The 2003 Great Outdoors Awards

[Jayruss 0]

The 2003 Great Outdoors Awards
Story By DAVE STREGE
The Orange County Register

In honor of another year of wild and wacky tales in Mother Nature's neighborhood, we present The Great Outdoors Awards for 2003. Winners need not be present. The envelopes, please.

Tough Brake Award: To Steve Wagner, who stopped to fish a dammed area on the Rogue River but failed to stop his car. After getting out of the car, Wagner watched helplessly as his Kia started rolling downhill toward the river. He yelled "Look out below" or something to that effect, then watched as the vehicle tumbled down the hillside and into the water, where it disappeared with his wallet, cell phone, digital camera and tackle. "I'll be in the book of dummies for eternity," Wagner told The Associated Press. "And my wife is definitely going to rescind my fishing privileges."

Timmm-berrr Award: To Vince Taylor, an activist who headed a high-profile campaign to stop commercial logging in Jackson State Forest. According to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, he admitted he violated state timber harvest laws by cutting down trees to make way for a new home.

Bird-Brain Award: To Jae-kuk Ryu, a pitcher for the Class-A Daytona Cubs, who threw a baseball that knocked an osprey from its perch during pregame practice. No, Ryu did not win a big, stuffed animal. He won the booby prize: A $500 fine and six months probation for killing the protected bird.

Bear Bait Award I: To David Letterman, whose episode ranks No. 1 on the Top 10 List of Bears Breaking and Entering. A black bear spent 51/2 hours in Letterman's ranch house in Choteau, Mont., helping itself to bananas, cake and beef jerky and basically making itself at home. The bear was finally scared off through a bedroom door with an M-80, brought to the house by a high school student who works for Letterman in the summer. "If you ever are in that situation, call a high school kid," Letterman said. "Get those M-80s and your problems are over, ladies and gentlemen."

Bear Bait Award II: To the New Mexico Game and Fish Department, which designed the perfect plan to catch a thief. After a rash of break-ins, the department took the transmitter from a bear radio-collar, hid it in a CD player and left it locked in a storage shed. The crook broke in and stole the CD player. Tracking the thief like they would a collared bear, authorities found his hideout, arrested the ex-con and recovered a bunch of stolen goods. Brilliant.

Bear Bait Award III: To the USS Connecticut submarine that surfaced through the ice near Prudhoe Bay during maneuvers and was caught off guard by a hostile polar bear. Through the periscope, the bear could be seen taking a few swipes at and chewing on the exposed rudder, according to a Navy Web site. The damage was minor. "It (the rudder) wasn't designed as a polar bear snack, but that's how life is sometimes," a Navy release said.

Wet and Wild on the Web Award: To the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, which mistakenly dropped an 'S' from a Web address for its online Hunter Information Program for waterfowl hunters. The 2003 Indiana Hunting and Trapping Regulations booklet tells hunters to visit www.wetland.com instead of www.wetlands.com. Wetland visitors are greeted with "The Wetlands, where wives get naked." "It couldn't have just been some obscure wetland environmental site," DNR spokesman Jon Marshall told the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. "It had to be a porn site."

Dr. Phil Weight-loss Award: To the 200-pound halibut an angler caught during a halibut derby in Valdez, Alaska. After the fish was weighed, it burped up a 10-pound ling cod while sitting on the dock. As a result, angler Sam Fleury dropped from first place to third in the derby, though he didn't much care. "I'd never caught a 100-pounder before," an excited Fleury explained.

Lost Soles Award: To Nike, which had 16,500 pairs of basketball shoes lost at sea. During a storm, the containers carrying the shoes were lost overboard from a cargo ship, The Associated Press reported. They were last seen drifting toward Alaska, a hot spot for salmon fishing. So this explains Nike's newest fishing-for-sole ad campaign aimed at Alaska anglers: "Just Catch It."

Cat Chow Award: To the unidentified Fort Lewis, Wash., man who was knocked down from behind by a cougar while walking back from fishing a river. The Olympian reported the man was uninjured and the mountain lion had run off. What was the cat after? Strapped to the man's backpack was a 25-pound king salmon wrapped in plastic.

Rack 'em Up Award: To the Raleigh woman who robbed a man of $20 using ... No, not a gun. Not a knife, either. According to the News & Observer, she stuck up the man using a deer head with antlers.

You Paid What for that Fishing Lure? Award: To the South Carolina construction worker who out-bid 18 others in an auction for a rare, 10-inch copper Haskell Minnow made in 1859, paying $101,200. Tracey Shirey of Pomaria told The Charlotte Observer the saltwater lure is the "Holy Grail of fishing lures." Yeah, but can the thing catch fish?

Bull's-eye for Barracuda Award: To angler Brian Warwick, who didn't quite enjoy the biting barracuda nine miles off the coast of St. Augustine, Fla. After he landed one barracuda, a second barracuda jumped into the boat and bit Warwick in the abdomen, according to a local TV news broadcast. The fish was apparently chasing bait and got Warwick instead. "I'll bass fish in the river (from now on)," he said in a TV interview. "Their teeth are not near as big."

Three Bass, Two Catfish and an Octopus Award: To the Illinois angler who caught, of all things, a live octopus at Lake Conway in Arkansas. The only explanation, The Associated Press reported, was that someone probably kept it in a home aquarium and when it got too large, they dumped it into the lake.

Left Holding the Bags Award: To 11-year-old fisherman Devonte Martinez, who hooked a stolen bank bag filled with nearly $2,000 in soggy checks written to a charity. He noticed two other bank bags in the Colorado creek and fished them out, too. But they were empty. Devonte told The Associated Press, "I know what it feels like. I once lost $2 when I was riding to the video game store."

That's a Punch of Bull Award: To hunter Jim Osgood, knocked unconscious by a bull moose two days before moose-hunting season began in Maine. The Associated Press reported Osgood, hunting bear with a friend and their dogs, suffered a broken collarbone and cheekbone. No word how the moose fared.

Mermaid Award: To the female swimmer who underestimated the distance between Maui and Molokini Island. She swam more than a mile from shore before her companion called for help. Some fishermen rescued the woman, who was only wearing a pair of cutoff jeans. "I guess that was a catch for them," fire Capt. David Thyne told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

DFG-CHP Combo (easy on the fries) Award: To Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, according to a joke on the Internet, plans to combine the Department of Fish and Game with the California Highway Patrol to eliminate administrative costs and help reduce the state's deficit. The merged agency would be called Fish & Chips.

RIP Award: To Eternal Reefs, a company that joined the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to build memorial reefs for fishing and diving off Texas. The idea is to incorporate cremated remains of a loved one into a "reef ball" made of concrete. They are dropped offshore and together create an artificial reef. The Chronicle asked a worker of a reef builder if he planned to have his ashes put into a reef ball. He said yes, adding, "I haven't decided on it yet, but I'm thinking warm, clear, tropical waters with lots of women in bikinis swimming over me."

__________________________________________________
"Beware how you take away hope from another human being."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes