Fishing Trip

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, 49, Pakistan's top classical singer, died yesterday in a London hospital, to which he had been admitted last wee suffering from hepatitis. He died of a cardiac arrest. His body is to be flown back to Pakistan for a funeral. Pakistan's official APP news agency said the singer left Pakistan for the United States last week for a kidney transplant but stopped for a few days in London, where his condition deteriorated. He popularized the subcontinent's traditional qawali form o music and semiclassical Pakistani music by mixing it with popular modern beats.

Baltimore's city school board appointed a City Hall staffer last night to temporarily fill the position of chief operating officer. J. Keith Scroggins, who heads the Bureau of General Services at the city Department of Public Works, will assume the job vacated last month by Eric Letsinger. Letsinger was fired after taking 10 school system and city employees on a fishing trip. Though he paid for the $1,600 trip himself, there were questions about whether he had intended to use public funds before details were made public on the radio.

Jim Greco remembers a fishing trip with his wife, Pam, to Utah's Green River a number of years ago, when he used a single pattern - No. 10 foam cicada - to catch so many trout, he had to protect his stripping fingers with Band-Aids. "We used about a dozen flies apiece each day, and we didn't lose any flies," he recalls. "Those flies lasted just eight or nine fish before they got so chewed up by the huge browns that they were worn out and we'd have to tie another one on." Here is the recipe for Greco's Cicada Dry Fly - good for bluegills, trout and bass - courtesy of the Potomac-Patuxent chapter of Trout Unlimited.

The whistleblower who leaked allegations leading to last week's firing of the Baltimore schools' chief operating officer continued his assault against the school system's top leaders yesterday as he hurled charges of institutional racism. Richard S. Donald, a former data analyst for city schools, appeared on WBAL-AM radio with new details about the fishing trip that led to the dismissal of Chief Operating Officer Eric T. Letsinger. Letsinger has said he used his own money for the $1,600 daylong trip, which was meant to reward overworked employees.

An Ellicott City man was killed and his wife was in critical condition after a weekend boating accident on a fishing trip in Missouri.Robert J. Kopytko, 47, a retired federal government worker who lived in the 8500 block of Autumn Harvest, was declared dead at the scene of the accident Saturday afternoon at Table Rock Lake in southwestern Missouri.His wife, Phyllis L. Kopytko, 38, a project manager for a defense contractor in Crystal City, Va., was being treated for broken bones and cuts at St. John's Hospital and Shock Trauma Center in Springfield.

The bodies of two Virginia men were found in Chesapeake Bay waters a half-mile off James Island on the Eastern Shore early yesterday after the wife of one of the men called the Coast Guard to say they were late returning from a fishing trip.Timothy D. Murray, 31, of Fairfax and Damian M. Singer, 30, of Arlington were wearing life jackets when they were found.A Coast Guard crew from the Taylors Island Station found one body near an overturned 15-foot fishing boat about 9: 30 a.m. A Maryland State Police helicopter spotted the second body nearby.

Longer-lasting food Looking to extend the shelf life of fresh foods or to avoid freezer burn on frozen items? Tilia Inc., a California company, says its counter-top home vacuum packing appliance is a convenient way of removing air from storage containers -- allowing foods to be stored longer than by conventional methods. It could be a boon for preserving a catch after a fishing trip. FoodSaver Vac kits are available through retail and sporting-goods stores and catalogs. Tilia can be reached at 800-777-5452 or on the Web at www. tilia.

Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley expressed confidence yesterday in the city school system's handling of allegations that top staff members intended to use public funds for a recreational fishing trip. The state prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into the trip. Last week, the school system fired Chief Operating Officer Eric T. Letsinger, who organized the trip for about 10 system and city employees. No disciplinary action has been taken against anyone else involved. "As I understand it, there was a number of employees there, but the one who took the action of taking the staff retreat ... the person who made the mistake was the COO, who should not have gone about paying for it in the way that he did," O'Malley said yesterday after a Board of Estimates meeting.

How many times have you heard successful people say that without the advice and encouragement they received years before from someone older and wiser, they might never have gotten so far? Mentors come in many forms: the high school coach or choir director who steers a talented student toward a successful, professional career; the Big Brother who takes a boy on his first fishing trip; the Big Sister who helps a young girl with her homework. Being a mentor mainly requires a desire to help and a little patience and understanding.

For Ralph Friedgen's birthday this summer, his two brothers-in-law and cousin paid for a deep-sea fishing trip. It was canceled because of the weather, but they decided to go out anyway. One brother-in-law drove the boat onto an oyster bed. Friedgen was in the back of the boat. The tide was going down quickly. Friedgen realized that if they were going to get off the oyster bed, he had to jump off the boat. They pushed it off, but Friedgen got stuck about waist-deep in something akin to quicksand.