Whales of Nepal - uh, would you believe dolphins instead? How about...

Some more humorous whale lore:

Along the California coast, the whales you see the most often are the Grays. They pass through twice a year on their way to Alaska (dinner grounds) or the Gulf of Mexico (which for some reason they consider romantic).

They're not very big as whales go, less than half the size of a Sperm or Humpback.

However, if you study 19th century whaling lore, you'll find there's something peculiar about Grays. See, if you stick a harpoon into a Sperm, Right, Humpback or almost any other kind of whale, it'll go "OWWW OWWW OWWW" and try and swim away...which isn't really a good plan.

A Gray though...it says "%^@#$^@$&", pulls on whatever a whale uses for Doc Martins and proceeds to turn around and kick your a$$. More specifically, it'll leave your boat in splinters.

Now, this would serve as an interesting trivia question today; their numbers are flourishing because they spend so much time in whaling-prohibited US coastal waters so they're not afraid of being hunted.

Except for one thing: they don't take kindly to being cut up by a propellor either.

And if THAT weren't enough, as the main pod travels up or down the coast, there'll be "outriders". Pairs of young males act as scouts, ranging 10 miles or more ahead of the main group looking for any possible problem. We once had a pair check out our small fishing boat, surfacing 10ft off our stern. My dad immediately chopped the motor in case they took an even closer look. They're not violent unless provoked but the prop could have done just that. They scoped us out for about half a minute and then took off.

I had this mental image of guys in black suits, crewcuts, sunglasses, a wired earpiece and a bulge under the armpit scoping out a site for an upcoming Presidential visit. That's how they acted - no play, just a careful check..."all business".

We passed inspection. If we hadn't, they'd have killed us rather dead
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.

The intelligence behind having such scouts that are able to make reports to the main pod from 20 or more miles out is unmistakeable.

Jim
 
There was an article in Field & Stream years ago about a man who was fishing a little trout stream when he came upon a monstrous thing stranded on the rocks. He thought it was a whale but actually it was an ocean-going member of the sunfish family. It's a very weak swimmer -- normally it lives in midocean and eats plankton so it doesn't have to be able to swim very well.... Apparently it was washed up the trout stream by an unusually high tide and then stranded when the tide receded.

The fisherman who found it went and got a friend and the two of them managed to winch it onto a boat trailer and take it home. It weighed over a ton as I recall ... it was the biggest fish anyone had ever caught in that little trout stream ... impressed the heck out of all his friends and neighbors.... The photo of it sitting on the boat trailer in his driveway impressed me, too.

After everybody in town had been impressed and the newspapers had taken pictures and interviewed the fisherman and left ... after all the excitement died down ... then he suddenly realized he had over a ton of dead fish sitting on a boat trailer in his driveway and it was a hot summer day ... and there wasn't room for a ton of fish in his freezer....

What kind of khukuri would you recommend for cleaning a one-ton sunfish?

-Cougar :{)
 
Hey Cougar: one of the things I learned in the history books was the indins taught the white man to put a fish at the bottom of the hole they planted a seed of corn in. The guy with the one ton fish should have found a friend named Jack and a pack of bean seeds and see if the children's story had any basis in fact. VBEG

Walker Lake has a fishing derby every year and a month or two back they had a picture of a guy with one of the sunfish/perch family - kind of gold upper with black triangles on the lower - had to have been 20" long by 15" high supposedly caught here. I've caught them in California rivers not more than 10" long, but never that size. And never heard of them in Nevada.

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Sure you can trust the government. Ask any Indian.

[This message has been edited by Rusty (edited 03-07-2000).]
 
Almost forgot. If that one ton sunfish did make the seed bean grow into a beanstalk that Jack could climb up into the Giant's castle in the clouds:

1) What model HI Khukuri should Jack carry in case has to defend himself against the giant ( a giant BAS comes to mind )?

2) What model HI Khukuri would be best for cutting down a beanstalk the size of a redwood. ( Where are you Cliff? )


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Sure you can trust the government. Ask any Indian.
 
I have to say that I disagree with Jim et al. ...
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The Ganges Dolphin may not stand a chance in a human beauty contest (me neither
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) but if you are lucky to see any freshwater dolphins swimming in their natural habitats, you can't help but adore their elegance (and intelligence).

Best wishes,
kai
 
OK . . . Is there any organization that's doing anything to save the Ganges dolphin that we could get together and raise a few $ for as a BladeForums Good Deed?

That long-suffering donkey in the other thread is probably beyond our help.


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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
 
James: I think that other pic qualified as a "jacked-ass"...
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.

OK, enough of that
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. I too hope somebody let that poor thing down as soon as the pic was taken.

As to the lopsided dolphin: if there's a credible local conservation effort to support, I'm all for it. Long-term, the real solution is to stabilize the local economies, de-corrupt the governments and put in mandated water treatment facilities and rules that are affordable under local conditions. The odds of that happening while the poor ugly things are still around seem slim.

Switch topics:

A SUNFISH STORY

When I was maybe 10 or so, my dad took us out on a "party boat", meaning a 50foot tub that took fishermen on a day trip. Normally we took our own rig out, we always had some little sucker in the 14ft - 16ft range. But this day a bunch of his buddies had a group thing going.

(Now, being the freaky little kid I was, I always made sure and packed a lunch involving fried chicken and hot chocolate. Having been practically raised on small boats, I just plain don't get seasick. So on a party boat, whenever I saw some dude lookin' a bit green, I'd sit right next to him, pull out something greasy and go "hey mister, want some fried chicken?" and giggle as they went rushing off to feed the fish
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. My kid brother and I would get into contests to see how many pukes we could trigger.)

So anyways, inside the cabin of this tub, the local large aquarium (Steinhart in San Francisco) posted a "reward" for the LIVE capture of an Ocean Sunfish, delivered ALIVE to the aquarium - $500 reward.

Five years go by.

We're out in our own boat, a 16ft rig. We've been experimenting with live bait, so we've got a large plastic garbage can on board with a monster-size aquarium airator/bubbler thingie on it hooked up to a car battery
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. We're out maybe a mile, and we see this weird thing swimmin' along.

"Hey dad, that's a Sunfish...not a big one, it's a baby maybe a yard across".

Pop: "So?".

"So Steinhart will pay $500 if we can get it alive to them and it lives".

"Are you sure?"

"Heck ya, I remember the reward poster."

"OK genius, how do we catch it?"

"We got a net..."

"And how do we keep it alive?"

Both: "THE BAIT TANK!"

Pop: "How do we get it to Frisco?"

My dad had a buddy name of Frank along:

Frank: "We take the passenger seat out of my VW Bug and put the garbage can in that, hook the bubbler up to the bug's battery. I ain't doing anything this afternoon, we'll take it up to Steinhart!".

That's exactly what we did.

The aquarium was REAL surprised anybody remembered that old poster. And yes, we DID get it there in good shape. Problem was, it was only a baby and turned out to have a birth defect, it lived only a week. No payoff.

But it was fun...

Jim
 
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