Hawaii Bar and Bone Fish Exam

By February 2012, I'd been studying on-and-off for about 6 months to take the Hawaii Bar Exam.  I'd gotten a copy of Hawaii Criminal Code, Evidence Rules, Civil Rules, Criminal Rules and down-loaded various subjects as I thought of them to review.
The real effort began about Thanksgiving of 2011, when an on-line bar refresher course was available to me--  the Kaplan Bar Review (Hawaii).  Wow!  Things have changed since I last studied for the Arizona Bar Exam (1983), studying out of one large book.  In short, there is now no limit to how much reading, watching, listening, testing, reviewing and practice an applicant can do to prepare for a bar exam.  The written materials came in two or three big boxes.

 
The first real order of business became to thin out the materials to what I'd realistically be able to (or want to) study.  More than half the volumes had to be thrown away, including practice exams.  On-line practice tests were to be taken only until I understood how to answer them and obtain a better than 50% result.  There would simply not be enough time to do everything. 

The remaining materials had to be put into an order that would show progress-- namely, lists that could be measured, completed and checked off.  The key would be to stay optimistic by seeing results.  Otherwise, sitting before a computer or book for hours upon hours, day after day, week after week, would be discouraging.

 

In short-- step by step, page by page, paragraph by paragraph, video by video--  each goal was checked off. Finally, I would visually see that I'd completed not everything, but what I reasonably believed could be achieved.

My advice to younger, future applicants-- don't try to read and do everything  possible.  Just study and memorize enough to reach your comfortable saturation point.  Beyond that, you'll only get discouraged.  Treat the materials as if you're preparing one of the most important two-day jury trials you'll ever have in your career.  That's workable.  That's do-able.

Well, the process worked.  I took the February 2012 Hawaii Bar Exam along with about 180 other applicants.  About 98% of the others were younger than I.  A good group of people.  After two full days, the test was over.  (In May I was notified that I had passed the exam, and could be admitted at a ceremony in June, which I attended in Honolulu and was sworn in).  I'm thinking that, having sat and passed the Washington State Bar Exam (1974), Arizona Bar Exam (1983), and now Hawaii (2012), there probably won't be a fourth effort.  This is enough.

Following the taking of the exam, I took a little time to go fly fishing for Bone Fish.  While studying for the examination, I'd relaxed by studying Bone Fish and flies.  It looks like I'd organized the Bone Fish subject the same way as all the Hawaii legal subjects-- 

Basic Fly Fishing - Part 1

Last summer I decided to sign up for a "basic" fly fishing course offered through the local community college extension course catalog.  It sounded simple enough-- learn about flying fishing, practice casting, catch a fish.

As soon as the class started, I knew there was far more to fly fishing than tying a hook to a line.  It sounded like a college Entomology class-- the study of fresh-water insects, their eggs, larva, pupa, emergers, dunns, spinners-- particularly the life cycles of the May Fly, Baetis Fly, Caddis Fly and Stone Fly, plus some mosquitoes, grasshoppers, ants and crane flies. 
It was overwhelming.  So, I decided to study and break it down into its basic essentials-- all to make it easy and enjoyable.  Here's what I learned.

(1) Mayfly, Caddis Fly, Stone Fly and Other Insects.  There's a lot of talk about these different flies.  There are hundreds of variations of each type, but once you sort through all the technical information, it comes down to this--

MAYFLIES (once hatched and out of the water and flying around) come in different colors, but essentially they are (a) sort of small-- averaging about a half inch-- and they can be recognized by (b) their wings, which sort of stand up like the sails on a sailboat, and (c) the three long tails.  See the first picture at the top, which is a Mayfly.  "Mayflies" also include BAETIS FLIES, which are just another variation of Mayflies.

CADDISFLIES (once they are hatched out of the water and are flying around in the air) are (a) about the same size as Mayflies, but maybe a little bigger, and are recognizable by (b) wings are swept back and (c) the two long antennae.  The second picture is a Caddisfly. 

STONE FLIES (once they hatch and are out of the water and are flying around in the air) are (a) much bigger than than Mayflies and Caddisflies, being an inch or more, (b) the wings are back against the body, and (c) there is a prominent forked tail.  The third picture is a Stone Fly. 

I purposely found pictures that show a man's thumb or finger for perspective. 

MIDGES (such as small gnats and the small mosquito and its cousins) are of interest to the fly-fisherman , as are OTHER "fresh water flies" such as the larger dragon (damsel) fly and the crane fly.  These flying insects also have lives that start as eggs in the water.  TERRESTRIALS are ants, beetles and grasshoppers (insects which live on the land, but might fall or get blown into the water by the wind).  But, most of the fly-fishing talk discusses the Mayfly, Caddisfly, Stone Fly and "midges." 

(2) Most of the action is under the water. I always thought that insects grew up on land and sometimes flew over a lake or stream, and that's when the big fish noticed the flying insect and jumped out of the water to eat the insect in the air--  all the fly-fisherman had to do was dangle a line over the water with a look-a-like artificial fly tied to a hook, and the fish would jump into the air and swallow the hook.   

It's not that simple:  These "fresh-water flying insects" spend most of their lives underwater! The Mayfly is underwater about 364 days of the year, the Caddisfly is underwater about 11 months of the year, and the Stone Fly might be underwater for 23 months out of 24.  These insects only leave the water to reproduce, and then they die. 

That will be the subject of Basic Fly Fishing - Part 2.



"The Old Man And The Sea" of Cortez

 

What do Ernest Hemingway and I have in common?  We are both wearing the exact same style of fishing shorts in these two pictures.  Check out the shorts. That's Hemingway on a fishing boat some place in the Caribbean, and that's  me with the captain of a small fishing boat in the Sea of Cortez, just out of Cabo San Lucas. Or, could it have been in the Arctic Ocean, looking at the way the captain is dressed for cold weather? 

In June we went to Cabo San Lucas for a wedding.  Some of the groom's family made arrangements to go fishing and invited me.  I'd long thought about going "deep sea sport fishing" but never did.  This was a chance.  That, plus the romantic idea of joining the likes of writer and "tough guy" Ernest Hemingway. 

 


Cabo San Lucas is certainly beautiful and warm, with blue sky and water and lots of sport fishing.  Cabo San Lucas is located on the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula, on the same latitude as Hawaii.  It's approximately 1,000 miles south of San Diego.  It is now definitely a tourist destination. 


 


 
Although the Sea of Cortez is named after Spaniard Captain  Hernan Cortez, his navigator Fancisco de Ulloa is credited with discovering Cabo San Lucas in 1537.  It has a history of pirates raiding Spanish ships taking treasures back to Spain.  A fort was established there and the area was opened up to further exploration.  In 1730 a Jesuit mission was built.  The biggest obstacle to development was lack of a steady water supply.

That's one of the things I wondered about when I got there-- Where does the fresh water come from?  I have since learned that the

Laguna Mountains to the north produce about 30 inches of rain each year from the clouds.  The rain feeds into the underground Rio San Jose and accumulates underground and in nearby estuaries.  The stored water is then treated for consumption.  At any rate, the fresh water problem has been solved in Cabo San Lucas.

Staring at the surf we noticed flying manta rays. There were quite a few of them close to shore.  For game, people fish for all types of marlin, sailfish, and sometimes sword fish.  There are also dorado (mahi mahi), yellowfin tuna and several types of shark.  We were going to fish for the tuna.

 

We were picked up on the beach by a couple of small boats and then we bought some live bait from another small boat anchored out.  You could see many local residents relied upon tourists fishing, just as many worked in the tourist hotels.

We started fishing for the yellowfin tuna, and we caught some before too long.  Apprently, that's not always the case.   While the water had a little bit of chop to it, particularly where the Sea of Cortez collided with the Pacific Ocean, it wasn't so bad that I got sick-- only pretty queasy. 

After catching a few tuna, the chop was getting to us gringos and we decided to turn back to town.  But, on the way the captain spotted a marlin and asked if "we" wanted to catch it.  We said okay.  This is the way it actually worked-- the captain got his engine running again (it had broken down and we had bobbed up and down in the waves for a while as he tried to fix it, breathing the gasoline fumes, which didn't help a whole lot), quickly got in front of the swimming marlin, got a stiff pole, and then baited a hook and threw it over in front of the marlin (while I steered the boat for him, thankful for having something to hold on to).  Sure enough, the marlin grabbed the bait and was hooked-- all thanks to el capitan.



Sam, the other adult in our small fishing party, had caught and reeled in marlins on other trips to Cabo, so he asked if I wanted to reel in this one.  Wanting to save face and act like Ernest Hemingway, I agreed.  That's when I started identifying with "The Old Man and the Sea."  It didn't take days to reel in the marlin, but it still seemed like a long time to this queasy, thristy (my mouth no longer had any spit in it) ol' man.  I never felt like giving up-- but maybe secretly hoped the marlin would break loose and free me. 

Hemingway's short story "The Old Man and the Sea" was written by Hemingway in Cuba in 1951 and published in 1952.  Apparently, it was his last major work of fiction produced and published in his lifetime.  Born in 1899, Hemingway commited suicide in Ketchum, Idaho in 1961, at the age of 61.  Anyway, "The Old Man and the Sea"  is one of Hemingway's most famous works.  It was made into a Hollywood movie starring Spencer Tracy in 1958, and into a television movie starring Anthony Quinn in 1990. 

"The Old Man and the Sea" centers upon Santiago, a Cuban fisherman who has had a string of bad luck.  One day he goes out and finally catches a fish, hooking a monster marlin.  Santiago respects the marlin and battles it for a couple of days in a test of wills, holding on while being pulled by the marlin out to sea.   Santiago finally wins and the too-big-to-get-into-the-boat marlin is tied to the side of the small fishing skiff as Santiago returns to shore.  Of course, sharks attack and eat the marlin, so Santiago returns to port with only the large skeleton tied to his small boat.  But, at least all the townspeople see that he his luck had returned and he had caught a very large fish.  He's not a "has-been" yet. 

In the Hollywood movie, Spencer Tracy at times almost looks possessed.  Note that in the pictures, Spencer Tracy and I are wearing almost the exact same shirt.  The similarities don't end there, however.  While there is no picture of me, battling the marlin for probably less than 20 minutes, with the exact same possessed expression of a desparate man who had been fighting a fish for days, I'm sure it was there on my face to be seen.  (Instead of a fishing line, imagine pulling on a five-mile long drinking straw with the other end in a tall, cool Diet Coke on ice.  That's what I was imagining). 

Would I do it again?  Well, probably not-- although later in the month a couple of friends and I went out on the Pacific Ocean off the Washington coast, fishing for salmon, which will be the subject of another post. 

Land Ho!

The "Potholes" Lakes

This is a picture of Blythe Lake in Eastern Washington as the sun is coming up.

I had a free day in the middle of the week, so I decided to go fishing in the “Potholes” in Eastern Washington. The eastern part of the state is high desert—very stark, uncluttered and peaceful. In the summer it’s warm and sunny.  At midnight I put the canoe on top of the car and drove 200 miles to Blythe Lake, arriving shortly before sunrise.

When I first got there it was still dark and the bull frogs all around the lake were croaking. It sounded like they were trying to get their cellos in tune-- very deep tones. But then a few started something that reminded me of the Australian Didgeridoo. And when I walked around the car I would hear splashing when the frogs and turtles jumped into the water. Different sounds than in the city.

About 15,000 years ago, towards the end of the last ice age, the Cordilleran Ice Sheet covered the northern parts of Washington, Idaho and Western Montana. The front edge of the ice sheet was about 2,000 feet high. That’s about three times the height of the Seattle Space Needle.

In what’s now Montana, there was a lot of water trapped behind ice dams, which were part of the ice sheet. That water is now referred to as Glacial Lake Missoula and may have been about half the size of Lake Michigan. Every 40 years or so during a 2000-year period, the ice dams would burst and all that water would rush across Eastern Washington at about 80 miles per hour. The water would scour the earth, pushing sediment and rocks out of the way and down into Oregon and beyond. The erosion was fierce. Enormous canyons and channels were formed in the volcanic rock almost instantly.

Dry Falls is an example of the vast erosion caused by the Missoula Floods (sometimes called the Spokane Floods). When water was flowing over Dry Falls, it was about twice as much as Niagara Falls. You can get all this information on the web.

Blythe Lake is near Moses Lake. The Moses Lake area has many lakes, commonly known as "potholes," which were initially carved out by  the floodwaters from Glacial Lake Missoula. Moses Lake feeds the Potholes Reservoir, which is part of the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project, a dam and irrigation project which raised the water table high enough to allow the potholes to become lakes. Blythe Lake is just south of the reservoir.  It's one of the little dots at the top left of this photo:

I don’t know if Blythe Lake is “officially” one of the potholes, but most people refer to all the lakes in the area as “The Potholes.” So, I went fishing in “The Potholes” (although there is an actual lake with that name). You know what I mean.

Anyway, I got there before sunrise and put the canoe in and paddled around the lake. I tried dragging a spinner behind as I paddled; I anchored and tried worms, both deep and shallow, and Power Bait, both deep and shallow. Never a bite or sight of a trout. This little guy got hooked on a worm, but I threw him back (along with the pliers shown in the picture).

While I didn’t catch any trout, it was six hours on the water well spent. The surroundings were beautiful. You could hear the air going through the feathers of the birds as they flew by. You could hear your own breathing. I was the only person at the lake—all day. That’s my car shown in the photo. It was great. After six hours on the lake, I drove back home.

The canoe worked well. The wind was really up coming home, and it was blowing sideways on the canoe. But, the canoe held up. That’s a picture of the back rest I made for it—you can lean against it or sit on top. I also learned that I can stretch out and fall asleep on the bottom of the canoe. That could work in a pinch.

Fishing With My Grandson

Today was a good day-- I took my son and grandson fishing.  (Or, did they take me?).  This kind of day doesn't always happen.  It was time spent on the shore of the small lake which the three of us will remember forever. My grandson Logan caught one (when his line wasn't tangled in a tight mess-- a knot-tying skill we all three possess).  This was a day of appreciation.  What is it about fishing, in particular? 

31st U.S. President Herbert Hoover said it pretty well in 1947--

"Fishing is the chance to wash one's soul with pure air.  It brings meekness and inspiration, reduces our egotism, soothes our troubles and shames our wickedness.  It is discipline in the equality of men-- for all men are equal before fish."

Izaak Walton (1593-1683) was an English writer and author of The Compleat Angler (1653), which  celebrates the art and spirit of fishing.

"You will find angling to be like the virtue of humility, which has a calmness of spirit and a world of other blessings attending upon it." 

Remember the 1992 movie A River Runs Through It?  A great story-- some sadness, but also full of fishing, which seemed to forgive and make things right.  The movie was based upon the semi-autobiographic short novel A River Runs Through It (1976) written by Norman Maclean (1902-1990).  Here's one of the best quotes from the film--

"In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing." 

I don't pretend to be a great or regular fisherman.  I've been away from it for decades, only re-discovering it the last couple of years.  Just in time, it seems. 

Hood Canal "Deadliest Catch"

"Deadliest Catch" might be the best show on television. Those guys are amazing. So, last May when I was invited to go shrimping on Hood Canal, it conjured up all sorts of thoughts-- mostly that it would be as close as I'll ever get to being like those crabbers in Alaska (which isn't very close . . . . I know).

Hood Canal and the rest of Puget Sound were created about 13,000 years ago, during the Late Pleistocene by a great ice sheet. The Marmes Man was probably walking around the ice sheet about that time. (Watch for a future post on the Marmes Man and Dry Falls).


Hood Canal was named by the Captain George Vancouver in 1792, when he was making a detailed survey of the Coast of British Columbia. His ships were named the Discovery and Chatham. The United States Board on Geographic Names decided on "Hood Canal" as the official name in 1932.













http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hood_Canal

We were going to catch the "spotted" or "spot" shrimp or, officially, pandalus platyceros. The spotted shrimp (or prawn) is found from Alaska to Southern California, as well as in the Sea of Japan and Korea Straight. Spot shrimp are the largest species of shrimp in Puget Sound and can reach more than nine inches in length, excluding the antennae. They are reddish-brown and deep-pink in color and are recognized by the white spots on their body. They are most commonly found 300 feet deep and below on sandy and rocky floors.
















Interestingly, spot prawns are "protandric hermaphroditic" meaning that each individual initially matures as a male and then passes through a transition stage to become a female. Spot prawns usually live for about 4 years, starting their lives as males and maturing at one year of age. They function as mature males for 2 years and then transform into females in their final year of life. Females might mate only once. http://www.bcseafoodonline.com/files/spot_prawn.html

The season is only open a couple of days each year. Due to extremely high catch rates in 2010, the Hood Canal quota was attained in four days, so no additional days of fishing were allowed in 2010. There are a lot of technical and scientific papers about spot shrimp on the internet, particularly because they are harvested commercially, too. There are also some websites for sport shrimpers, which I suppose is what we were called that afternoon. Still, we had to have a shellfish license from Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and our limit was 80 shrimp per person.

The shrimp pots had a yellow buoy marked with a name and contact information and 250-350 feet of rope. Inside the pot is a mesh bait container. The bait can be made of different things, as shrimp are omnivores and will feed on most fishy things-- fish guts and meat sprayed with fish oil for additional scent, scented pellets, or the favored canned cat food.

For many years the cat food “Puss’n Boots” was a popular and effective choice because it was soaked in fish oil. "If it isn't 'Puss n'Boots' cat food you're not fishing. I usually use cat food, with addition ingredients with fish scraps as hanging bait. You need the odor to draw the shrimp in and the hanging bait to keep them in."-- James Schufreider. http://www.gamefishin.com/wa/features/shirmp.htm

The company has gone out of business. It was made by Coast Fishing Co. of South California, which was bought out by Quaker Oats and later sold to Del Monte. It was later discontinued due to lack of sales. I don't know what "Puss'n Boots" smelled like, as we always fed our dog "Friskies."














We put the shrimp pots over the side of the boat and let them soak-- just like they do in "Deadliest Catch." They were down about 300 feet. Gloves are good for hauling the pots, but we had a winch aboard.

That was it-- shrimping on Hood Canal in the spirit of all the great fishermen.

(Captain Phil Harris 1956-2010)