IB Hooked - July 24, 2007

Just got a smoke signal from good neighbor Brandenberg of the Center of
Ergonomic Mathematics & Applied Socio-Economics. They report that us notre
americanos are the most fuel efficient of developed societies, they cite
recent studies peer reviewed and just released by Texas A & M researchers
that found that us gringos on average walk 900 miles a year. They combined
this data with recent peered reviewed studies released by the American
Beer Institute that found that the average citizen imbibed 22 gallons of
brew per annum. Ergo the citizens of the United States have achieved an
energy efficiency quotient of 41 miles per gallon which is on par with the
aboriginals of New Guinea. This was received via e-mail, when asked what
it all meant in person, he belched loudly, ordered another round of Shiner
and commented „more carbon dioxide load in the atmosphere.‰
Been a weird week cuz I just got another ditty that can only be
described as an ululation (Thank‚s Schutze) from what I‚m gonna call the
National Orbital Atrophy Administrators the parent of NOAA-Fisheries.
Their howl is about recent studies that‚ve led to a computer model program
that predicts Dead Zones or oxygen depleted areas of the Gulf of Mexico.
This was produced by a consortium of Cajun academics led by LSU and the
Sandspit is purportedly in their crosshairs, not sure if it‚s been peer
reviewed but I bet it‚s being pee reviewed. I also spect the model‚s
dimensions are on the order of 36AA-42-58.
It would appear that the genesis of their concern dates back to 2002 and
an event that led to a large hypoxic zone just off our shores. Part 1 of
the event was first called rain, then a gully washer and then damn near
where‚s my ark. Ya see, it started to rain way upstream in the Rio Grande.
The area of Chihuahua that hordes water and refused to honor treaty
agreements with us gringos and their fellow countryman flat ran out of
storage room, soooooo, lest their damns be breached they started releasing
H2O in prodigious amounts. Then the sky opened up with the wet stuff in
the Rio Grande Basin which extends from Playa Baghdad to well north of
Laredo. This led to what‚ll probably be considered the biggest
environmental crime of the new century by some folk‚s.
During the profound drought and water war, the mouth of the Rio Grande
silted in which is an understatement, in fact it became a sandpit and the
backed up waters a true cesspool. When the bubble arrived it had nowhere
to go other than the slums on the south side east of Matamoras. After a
week of two foot of standing water in their neighborhood and no response
to their pleas for help, a couple of gents decided to do something. They
grabbed shovels and started to dig, they dug and dug and dug with ICE
agents cheering them on and the federales nowhere to be found. When they
finally repatriated the Rio Grande with the Gulf the cesspool flowed out
and several other bubbles followed and the trench deepened and widened and
by summer there was a plume and a Dead Zone.
With the South Texas Big Game Fishing Club season underway I called
Mitch Roffer of Roff‚s Ocean Forecast cuz the boss didn‚t want to burn a
bunch of diesel lookin‚ for the edge. He called me back and gave me an
idea of where to find it. It was too shallow for his taste so while he was
takin‚ a snooze I headed inshore from the south end of the canyon since it
was only about eight miles away. We picked up the edge inside of thirty
fathoms and immediately hooked up a rat blue and promptly tore the hooks
out cuz the strike drag was set at 20 pounds. Reset the drags to fifteen
pounds and hooked up another rat and released him a half hour later. Got
the lines out again and mama hit, looked like a Great Barrier Reef moment,
the only stick I‚ve ever seen in the Gulf that would rate a comma at the
weigh dock. She missed the lure but came completely out of the water, when
she opened her mouth and flared her gills I could clearly see Bessie Belle
trollin‚ a couple hundred yards behind us through her gills. If their
model works and you can find the edge fish it cuz we released enough
sticks that year off that gnarley river weed hypoxic zone water to win Cat
Moll the top angler award in the club for 2002.