Welcome back to Haiku Monday, where Fish Hack will have to look into selling a few of the Tax Deductions’ extra organs to cover this week’s losses to the Individual Retirement Plan Fish Hack uses to supplement the Fish Wrap’s otherwise stellar overall compensation package.
In other words, this weekend’s bad bets on the NFL have left Fish Hack a little light.
Philly, Jets both lose.
That’s one kidney on e-Bay
From next kid who whines.
For Haiku virgins, Haiku Monday is when Fish Hack busts a few non-rhymes about fishing in the form of Japanese poetry. These three-liners follow a simple format – five syllables, seven syllables and then a five-syllable kicker.
It’s just a goofy way to wax on, wax off about what really matters … messin’ around in Southern Oregon’s wild outdoors.
So Fish Hack had a bad week bettin’ the pigskin Sunday. Did get the high school picks down on the Friday Pick-It Line in Friday’s Fish Wrap. Something about karma that makes Fish Hack all warm inside.
Or is that the bourbon?
One haiku, one shot.
Gotta like this-here genre.
The typing, though, sukkks.
Had karma on the mind after a recent summer steelhead trip on the Rogue River with Fish Hack’s half-lifer, Jeff Barnard. The Barnyard has been Hack’s fishing bud for half of this-here life.
You remember, Barnyard. He’s the goof who I was rowing down the Rogue one day and he’s giving me lip about the Fat Tire beers of mine that he’s drinking gratis. Takes clinkers to do that and not expect to get left on the bank.
Anyway, Barnard’s in the front seat (of course) of my driftboat the other day on a Rogue float down to Galice. Cherry steelhead water.
We move into a slot to fish plugs, and Barnyard starts yakking about reading the Dalai Lama and how enlightenment will never be attainable for either of us.
You see, Barnyard says, you can’t intentionally inflict pain on fish and become enlightened.
Just then, Barnyard’s rod goes down and on goes the tussle with a fresh Rogue summer steelhead.
Or so we thought.
When he yards it to the boat, the steelhead turns out to be ... a northern pikeminnow?
Formerly called squawfish, pikeminnow are a non-native fish in the Rogue that put the T in Trash. They eat baby salmon and steelhead. They are soooo unwanted that anglers on stretches of the Columbia get $5 for every pikeminnow they kill.
And this is a trophy pikeminnow. A 3-pounder.
After a few choice words learned from Barnyard’s sailor-son Nate, my man lays the pikeminnow over his thigh and introduces him to Mr. Fishwhacker.
The contact sounds like it’s surely a double off the wall. Barnyard summarily tosses the carcass to the bank, where even the turkey vultures won’t touch it out. Professional courtesy, of course.
Apparently, karma isn’t all peace, love and understanding for pikeminnows in a steelhead world.
“Pikeminnow have a lot to learn from the Dalai Lama,” Barnyard says. “Gimme a beer.”
Pikeminnow’s karma?
Predators get thumped, then beached.
Don’t mess with steelhead.
