Ear to the ground

“I dropped it in my latte.”

– A Durango woman explaining how she killed her most recent cell phone

Reeling ’em in

Gentlemen start your powerboat engines. The Four Corners will play host to a different flavor of competition in coming months, when the BASS Federation Nation hosts its Western Division Championship at Navajo Reservoir in May.

Hundreds of competitors will vie for Bassmaster honors in the fish-off, and the Navajo Dam and Bloomfield communities are awaiting a big financial shot in the arm. Steve Gill is one of the local competitors and the owner of the Rainbow Lodge in Navajo Dam.

“It’s going to bring a lot of people,” he told theFarmington Daily Times. “There are the competitors, but then there’s also the alternates, the juniors, the spouses. There will be a lot of money spent in restaurants and hotels.”

Teams from 11 Western states will square off in the tournament, and each team is comprised of the top 12 anglers from each state. The event run from May 11-13 and will be preceded by two practice days. The Town of Bloomfield has already made arrangement to accommodate 256 anglers and their 176 bass boats. Since the event only visits New Mexico once every 11 years, merchants are more than ready to cut bait.

For his part, Gill is looking forward to waking up to a familiar scent in coming weeks. “It’s one of my favorite smells, the smell of gas,” he told theTimes. “Something tells me it’s time to go fishing.”

Big cans

Ska Brewing cracked open the big barrels this week. The local suds-smith continued its upward trajectory with an expansion that increased the brewery’s capacity by 70 percent. On March 16, the brewery received and installed the last of its four new outdoor fermenter tanks. Each tank holds 240 barrels, or about 7,440 gallons.

The bump in capacity comes at a time when Ska is already running at full tilt. In 2010, operating at maximum capacity, Ska produced more than 15,000 barrels of beer and moved from “microbrewery” to “regional craft brewery” status as defined by the Brewer’s Association. The capacity increase also follows on the heels of the installation of a second canning line in October.

“With this increase in capacity we can meet demand and make sure we take good care of our current markets,” said Ska President and Co-Founder Dave Thibodeau.

For those of you drinking inside the current market, Ska has a special surprise in store. The brewery will release its popular Mexican Logger seasonal in cans for the first time this spring.