Body-Mind-Soul
Wednesday Watcher and Travel Log Travel Dog Update
Wednesday video relief
While I am busy putting out the logistical fires that just broke into the coastal plans – JURY DUTY CAN YOU BELIEVE THE NERVE – feel free to kick back and watch this episode of Texas Insider Fishing Report. This stuff translates easily into fly-speak and you will know what to do, won’t you?
Meanwhile, I have a couple dozen flies to tie for guests of a fly fishing friend coming to Ray Roberts this weekend. So you’ll know where to find me if I am not watching the Ken Burns Vietnam documentary on PBS. Yes, you may have heard there is this other great time burner now, a four-legged friend named Finn. And I say to myself, “What have I done?” It is pretty obvious to me (and to you too probably), I need one of those “Emotional Support Dogs” more than just about anyone I come across, but maybe we will categorize him as a Emotional Fishing Support Dog just to make me sound more normal / less needy?
Speaking of the WATCHERS (not the doers), I had a friend speaking in one of my ear holes the other day – imagine he’s the devil on one shoulder, and some silent angel stands on the other – and he wants to start an anti-club club in North Texas. He’s been cavorting with other friends who have undoubtedly been throwing this idea around, and bounced it off me for a couple years now, but he had an idea that sounded most reasonable …
His club would have no official officials of any kind, no elected anything and only have one requirement to remain in the club – you must go fly fishing with the group – OR YOU ARE OUT. I liked that, but added a twist: “What if a person in the club has to pay for NOT attending a group outing?” What if, there’s a minimum of six outings a year, and you must attend four? If you miss? That will cost you $50-dollars for coming up short – up to $200 a year – OR YOU ARE OUT. Imagine that, if you will, having to explain to your S.O. why you have to pay because you didn’t go fly fishing!
Lydia Ann Fly Masters Tournament Cancelled
Destruction Means Cancellation of Lydia Ann Fly Fishing Tournament on Texas Gulf Coast
FROM ROB BURLINGAME:
Fellow anglers and CfR supporters,
After a lot of groundwork and fact finding over the last couple of weeks, we are unfortunately going to cancel this year’s tournament due to the impact of Hurricane Harvey on the Aransas Pass/Port Aransas/Rockport area. While I tried to remain optimistic that we could still hold this year’s event, it looks like it won’t be possible.
If you haven’t been down there in the past couple of weeks, I can tell you that the photos shown on the news don’t do justice to the devastation that occurred. Many of the hotels, restaurants and businesses, especially those with prime waterfront locations, were badly damaged and aren’t expected to open up for a while. Add to that the personal homes for many of the owners and staff of those locations that are in disarray. Many of our sponsors were impacted as well from the coastal areas and from Houston. Needless to say, the folks living in these areas are facing a tough road for quite some time.
Since many of us like to frequent the area outside of the tournament when we get the fishing bug, please be careful and plan ahead if you plan to head that direction. Hotel rooms will be difficult to find and restaurants will be very limited. Many of the boat ramps are still closed and being used for staging areas for utility trucks and other contractors helping to rebuild. There is still a lot of debris in the water as well, so be extra careful on the water if you do head down.
While we are all waiting for next year’s tournament to take shape, there are a few things I would encourage everyone to do:
- Join the Facebook group: If you haven’t already joined the tournament Facebook page, please go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/110508092316938/?ref=bookmarks and send me a request to be added to the group. This will be the fastest way to get updates for next year’s tournament.
- Support Casting for Recovery: I would encourage each of you to continue supporting Casting for Recovery, especially this year since they will not have the tournament to support their retreats. There are two main ways you can do this:
- You can make a personal donation at https://donate.castingforrecovery.org/checkout/donation?eid=139760.
- If you shop at Amazon.com, please sign up for Amazon Smile (https://smile.amazon.com). You can select CfR as the beneficiary and Amazon will donate a portion of each purchase you make.
- Support the affected areas: There is a widespread need for assistance right now and it will likely continue for quite some time. Please consider supporting the fundraising events being held in your areas that are aimed at helping Rockport/Aransas Pass/Port Aransas or the Houston area recover from the storm. If you are able to, I would also encourage you to head to these areas to lend a hand with the cleanup and rebuilding efforts. Many of these areas are inundated with supplies and donated goods but they are lacking willing volunteers and strong backs to help.
Thank you to each one of you for your past support of the tournament and for your understanding of the situation this year. Let’s help get these areas put back together and back on their feet so that we can celebrate at the 2018 tournament.
A Bloody Good Chum Line Bayou City Angler
SALT IS SALT
Hot fly fishing was the main topic at Bayou City Angler (BCA) in Houston, Texas, yesterday afternoon. And the audience, employees and customers at BCA didn’t need any help whipping themselves into a frenzy over the coastal fly fishing scene with some duck hunting talk thrown in just to increase the volume. It was a chum slick of information, and we were all feeding.
I did try to settle myself down a bit by looking at all the merchandise at BCA, and I am very impressed with the inventory that has been built up at BCA since the last time I was in the store. Not only is there good inventory, they have a supply of discontinued Sage rods – right out front and CLEARLY marked down. BCA is also making room for their new fall clothing (out with the summer stuff), and an incredible series of markdowns on the reels we always want but never can afford – Abel and Hatch for example! It looks to me like BCA is establishing a name and place for itself in the fourth largest city in the Country. They also have the most extensive inventory of fly lines I have ever seen in one store, and smartly encourage buyers to try out any rod they are serious about purchasing – three reels per weight, with three different fly lines to help in decision making for line as well as rod.
CLYDE HAS A NEW GUIDE
I was there to pitch the next leg of the Clyde trip (Clyde – the car made famous in Drake magazine) to our old friend Danny Scarborough who now works at Bayou City Angler. Danny, being a wiser man that many I know, has sole possession and control of Clyde, and you can be sure it won’t get hung up sitting in Houston for six months of … let’s just say he won’t be wasting anybody’s time, or throwing me under the bus (still have Dallas tire tracks across my back) – unless I fall asleep in the middle of the road down south. That would be justified.
Danny couldn’t keep his redfish stories from Tuesday out of the Wednesday chum, and not only was that shared information great, so was the growing knowledge of snook showing up “everywhere” in Texas now. Put simply, the level of conversation and free trade of information was like a good shot of top-shelf. In my mind, I thought, “this is how it’s supposed to be.” Heck, when you’re as close to the action as these guys are – THIS IS HOW IT BETTER BE! Not a lot a talk, but talk backed by action – doing every chance they get to do it.
Of course there’s the bad with the good and ugly. Grass carp are being caught out in the bay. The number of commons in the bayous is a fraction of pre Harvey scale count. I am sure the guys that like to kill off these fish in the Houston Bayous are happy. We know they will be back. The mold is settling into the homes inundated by the Harvey floods.
I guess this means I will be forced to commute to Houston on a much more regular basis to get a shot of the real chum, and get back to the level of energy that started this adventure. God knows, I am having a hard time finding a good chum-line in North Texas. Salt is salt – it brings its own energy with it. It heals. Friends have heard me say this, but let me just tell all of you sitting at home – this is a great place for a fly fisher to LIVE.
Monday Morning Sidewalk
Remembering 911 War Hurricane Harvey Irma Call to Action
Welcome to wherever you are today, this great day called Monday! It’s great because my weekend begins in ernest, with a day of rest from everything that comprises my life as I now know it. You, on the other hand, are just getting wound up, caffeinated, motivated and shoveling the trenches for another week of loving war with work. Count yourself more lucky than I – in that respect. I applaud all of you who have dedicated your time, education, intellect and lives to building your careers on solid ground, and not shifting sand.
911 ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER
As the bells chime on the church behind me, I am again reminded this morning of where I was and what I was doing on September 11, 2001. If you replay it like I do (and we should), then you can’t help but still feel melancholy.
What happens when the last WWII veteran dies, do we forget the war? I always thought, as a historian, that living representatives of those events are the ties that bind us to remembering with clarity. Now, our warriors are still engaged in the war, with what I might add is the best set of marching orders yet (best thing the current president has done); moving the decision making from DC fat cats to the battle lines. We have to think of them, the quick and the dead, as well.
READ MORE YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO! – Continue Reading
Watcher Wednesday Hurricane Blues and White Bass Hot Spot
LIVE TRACK HURRICANE IRMA
Welcome to the “Watcher Wednesday” column. This is a day set aside to just watch something you may never have seen before, and enjoy the view from the top of your working hump-day. Me, and my crack research team comprised if myself and I, scour the video world to find something that might be of interest to the demographic that appears to enjoy this website – something that won’t get you too excited, or put you to sleep either. It’s an amazingly hard job! It is difficult to talk fly fishing right now, as the destruction of our beloved Texas Gulf Coast is still fresh and the flotsam still to be gathered into those huge dozer piles, but I did wet a line, and caught some big fat sand bass yesterday. That information is for my subscribers below. Perhaps catching a few will help us get our heads screwed back on straight after the emotional wreck of Harvey? I hope it is your remedy.
HOT SPOT NOW
I was driving
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