Jody's Whitesbog Photos - Thanks Jody!
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Dick Russell on the State of the Striped Bass
DICK RUSSELL WRITES -
STRIPED BASS: A GRIM UPDATE
In mid-August, the Cape Cod Times came out with a
story headlined, "Infection attacking striped bass." The article
cited the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries noting that "warming
water temperatures might be causing an increase in the number of striped bass
that have lesions from a viral or bacterial infection....The agency urged
caution in handling fish because the disease can be transferred to humans
through contact."
Yet, supposedly, according to "visual tests," this
is not linked to the mycobacteriosis that has impacted upwards of 70 per cent
of striped bass in the Chesapeake Bay , a disease
that eventually kills them. I passed the article along to a longtime fishing
friend, Jim White, who's probably the top charterboat fishing captain in Rhode
Island
The State of Mass.
He was silent. He then asked, what do you mean the last ten
or twelve years, I said, that's how long this shit has been out there. Are you
serious he asked? YES, I said.
I then asked him WHY was the USCG looking for information on
MYCO? He said their office have and has received thousands of calls from
anglers wanting to know what the red sores are. I said, REALLY?? I then asked
him if the USCG was now going to look into it, he said, YES, we have to because
of so many complaints. I said, well, you're about 12-years too late pal.
I offered to show the Commandant of the USCG, my Power Point
Presentation on MYCO and anyone else there that would want to view it. He said
he'd pass my offer on to higher ranking people. That was over a month ago and I
havn't heard a thing yet. Don't expect to either.
Then, about three or four days later, Mark Gibson [of
the Rhode Island
He answered me, "Yes Jim, we know and knew it was here,
but it was never such a big deal before, now it is. He then said that the ASMFC
[Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission] would now HAVE TO CONSIDER THE EFFECTS
OF MYCO ON THE STOCK AND IN THE
STOCK ASSESSMENT!!! I said, Oh, boy, only twelve dam years too late. What do
you think that is going to do at this point with the stock falling
like a stone off the top of a mountain??? He said, they'd HAVE to address
it at this point, along with OTHER DISEASES.
I picked up on that one really quick. I asked, WHAT OTHER
DISEASES??? HIS RESPONSE?? I CAN'T TELL YOU AT THIS TIME. I just love this
disclaimer! Don't worry, they are fine, but wear heavy gloves, use anti-bacterial
soap, and seek medical attention IMMEDIATELY if you show signs of infection.
YEAH RIGHT!!! NO PROBLEM AT ALL . Just
follow everyone else off the cliff, get in line.
According to the article in the Cape Cod Times, a
leading fisheries biologist in Virginia Chesapeake Virginia
It's the same old story - study the problem, until it's too
late. Which it pretty much is. Jim White gave me permission to post his
subsequent comments, emailed to me after I asked him how the fishing was
in Rhode Island
HOW GOES THE FISHING THIS SUMMER???
Well, it would go better if there were some damn fish to catch! But there isn't~~ The fishing inside the [Narragansett] bay right now is as bad as it was in the late 1970's, maybe even a bit worse. There isn't a striped bass to be found anywhere, of any size, in any area, of the entire bay.
Once in awhile, and RARELY, you come across a schoolie,
Our spring fishery used to run until about the first week of July. Then a couple of years ago it went to the last week of June, then the third week of June, now its in the second week of June, and then for all practical purposes its OVER.
Our fall fishery is NON-EXISTENT~ Its gone, done, over. Has been for YEARS now.
Ya know, I really believed that I would never see this happen again, guess I was either stupid or naive.
I saw this coming about eight or nine years ago, when the so-called, "catch and release" FAD, started to deteriorate. And
Guys that came fishing for years, were now wanting to take fish home with them,
I'd try to tell them or explain to them, if you and everyone else does this, WE
No one paid too much attention to it then, BUT THEY ARENOW~~~!!!!!
Tried to tell them, I had already seen it, lived it, fought it, the same shit was happening all over again.
Only now it's worse, much worse. More people fishing, more tournaments than ever before, more boat owners, gear and electronics are a thousand times improved over what we used in the 70's and early 80's, there isn't much food for them, at least not menhaden, water quality is worse, and now we have DISEASE to deal with besides. IT DOESN'T
Eventually, they will all say one more time, or once again, "Gee Jim, you were right We seem to have a problem with stripers."
Yep, only this time, I don't believe that we are going to get as LUCKY as we did the last time. Just too many more issues at hand to deal with this time around, and no Claudine Schneider, or John Chaffee, or John Cole, hanging in the wings to help push things along. This time the fish are all on their own, with a Commission that is just as fucked up as it ever was. The same Commission that has bragged about doing it all themselves to help restore the striped bass, when in truth and reality, you and I brought them to the table kicking and screaming.
Talk about having the fox guard the hen house. More like Big
Foot and Aliens in the hen house.
The vast majority of fish now being caught are from 20 to 50
or more lbs. No one reports seeing schools of school bass anymore. Very rarely.
How long to do you think that will last?? Right now I'd say no more than one or
two more years, at the top end. Even Block Island this
summer has slowed WAY DOWN, and none of these assholes can see it for
themselves.
They are back to saying, claiming, believing, that: the fish
are someplace else, they are where the bait is, it's the water temperature,
it's sun spots, it's the moon phase, they are two or three weeks behind, the
tide is wrong, the wind is wrong, too many space shuttles went up, solar flares
upset their migration, some unknown place is LOADED with them,
YOU KNOW THE EXCUSES. THEY NEVER END. THEY ONLY GET MORE
WEIRD AS TIME GOES ON. PEOPLE ARE WILLING
TO BLAME OR INVENT ALMOST ANYTHING EXCEPT, ADMIT THAT THEY ALL MADE
A BIG MISTAKE.
JIM
Dick Russell
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
More on Matt Wins Bronze in London
Browns Mills NJ native, takes bronze in 50-meter three-position rifle
Published: Monday,
August 06, 2012 , 8:47 PM
Updated: Monday,
August 06, 2012 , 9:02 PM
By Dave D'Alessandro/Star-Ledger Columnist
We learned this after the Jersey guy
tore open his soul Monday for everyone to examine, before earning a bronze
medal in the 50-meter three-position rifle competition.
By now, you know his story — he’s
the guy who fumbled two golden chances for medals at Athens and Beijing, and
beat thyroid cancer — but you don’t watch sport shooting very often,
so it’s hard to know the collateral damage it creates. It’s not like you can
see it. This is not a game for men who traffic in Category 5 meltdowns —
twitchy, shirt-tugging, dozen-tics-per-minute guys of fan-friendly
vulnerability.
This sport is a quadrennial obscurity for most Americans.
Even a great triumph, such as the one the Emmons experienced at the Royal
Artillery Barracks, would merit a quick mention on NBC, and only as a
homeopathic dose of some producer’s inner soldier fantasy.
That’s how we felt before Monday. And now we’re here to tell
you we were dead wrong: This is the most mentally exhausting, nerve-wracking
experience you’ll ever see — at least the way Emmons does it — and it’s more than
an appreciation you get from his ability to hold a 14-pound gun for 90 minutes
and blast a pinhole through a quarter-sized target 50 meters away time after
time after time.
This time, he nearly suffered a fate worse than ’04, when
his crossfire cost him a gold medal at Athens
Lamentable failures, but old news. Or so it seemed during
the three qualifying rounds of 40 shots each, as Emmons was solid during the
prone position round, superb during the standing position series, and a
straight shooter during the kneeling position set.
“He’s been pretty positive since 2008,” said his wife
Katrina, the Czech Olympian who has three medals herself. “It’s just really
tough when you have some — excuse my word — asses reminding you. Some of them
on purpose, some of them making fun, which was not nice.
“He’s had to overcome that, and it was hard. Because it made
him sad that people remember him more as (having) failed rather than a
success.”
So now he was one shot away from a silver medal again, in
the eight-man finals competition, which involve just 10 standing shots.
Just to clarify: Targets in the finals shrink. Now these
shots are akin to hitting a bullseye the size of a dime from more than a
half-football field away, and he had scored six 10’s in his seven previous
shots.
Pure. Confident. It is a skill that requires inhuman
concentration.
That’s when the Browns Mills product chose to remind us that
the difference between calamity and serenity is about an inch, and largely
influenced by a runaway heartbeat.
“I did everything I could to try to calm my body down,”
Emmons said. “On the last shot, I was just shaking so much, I thought, ‘Okay,
Matt — take your breaths, do your normal routine, and when you get on the
target, start putting pressure on the trigger, and just keep going. Don’t hold
up, don’t try to dress it up, just make it the best you can.’ ”
And with the memories of ’04 and ’08 swirling in the heads
of everyone in the building, Emmons squeezed the trigger — very prematurely, it
seemed — and the bullet pierced the target.
A gasp echoed throughout the hall as the board flashed a
“7.6,” indicating it was a few inches southeast of the bullseye.
“I was jumpy,” he said. “I made a mistake.”
It was the worst shot — by far — of the Finals round.
Somehow, Emmons lived to tell about it, because he finished
with 1271.3 points to 1271.0 for a Frenchman named Cyril Graff.
After 130 shots over five hours, Emmons earned his bronze by
a decimal point. If Graff scored a 10.8 on his last shot instead of his 10.4,
Emmons finishes fourth.
“Just to be on the podium is a special thing,” Jersey ’s
greatest marksman said. “The last four years have been tough. There’s been a
lot of buildup, and I had the weight of the world on my shoulders — about how I
was going to perform, how was I going to do on the last shot.”
He was gracious when that last shot brought bronze, just as
he was when it brought heartbreak. This, however, cannot be expressed as well
by scribbling strangers as it can by his peers, one of whom happened to set the
Olympic record in this event Monday.
He is Niccolo Campriani, the splendid shooter from Italy
“If I can comment here,” Campriani said in eloquent but
heavily accented English. “It’s not how you win, but how you handle the loss
that tells you whether you’re a champion or not.
“Matt is an unbelievable person. The way he managed Beijing
Monday, August 6, 2012
Matt Emmons wins Bronze in London
Matt Emmons, of Browns Mills, NJ wins the bronze medal in shooting in London
Published: Monday,
August 06, 2012 , 8:47 PM
Updated: Monday,
August 06, 2012 , 9:02 PM
We learned this after the Jersey guy
tore open his soul Monday for everyone to examine, before earning a bronze
medal in the 50-meter three-position rifle competition.
By now, you know his story — he’s
the guy who fumbled two golden chances for medals at Athens and Beijing, and
beat thyroid cancer — but you don’t watch sport shooting very often,
so it’s hard to know the collateral damage it creates. It’s not like you can
see it. This is not a game for men who traffic in Category 5 meltdowns —
twitchy, shirt-tugging, dozen-tics-per-minute guys of fan-friendly
vulnerability.
This sport is a quadrennial obscurity for most Americans.
Even a great triumph, such as the one the Emmons experienced at the Royal
Artillery Barracks, would merit a quick mention on NBC, and only as a
homeopathic dose of some producer’s inner soldier fantasy.
That’s how we felt before Monday. And now we’re here to tell
you we were dead wrong: This is the most mentally exhausting, nerve-wracking
experience you’ll ever see — at least the way Emmons does it — and it’s more
than an appreciation you get from his ability to hold a 14-pound gun for 90
minutes and blast a pinhole through a quarter-sized target 50 meters away time
after time after time.
This time, he nearly suffered a fate worse than ’04, when
his crossfire cost him a gold medal at Athens
Lamentable failures, but old news. Or so it seemed during
the three qualifying rounds of 40 shots each, as Emmons was solid during the
prone position round, superb during the standing position series, and a
straight shooter during the kneeling position set.
“He’s been pretty positive since 2008,” said his wife
Katrina, the Czech Olympian who has three medals herself. “It’s just really
tough when you have some — excuse my word — asses reminding you. Some of them
on purpose, some of them making fun, which was not nice.
“He’s had to overcome that, and it was hard. Because it made
him sad that people remember him more as (having) failed rather than a
success.”
So now he was one shot away from a silver medal again, in
the eight-man finals competition, which involve just 10 standing shots.
Just to clarify: Targets in the finals shrink. Now these
shots are akin to hitting a bullseye the size of a dime from more than a
half-football field away, and he had scored six 10’s in his seven previous
shots.
Pure. Confident. It is a skill that requires inhuman
concentration.
That’s when the Browns Mills product chose to remind us that the difference between calamity and serenity is about an inch, and largely influenced by a runaway heartbeat.
“I did everything I could to try to calm my body down,”
Emmons said. “On the last shot, I was just shaking so much, I thought, ‘Okay,
Matt — take your breaths, do your normal routine, and when you get on the
target, start putting pressure on the trigger, and just keep going. Don’t hold
up, don’t try to dress it up, just make it the best you can.’ ”
And with the memories of ’04 and ’08 swirling in the heads
of everyone in the building, Emmons squeezed the trigger — very prematurely, it
seemed — and the bullet pierced the target.
A gasp echoed throughout the hall as the board flashed a
“7.6,” indicating it was a few inches southeast of the bullseye.
“I was jumpy,” he said. “I made a mistake.”
It was the worst shot — by far — of the Finals round.
Somehow, Emmons lived to tell about it, because he finished
with 1271.3 points to 1271.0 for a Frenchman named Cyril Graff.
After 130 shots over five hours, Emmons earned his bronze by
a decimal point. If Graff scored a 10.8 on his last shot instead of his 10.4,
Emmons finishes fourth.
“Just to be on the podium is a special thing,” Jersey ’s
greatest marksman said. “The last four years have been tough. There’s been a
lot of buildup, and I had the weight of the world on my shoulders — about how I
was going to perform, how was I going to do on the last shot.”
He was gracious when that last shot brought bronze, just as
he was when it brought heartbreak. This, however, cannot be expressed as well
by scribbling strangers as it can by his peers, one of whom happened to set the
Olympic record in this event Monday.
He is Niccolo Campriani, the splendid shooter from Italy
“If I can comment here,” Campriani said in eloquent but
heavily accented English. “It’s not how you win, but how you handle the loss
that tells you whether you’re a champion or not.
“Matt is an unbelievable person. The way he managed Beijing
The room, filled with roughly 40 reporters from about two
dozen countries, broke out in applause, as Emmons reached over with his right
hand to affectionately rub his friend’s shoulder. Then he blinked back tears
again.
He is 31, and there could be more Olympics. Regardless of
what happens next, know this: Emmons never allowed failure to define him, and
he’s eager to share his new mantra: “It’s winning a bronze, not losing a
silver,” he said.
He might have pulled the trigger at the wrong moment, but it
was good enough. It’s not golden, but it’s something close to it.
Dave D’Alessandro:ddalessandro@starledger.com
Matt
Emmons‘ final shot of the Olympic 50-meter three-position rifle competition
was terrible. Again. Only this time, he was thrilled.
After seeing gold medals — or any medal, for that
matter — slip away with last-bullet debacles in Athens and Beijing, Emmons finally
made his way to the Olympic medal stand in the three-position event Monday.
A score of 7.6 on his final shot might be dreadful for
someone at the elite level, but good enough for Emmons to
win bronze at the Royal Artillery Barracks, the fourth and final medal for USA
Shooting at the London Games.
Emmons won
a 50-meter prone rifle gold at Athens Beijing
He was the leader with one shot left in three-position at Athens Beijing
Friday, August 3, 2012
Jimmy and his Dad
Jimmy and his dad at the Stars & Stripes America's Cup compound, Freemantle, Australia, 1987.
[photo copyright. To use please contact billkelly3@gmail.com]
“I was supposed to have been a Jesuit priest
Or a Naval Academy
That was the way that my parents perceived me
Those were the plans that they had
But I couldn’t fit the part
Too dumb or too smart
Ain’t it funny how we all turned out
I guess we are the people our parents warned us about”
“We Are the People Our Parents Warned Us About”
We are all products of our environment, and the
child-rearing environment of the early fifties was pretty straight-forward.
Like most of the other war babies I know, I come from a fairly dysfunctional
background. My parents worked for as far back as I can remember. I know that’s
where my worth ethic came from. They were typical middle-class Southerners in
most regards, but there were also inherited traits that set them apart.
My father was a man of simple rules, though he could be
totally unpredictable. We were well-known along the Gulf
Coast
My father’s idea of my future was hinged to the past. He saw
me working on a boat. My mother taught me to dream and expand my horizons
beyond family traditions and my childhood surroundings. They sure as hell did
some things that I loved them for and some things that really pissed me off,
but I still love them and love to go back to Alabama
I had made it a habit of coming home whenever I bought a new
plane. It had become a ritual and a good excuse to visit my folks and get the
approval of my purchase from former Army Air Corps master sergeant J.D. Buffet.
Dad and I had never really talked about his flying days. I was so enamored of
the exploits of my grandfather that I forgot that my old man had had a few
adventures of his own. All I really knew was that he had been a flight mechanic
in the war and had worked on B-17’s in Maine Africa , and C-47’s in India
One day we had come in from a grueling day of multiple
takeoffs and landings on the Cumberland River and I was
venting my frustration about crosswind when my dad casually said, “You should
try one with a fire on board.” He proceeded to tell me a flying story that made
my day of training look like an afternoon at the spa.
He had been flying over the Himalayas
from his base in India
“You never told me that story,” I muttered in disbelief.
J.D. never got to ride in the Albatross. To put it in old
Army Air Corps terms, shortly before I bought it, he was ground zero for a
direct hit, a hit from which he would not recover.
In early 1995 my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s
disease. He knew something had been wrong but wasn’t sure what….After the
initial shock and once the devastating news had settled in, my father and I
talked. Our conversations were more personal than they ha ever been…By the time
he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, we had fortunately already made our peace.
We had made it passed those testosterone-produced clashes that seem to be rites
of passage for fathers and sons. But he was a fighter and in the next breath
would come out swinging, ready to “take the bull by the horns,” as he put it.
He never talked about licking Alzheimer’s like it was some kind of opponent he
was going to defeat. He knew his fate. He told me he just wanted to so a few
things he had never gotten to do. He was going to study his options and let me
know.
When tragedy of such proportions occurs, the only thing you
can do is hope that there have been some good times. It’s hard to catch up. My
parents had gotten to enjoy the fruits of my success. They went to shows, hung
out backstage with my crew and band, and acted like that was unique, wonderful,
and very small group of people known as the parents of successful rock stars.
They had traveled the world together, hoping to cruise on through the last part
of their lives in the comfort of their nest, called Homeport. But that was not
to be.
My father always had a great sense of humor. I think that’s
where mine comes from, so I think he would be most pleased if I told this
little story. One day I got a call from him, asking me to come to Alabama China
He drained the last sip of his Barq’s (rootbeer) and stared out across the bay. “You know what I was just thinking about?”
“What?” These days that could be a loaded question.
“Remember when you got thrown out of the sailing club for
leaving the race and sailing all the way across the bay?”
I only had to think a moment about that major event in my
misspent youth. It had been the same kind of day as today.
“You bet I do,” I said with a laugh.
“I never told you, but that was about as proud as I ever was
of you. I mean, being the first Buffet to get a college degree was good, don’t
get me wrong, but that time you decided to light out on you own, that was a
moment.”
Tears came into my eyes. I started to drift back to that incredible day…
“You know why I chose to fly instead of go to sea?”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because it was what I wasn’t supposed to do. Looks like you
have made a career out of that, doing what you’re not supposed to do. I’m proud
of you, boy.”
Today when I join him for his walks down the oyster-shelled
driveway out towards old Highway 98 or down to the end of the pier, I think of
the lines from a song that I wrote about a fictitious but favorite character of
mine named Desdemona.
“Her heart is in the kitchen, but her soul is in the stars.”
Change the pronoun, and you have my dad – J.D.
Jimmy Buffet – From “A Pirate Looks at Fifty” (Fawcett
Crest, 1998)
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Matt Emmons Shoots for Gold at London 2012 Olympics
Matt Emmons
|
Sport:
|
|
|
Birthdate:
|
|
|
Birthplace:
|
|
|
Hometown:
|
Brown Mills, NJ
|
|
Residence:
|
|
|
Ht/Wt:
|
5'10" / 165 lbs
|
Late collapses
Matt Emmons knows too well what it is like to let a gold medal slip out of his hands. In
Always positive
One would think a man who has watched two Olympic gold medals slip from his hands would be a little bitter. Most probably would. But not Emmons.
“Mistakes that I made in
“But also, I look at those things as learning opportunities. You know, life is long. My shooting career is long. Because I failed in one competition doesn’t mean that I’m a failure as an athlete. So I want to keep going. I want to learn, I want to get better, and so I just use those as building blocks.”
Still a winner
Emmons may have had some well-documented troubles in the three prone, but he still earned a silver medal in
A golden lining
After shooting the wrong target in three prone in
More than a marksman
Emmons is an avid golfer and played baseball in high school. He even pitched a perfect game in baseball when he was in high school in
Pulling the strings
Emmons plays the guitar and enjoys playing songs by Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and the Beatles. He started out on the instrument by purchasing an old electric guitar off of a friend and eventually switched to acoustic.
OFFICIAL SCHEDULE FOR SHOOTING PROGRAMS
|
|||
|
Mon, July 30 9:00a
|
Qualification
|
|
|
|
Mon, July 30 12:15p
|
Final
|
|
|
Men's 50m Rifle, 3 Pos.
|
Mon, Aug 06 9:00a
|
Qualification
|
|
|
|
Mon, Aug 06 1:45p
|
Final
|
|
|
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)