I Fought The Gar And The Gar Won

Keen-eyed readers of this popular international mind blog will know that Gar fishing is in the air like some kind of obsession. One of the best things out there, get on the Gar.

Which I did, fishing for Gar and Gar only. It started off well, with the Triassic beasts taking shad baited hooks and running around the spillway pool. Big excitement, well done, then they'd drop the bait in disgust, just as you're about to set the hook. 

This went on for hours; moments of intense excitement followed by let down as the Gar swum off.

Some Guy With A Gar

I tried all kinds of presentations and half the time the dinosaurlike fish were receptive. They'd pounce on the bait, play with the bait, chew on the bait, snap their jaws on the bait and run with it, and then drop it after five or so minutes of surging around.

Neat to watch, less neat to see the shad dropped right at the moment you're about to close the deal. And that's just it, all I caught was an accidental Bluegill, no Gar.

The Bush War

So what went wrong? The bait was right, the hooks were right and the Gar were taking them. The failure, surely, lay in the hookset. Perhaps I waited too long, erring on the side of caution, afraid that the fish would drop their delicious shad if I moved too soon.

Well I didn't and they did anyway. Obviously a more aggressive approach is called for.

A Gar

Next time, allow the Gar to move into its second run and while its powering forward like a torpedo, lift the rod hard, driving the sharp hook into the Gar's teeth. Then you'll have a fish on and no mistake. It's doable, I know this from experience.

Saying that, why not rig up a tiny fly hook and tempt topwater? Therein, perhaps, lies madness.

I tell you, Gar, this isn't over. Not by a long shot.

Fish on or off,

LSP

Don't be a Loser, Ride The Horse

It's been hard to ride lately on account of the floods but the waters have receded a bit, which means get on the horse. And that's what I did, after flying the flag at a cowboy church men's prayer breakfast. 

They're a good bunch of guys, the cowboys, with a pretty straight up kind of faith. Enlivened by that, I tacked up in the morning sunshine and rode out. Trace was eager enough and it was simply good to get out in the country on horseback. I find it clears the mind.

Gallop up The Hill

It's good exercise, too, provided you put some work into it, and we did, horse and rider, galloping along through the incredibly, for Texas, green countryside.

Ride over, I turned the herd out into their big pasture, where they can get up to mischief and eat lots of grass.

Trace

There's a satisfaction to all of this which is hard to put into words, but I will say this -- riding's good for mind, body and spirit. Unless you fall off and get killed, in which case it's a different story again.

With that in mind, stay on the horse,

LSP

Follow The Unicorn

The Unicorn is a cuddly, velvety beast, full of rapturous promise and delight. "Follow me, over the rainbow of dreams," whinnies the playful creature and off we go in search of a glittering crockfull of utopia, led on by our scampering, frolicking, horned friend.

And what a crock it is. "Disband your armies and there will be no war," promises our frisky playmate; "Abolish private property and everyone will be rich!" neighs the winsome quadruped; "The more you're taxed the more prosperous you'll be," assures our plush pal with reverent surety, "It's settled science, and haven't you heard? The best thing about debt is that it never has to be repaid, ever!"

Off we go, gleefully climbing the rainbow to a paradise on earth, where Islam is a religion of peace and everyone will be able to get a sex-change gratis on the State because the Government is Your Best Friend Forever. So hand in your guns and there'll be no more crime, the Unicorn said so.

It's a beautiful dreamlike journey. But the problem with the Unicorn is that it's a sociopath nihilist with a nasty habit of destroying everything that it's drumming little hooves come into contact with, to say nothing of its horn, which invariably stabs its enchanted followers. 

Disband your armies? Too bad no one remembered to tell Hitler. Abolish private property? Go right ahead and ask a Kulak, except that you can't because the Worker's Paradise killed them all. More tax? Of course that'll make everyone richer, working on the good old principle that the less money you have the wealthier you'll become. And debt notoriously never has to be paid, unlike the Government, which never has enough. 

Still, at least you'll be free to get gender reassignment surgery while the peace-loving followers of Islam rape you in Cologne. And don't even think of trying to defend yourself because that would make you less safe, obviously.

Notice how the logic of the Unicorn produces the exact opposite of its intended result. It promises peace, freedom, prosperity and happiness for all and gives the reverse. It is a peddler of lies, warfare, tyranny, misery, hatred and destruction. 

Follow it, by all means, but ask yourself if it's really a unicorn you're chasing and not some other horned god. And when you get to the crock at the end of the rainbow, don't be surprised when you find out that it contains something other than gold.

Your Old Friend,

LSP 

Obama Sock Puppet, ISIS Oil

Some people compare Obama to a sock puppet, and who can blame them. But in the meanwhile, here's this, from ZeroHedge:

"We wonder how long until someone finally asks the all important question regarding the Islamic State:who is the commodity trader breaching every known law of funding terrorism when buying ISIS crude, almost certainly with the tacit approval by various 'western alliance' governments, and why is it that these governments have allowed said middleman to continue funding ISIS for as long as it has?"

Good question.

Kick out the Jams,

LSP