David Siskind | Sunday, 28 September 2025
I’ve been planning future fishing adventures while travelling - NOLA redfish, snakeheads with Paul, and a newly arisen opportunity to fish in Cuba. Also, I heard from Ben Crump, another student of Paul’s in LA. We fished the river a few times together months ago. He’s younger and sees fish better than I do. He’s a good fly tier. I've shared my “secret” river spots with him and he’s donated some of his well-tied files to me. I think he busily spent the summer preparing for his nuptials coming next year and we haven’t fished together since springtime but we will again when I get back to LA. Bill Varney, who writes and posts great YouTube surf fishing reports, says that most of the corbina have moved off the beaches and into bays and estuaries, so the surf sight-fishing game will likely be over by the time I get home so we’ll go find carp to feed in the river. That’s good too.
Jackie and I spent a few days in Berlin taking historical walking tours. Berlin is a grittier city than Vienna. It seems poorer, but we spent all of our time in the East. The tour guides all touted their techno culture but we’re too ancient to enjoy that. I sampled the famous curry wurst. Like the Portuguese Francesinha sandwich, once is enough. We ate in a nice fish restaurant, Fischer & Lustig, near the GDR television tower. They served good food for sure. Some beautifully crafted wooden freshwater fish decorated the room - I only wish they would replace the rainbow trout with a German native. We’re now back in Vienna where we’ll have a little birthday dinner with the kids. Then home.
Update:
The Donald gave a weird speech to the UNGA. Former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted for nothing and Trump published an executive order sending troops into Portland, authorizing “full force” if necessary. I don’t know what the fuck that means, no one does, but clearly the cannons have been turned around and are facing the homeland. Warfighter Pete Hegseth has called ALL of the generals home for a mysterious meeting. Will he be preparing them to quash dissent, asking for loyalty to the President, or what? No one knows. It’s worrying. Big demonstrations are scheduled. I hope no one gets hurt. It looks to me, and others, that we have a race to the bottom. Recession threatens, wars in Ukraine and Gaza continue, and Trump's popular support is declining. The regime’s response is to accelerate the drive toward total control. We’ll see who gets what they want. At least Jimmy Kimmel got his job back.
David Siskind