I managed to stop in and saw many familiar faces at the Bastrop Benefit at Dan’s Silver Leaf. It seems like a good start to an idea I floated out to Pam (of Pam and Dan fame) only a couple of weeks ago, and I think if we do a couple more of these before the end of the year, the momentum should gain as the Thanksgiving and holiday season takes hold.

Here are some images from tonight’s Bastrop Benefit.

Denton artists donated work to the silent auction portion of the Bastrop Benefit at Dan’s Silver Leaf.

Pam Serves up some great food with all proceeds going to benefit fire victims in Bastrop, Texas.

Out on the back porch at Dan’s Silver Leaf Bastrop Benefit.

Out on the back porch at Dan’s Silver Leaf Bastrop Benefit.

Space. The final frontier, or is it?

The Red River Meteorite

Meteorites may not have anything to do with fly fishing, but sometimes our vivid fascination can extend beyond the pescatorial palette. For instance, did you Texans know there is a famous meteorite named the Red River Meteorite? I wouldn’t have known it unless the legend hadn’t been told to me by a friend of mine out here in the Middle.

Now what brought up the story of the Red River Meteorite? For one, we aren’t far at all from the Red River, and for another there are strange sights to see if you get far enough off the tracks. Whether or not he stumbled onto the actual site of the meteorite, a fragment, or the location is a simple twist of geologic fate, we don’t yet know.

According to a local rancher, nothing has ever grown here.

I visited the site the day before leaving the Middle, and when I got to the landing zone, it definitely shows signs of being different from its surroundings. As I walked around the mound in one area, I fully expected Gus and Call (read Lonesome Dove) to be sitting on a rock around the corner, turn their heads and casually ask what took me so long to get there. This place is that rough and that remote. Except for the game trails through the area, cow patties, and tough mesquites, you could almost pass it off for a martian landscape. Not a drop of water for miles.

The landscape shows signs of high heat, clay cooked to porous lava-like bits of brick, and some small and very heavy “rocks” – several of which would fit in the palm of your hand. Whether or not these dense “rocks” are fragments of a fragment, or whether they are indigenous to the planet, whether they are radioactive, all are questions still to be answered by the experts. Other rocks, blatantly local, have a black tarred look to their tops, as if they were cooked on one side, while the unexposed side still looks just like a regular old rock. Those burned rocks are everywhere, and it doesn’t rub off as might happen if it were soot from a grass fire.

One of the “burned” rocks that litter the area.

The location is in the “vicinity” of where a fracture of the meteorite could have easily separated from the main object. The probable impact point of the main part of the meteorite is somewhere around Jacksboro, Texas, according to conventional legend.

There are a couple of completely fascinating stories to go with the Red River Meteorite, starting with the Yale Peabody story of how “two rival expeditions were organized to retrieve it from the wilderness, each lead by a member of the original party that had seen it.”(1) The first group that got to the meteorite was not prepared to haul a 1600-plus pound and hid it until they could come back with a way to haul the mass. While the first group was reconnoitering for transportation, the second group arrived and finally found where the rock was buried, and managed to get it to the Red River where they floated it all the way to New Orleans, and then shipped it all the way to New York. Daunting.

Once the meteorite was found to be only nickel and iron, it was relegated to a less favorable prominence, and was almost lost forever except for the effort the wife of Colonel Gibbs, who originally prevented the meteorite from being shipped to Europe and sold. She again rescued the meteorite, this time saving it from being buried, and donated it to Yale University, where it was the largest meteorite in any collection in the world for several years.(2)

Whether or not this location is related to that meteorite or not, is yet to be determined. What is known is that this site continues to baffle geologists who are posed with the unique set of samples found at this site. I know we have a few geologist fly fishers who read Texas Fly Caster, so if you have two-cents-worth, now is the time to throw your thinking cap into the ring. I never knew, until the end of researching this (once-over lightly) that there was a southern expedition by Freeman & Custis, launched at the same time as Lewis & Clarke’s more successful expedition – see Amazon Book at bottom. I haven’t delved into the book, but as it comes up in reference to the Red River Meteorite, this must have been the expedition that discovered the meteorite.

I thought it would be interesting to show how the normal can become cosmic – even in photography. The top image and the last image are the same, but a little Adobe Photoshop adds a cosmic appearance to the mundane lichen found on one of the rocks at the site. I guess the jury will be out on whether this place has a cosmic connection until science decides to take a look at a desolate spot out in the Middle.

Thanks for riding out a five week stint out in the Middle of Texas with me! This entry marks the last from the Middle, and I hope you enjoyed getting off topic while Texas burned.

It did rain in North Texas yesterday, and I did fish a little to sharpen up for the upcoming trip to Grand Isle, Louisiana.

reference – (1,2) Yale University – http://peabody.yale.edu/collections/met/met_redriver.html Paraphrased and quoted directly in this post.

How Far Off the Tracks?

If you have been with Texas Fly Caster as long as I have, since 2007, then you know we can get off the tracks from time-to-time. The original track we still ride is; fly fishing, music, beer & food, as well as a catch-all “culture on the skids” that gives free reign to occasionally get off the track, way off the track.

Before we go steaming through posts on Louisiana (including a week in the Crescent City area), and another IFA tournament quickly approaching in Corpus Christi, Texas, I just want to see if there are any objections to going way off the tracks in between destinations? The train will still run on time, but some unscheduled stops could be interesting.

I want to take a minute to bring readers up to speed on the state of things at Texas Fly Caster.

For whatever reason daily readership continues to explode, while comments and constructive comments that could add to, or correct, a post do not. Perhaps Texas Fly Caster contains perfect writing and content, but I bet not. Perhaps Texas Fly Caster, like most blogs and message boards, suffers from the same pervasive infection – lurker’s disease. Regardless, I appreciate the readers, and lurkers, and shoppers who purchase from the affiliates and the “Fly Shop” on this site.

Sometimes blogging geeks take your knowledge of internet terms for granted. What is “lurker’s disease” you would logically ask? Lurkers, in participative website terms, are people who read, read, read (others substitute the word “take” for read), and never put back by commenting. It is pervasive in the participative community right now, and becomes endemic on a site that allows “flaming” of each other in comments. Obviously, there’s no “flaming” going on in our posts on Texas Fly Caster, the “Message Boards,” or on the new TexasFlyReports.com. If you still haven’t visited the TFRs site, and you want to catch more fish, learn more, and know more people, then you should check it out. I can guarantee you that in my small role on that site, there will be common courtesy extended in every direction and no “flaming” comments. With all this said, there’s no need to ask for participation on posts or boards. It comes when it comes, and tripling or quadrupling readership (as has already happened) again, should bring the traffic that’s willing to participate.

Now, let’s delve into the detours ahead, and let fishing simmer on the Texas back burner summer. There will be a post on the Red River Meteor, fishing with MirrOlures, horny toads, website design (TFC goes under the knife this fall), and a sprinkling posts directly related to fly fishing – the AFFTA show in New Orleans. Closer to home, I’ll be researching and developing a post on kayak lighting for fishing at night that also includes techniques and flies for largemouth bass fishing at night. Sometime in August, a promo for the new Kayak Fishing Chronicles should be ready to show as well. That could be interesting fodder. Heck, I just hope it’s interesting. There’s also the looming restoration of the Airstream, a project that promises to take us on the road for years, or (at least) weeks on end.