FOUR-PAGE PULLOUT
A5
S PORTS
THE BULLETIN • TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2021
bendbulletin.com/sports
MLB
OUTDOORS
Boston Red Sox 2B
Pedroia retires
How to salmon-size your trout
Dustin Pedroia, the un-
dersized and over-achiev-
ing second baseman who
spurred the Boston Red
Sox to a pair of World Se-
ries victories with his grit
and a third, after a knee
injury effectively ended
his career, with his mouth,
has retired.
“I never took one play
off, from Little League on,”
Pedroia said on a video-
conference with reporters
on Monday. “I hope I did
enough and set the right
example in the city of
Boston.”
Pedroia, 37, was the
AL Rookie of the Year in
2007 and the MVP in his
second season but played
in a total of nine games
in the last three years be-
cause of the 2017 injury
from a spikes-high slide
by then-Orioles shortstop
Manny Machado.
He was the lon-
gest-tenured player on
the Red Sox roster and the
only holdover from the
2007 championship team.
“He was the ultimate
team player,” said Terry
Francona, the current
Cleveland manager and
Pedroia’s manager and
cribbage opponent for
six seasons. “He always
seemed to save his very
best plays for the most
important time of the
game.”
A four-time All-Star
and four-time Gold Glove
winner, Pedroia batted
.299 with 140 homers
and 725 RBIs in a 17-year
career, all with the Red
Sox. He is the only player
ever to earn Rookie of
the Year, Gold Glove and
MVP awards along with
a World Series champi-
onship in his first two full
seasons; only nine other
players have accom-
plished those feats in their
entire career.
A salmon-s
salmon-sized wild
rainbow trout caught on
a fly in shallow water.
Gary Lewis/For The Bulletin
A
difference of inches. Remember the
last time you caught a hatchery rain-
bow trout? It probably measured 10
or 11 inches, slim and trim, a fighter.
Picture that fish, its lateral line on the same
plane as its eye. Think about the vertical mea-
surement from the lateral line to its belly. On
a 10-incher, there is a difference of an inch-
and-a-half from lateral line to the bottom of
the belly.
What about a triploid, a couch-potato trout
weighing 15 pounds? If the fish is measured
in pounds not inches, that vertical dimension
might be 4 to 8 inches. A 30-inch triploid with
a 20-inch girth will weigh about 13 pounds.
That fish’s belly when it is 8 inches above the
bottom is about 8 inches from the plane of its
eye. If the eye is at 16 inches, the bait should be
positioned at 16 to 18 inches.
—The Associated Press
NFL
Packers: Rodgers
to remain QB
Green Bay Packers
general manager Brian
Gutekunst and coach
Matt LaFleur say they ex-
pect Aaron Rodgers to re-
main their team’s starting
quarterback in 2021 and
beyond.
Gutekunst and LaFleur
made those comments
Monday during sea-
son-ending Zoom ses-
sions with reporters. After
the Packers’ 31-26 loss
to the Tampa Bay Bucca-
neers in the NFC cham-
pionship game, Rodgers
had said, “there’s a lot of
guys’ futures that are un-
certain, myself included.”
“We’re really excited
not only for next year,
but the years to come,”
Gutekunst said.
When asked specifi-
cally whether that meant
keeping Rodgers be-
yond the 2021 season,
Gutekunst said, “Abso-
lutely.” Rodgers has three
years remaining on a four-
year, $134 million con-
tract extension he signed
in August 2018.
“What we’re trying to
do as an organization
and what we’re trying to
accomplish, we can’t do
without Aaron Rodgers
right now” Gutekunst
said.
Rodgers’ long-term fu-
ture has been a topic of
league-wide speculation
ever since the Packers
traded up four picks to
take Utah State quarter-
back Jordan Love with the
26th overall selection in
the 2020 draft. Rodgers
has said on multiple occa-
sions that the Love selec-
tion complicated his own
hopes of playing his entire
career with Green Bay.
—The Associated Press
GARY LEWIS
To present a bait or a fly to a big trout, think
in terms of where the trout likes to rest. Be-
cause of the position of a trout’s eyes, its vision
angles upward, leaving a large blind spot be-
low its body and directly in front of its snout. It
can see with one eye anything to the side of its
head and behind, but another blind spot exists
along its flanks, beginning at the pectoral fins.
Picture the large and small trout side by side,
both hovering at rest in light current, 6 to 12
inches off the bottom. The big trout will more
often be in a position to grab a morsel drift-
ing toward the pair. That huge mouth can dis-
place way more water than the smaller fish that
might try to steal a bait.
What really happens is that there are a thou-
sand or more “legals” for every brood stock or
trophy fish. The problem is to present the bait
or fly in the zone where that one big fish can
grab it before a 10-incher does.
Floating bait/length of leader
For the bait angler, the leader length is crit-
ical when targeting salmon-size rainbows.
The bait is presented with a sliding sinker to
a swivel and a 2- to 4-pound monofilament
leader. A lot of us like fluorocarbon because
it is stealthy. The problem though, is fluoro is
heavier, adds more resistance for fish to feel,
and can drag the floating bait down. Use light
mono. At rest, the biggest fish’s eyes are going
to be 15 to 25 inches above the bottom.
See Lewis / A6
MOTORSPORTS
Stunts in streets for
motorcycle virtuoso
BY SCOTT SMITH
Associated Press
C
ARACAS, Venezuela — If
police aren’t shutting down
his street shows for lack of
permits, Venezuelan motorcycle
trick rider Pedro Aldana is bat-
tling coronavirus quarantines or
the tropical rains that turn the as-
phalt slick and send fans running
for cover.
Despite life’s obstacles, Aldana
— a natural-born showman who
performs in wild checkered clothes
and dyed green hair — has kept
up his performances, which draw
hundreds of people to unused
parking lots or obscure city streets.
“This is my hobby, my art,” said
Aldana, who is leading a move-
ment to win official recognition
of motorcycle acrobatics in Vene-
zuela — a sport nurtured in poor
neighborhoods like his, where he
sometimes mentors young fans in
basic mechanics. “This is my pas-
sion and my work.”
Aldana, who goes by the show
name “Pedro Locura,” Spanish for
“Crazy Pedro,” is joined by a loyal
crew of likeminded daredevils for
occasional exhibitions of speed,
agility and precision balance.
The swarming motorcyclists
do wheelies at high speed, often
Super Bowl LV
Brady has led
more than 200
teammates to
the Super Bowl
BY JOSH DUBOW
AP Pro Football Writer
S
It’s a sport on the rise in Vene-
zuela, where many take pride in
the motorcycles they depend on to
get to work or earn them a living
making deliveries.
Aldana said he won his nick-
name as a youth mastering tricks
on his bicycle. By age 11, he’d grad-
uated to a motorcycle.
ome are Hall of Famers who are among
the biggest names in the sport. Others
are anonymous role players whose con-
tributions went mostly unnoticed by out-
siders.
There are veterans who joined up for one
final run at the title, and wide-eyed rookies
who were thrust into the Super Bowl spot-
light.
Their first names range from A to Z
with eight guys named Brandon — a ninth
named Brandin — and five guys named
Kyle.
They all are part of the Brady Bunch, the
218 players who have appeared in a Super
Bowl as Tom Brady’s teammate in his record
nine previous trips to the title game with
New England. That list will grow by more
than 40 names next Sunday when Brady
plays in his 10th Super Bowl and first with
his new team in Tampa.
Of those players who have been part of
Brady’s supporting cast, 164 got a Super
Bowl ring out of the trip, accounting for
nearly one-quarter of the players who were
on a winning team in the Super Bowl since
Brady became a starter in 2001.
See Virtuoso / A6
See Brady / A7
Matias Delacroix/AP
Stuntman Pedro Aldana performs a wheelie on his motorcycle during an exhi-
bition in the Ojo de Agua neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, on Jan. 10. The
motorcycle trick rider and adrenaline junkie who prefers the nickname “Crazy
Pedro,” draws masses of Venezuelans starved for entertainment to his shows
across the country.
standing on one foot or a knee
from the seat or the back foot
peg. Sometimes a young woman
stretches out on the seat in a show
of her trust for the rider’s skills.
In other maneuvers, they turn
tight circles in a group, each rider
hopping from a normal seated po-
sition to sidesaddle while the front
wheel is sky-high.