Austin, Texas

Hello everyone. I'm off to Austin. Hope you like this one. Russ

AUSTIN, TEXAS

By (c) Russ Barnes

Austin photo (c) Michele Surwit

She liked the idea of Barton Springs,

pure spring water into a pool, no chlorine no chemicals,

twice as big as a football field,

where you don’t have to wear clothes unless you like.

Sleeping together every night.

Someplace her son is more likely to visit

more than Washington. Young in spirit.

Not a bunch of old white-guy geezers

harping on the same old themes day and night.

Music every joint down the block from the 60s, 70s,

hip hop, Mexican, blues, jazz, whatever.

Alice's restaurant, next door to City Hall,

where you walk in and there’s no roof above

and you look up and see the stars way out in space.

There is a steel band from the islands

and everyone is smoking MJ and drinking beer.

Bumper stickers that recommend, “Eat at the Y.”

Guys, middle of town, in jeans with no shirt.

Blue sky with a whiff of slow-cooking barbecue smoke

rising in old smoke-signal puffs. The bats at sundown

charging out for their meal of central Texas bugs.

And everyone saying, “Wow!”

People say, “Howdie,” and they mean it.

You say, Howdie” back and you mean it too.

Where you drink watermelon juice and eat huevos rancheros

for breakfast with pico de gallo on the side.

Where the women tilt their heads to the right

and are fierce for reality and not for social norms,

and they speak and act that way.

They spank their men and then stand by them.

Where the men are willing to take a risk, even lose,

and still think of themselves as men.

Text and photo owned respectively by Russ Barnes and Michele Surwit. Permissions for use available upon request at russ@bonmeasure.org.

What’s Coming Up on “Travel with a Twist.”

This week, I want to let everyone who follows “Travel with a Twist” -- or those wanting to begin following these blog posts -- what will be coming up every Friday in weeks ahead.

Some fun places to go or at least read about.

First, bird watching. The southern New Jersey shore near Cape May is the place to go. Birds migrate there in spectacular numbers and species. In September, there are big surges of neotropical songbirds all month along the beach. Hawks (Merlins and Northern Harriers) are migrating. You can see flights of loons and cormorants.

In October, you can see the height of neotropical songbirds. Scoters come along. And so do gulls and terns. Owls come in at mid-month. Egrets and great blue herons are on the scene.

Check in to the blog as zoologists explain what is described as the greatest bird migration in the United States.

Also in New Jersey. Sho-be-do, do-wop, do-wop. Yeah! The epicenter of Doo-Wop. It’s not just music. It’s architecture too. Amazing 50's motels. And oldies-but goodies at the convention center in Wildwood.

Off to Texas. A quilting convention in Houston, mid-October where 55,000 women will gather to show their artistry at the International Quilt Festival. “Travel with a Twist” will preview the festival and cover it live.

We will do our best to interview and survey the work of Peter Kramer, master cabinet maker in “little” Washington, Virginia. We may also give a review of the renowned five-star restaurant in the same small town, “Inn at Little Washington.”

We will visit three small towns all of which have renovated old movie theaters for live stage performances to enhance local economic development and give pleasure.

Austin, Texas wants to be “weird.” It’s the place where 100's of thousands of bats stream out from under the Lady Bird Johnson bridge every evening when the sun dips below the horizon. One of the only towns in the world that would not eradicate the bats. Learn why? It's an interesting story. Sit back and enjoy the thousands who watch every night.

Oh, and in early October, we may visit Kreutz’s barbecue in Lockhart, Texas. There’s an open fire in the joint with smoldering live oak logs, a hole in the roof for the chimney, BBQ served on butcher paper with bread and pinto beans. No utensils. Reviewed by the New York Times. We’ll do a better job. So tune in.

See you all next Friday.

© Russ Barnes 2009. All rights reserved including text and owned photos indicated as copyrighted. Reproduction or re-transmission of material available upon request. Links to this posted article are welcome and encouraged.

Life is Good in the Brush! --Outfitted on a Texas Ranch

Life is good in the brush! So proclaims outdoorsman Joe Heidelmeier as we drive through the Texas Hill Country to Hickory Pass Ranch in Joe's well-provisioned 1988 Ford pick-up truck, "Silver."

Joe, who is referred to as an “outfitter” in ranch lingo, will be my guide and mentor during my stay on the 3500 acres of near wilderness that make up Hickory Pass Ranch near Marble Falls.

Being “outfitted” on massive private ranches such as this one makes for an active getaway. In Texas alone there are hundreds of these private ranches, some providing the public with respite from the cacophony and confusion of city life -- and adventure through managed outfitted ranch experiences.

In such a getaway, your private outfitter guides you, supplies you, teaches you, befriends you, corrects you, informs you, protects you, and chastises you -- out in the brush.

Spending a vacation like this feels nothing like taking a Caribbean cruise, bargaining in the markets of Marrakesh, or doing the grand tour of Europe.

Nope. Getting out to one of the many Texas ranches that provide outfitting to the traveling public, your eyes may first be greeted by live oak and mesquite trees on the horizon, quisatche weed and prickly pear on the ground. Hidden, initially, from view but there to be discovered are also -- depending on the ranch -- quail, deer, wild turkey, dove, geese, wild sheep, wild boar, elk, bobcat, an occasional mountain lion. Snakes. lizards, spiders and insects find their place in the wilds of bush country. Your guide instructs you in how to deal with all the critters.

Why go there? What’s to do?

There are several answers. The first and most obvious is to hunt game. For the avid hunter, this is often an experience for a lifetime. But bringing home the game for bragging rights, while a big incentive, doesn’t explain the depth of the experience you get.

What you get besides maybe a “trophy” deer is more subtle to express. But most participants feel it. Want it. Come back for more. One appealing dimension to the experience, not often mentioned, is the mysterious connection that develops between people and nature in a communal setting on a managed Texas ranch.

Here are some of the rewards of time spent in company with other seekers of experience in the wild:

1) Learning -- not only about hunting and bagging the quarry (although that foremost). You may hear a few tips as I did from my guide, Joe, for example, about rattlesnakes. “Never walk in the shade during the day. Walk in the sun. At night, always carry a flashlight outside.” Or for another example, “If you see a skunk or a fox in the bright sun of daylight, shoot it or back off. It will be rabid.”

2) A rare camaraderie especially to be found among men as they encounter the natural world together. What is this? Much -- including a feeling of well-being, connectedness, and personal power few feel in the modern offices and busy chores of city life.

3) A primal relationship between man and beast, and between man and nature, that cannot be found fully in a zoo or even in a state or national park. You experience this in your group even if you hunt only with a camera, as I do.

4) A growing experience of mystery at which I can only hint as these paragraphs unfold. The ranch setting, as well as the growing bonding the group experiences as they are immersed in that setting, provides a substantial contrast to the urban environment.

Consciousness changes. “Being in the brush is good ju-ju,” points out Joe Heidelmeier, using an African expression meaning a combination of luck, magic, and power. “There are people who, if they can’t get out to the brush on a regular basis, they could turn into something like a serial killer.” (It’s clear Joe doesn’t mean that literally. There are many subtle ways to murder a part of someone out of frustration.)

Allen Spence, manager of AC Hunting Ranches in Fort McKavett, Texas, agrees. “I used to come out here as a participant -- 180 miles from Austin -- to hunt for a week. Out here I felt content," Spence continues. “When I started back to the city and my job, my head started buzzing. You worry, what emails will be waiting? What’s happening with office politics?”

AC Hunting Ranches are actually three working ranches, all managed by Allen and his wife, Allison. One is 10,000 acres, the two others 5000 acres each (for a total of 20,000 acres), one of smaller ranches high fenced to contain sizable game like elk. There are several ranch houses, one of them elegant, “as nice as any found at Lakeway" (the sophisticated Austin resort). The accommodations at Texas ranches that outfit vary considerably. Those at AC Hunting Ranches extend from luxurious to a comfortable rustic apartment constructed inside a barn.

Sunrise, Sunset

Days begin with a robust breakfast, such as eggs, bacon and sausage, pancakes, fruit, coffee and the like, and end with a hearty group chowdown, with a chance to replay the tall tales of the day with a repast of such entrees as fajitas, Tex-Mex, steaks, chicken-fried steak and all.

Days more often than not end with a sunset in a signature Texas burnt-orange blaze. What follows is a night sky so black you can see burning debris streaking through earth’s atmosphere, the Milky Way laid out beyond as a light-show backdrop almost every night.

About the mystical experience. “An adrenaline rush” is how Allen Spence describes it.

Picture it like this: Your guide takes you through the brush to a “deer blind” -- an elevated, camouflaged lookout with horizontal rectangles for sighting a camera or rifle. You are quiet. You are still. You begin your look-out just when the sun comes up or goes down over the horizon at sunset.

This is the time of day Joe calls “the magic moment.” Creatures stir. You look out over the Texas land -- wooded with live oak, cedar, mesquite with meadows of quisatche, algerita bushes, prickly pear cacti, and grasses of all sorts.

It is quiet. The air is cool. You hear only the snapping of twigs and swishing of the brush as hidden creatures begin to stir. For a while you don’t care what happens. The silence, broken only by these soft sounds, is all-absorbing.

Time stands still. You watch. You wait. Then in a moment, out of the brush, a creature appears. As it comes into range, the guide coaches you through the shot. It is a dramatic moment in a mighty and intimate relationship between two animals: one human and one wild.

It is at this moment that many hunters suffer what Allen calls "buck fever." The guy begins to shake, quake, and quiver,” Allen reports. “He quivers like he is freezing even if the temperature is 100 degrees.”

It is an ancient rite. There is protocol, even courtesy, to the death -- little different from the priestly sacrifices on the temple altar described in the Bible. This is the moment of the “adrenaline rush,” “buck fever,” and awe before the creation we inhabit. “When I make my harvest and pick up the animal,” Joe confides, “I feel a twinge of regret. A spirit is gone and I feel sad about its passing."

Adrenaline Rush; Buck Fever

As to learning proper manners and protocol, Joe, my guide, explains, "There is a difference between a shooter and a hunter. First of all, many of these ‘shooters’ don’t know how to use a rifle. Second, they shoot deer in the body, through the internal organs. That wounds the quarry," Joe continues, "and the animal flees, the adrenaline flowing through its body. The animal suffers and the taste of the meat is ruined."

"What you need to do," says Joe, "is reach out and touch the animal. You need to target the animal right through the brain. We’re not shooters of animals. We harvest them when they are over-populated. And we do it in an organized, managed way."

Joe describes how he guts a deer with only a penknife. "Anything you harvest, you must eat, share with your friends, or give away."

In contrast, Allen offers a ghastly example of this civilized code of ”eat your prey.” Narrating the story of a U.S. Marine sniper, who when the time came to kill his deer, began to shiver and shake in a classic case of buck fever despite his competent and dedicated years in the killing fields of war.

“Did you shake too in Iraq when you shot a man?” No, said the Marine. “That’s a job. I’m ordered to do that. I don’t even have to pick the man up once he’s down. Here I have a different experience. I pick up the animal up and help to clean it."

Men these days tend to be isolated from each other in the work-a-day world of civilian life. Women somehow seem to have a blessing, deserved, of meeting in groups to share their special problems and experiences.A place where they can experience a distinctive feminine community.

Allen, though, welcomes women as participants in the groups. The encounter with the wild is available to all.

How to Find Your Ranch; What Are Typical Terms?

There is little if any packaged travel to most of the ranches like the one described here. To get to AC Hunting Ranches, it is recommended that out-of-the region participants fly to either Austin or San Antonio. From there, they can rent a car and drive the 180 miles to Fort McKavett. An extra option is that the ranch will send a corporate plane to either airport to pick up participants and fly them to an air strip close by the ranch, where Allen will pick them up by van.

Group sizes at AC Hunting Ranches are six people and six guides for special game; ten to eleven people with accompanying guides for deer and hog hunting. Most hunts are three days in length. Prices range from about $800 to $3500. The price includes room and board, personal guides, and game handling. Specific details about AC Hunting Ranches may be found at: http://www.achuntingranches.com/index.html

For information on other game-managed Texas ranches, the following directory provides a starting place : http://www.judgeroybean.com/main/guidesandranches.html.

© Russ Barnes 2009. All rights reserved including text and owned photo indicated as copyrighted. Reproduction or re-transmission of material available upon request. Links to this posted article are welcome and encouraged.

NOTE: Hickory Pass Ranch mentioned in this post does not offer nor solicits outfitted hunting and is used here for illustration purposes only.

Crestone: Where Travel and Spirituality Meet

CRESTONE, Colorado.

This is a place where travel and spirituality merge. At 8000 feet, it takes your breath away. I bicycle up and down the high-desert, sandy foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range from my digs to this small rocky mountain town close by the New Mexico border.

I tie up my bike in town, population 120. First stop, Curt’s Olde Country Store where I pick up sea salt potato chips made in Boulder. Then on to the post office (zip 81131) where four-wheel drive vehicles zoom into the parking lot as people pick up their daily mail. I drink water and munch chips. And I people-watch.

And then there is the Twenty-First Amendment -- a liquor store -- open when I was last there, now closed. The storefront has a sign which says -- in big letters, quoting Hunter S. Thompson -- “A word to the wise is infuriating.” Old dogs lie on the street in front of this old establishment. They half-way raise their heads in disgust as you approach. Accusingly, their looks say, “Why would you disturb my savoir faire, amigo?”

There is also the Shambala Cafe located next to a Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome in which grows who knows what. We won’t get into that here.

Okay. That’s travel. How about spirituality?

Well, there is a Hindu temple in the environs. Several Tibetan centers. An ashram. A couple of Buddhist stupas. The Shumei International Institute, an impressive facility located high on the mountainside.

(You can hear the drumming from the Shumei Center as it rumbles off the ridge of the Rocky Mountain range like a thunderstorm in late afternoon.)

It is said there is a crystalline formation nearby Crestone. Some say it provides the area with a special spiritual energy.

My favorite spiritual place (or should I say a favorite place, period?) here in Saguache County is a Carmelite Roman Catholic monastery, the Spiritual Life Institute. Unlike most, it is a co-ed monastic community whose welcoming sign broadcasts, "No fuss, no muss."

You go into Sunday mass barefoot, and the monks in their robes make their procession across the cool stone floor. The eastern light comes over the mountains and through the clerestory window. When you look through those windows from 8000 feet, the heavens appear dark blue. But then you also sense that you are peering into the blackness of outer space and the universe.

And then there is the altar. A rough-hewn block of Rocky Mountain stone, balanced on supports, that evokes solemnity, dignity, “gravitas.”

Following one mass, there is another celebration for one of the brothers just returned from Ireland. One monk holds up two bottles of champagne, declaring, "This will never run out!"

I cycle across the high desert, heading west from Crestone toward Moffat. Ten miles one way. The few motorists along the road I travel wave. Friendly. I stop for hydration. Halfway, hawks dive-bomb, coming close to my helmet. Protecting their hatchlings, I later learn. Out on the prairie desert, antelope roam.

For more information on Crestone, contact the Crestone Eagle, the community’s weekly newspaper at www.crestoneeagle.com. For information on the Carmelite Monesary -- http://www.spirituallifeinstitute.org/Nada.html. For information on the Shamei Center -- http://www.shumeicrestone.org/home.html

© Russ Barnes, 2009, Bethesda Maryland. All rights reserved. Permissions: russ@bonmeasure.org

Hunting for a Holiday?

CHESAPEAKE BEACH, Maryland. August 4, 2009. Where do you go for adventure? snorkeling in Australia? cruising the Caribbean? trekking in the Himalayas? Nothing wrong with that -- except those places are far away. But how about checking out what's close-by?

Not romantic or exotic enough? Think again.

Slip on down, for example, to the Chesapeake Bay and step onto, say, skipper Randy Dean's charter fishing boat, the "Bay Hunter," and you enter a near-by world that never stops in providing multi-faceted fascination and fun. It's local if you live in the Washington, D.C. area, fifty minutes from Northwest Washington. Chesapeake Beach and the Chesapeake Bay are also local if you're visiting family and friends in the D.C., Baltimore, Wilmington, or Philadelphia areas and want to experience something singular.

Local Vacations?

What's so special about local? For starters in this instance, the Chesapeake Bay has a shoreline longer than any other estuary in North America, including San Francisco Bay. Its bio-diversity is specific and unique. There are hundreds of different species of oysters in the myriad feeder rivers and streams that characterize the Chesapeake Bay’s extensive meandering shoreline.

Knowing about the grandness of the Bay, only a few days ago I negotiated my way from the Fishing Creek Marina dock to the step-stool stairs of the swaying "Bay Hunter" charter boat. On-board you find a father and son team: Captain Randy Dean and his seventeen-year old son, Ryan, the boat's first mate. You immediately recognize that this is no national chain operation. It is a family business.

There is always weather on the Chesapeake. It was beautiful on this August 4th day, 92 degrees, but a heavy cooling southern wind prevailed with a few mildly threatening clouds hovering low to our west.

"Bay Hunter" Sails. Chesapeake Resort is Along Shore

The "Bay Hunter" departed the Marina fast by the Chesapeake Beach Resort and Spa complex of buildings, shops, and restaurants. Our mid-summer, dog-days mission was to fish for rockfish (AKA striped bass), bluefish, spot (for bait), and Spanish Mackerel.

First we fished for bait. What we were after, said the Captain, was to catch forty small spot, the smaller the better. That quota was met. We were off to the adventurous search for the prized rockfish. Captain Dean pursued these fish diligently, using both high and low technology to seek out the fish sanctuaries of the moment. High-tech was the sonar technology used to see the depths by means of computer screen -- low-tech, or what we also might call human and bio-tech, was the use of binoculars to extend "the amazing eyesight" of the sea birds, mainly gulls, as they hovered around rockfish congregations "breaking water" signaling their temporary presence.

Fish on Port Line

Being on a vessel like the "Bay Hunter" is not a passive outing. You are decidedly and vigorously, engaged. "Fish on port line," the captain commands. And you grab the rod, digging its butt into your groin, lift its tip, and begin reeling in the ducking, dodging and spinning fish as it breaks the waves in the wake behind to the boat's stern -- and then into Ryan's waiting net.

"The fish are on the move," says Randy Dean. So he starts up the boat's engine and we ride the waves in pursuit. In the meantime, we talk in the pilot house with, Ryan, Dean's seventeen-year-old son and the boat’s first-mate.

I ask him, "Do you have a girlfriend"

Ryan answers, "No, not right now."

"How long do you go between girlfriends?"

"As long as I can," he answers grinning. "You know, girls can be just like a school of fish -- they all look good, and you get one --- and then another one comes along, and she's better than the one you've got. Sometimes they are all over the place. Then they are like a school of fish that just swim away."

Such is the kind of personal exchange you may get vacationing locally.

Ryan (AKA “Rye”) also said, "My mom likes organic." What's more organic than "pulling," trolling for, fish or seaweed out of the waters? These fish are not raised or fed on a farm. They are wild and free-range fed along the waters of the Chesapeake. Much like the complementary hotel and spa along shore. The Chesapeake Beach Resort and Spa is hardly a part of a collective chain of national hotels. The resort was designed by an independent architect living his life on a boat moored in Baltimore Harbor. The guest rooms at the resort are decorated in unique colors of muted blues and green and gray -- just like the Bay itself.

Feeding of Fishes

Fishing is sacramental. Or, if you will, “sacrafishal.” Cleaning fish makes a city slicker like me a bit squeamish. There is even a Gospel dimension to it. The loaves and the fishes. There is something redemptive about fish sacrificing their lives for us so we can have a delicious meal.

End of journey. The catch.. We too give up our lives for our posterity, our loved ones.

Go over to the man who cleans the fish for you. He guts and fillets your catch. He is much like the grave-digger in Hamlet in his sunny acceptance of life and death. I ask, "What do you do in winter?"

Cutting through the flesh and bones of a rockfish, he gives me a jolly look and answers, "I put together several manual jobs just to keep things going. But this here is the life I love."

© 2009 Bethesda, Maryland. Russ Barnes. All rights reserved. For permissions both text and photos contact russ@bonmeasure.org

To see a rockfish catch, visit http://www.bayhunter.net

So Many Fish in the Sea; Part 2 -- Something about Gambling & Fishing

You cast your fishing line out into the Chesapeake waters. On Captain Randy Dean’s new boat, Bay Hunter, fishing is a gamble if not an act of faith. Catching a fish is not so much fisherman’s luck as it is happenstance. Fishing is about the right conditions coming together in a random, synchronistic manner. When the catch happens, it is a happy occasion.

Happenstance -- and so it happens -- being happy are kindred life experiences.

Is gambling about making money or is it, like fishing, a happy entertainment that benefits the whole world -- and you and me? Throwing money away may benefit your soul, many souls. Although prudence around one’s treasure is recommended.

Chesapeake Beach, Maryland was built during the early twentieth-century upon gambling, fishing, and entertainment. I was at Chesapeake Beach Resort and Spa three days ago and played a rousing game of pinball in its entertainment room. The machine didn’t pay you back in money. Clunk-de-clunk you were paid back in more games and the fun of keeping the game, the play, alive. Other games at the resort pay cash: slot machines and bingo.

The McGill-based (Montreal) economist, Reuven Brenner, a friend of mine, points out that gambling helps the economy and the arts. Opera at Monte Carlo, and other theaters in Europe, was subsidized by gaming. Gaming, which is optional, brought down the price of a ticket to the opera, subsidizing it as well as paying the artists.

Fishing thrives on the confluence of happenstance: feeding opportunities, tides, wind, weather, and the fisherman’s intuition -- just like a random deal of cards. Fishing is an exercise in what modern physicists call the “uncertainty principle.” Below is a continuation of a story about what it is like being on a charter fishing boat with Chesapeake skipper, Randy Dean.

How Many Fish Does it Take to Earn a Living, Part 2

First Published in Bay Weekly

The Big Kahuna

Our captain puts me in mind of the word kahuna.

Kahuna is a name given in the Eastern Pacific to powerful priests, doctors, sorcerers and navigators. They’re known for their ability to make things work, bringing advantage all around.

Here, Dean’s proper title is master, and his mastery is certified by the U.S. Coast Guard.

In waters like those of the Chesapeake, a captain’s license allows the skipper to take out a commercial boat with six passengers aboard, called a six pack. A master’s license allows for carrying an unlimited number of passengers up to the limit of the boat. On larger vessels, the master takes responsibility for overall administration of the vessel, while the captain is entrusted mostly to navigation and other sea-going operations.

Aboard Reel Attitude, Dean is the absolute authority. But he tempers his command, when safety permits, with democratic advice and consent.

“Do you think we should chum for rockfish here some more or troll for bluefish from here to Poplar Island?” he asks his mate, who is also a licensed captain.

But when the expedition nears a “close place” — as Mark Twain styles the dangers lurking in all waters — Dean always remains the master of his vessel. Then he bellows “Fish on!” or “Door latch at bottom!” or “Move back!”

A charter captain is also a businessman.
“Running a charter fishing boat isn’t only about loving to fish and working hard at it,” explains Dean. “That doesn’t guarantee you have a going business. One of the things you have to look at are the business realities, the numbers to get a picture of how you’re doing, what you need to be doing. Another thing is keeping the boat and its engine in shape at a cost you can afford.”

With his mind for making numbers add up, Dean has fashioned a financial model for Chesapeake Bay charter fishing businesses to help skippers to scrutinize how variables affect their bottom line. He’s also treasurer of the Captains’ Association at the Rod ’n’ Reel Marina, which provides services to its 27 charter fishermen and supports good works, including the annual Rod ’n’ Reel Captains Tournament and donations of fish to charitable organizations.

Dean’s an adopted son of the Chesapeake, but he’s a lifelong fisherman.

He grew up in Chamco, West Virginia, he tells us as he reels in a line. Some cagey fish has just eaten the bait around our hook.

Back there in Chamco in the mid-1980s, he traded soda-bottle deposits for fishing tackle and bait at the town’s general store for daily fishing on nearby Meadow River. “I found a way to support my growing fishing addiction,” he says.

Chamco is where Dean learned about that important, and often cantankerous, component of a charter fishing boat: the internal combustion engine. He learned from a top-notch auto mechanic, his father.

“I was the only one in the family willing to hold the flashlight for him when he fixed a car engine at night,” Dean says. “After a while, I realized I was learning a heck of a lot about mechanics just by holding that light and watching how things got fixed.”

We are lucky and do not need to test his mechanical abilities on this trip.

Catch of the Day
At noon, after six hours of morning fishing on the Chesapeake, we return to the Rod ’n’ Reel Harbor with a catch of 16 fish. A small crowd on shore awaits our arrival. Our fish are heaved onto a deck dolly, wheeled to the fish-cleaning table manned by attendants wearing long aprons and wielding sharp scaling knives. In a flash, rockfish, bluefish, croaker and spot are filleted, bagged, packed on ice.

Now there are more tall tales to tell. Captain Randy Dean smiles checking out the crowd “Everybody,” he says, “wants to see the catch of the day.”

Go Fishing The Chesapeake Country charter fishing season ordinarily runs from mid-April through early December. Be advised that the later the season, the bigger the fish. Among Maryland’s 600-plus licensed captains, about 80 fish out of Anne Arundel County and 90 out of Calvert County. The captains typically organize themselves into associations. The Maryland Charter Boat Association www.marylandcharterboats.com Calvert County Charter Fishing Associations Breezy Point Charter Boat Association, Chesapeake Beach: 410-760-8242;www.breezypointmarina.com Bunky’s Charter Boats: Solomons: 410-326-3241. Calvert Marina Charter Dock, Solomons: 410-326-4251; www.calvertcharters.com Chesapeake Beach Fishing Charters: 301-855-4665;www.chesapeakebeachfishingcharters.com Rod ‘n’ Reel Charter Captains, Chesapeake Beach: 800-233-2080;www.rodnreelinc.com Solomons Charter Captains Association: 410-326-2670; www.fishsolomons.com Anne Arundel County Charter Fishing Associations Annapolis area: www.baycaptains.com; bayroster-annapolis.cfm\ Deale and Southern Anne Arundel County: www.baycaptains.com; bayroster-mid-bay.cfm

© 2009 Russ Barnes. All rights reserved -- writing and photos.

So Many Fish in the Sea

It’s summer. And if you live around water, you don’t have to travel the thousands of miles that the travel magazines say you need to go to find glamorous and fun places. And you don’t need to spend a lot of money to have a good time.

The travel industry is driven by travel agent commissions and corporate interests. That’s okay. But these interests want to make sure you see only their travel opportunities on your radar screen.

All sorts of treasures await you locally for your pleasure and adventure if you are willing to look around your local neighborhood.

Case in point. Chesapeake Beach, a funky, sometimes fish-smelling, salt-water, relaxing place, is only fifty miles by auto from where I live in Bethesda, Maryland near Washington, DC.

There are similar gems available locally all over the world. The point here is that anyone can find travel properties near home as good or better than anywhere else on the planet at a reasonable prices in personal time and treasure.

In this exemplary case, Chesapeake Beach is located right on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. It was developed by railroad magnate and travel industry promoter -- General William Jackson Palmer. He was also the developer of the Broadmoor Resort in Colorado Springs, CO at the foot of Pike’s Peak You will see the connection between trains and travel. Add other attractions to the sun, water, and crabcakes recipe. and you get: low-stakes gambling, live music on the dock's gazebo, and horse and car racing, organic farms and historic places nearby. Then you will see why many Washingtonians have traveled to Chesapeake Beach for more than a century.

Palmer made it easy to get there by building a train track from Washington to the Beach.

Recently, Gerald Donovan, former mayor of Chesapeake Beach, built Chesapeake Beach Resort and Spa as a complement to his restaurants and fishing marina. The resort has commanding views of the Chesapeake Bay, rooms with balconies, sand-in your-shoes informality, a full-service class spa, and reasonable prices.

Many couples get married there -- right on the dock

Donovan said to me, “The women tend to go the spa and the men go out with charter boats to fish for Rockfish. Although that’s a stereotype with exceptions.”

Donovan recommended that I “go to sea” with charter boat operator, Randy Dean. My adventure on board his boat is a “to be continued” in further posts. You will see the beginning of the adventure story below.

==========================

“How Many Fish does it take to earn a living?”

(First published in Bay Weekly)

It’s before six and we amateur fishermen are groggy, having just rolled out of bed. The air is cool. The warm blush of sunrise light reflects off the Bay.

There’s a drowsy bustle along the dock at Rod ’n’ Reel Marina at the mouth of Fishing Creek on Chesapeake Bay. The fishing boats are lined up in their berths just behind the Rod ’n’ Reel and Smokey Joe’s restaurants and adjacent to the new Chesapeake Beach Resort and Spa. Skippers and their mates load their vessels with ice chests and buckets of chum. They duck in and out of the tackle shop, along the dock and above the fish-cleaning table, for last-minute supplies.

Out beyond the several dozen charter fishing boats moored in this 120-slip marina, the channel markers flash red and green, indicating the route out of the harbor and into the Bay. Beyond the markers, gulls dive, early birds already fish. Small Chesapeake surf laps the shore and dock pilings.

Our early morning crew of seven fishermen, including two women, climbs aboard the 42-foot motor vessel Reel Attitude. In the forward cabin, the captain makes a radio check of the latest weather report while his mate for this fishing expedition is busy organizing the tackle.

The most groggy among us awaken when Captain Randy Dean, 43, delivers his safety briefing, reminding us that riding Chesapeake waters is no trivial adventure.

Dean backs Reel Attitude out of her berth, and we slip smoothly by landmarks as the she idles toward the channel markers. Silently the passengers acknowledge in glances to each other that there is something about going out to sea that puts a thrill in your gut.

Just past the markers, Dean opens the throttle and heads for our first fishing location, off Tilghman Island close to Knapps Narrows, which runs through the island and connects the Choptank River with the Bay. “Fish,” Dean says, “usually like this spot.”

As novice fishermen aboard Dean’s boat, we are coddled. Approaching the fishing field, the mate assigns us poles. He describes how to let our line out until its weight hits the bottom of the Bay, about 35 feet down. To lure fish to us, the mate tosses overboard — with a hint of macho flourish — chum, bits and pieces of ground clams and feeder fish. This apparently delicious repast draws large communities of unsuspecting fish to the banquet beneath our boat. This is a seasonal ruse many fishermen apply.

Free-drifting near Tilghman with chum now overboard, we let out our lines, kindly baited by the mate for the sake of the squeamish. Five minutes later, Dean shouts, “Fish on!” Marie-Louise’s pole dips with a tug from the deep. Suddenly, the butt of the rod digs into her belly. Her rod is bent in a semi-circle by the fighting fish. Minutes later, the mate helps her bring the fish over the railing. As the fish comes aboard, it dances wildly on the line and its tail smacks Marie-Louise along the neck.

“Oooh,” she shrieks, ducking sideways from the beast, not wanting to make its acquantance quite yet. The 21-inch rockfish flops onto the deck. The first catch of the day is a nice one.

At the helm, Dean explains how fish think. “The fish like the same places we like,” he says. “If the weather’s good, the fish like it right out in the middle. If the weather’s a bit rough, they like to go alongside an island like Tilghman or Poplar where the water’s smoother.”

Pointing through a cabin window, he asks, “See those birds over there? That means there’s fish around.”

Technology supports the fisherman’s wisdom in his search to satisfy charter parties. Looking at the fathometer above his wheel showing the Bay floor and the fish lying beneath the boat, he says, “These fish are fed. So they’re all stickin’ to the bottom. When they come up to about here, close to the surface, they’re ready to feed.”

To be continued

© 2009 Russ Barnes. All rights reserved.

Water, Desert, Thirst, and Betrayal

By (C) Russ Barnes; Photo by Russ Barnes

It’s mid-summer and dry. Below you will find a fragment of a piece I wrote while at Hickory Pass Ranch near Marble Falls, Texas, a 3500 acre ranch at about 1300 feet altitude. Water and dryness. For travels to the desert those are themes always in front of you and to be contemplated. What is your experience of thirst and quenching it with cool, real and metaphorical water? This little piece is part of a larger story. Sign up to follow the blog and you will see other pieces from the ranch and many other places, from me and from others. Any thoughts about water rights?

WATER: from “Alligator Stew”

Water is not taken for granted. It becomes precious. It fills you. Cow Creek often dries up during the summer months.

John Steinbeck observes in his book, Travels with Charley, that civilization and social activity thrive around places with abundant water. Steinbeck noted this while crossing the wide swatch of Texas in his van, Rocinante, with his dog, Charley. Intellectual ideas and spiritual experiences, he perceived, are more likely to flourish in the minimalism of dry places.

Joe, catching a sight of flowers in the brittle sedge, said, "It’s as dry as a popcorn fart out here, and it’s bloomin’. It’s so dry, the trees are lookin’ for dogs."

DESERT FATHERS

Meditating a bit on Steinbeck’s observation, my thoughts turned to the early desert fathers of Egypt came to mind as I roamed the range at Hickory Pass. One of those desert fathers pointed out, “The man who flees and lives in solitude is like a bunch of grapes ripened by the sun, but he who remains among men is like an unripe grape.” I’m way not that stringent. But the old father has a point.

The individual thrives in the desert, in dryness. Society breeds around water.

Karen is reported to have asked Joe, "Is Russ becoming a hermit?"

EDWARD’S AQUIFER

It was another father -- Jacqueline’s father, Jackson C. Mouton -- who decided on the site at the top of the hill for building the Hickory Pass Ranch house. At its altitude, there is no natural running water; so he drilled down to bring water up. Beneath the Hill Country and beyond, is a mighty, but delicate, underground river called the Edwards Aquifer. That underground source of water is fed by surface water filtered by the geological layers through which it seeps, and then that pure water is stored in the cool and running waters below.

The desert fathers applied prayer and contemplation to drill deep through their metaphoric desert to quench their thirst, to allay betrayal. Jacquelyn’s father used an oil drill. The object in both cases, it occurred to me, is not entirely dissimilar: to slake thirst.

When you drink from the tap or take a shower at Hickory Pass Ranch, the water is pure, particularly in comparison to the water supply of, say, Washington, DC At the highest point on the hill, near the guesthouses, sit three squat, round cement towers. These house a pump system, which fills a huge stainless steel cistern. Gravity then serves to provide the water pressure needed to service all three ranch buildings.

BETRAYAL

The desert? Lack of water. Betrayals surfaced in conversations between me and Joe. Betrayal is what leads one to the desert for resolution. Joe said, “I came here broke. He paused honestly. Well not completely. My bride came with me. More. Then the school found me. I felt like a duck falling on a pond.” “I understand,” I said to Joe.