reevesr1

Bad choice of words. Thanks for pointing that out. You're good at that.

Fair enough. But whatever happens, the area will recover. It's not the fish you have to worry about, or worry about the most. It's the birds and surface wildlife. The estuaries (which is essentially the entire Louisiana coast) will likely suffer the brunt of the damage. And I am not blind to the the potential damage here. I would imagine that since I've been on much of the coast that is threatened by all of this, I feel the impending disaster more than many. It makes me literally sick to think of what may happen to the Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida coasts. But I also realize that to just stop all drilling isn't a realistic outcome. Nor will I drape myself in righteous indignation (and that would be true no matter what industry I worked in). Regardless of my chosen profession, I am as much a participant in our thirst for oil as anyone else. I marvel at those who find it convenient to ignore that fact.

Yes. Easiest question so far. I work in the industry and have for years, some of my jobs have been in safety related roles. I know how much thought and work goes into trying to keep the environment and people safe, and am proud of efforts I have made in that area. I am not defending BP or Transocean. I have on idea what happened yet, nor does anybody else. But we will eventually know and take steps to correct it. To have people, who usually have no knowledge to make utterly inflammatory statements like "However, BP, like every other oil company doesn't do a very good job preventing these disaster" gets under my skin a bit (not picking on you fisher, but your comment neatly sums up the prevailing sentiment of some on this thread). This is the first accident of it's kind in the GOM. Thousands and thousands of wells. Where is the "doesn't do a very good job" part? And my "cough" job doesn't depend on the outcome of the BP investigation at all. Or this industry, for that matter. I've changed jobs before, and I may change them again. If I truly thought that the industry I worked in was all about raping the planet, I'd quit. But they aren't, whether those of you in the glass houses want to believe it or not.

Jack, They don't operate during a hurricane. Shut 'em in, pull the marine riser and move off location. Or so I assume. Ricinus, Excellent question. Lets start with the gulf. It's been being drilled in for what, 50 yrs. As it is my backyard, I think I have a vested interest in it. But that ship has sailed. While many hate the thought of any rig in any water, the truth is the industry has done a pretty good job in the GOM. So I personally think any drilling moratorium in the gulf makes no sense. As far as around here, I have no fear of the rigs from the drilling and producing standpoint in sensitive areas. Whether people believe it or not, the footprints these days are very small. My concern would lie more in the roads and other infrastructure, just the general increase in activity. Some places should be left alone. The trick is, which areas? While I completely agree there are areas that should be off limits, there are many who believe that we shouldn't drill anywhere, and those who believe we should drill everywhere. Most of us lie somewhere between those extremes. We need the oil, but we also need to protect the environment. Just like most things in life, it's all a balancing act. And no matter what your position is, most everyone will disagree with you with some thinking you are a tree hugger and others thinking you are a planet raping bastard.

Could have added: Red Rain by Peter Gabriel Purple Rain by Prince Blame it on the Rain by Milli Vanilli Singing in the Rain by some old guy and on and on.....

Chris, BOPs are at the seabed on these wells. And they would have been in place. I defer to angryjohn about cementing ops. Not my forte. But I will comment on what John said about land rigs vs. offshore rigs. It would be difficult to convey the difference in planning for a deepwater drilling job vs a land job. The planning for this well would have started years in advance. Mock-ups, full system integration tests of every system being run, detailed procedures for everything, risk assessments, failure mode analysis, walk throughs, monstrous quaility control plans, etc. etc. In a land operation, one engineer might have 10 rigs. Offshore? One rig might have 100 engineers involved in the planning alone when all the different services are taken into account. Just my small piece had several engineers working on it. And an exponential (to continue a theme) number of technicians! We received a tender once to build a piece of gear for an offshore rig. The tender was 900 pages long.

I'm pretty sure most (if not all) of these are subsea tie-ins (multiple wells tied in on the seabed), which greatly reduces exposure to hurricanes. It isn't that rough at 5000 ft.

Well, we are already 10 yrs or so into ultradeep water exploration/developments, all over the world, with this incident being the first. So the safety record was very good to this point. Nobody talks about that, only how bad this incident is. Of course technology lessens the risk, though as I said, can never take it to 0. And while it is certainly valid to question future dependency on oil, the other harsh reality is there is nothing currently to replace it. My only real issue was your hyperbolic use of the term exponential (a little math humor there). Exponential means that the risk would be increasing in an increasing manner, which is certainly not true. I'm not sure the risk is actually higher for a deepwater well than it is for a land well, but the consequences of an incident are obviously much (though not exponentially) greater due to the difficulty in remediation.

Been drilling ultradeep for several years now (I started building tools for 5000+ foot water depth in 1998). To think one incident (the first major one I think) is going to change this trend is likely knee jerk. It may impact it in the very short term (and partly because one of the ships to do this is now gone), but in the long term these are some of the last big oilfields left. They will get drilled, economics will demand it. Like any big incident, changes to industry practice will come based on what the final findings of this incident are. But Jack, to say the risk has increased "exponentially" is misleading. They don't exponentially increase the chances, or we would have had many more of these in the last 10 yrs or so.

Piper Alpha was in 1986, Valdez in 1988 (I think). So we are getting close to 25 yrs for Piper Alpha, and over 20 for Valez. There have been incidents between then, but those are the last biggies. In between, I have no way to estimate how many wells have been drilled, worked over, and abandoned. And how many billions of gallons of oil have been transported between then and now. So the overall safety record is a bit better than the masses are led to believe. One of my jobs in Houston was Risk Analysis, reduction and mitigation techniques. We do this on equipment, processes, procedures, safety, you name it. Lots of brainpower goes in to trying to figure out ways to minimize risk in all ops. But one of the things you learn is no matter how well you plan and design for safe operations, there is always residual risk. Something you didn't (and never from lack of trying) plan for, or did plan for, put plans in place to avoid and it happened anyway. So you find out why, learn from it and use what you learned to stop it from happening again. We are getting better at it, but as hard as we may try, risk will never be eliminated. As to planning for cleanup on something like this. That's a great idea (and I say that with no sarcasm at all). But how? There have been literally thousands of wells drilled in the GOM without issue. So do we keep a fleet of almost completely unused equipment ready to clean up a spill always ready to go? How? Who pays? (oh, the consumer in the end). Who is in charge. Do we keep a rig always ready to drill a relief well? Who does that? These rigs are 1/2 a BILLION dollars apiece. Who maintains it? It is, unfortunately, economically unfeasible, as unpalatable as that may seem. This reminds me of people wondering why New Orleans did not keep a fleet of buses (and drivers!) ready to evacuate everyone in case of a hurricane. Fantastic idea, but utterly impossible to implement. Harsh, but true. The sad thing is people died in this. But in my career (spanning 20 yrs) less and less people are dying in my industry. We are constantly improving. We do it because it makes good business sense, sometimes because we are made to. But whether people want to believe it or not, we also do it because we want our people to go home every day.

Thanks guys. It isn't really not that hard, Toolman had it all set up from the last two years. Just answer a few emails and talk. I'm really good at the talking part. Thanks to all of you for the support!

The 10 day shows rain/snow every day. My trip into BC next week is looking cold and damp.

Even I can withstand such a poorly presented troll. And I would be willing to bet I'm the only one around here who has fished that area several times. The Breton Island Chain is one of the finest fisheries anywhere I have ever been, even after 50 yrs or so of offshore drilling.

I think we should do it more like soccer, as sacrilegious that might sound in Canada. Game ends in a tie is a tie. You can keep fishing as long as you want on the day of the contest, but once it's over it's over. My .02. Oh, and timj and I tied 1-1. Mine was a rainbow. His was a 74" Texas. Right in the lip, blood and everything. He blamed the wind. Convenient excuse I say. So if Texans count, it was 1-1. If not, I won 1-0.

Truck was certainly locked. My guess is slim jim. No damage I can find anywhere. Son's car was wide open. Wife's car was locked, but it is possible one of the side doors was open because the electric lock does not always lock. Though it usually does, but I can't say for sure it was locked. Whatever, no damage. I talked to my mechanic about that once and he said with the correct tools it is almost impossible to detect where they came in.

Did you notice the date? Won for best short in 99. Did you see the size of the cell phones? Crazy how much has changed in only 11 yrs.

All Auctions are closed!! Thanks to everyone for the support, I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.

All auctions are closed. I want to thank everyone for their support. We raised over $8400, which I must say exceeded my expectations. We auctioned 49 separate items, some from some very generous guides and businesses, and many from individual members. Thanks again to all. For winners: please see the first page on the Auction thread that has payment information.

The Auction will close today. The Cake v Pie debate is in it's final day, with Cake in the lead by a measly $5.00. Pie fans need to step it up. Tungsten's Jet Boat Trip and Gustuphson's Dolly hike in trip are closing as well. Last chance folks!

Woke up this morning and went out to the car to go get some coffee. Found the wife's van glove compartment open and stuff strewn about. Crap. Luckily, she keeps nothing of value in the car, so it didn't seem as though anything had been taken. With a quick sigh of relief, I started to back up when I noticed my truck and remembered ALL MY FLY GEAR IS IN IT!!! Oh *hit. I run in the house to get the keys and open it up. Same thing, all compartments open, but the only thing of value is the fishing gear, which is all still there. Whew, dodged a bullet on that one. Until I realized both Sirius radios (one from each car) had been taken. Hope they enjoyed the night with them, as I will deactivate them this morning. Anyway, could have been worse. Stupid kids. This is the third time I've been robbed in my life. Twice cars were broken into and once a garage. Worse thing I've ever lost was a set of golf clubs. I'll be speaking with my neighbors this morning to see how many others were broken in to. The cars were both locked, but there was no damage breaking in. Could have been much worse--I'd say that I'll never leave my rods in the car again, but the odds are I won't stick with it. Hope the little dough heads get caught!

2010 Active Streamwatch Auction Items ALL AUCTIONS CLOSED Winners, please see the first post on the Streamwatch Auction Page for payment instructions. Prompt payment is highly appreciated! Once you have paid you can contact your host to set up dates. Thanks to all!

Great story Kevin. Wish I had been there!

Actually, I very briefly considered recommending zero point for zero fish just cuz it was you who got skunked. A zero next to your name would have amused me greatly!!

I have absolutely no issue with that (the vote idea, posted before I read Mike's latest). But I do believe that giving 0 pts to two anglers who participated and get skunked totally goes against the spirit of what I think this is supposed to be.

This is supposed to be fun and a chance to fish with new people. The "rules" need to reflect that. Nobody is going to lie about the results. And even if they did, I couldn't care less. Their loss, not mine. The "win" is participating. I really don't care who gets the most points.