Leslierego by The Weekly Sun

Fishing R epoRt The “Weekly” Fishing RepoRT FoR ocTobeR 7 FRom picabo angleR

f you are a big fan of 70 degrees and sunny, then welcome to the second week of October! The fishing is fine and so is the catching. Expect a few nice weeks here, and then buckle down for winter fishing. Next week we’ll get to the “Winter Primer.” For now, things continue to move forward about how we would expect. On Silver Creek, the Mahogany Duns have really taken off, with daily hatches that can get very strong. Anglers are reporting lots of rising fish and lots of fish taking the fly. The fall Baetis will get stronger, but for now the smorgasbord of insects will continue. Expect fringe activity like Midge hatches and Mouse hatches to continue, and we aren’t quite done with Hoppers, Ants and Beetles either. On the Big Wood, expect clear waters this week and a Red Quill hatch that has moved upstream, closer to the SNRA by now. This is an excellent time to fish the Big Wood north of Ketchum, as bugs and fish tend to move up this system in the autumn. Eventually, the fish will drop back into temperate waters for the winter, but in the meantime, get out and explore from Galena to Ketchum. The fall Baetis is also active and will continue to be present up and down the entire river. The Lower Lost remains one of our best fisheries right now, with smaller Trico Spinner Falls coupling with Baetis that make for an excellent dry-fly opportunity, at flows that make it easy to move up and down the system. The Nymphing remains strong and will almost always produce fish on those off days when the fish won’t rise. The Upper Lost is always the sleeper fishery this time of year. It is running low and is surrounded by waters that are fishing great, but if you want some river to yourself, look no further! Be prepared to cover a lot of river miles, but take your time, enjoy the quiet and plan on catching a few really nice fish. Think Red Quills, Ants, Crane flies and Baetis. The South Fork of the Boise is historically one of the best fall Baetis rivers going in our area; thus, there is no reason we shouldn’t expect some great action over there this week. It might not be what it once was, but it is still a world-class fishery and well worth the effort to fish this time of the season. Happy fishing, everyone!

Hwy 20 in Picabo info@picaboangler.com (208)788.3536 www.picaboangler.com 14

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pets no bones about it

Fall Hiking With Your Dog BY FRAN JEWELL

all in the Wood River Valley is extraordinary! The colors of the aspen leaves drifting in the wind contrasting with the deep, brilliant blue sky is incomparable. The cooler temperatures make the hiking even more pleasant. So, who wouldn’t want to share this with their canine friend? Unfortunately, it is also one of the most dangerous seasons for hiking. The opening of hunting seasons will find the woods full of hunters. The quick changes in weather can further jeopardize a peaceful, glorious afternoon. As one of the first three SAR TECH ll women in Idaho, I was certified by the National Association for Search and Rescue (NASAR). I participated in many searches with my search dogs involving lost or injured hikers and hunters. From this, I know it is critical that both you and your dog do everything you can to stay safe. With the recent search for a lost hiker over Trail Creek, the reality of the dangers during a simple hike cannot be ignored. Here is a list of things that can help keep you and your dog stay safe during this beautiful season. Wear SAFETY orange! There are vests for both you and your dog. BE VISIBLE! Have your dog wear a Swiss bell on their collar so the sound scares wildlife away and alerts hunters that your dog is not game. Don’t forget the name tag. Carry a very loud whistle around your neck. Carry a leash. If you hear gunshots near you, leash your dog next to you. Blow your whistle so hunters know you are there. Review the Fish and Game video about releasing your dog from a trap. There are many baited traps in the woods to capture wild animals. If your dog becomes trapped, be sure you have the knowledge and tools needed to release your dog. You can easily find the video from Idaho Fish and Game on YouTube. Be sure to take a daypack with additional warm and waterproof clothing. Bring provisions to provide for both you and your dog – matches, knife, water, food for an overnight

Photo by Fran Jewell

A reflective vest for your dog is a necessity this time of year.

and a makeshift shelter. For a more specific list of provisions, contact one of our very knowledgeable outdoor shops. This is not the time of year to skimp on safety. Leave a note at the trailhead about the number in your party, and what your planned route is. Include your dog and breed. In an emergency, your dog may help you to be found. Let someone you trust know where you are going. Do not venture into the woods without a plan and letting someone know. Do not stray off your planned route. Take your cell phone with a full charge. In many places, your cell phone will have coverage, but even more so, your cell phone has a compass to help you find your way if you should get lost. Learn how to use that compass.

Be aware of the animals expecting to hibernate soon. Bears are especially aggressive searching for food to prepare for the long winter. Bear spray is another good idea. First-aid kit. This may seem like overkill for a short day hike, but in the event of an unexpected emergency or the usual drastic, unpredicted changes in weather, you will be thankful. So will your dog! Fran Jewell is an IAABC-certified dog behavior consultant, NADOI-certified instructor #1096 and the owner of Positive Puppy Dog Training, LLC, in Sun Valley. For more information, visit www.positivepuppy.com or call 208-578-1565.

active art Sketchbook Hiking

BY LESLIE REGO

The Titus Lake Tree storms, windstorms, snowstorms, hailstorms and lightning, and continues standing, a sentinel to one’s first viewing of the lake. I have never seen any new shoots growing from the tree, so it must be dead, and yet, even in death, it stubbornly persists, hanging onto its space in this world. Through the last 27 years I have visited this stump, growing from a young woman to an older, wiser one. This tree has taught me my own form of persistence, stick-to-itiveness and hope when times seem difficult. I like to visit that old wizened tree to see it still resisting time, weathering the knocks that nature throws its way. The Titus Lake tree truly has my reverence for all of the untold mysterious stories that nestle within its shape.

ust as you round the last corner on the Titus Lake Trail to look down upon Titus Lake, on the left stands an old stump of a tree. Years ago, when I first encountered this stump on a hike with my three young children, I instantly fell in love. I wondered what untold stories this ebony ghost must have to tell: the stories of its youth, of a mature alive tree, of its death, and the many tales of its existence after death as a storm-weathered trunk. The shape of the burnt stump is arresting. The gnarled dark branches reach upwards, the black contrasting startlingly with the bright crisp blue of the sky. The long limbs and stubs of branches twist and turn, casting deep shadows across the body of the tree. There is a dense coiled burl on one side, which adds Leslie Rego is an artist and curves to the outline of the trunk, Blaine County resident. To view and running down the length are more of Rego’s art, visit www. deep gouges where the wood has leslierego.com. split. This stump must have an extensive root system that firmly anchors it to the mountainside Leslie Rego, “The Titus Lake Tree”, nib pen and sumi ink, ink wash because it has survived rainT h e W e e k ly S u n •

October 7, 2015

active art Sketchbook Hiking

column peaks and valleys

A TIME TO BE THANKFUL

MERCHANTS OF DOUBT

BY LESLIE REGO

Every day of my life I am thankful for the beauties of Nature – for the showy beauties and for the quiet beauties. I thought this would be a perfect week to reflect on some of the more gentle, less obvious enjoyments of this time of year. I am thankful for the days of muted skies when the bare tree branches are etched in shades of taupe, the light softly reflecting off of the surfaces, creating a gentle contrast between sky and branch. I love that the world is showing more gray. Certainly gray can be a drab color, but with so many natural, different grays, the color becomes enticing, beguiling and charming – one gentle gray against another, one lighter gray against a darker one, until the outdoors becomes a value scale where the slightest nuance is given its spot. I love the faded colors of the fall leaves – no longer a brilliant autumn gold, but rather an array of all the possible shades of browns. There is a wealth to be learned from all of these browns and how each one brings a mystery and a depth to the natural world. They are not the showy colors of summer, but rather the slower-paced, restrained shades of the transition of autumn to winter. I find them infinitely rich, varied and precious. I am thankful for a thin layering of snow on the sides of the mountains that provides a backdrop for all of the fallen burned trees, which become etched against the white, creating a multitude of linear patterns. These patterns are connectors between the living vertical trees and the

column movie review

A fracking review and more BY DICK DORWORTH

Leslie Rego, “Shades of Gray”, nib pen and wash, sumi ink, watercolor

dead toppled ones. I delight in the tufts of grass that stick up through the clumps of snow, still tall and proud from the summer days and not yet beaten down from the winds of winter. I wonder at the mass of snow that sits on a small stone in the middle of the river, somehow not melting into the water flowing on either side. I am thankful for the shift between the seasons where the

glitz of one season transitions to the quiet of another one, before the glamour begins again. These quiet times bring great reflection and repose before the charisma of winter. Leslie Rego is an artist and Blaine County resident. To view more of Rego’s art, visit www. leslierego.com.

‘TRUTH’

Bush and the Guard BY JONATHAN KANE

wo months before George W. Bush’s re-election in 2004, CBS news broadcast a story on 60 Minutes II that purported to show that the sitting President avoided service in Vietnam with a no-show position in the Texas Air National Guard that he obtained through his family’s leverage. The story was soon to be debunked as false and in its wake the venerable career of CBS anchor Dan Rather would be over, as would the career of his pro-

ducer, Mary Mapes. Now we have the telling of this investigational journalism piece gone bad in the new film “Truth” with two great performances by Cate Blanchett as Mapes and Robert Redford as Rather. The movie is based on Mapes’ memoir, “Truth and Duty: The Press, the President and the Privilege of Power.” Unfortunately, the casting of Redford cannot help but bring to mind the infinitely better “All The President’s Men” in a comparison that doesn’t do “Truth” any favors. This film is the work of first-time director James Vanderbilt from his own screenplay. He is also the author of the screenplay for “Zodiac” and it’s in the screenplay that the film has its troubles, especially in the first third, with a clunky style that hits you over the head. Pressured to put the story together in five days, Mapes and her team based their report on documents that weren’t original and that could not be authenticated. Whether or not their premise was true, immediately after airing, the story blows up in their faces and the ship begins sinking at a rapid pace.

It’s here that the movie hits its stride as a character study of Mapes. Blanchett delivers one of her best performances to

Jon rated this movie

ast week I saw the fine documentary film “Merchants of Doubt,” a story about how scientific misinformation makes its way into the media and then the minds of the general public. In some ways it is an old story, best summarized in the inimitable words of Deep Throat (Mark Felt), “Follow the money.” In other ways it is an entirely new story because the stakes and consequences of a public filled with scientific misinformation are unprecedented in all history. I had planned on a different column topic this week until an opinion piece by the Denver Post editorial board caught my eye. It begins: “One of the stock charges used by those who campaign to ban hydraulic fracturing in oil and gas drilling is that it endangers groundwater supplies. And yet the pile of studies largely refuting this fear-mongering keeps growing by the year.” One study mentioned refuting “this fear-mongering” was conducted by Colorado State University’s Warner College of Natural Resources. Yes, and, according to High Country News, Exxon Mobile in 2010 “…gave the university $5 million to study energy development impacts on western Colorado’s sage grouse, mule deer and other wildlife, spawning 20 new research contracts. Shell, BP and others have also recently poured millions of dollars into CSU’s research. Warner College is even named for alum Ed Warner, who donated $30 million in 2005 after making a fortune pioneering hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which has opened hard-to-reach oil and gas reserves worldwide.” Last month a press release from Physicians for Social Responsibility read: “A partnership of prominent health organizations encompassing nationwide medical and public health experts and scientists released the third edition of their ‘Compendium of SciCourtesy photo entific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks Dick Dorworth is a Blaine County and Harms of Fracking’ on resident, author and former world Wednesday. The Compendium record holder for speed on skis. compiles and summarizes hun- Visit his website and blog at dickdreds of peer-reviewed studies dorworth.com. and other important findings on fracking, showing the significance and extent of the evidence demonstrating risks to public health, air and water quality, birth and infant health, the environment, and climate change.” Who would you rather have as sources of scientific information about public health, Physicians for Social Responsibility or Exxon Mobil, Shell and BP? It seems obvious to me, but “Merchants of Doubt” is a stunning and disturbing documentary of the history and current practice of how public relations firms working for large businesses pervert truth and deceive the public for profit. “Merchants of Doubt” director Robert Kenner says all of today’s “doubtmeisters” learned at the feet of the old masters from the Marlboro days. “I spoke to Peter Sparber, who was masterful at working for tobacco,” says Kenner. “He helped slow down legislation on a slow-burning cigarette. He was able to convince people it was not cigarettes that cause house fires, it was couches. He was able to make a law that (requires) chemicals to be put in these couches. It turned out it didn’t prevent fires and it also caused cancer.” Sparber, who was interviewed for the film, told Kenner that if a person can successfully create doubt around tobacco products, they can do it with just about anything. He said, “You could take James Hansen, the leading climate scientist, and I could take a garbage man and I could get America to believe that the garbage man knows more about climate change than Hansen does.” “Merchants of Doubt” will help the public differentiate between garbage and science. Don’t miss it. tws

Courtesy photo

Jonathan Kane is a graduate of the University of Michigan.

date, which is saying a lot, as her career crumbles around her. “Truth” is compelling but lacks the stuff of greatness.

T h e W e e k ly S u n •

tws

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

november 25, 2015

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UI ENCOURAGES COLLEGE ATTENDANCE The University of Idaho is urging graduating high school seniors to attend college through its new Direct Admissions program. The program was launched in November with a statewide series of public meetings, including one in Hailey, to provide high school students and their friends and families with information about the value of a higher education, how to pay for it and programs offered at the university. UI explained in a press release that the Direct Admissions program, supported by the Idaho State Board of Education, is intended to facilitate college attendance by young people. The Board of Education has set a goal for Idaho, with one of the lowest college attendance rates in the nation, to have 60 percent of its populace between the ages of 25-34 with a post-secondary education degree or certificate by 2020.

active art Sketchbook Hiking

WEATHERED CRABAPPLES BY LESLIE REGO

here must have been something in the air this year to make the crabapples grow so big and round. The weight of the heavy fruit bent the branches of the trees until they almost touched the ground. Generally, we have a bear or two or a mother bear and her cubs come around to feast on the crabapples. One year we had a mother bear with triplets come, the little cubs tripping and stumbling over one another in their play. The bears claw at the trees, ripping the bark and leaving long scratches traveling down the trunks. They grasp at the limbs to rip off the fruit. After foraging, there are broken branches littering the ground. For some reason the bears did not come this year and so the fruit grew lush and plump. Big red glistening crabapples festooned the trees. But now, with the advent of winter, the apples have shriveled. There are still many all over the trees, but they are little and crumpled. I have always been fascinated with wrinkled and weathered plants, in their last throes of life. I think there is something heroic with a leaf, or a piece of fruit, or a blade of grass, hanging on until the winds of winter finally defeat these hapless life-forms. With this in mind, I set out to capture these wrinkled apples. I plucked a twig off of the crabapple tree and immediately noticed that it has many knobs, twists and turns. The twig is as gnarled as the crabapple, each one mirroring the other. With nib

Leslie Rego, “Weathered Crabapples”, nib pen, sumi and shellac ink, watercolor.

pen, I began to capture all of the complexities, delighting in the unique character created by the intricate forms. What fun to let my hand flow, adjusting the flow of the ink to follow the lead of my hand. At times I applied pressure for a thicker, more assertive line. Other times I released pressure, creating a finer, more playful line.

Slowly, I extended the life of the crabapple a bit more, before the fruit was completely extinguished by the winter chill. Leslie Rego is an artist and Blaine County resident. To view more of Rego’s art, visit www. leslierego.com.

photo ART snyder’s eye

The new initiative makes it mandatory that qualifying high school graduates, based upon grade point average and college entrance exams, be conditionally admitted to one of the state’s eight post-secondary institutions. Students not meeting the qualification standards are required to be conditionally admitted to one of the state’s six community and technical colleges. “Direct Admissions changes the conversation from ‘should I go to college’ to ‘where should I go to college,’” said UI President Chuck Staben, who proposed the Direct Admissions program to the Board of Education earlier this year. “We want every college-ready student to know early in his or her senior year of high school: ‘Yes, you can go.’” Additional information on the program is available at www. uidaho.edu/enrollidaho.

ITD OFFERS SAFE WINTER DRIVING INFORMATION The Idaho Transportation Department offers four basic tips to safe winter driving: slow down, obey all traffic signs, allow more space for stopping and other driving procedures, and allow more time to get there. “Preparation and situational awareness are two strategies to help ensure safe winter driving, not just for yourself, but for the other motorists on the road,” said ITD Chief Operations Officer Jim Carpenter. “Ensure your vehicle is up to the challenge of winter driving before you leave and be attentive while on the road. “Our priority is to provide the safest travel conditions possible,” Carpenter said. “We have professionals assigned to winter maintenance, and they are ready for the challenges ahead. But we also ask drivers to do their part to make winter travel safer for everyone by being prepared, cautious and patient.” Other information for safe winter driving is available from ITD at itd.idaho.gov. The department has a 10-part video series that covers information such as driving near working snowplows, essential emergency items to carry in vehicles and what to do during an emergency. ITD provides statewide highway road conditions by telephone at 511 or by Internet at 511.idaho.gov. 14

DAY AFTER TURKEY DAY The day after Turkey Day I needed to burn some gobbled carbs, so I headed skyward up Carbonate and took this ridgetop shadow selfie—pointing to Hyndman Peak in the Pioneer Mountains. It was an Idaho bluebird day, and here, with gratitude, am I…

T h e W e e k ly S u n •

december 2, 2015