Butterfly Net?

I spent a few hours fishing the other day. The sun was warm and the sky was blue; it was a day for being lazy; waiting for the fish to come, rather than getting all hot and bothered chasing them around.

I caught a couple of reasonable fish early, and was sitting back resting in the sunshine, with my net starting to dry out... when I realized that I was not alone.

A large Butterfly settled on my landing net and decided to make it home. I carried on catching fish, and he moved off whenever I picked up the net... only to come back a little while later when everything had settled down again. I took a pic of my little pal, and looked him up later on the web. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but he looks like an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (or, Papilio Glaucus, to the edumified amongst my readership).

So, here's my two questions:

1. I thought butterflies were scared of nets? After all, what's the traditional way to catch butterflies? Yep, in a net... vastly more difficult to chase them armed only with a pin and a square of cork-board. So, is my little pal the Charles Bronson of his clan; is he truly a Deathwish fan? Or, is he more like a winged Forrest Gump, just sitting there hoping that "stupid is as stupid does"? Either way, he picked the right guy when he landed on my landing net; when I left he returned to the wild.

2. What was he doing on my net? As far as I could tell, he appeared to be licking the mesh, and as he spent a couple of hours there in total, he seemed to have done a whole lot of licking.

Now, anyone who knows me also knows a little about my fishing gear. Like good old Queen Bess, my gear generally gets a bath once a year, whether it needs it or not. What's worse, I not only know what's been in my net; I also know what some of my "net tenants" left behind them. Carp and Northern Pike are fairly British and tend to "keep a stiff upper lip"; I always get the impression that they're doing their best not to let you know they're scared when you net 'em.

Not so the Walleye; they seem to lose all control of their bodily functions, rather like a frenchman threatened with sentry duty in Baghdad on a dark Friday night after the Jihadists have hit town. Yes, that's right folks, they have made the phrase S**t-Scared well and truly their own. I do have some sympathy for the Walleye however. Considering it's the WI State Fish, the poor beast runs a terrible risk of grievous bodily harm every time if finds itself hooked. Not to put too fine a point on it (pun intended), 90% of Walleye hooked in WI tend to end up beer-battered... probably explains their loose bowels doesn't it?

Now all of you are intimately aware of the history of my net (and I confess that I have used this equipment to scare dogs and small children on hot days), be honest now; would you lick the mesh? No, I thought not. So, any ideas on what the butterfly found so delicious? Answers on a reply-paid postcard please to:

Lee Young

C/o The Sunny-Side Home for the Mentally Confused

Old-Timers Boulevard, Green Bay, WI

I'll stick all the postcards in a big sack (my landing net!); first one drawn will win a great prize. Yes, you guessed it, they'll get a jam-jar of the squeezings from my landing net next time I get it wet & fishy. It should be a magnet for butterflies of all descriptions... well flies, anyway?

Work is the Curse of the Fishing Classes...

Wow, I've been really busy for the last few months; and both fishing and blogging have had to take a back seat. The good news is that all the hard work has paid off, and hopefully I'll be able to relax and take a few days fishing during the weekends of this fall!

I have the worlds best job, so it's not too much of a hardship to give some fishing time up occasionally. And I've still managed to grab an hour or two here or there to visit some of my favorite river stretches, even though I've not had the time to fish them.

Actually, visiting your favorite stretches of rivers during the low-water summer period can be really informative. With the water at a low summer level, you can see a lot more of the features that you'll be aiming for when the fall rains arrive, or when you are fishing for spring steelhead in a snow-melt spring flow. All you need is a large-scale map of your chosen river, a digital camera, sketch-pad and your hand-held GPS. An hour's prospecting likely holes, vertical features on bends, etc. can give you all sorts of clues where the fish will be lying once a few million gallons of H2O arrive.

You can sketch the best spots, record them in your GPS, mark them on your map, and take a quick pic to refresh your memory later in the year... although remember that you'll probably have to mentally swap sunshine and low water for snow and high water when comparing pic with reality on a cold day in November.

Remember, the best anglers spend a lot of time looking for where and how they'll catch the biggest fish... rather than spending a lot of time "fishing blind and hoping"!