Counting down to vacation and CACAfest

Counting down to vacation and CACAfest

Zero hour is approaching fast. By 2:30 p.m. Tuesday I will be on the road and by 4 p.m. unloading the stuff at the ass end of Bad Cinema Road, Phoenicia, N.Y.

Supplies: Here we have coffee, deservedly obscure movies, tick juice, LED bulbs, some pot scourer things that work really well, and a full set of resistance training bands, the kind with handles, not the kind used to strangle kids. (Although I suppose one could make do.)

And because of the Miracle of Starlink, many horrible films are available on free-with-ads services such as Tubi, Plex, Blecch, Sickee and Pervo.

I’ve been taking notes:

Some explanation is in order:

Many years ago my old pal Kurt and I were up at the camp. The routine was simple. In the morning I’d load up the crock pot with whatever came to hand and turn it on low.

We’d go out and fish all day, and upon returning eat whatever it was while watching the world’s worst movies. We were watching them on VHS tapes, which tells you how long ago this was.

Thus was CACA born. It stands for Cinema, Angling and Culinary Appreciation. It could just as easily be Cuisine, Angling and Cinema Appreciation.

CACA moved with the times. DVD, Blu-Ray, and now streaming. We started with a cathode-ray TV that weighed about 50 pounds and now we’ve got a modestly sized but plenty brilliant flat screen set.

But the core mission remains.

Meanwhile…

The main Esopus is running at +/- 350 cfs, but it’s been muddy. “They” are working on the Shandaken Tunnel and whatnot so we all hope this is a temporary situation. Anything under 10 is generally workable, over 10 means a simple approach like black wooly buggers stripped though soft water.

Above the Portal, where the E is a medium-sized trout stream, things look damn good according to the USGS gauges.

As usual, there is no perfect solution. Just a series of trade-offs.

Anticipating trips to Beaver Kill country, the secret stream on the unnamed reservoir, and little blue lines, so bringing about a dozen regular rods in weights 1-6, length 6 1/2 to 10 feet, plus a few Tenkara rods.

The Great Shedding continues. Weighed in this morning at 156 lbs., which is about what I weighed in ninth grade. This is down from pre-op weight of 195 in late Nov. 2025. My right leg is somewhat shrunken after the hip replacement back in December 2025, which is where the resistance bands come in. If you want to feel futile and stupid, try sitting in a chair or lying on your back with one foot in a sort of stirrup thing, moving your leg back and forth, over and over, to build up muscle.