The good people at Sportsman’s Finest in Austin, Texas, have an informative day planned this January 7 at their store in Austin:

Austin, TX –

Saturday, Jan 7th at 10:30 AM
GRTU Lease Access Program Orientations at Sportsman’s Finest

Sportsman’s Finest is proud to be hosting Orientations for the Guadalupe River Trout Unlimited’s Lease Access Program (LAP)*. This fishing access program provides members with private property access to the river during a time of the year when access for fishing is very limited. Fees from this program are used to acquire the access and to stock the river with great fish! Orientation is required of all new participants in the LAP. Fees can be paid and membership acquired at these Orientations. A member of the GRTU Board will conduct the Orientations at Sportsman’s Finest on the following days:

Saturday, January 7, 2012, at 10:30am

No reservations are required. Orientations will start promptly at the time indicated.

*GRTU “Supporting Members” can enroll in the Lease Access Program. This program provides a “path to the river” over private property to legally access the Guadalupe River for the purpose of trout fishing during the season. The program runs from November 1, 2011, to October 31, 2012. Although several of the leased access sites are open year around, most sites are only open during the prime winter fishing season. All trout caught on a GRTU lease sites are catch and release only. You must attend a one-hour Lease Access Orientation before you can become a Lease Access Member. Lease Access Membership fee is $105 per year, and participants must also be a current National TU member plus a GRTU supporting member ($12 donation per year.) For more information please visit the GRTU website: www.grtu.org

Saturday, Jan 7th at 2:00 PM
Guide Alvin Dedeaux Program- “12 Months of Texas Fly Fishing”

Alvin Dedeaux has been fishing ever since he can remember, and fly fishing since he was 12 years old. His love for fishing has led him on an exciting journey which has cultivated him into a premier guide and an icon in Central Texas fly fishing and beyond. He has honed his fishing and guiding skills on the Llano, San Marcos, Guadalupe, and Lower Colorado Rivers since the early 80’s.

After managing the Austin Angler for over a decade, Alvin began guiding full time. He also guides in Colorado in the summer on some of North America’s premier trout streams. With more than 17 years of experience as a professional guide, casting instructor, and fly tyer, few are more knowledgeable or enjoyable to fish with. Alvin is eager to help you experience the best of what Texas Rivers have to offer.

Alvin will be sharing his years of experience and insight into fishing through the seasons in Texas with the Sportsman’s Finest customers. (Free program; no rsvp required)

For information on Alvin please visit his website: www.alvindedeaux.com

- If you combine the knowledge you will get from this event with the knowledge you will get from the “First Ever Guadalupe River Trout Fishing Workshop,” you are going to have a head full of valuable information that will most certainly increase your odds of catching more fish in Central Texas and especially fly fishing the Guadalupe River.

HILL COUNTRY FLYFISHERS AND RIO RAFT
ARE PROUD TO ANNOUNCE
OUR FIRST EVER
GUADALUPE TROUT FISHING WORKSHOP

JANUARY 20, 21 & 22, 2012
FEATURING AN “ALL STAR” STAFF:

KEVIN HUTCHISON: OWNER OF HILL COUNTRY FLYFISHERS

JUD COLE: GUIDE WITH HILL COUNTRY FLYFISHERS

DAN CONE: OWNER OF CASTELL GUIDE SERVICE

CHRIS JACKSON: OWNER OF ACTION ANGLER

CHRIS JOHNSON: OWNER OF LIVING WATERS FLY SHOP

DURING THIS TWO AND A HALF DAY WORKSHOP STUDENTS WILL LEARN ABOUT FLY FISHING FOR TROUT FROM THE GROUND UP. PARTICIPANTS WILL ALSO LEARN THE BASICS OF FLY TYING FOR TROUT.

FOR A FULL AGENDA AND DETAILED INFORMATION PLEASE CALL OR E-MAIL.

FISHHEAD@TEXAS.NET OR 512-589-3474

Being a photographer by profession, necessarily makes me a gadget freak. There’s just no escaping it, and it’s often a bleeding edge on which I tread. And I have been on the Apple bandwagon since about 1995, when I had to go across the Square (I had a studio/living space on the Square in Downtown Denton, Texas) to borrow my friend Karl Schindler’s computer and printer to do something – on an almost nightly basis. Karl was in the music program at UNT and working on creating his compositions and printing the sheets for them. This was only two years after I created my first website, but way before the full blown revolution we photographers find ourselves in today.

After working for my wife’s business www.cimarrona.com at a recent hugely successful show in Deep Ellum, I was paid handsomely and it took a matter of hours until that money burned a ghastly hole in my pocket and fell right through into a cash register, “One iPad, 32-gig in white please.” Why white you would ask? To reflect the Texas heat wherever it goes this coming year – of course.

Now, just like all these pad things coming out, the iPad is merely the syringe that delivers the drug, and I am hooked. Within a couple of hours I had John Gierach’s latest book “No Shortage of Good Days,” and rolled the dice on Henry Winkler’s new tome “I’ve Never Met an Idiot on the River” as well. The Fonz’s book was priced at a low risk price (7.96 at Amazon), so why not? Was that the end of it? Heck no. To the magazine rack I go.

If you have been to my place, you know I occupy the back porch with two, and sometimes three dogs. That’s where the fly tying, cycling, fly rod storing man cave-ish existence is for me. It’s a good life, but a cluttered one, with magazines – lots and lots of magazines, filtering dog hair out of the air and in between slick pages. So as sentimental as I am about paper (photographic prints, books and magazines), I cut the cord to paper magazines by purchasing a new subscription to “Saltwater Fishing Magazine,” and am just waiting for others to expire.

There is this huge upside that is the crux of this observation – these darn books and magazines are many times easier to read. They also go with you wherever you go without taking up any space. Both of these plus column factory were unexpected, but now I am a complete addict. The books, like Gierach’s, are so much easier to read that I find myself blazing through them at many times the normal reading speed. The magazine contents include extremely sharp text and photographs that are stunningly reproduced. It’s a whole new world.

The next phase is to start lobbying the publications we like most, “Southwest Fly Fishing,” “Drake Magazine,” “Fly Rod and Reel,” “Texas Saltwater Fishing” and ________ (you fill in the blank) for their publications to go digital as well. Saltwater Fly Fishing is already digital, and you can bet once my subscription to that expires, I’ll never buy another paper copy – period, paragraph.

I am definitely not saying the iPad is the only reader out there, and the new Amazon “Fire” looks good up close as well, but the navigation is intuitive just like all Apple products (some would call it “elementary” or “childish”), and that’s how I have always liked my hardware – hit the button and go. There’s enough complications in the world that if I can simplify something like reading, I am on board for that. How about you?

NOTE – I’ll be removing ads for paper books at Amazon from the site. I will also let you know when any of the unique books in my store are converted to digital offerings. Expect a few book reviews sooner rather than later!