Trout

I was thinking about fish the other day and decided to paint a couple.

I love fish - I eat them raw. I like to fly fish too but haven't for 25 years. Catch and release is a tough one for me. Confronted with the decision to release or kill and eat the poor little thing might pose a moral dilemna I am not willing to tackle yet.

I was so bad at fly fishing I quit. But like the way golf keeps you in the game if you have one good shot out of fifty, that three inch brookie I did catch one day keeps me thinking about getting back into it someday. I still have my rod and reel hanging from a old rusty nail in the shed just in case. There's something about walking along a stream in the western mountains of Maine, being eaten alive by black flies and having my fly get caught for the twentieth time in the trees hanging overhead because I haven't perfected my roll cast, that makes me think I gave up too easily.

So what do fish do in the winter I wondered? We all pretty much know that, like bears, they hibernate -  eat very little, and slow down to consume less oxygen. What I didn't know was that the real danger to fish is not freezing to death but suffocating. Ice on the water's surface makes it hard for oxygen in the air to dissolve in the water, but if there is is water underneath, no problem. If a body of water freezes completely from the surface to the bottom, fish cannot survive for long-unless they are like the Antarctic icefish, which has chemicals resembling antifreeze in its blood to help it survive in water below freezing temperatures. So then I got curious and went on a search and find for fun facts.

1.  Genetically different trout are capable of spawning together and producing viable offspring but many have remained distinct for thousands of years. This happens because they have different life strategies e.g. their choice of spawning locations and timing or adaptations to exploit different niches within the food chain.

2.  Brown trout have between 38 and 42 pairs of chromosomes. Humans have only 23 pairs.

3. Large trout can eat large prey. For example, it is thought that large New Zealand trout feed on the periodic plagues of mice. Large brown trout will feed on small terrestrial animals that fall into the water, such as baby birds falling from overhanging nests, or even swimming mice or voles.

4. Trout have teeth on the roof of the mouth, called vomerine teeth, and this helps to distinguish trout from salmon.

5. Trout scales have growth rings, as new hard tissue is added around the edges as they grow. They can be read just like growth rings in a tree.

6.  Trout have body language. When competing for a ‘lie’ they will posture and ‘gape’ by opening their mouths wide and flaring the gills whilst advancing on their opponent. Fighting is kept to a minimum. Submissive fish close their mouth, contract their fins, go pallid and drop towards the stream bed.

7.  Trout don’t have scales for the first month of their life.

8. The majority of trout die before their first birthday. Mortality rates in their first year of life are typically 95% or greater, falling to around 40 - 60% in subsequent years. Brown trout can reach the ripe of age of 20 years.

10. Trout can rapidly change colour, getting darker when being aggressive, lighter
when being submissive or in response to changing background colour.

 11.  Salmon and trout can interbreed and do produce hybrids.

12.   A typical female brown trout produces about 2,000 eggs per kilogram (900 eggs per pound) of body weight at spawning.

13.   Trout, like most other fish, cannot regulate their body temperature – they tick over at the same temperature as the water in which they swim.

14.   A Trout can look and focus out of both corners of each eye simultaneously meaning that it can see in almost every direction at once.

15.  The earliest account of flyfishing (AD 200) is by the Roman scholar Aelian who recorded Macedonians ‘cast with rods to speckled fish’.

Trout • 8" x 8" watercolor framed to 12" x 12" • $200

Streams

I love the words stream and streaming - I always feel like I'm flying when I say them. I love the way a stream cuts through a landscape within a narrow channel and bank, defined and deceptively confined, but quite impossible to discipline or stop - its sole mission to join the ocean.

Although stream and streaming have taken on a whole new meaning in this age of the internet, I've always wanted to know the difference between the actual streams, brooks, rivers, etc. I encounter on my jaunts. So I went on another search and find and found a scientific order to the whole thing. It's all pretty interesting but also a bit disconcerting because I will probably go through a phase where I try to figure out which order every stream I come across belongs to. Hopefully, and as it should probably be, the whole thing will become utterly frustrating and I will leave it to the pros so that I might remember to simply enjoy the blasted stream.

1. Streams are sometimes called a brook, creek, bayou or burn.

2. Streams are classified from a first order stream to a 12th order stream. Classifying stream size is important to geographers, geologists, hydrologists and other scientists. It gives them an idea of the size and strength of specific waterways within stream networks- an important component to water management. Classifying stream order allows scientists to more easily study the amount of sediment in an area and more effectively use waterways as natural resources. It also helps biogeographers and biologists to determine what types of life are in that waterway.

3. A first order stream is the smallest and consists of small tributaries. These streams flow into and "feed" larger streams but do not normally have any water flowing into them. First (and second) order streams generally form on steep slopes and flow quickly until they slow down and meet the next order waterway.

4. First through third order streams are called headwater streams and are any waterways in the upper reaches of the watershed. 80% of the world’s waterways are considered headwater streams.

5. Fourth through sixth order are medium streams

6. Seven through 12th order streams are considered rivers. Unlike the smaller order streams, these medium and large rivers are usually less steep and flow slower.

7. Two first order streams that join together form a second order stream, two second order streams combined form a third order stream, and two third order streams joined form a fourth, etc.

8. If two streams of different orders join, neither increases in order. So if a second order stream joins a third order stream, the second order stream simply ends by flowing its contents into the third order stream, which then maintains its place in the hierarchy.

Streams • 8" x 8" watercolor framed to 12" x 12" • $200

Made up

I'm tired, I'm sick and I'm jet lagged. It's a proverbial trifecta.

In an effort to cleanse my body of the above, I've decided I need to cleanse my mind first. But since that would entail a full on lobotomy, I will instead tackle it from a different angle and begin by coming clean on this painting and calling it what it really is - Made up.

A lot of times, in case you can't tell or don't already know, I make stuff up. It's tough because more often than not, a person will look at one of my better made up landscapes and tell me they have been to that very spot. What am I going to say - it doesn't exist and ruin their Maine moment and life the way it should be? Of course not. I'm as big a whore as the next person. I need to eat too. I generally just smile and reply, pretty isn't it - referring to the painting of course.

Made Up • 8" x 8" watercolor framed to 12" x 12" • $200