, you might have to follow him, in a boat.  My pop once had a big sturgeon tow our raft upstream in a river, with three adults in the boat.  Sturgeon are also beautiful.  Their sides are lined with scutes like plates of armor and their their backs have bony spikes.  Their tail has the same shape as a shark, and their big fins are perfectly proportioned to their elongated and muscular bodies.  They look (and are) simply prehistoric.  The best part, however is the feeling of the fish from their smooth snout covered in beautifully intricate sensory organs to their leathery fins.

In short sturgeon are just really cool animals, and you have to catch one to experience just how cool they are.  It is really fun to release a big one, knowing that your grandfather could have caught that fish when he was a young man.  It is fun to catch a little one, knowing your granddaughter might catch that fish some day as a grown woman.

Enjoy this video of my pop landing a five footer on a recent outing.  Sorry about the wayward finger halfway through... videography is only a hobby.