Just finishing up Lord Alanbrooke's WWII diaries. He was one the British main strategists in the war. The book is interesting as it is mostly his opinions about the people he dealt with.

He was also, as many/most British gentry were, and avid angler and hunter. Even during the war he managed to fish and shoot.

After Germany's surrender he went to Berlin and then toured the countryside. In one beautiful stream he found few fish. He ascribed this to the fact that the Americans were fishing worms in every pool and they were following the SS who had fished with grenades. So, worms are as bad as DuPont Spinners in his mind.

He was a fly flinger and lure fisherman.

Damn uppity Brits, thinking bait fishing is for lowlifes. On the other hand, after more than a thousand years of human development, they still have salmon fishing, something that we Americans are demonstrating we can eliminate entirely in a much shorter timeframe.

Isn't America about being "the Best"? Took the Brits a millennium to **ck up salmon; we did it is a couple centuries. We're Number 1 !!!!!!!!

It's pretty messed up over there now. Only access is private and runs are decimated.

You know that is one of the odd things in the enviro world. No continent has had the natural order stripped away as in Europe. Always yipping around the world about enviro issues trying sell we must save the world. Hell that is like making the get away driver jury foreman of the bank robbers trial.

Back when it was legal a WDG enforcement officer told me the best bait for bass was lamprey ammocetes.

That's certainly one way to look at it. The other would be to recognize the fact that Europe learned the lessons we are only now beginning to learn long ago. Theirs is a cautionary tale. If we don't want US fish and wildlife to go the way European wildlife went, we would do well to listen. Sadly, as was the fundamenral problem for them as well, there's no profit in conserving natural resources, so we choose not to, just as they did. To think we can go on the way we have and not end up in the same situation is an insane denial of reality.

In my fish management class, taken in '72 and taught by the Chief of Inland Fisheries for Cal Fish and Game, he said that the rest of the western states were watching how California dealt with resource management. growing population, and development.

Having been there and here, WA may have watched but did not learn a damned thing. We (the Royal We and not just WA) seem incapable of learning from others experience.

Stam, that reminds me of a comment made by a WDG wildlife bio when there was a discussion about allowing fee-for-hunting for deer in WA. He noted that he had lived in Texas where almost all the deer hunting pay to play. He didn't like that, much preferred WA. He also noted that deer hunting was much better in Texas....

Totally agree with this Carcassman! BTW CDFG? Interesting as your profile has Olema on it! Ever run across a Marin County CDFG warden by the name of All Giddings? Just curious as a great mentor and family friend and fishing and hunting buddy back in MC and at his sons place in Montana! Might be a small world!

If memory serves, he also worked for CA State Parks, as did my dad. I may have met him that way.

I left Marin at about age 1.5. Its still home, though. Among the Redwoods.

First home was Taylor SP.

I spent six years in Texas. If you hunted deer you did it on your "deer lease" The reason for all this goes back to when Texas won their independence from Mexico. The new republic was broke and used land as currency. There is very little public land, but Big Bend is one place. However, most of the populace live closer to New Mexico and Colorado than Big Bend park, (which is a desert).

Ranchers discovered long ago that taking care of their deer herds and leasing out hunting was big bucks! Pardon the pun.

I also remember in some areas you could take up to 8 deer per season. In essence you were issued a punch card.

For whatever reason, some of it the range and probably some of it being WT, Texas deer densities are often 100 per square mile rather than the approximately 10 we have here.

For whatever reasons, folks have taken to growing whitetails like a crop with feed plots, cover, and such plus regulations (owner mandated) that are intended to grow big racks. So, lots of does get harvested but you do end up with some big racks. And, selective breeding (having talked with a few of them) has allowed the production of amazing headgear.

Of course, it comes at a cost; pay-to-play. But, many of the ranches in Texas are large enough and the cover is thick enough that getting an animal is no "gimme". Birded one ranch and saw a few deer, one 3 or 4 pt (both Eastern and Western count as it only had one antler) and none that I saw were even close to bow range. Unfortunately, they sold the ranch before I could get back down there.

Having 100 per square mile helps too. But yeah, a stand above that brush does help with visibility.

Some guys mount things on their 4x4 trucks. Goes on like a lumber rack but has some nice comfy seats up above the cab. I would see them driving around town during hunting season in a great display of one-up-manship.

In Virginia I had access to some of the local farms for hunting whitetails. Basically like hunting in manicured "parked" out woods. Kinda like being in a Disney cartoon with a rifle. Very surreal...

When talking about deer hunting there is just so much variety of habitats. I am sure some or the Northwoods WT are in heavy timber and certainly a southern swamp can be a tangle. I have looked for Coues WT in AZ and that is thick country with tiny deer.

Have done some ground-bled hunting. Best one was between a VW Beetle and a riding lawnmower in a barn. Got that doe!.

It's a chess game, really. I think that is the appeal. Which may be why I much prefer stream trout, or lake sunfish, to just about any other fish. You know exactly where to look, you know exactly where you want to be, and hope the quarry cooperates.

My bowhunting mentor was once chasing a forked horn BT above his house. Had it "patterned". So, he lay down in the ditch beside the road and waited for the deer to cross here he always did. Nothing happened. So, he got up to leave, turned around, and there he was on the other side of the road. Jim let him go as he did was not going to take him by accident.

I wonder how much of a change it would make if we quit harvesting Puget Sound herring commercially and left them in the Sound for salmon and other critters?

Does SE Alaska need our frozen herring at its lodges? In the area I worked, there was no commercial herring fishery, but you could jig them for use fresh. It astounded me in my first year when I went to the huge walk-in cooler and found case after case of herring from Puget Sound.

Not only would leaving the herring alone help the fish it would help stop the decline of Scoters.