Science and Environmental
Your Skin Is In This Monday’s Game
Save Your Own Skin Game Skin Protection For Fly Fishing
What’s the two letter word I’m looking for this morning? Funny, there’s never a shortage of words … reminds me of a line in the fantastic film “The Post,” when Tom Hanks says, “Write like a poet, not a novelist.” Oh yeah, I remember the two letters: O and N, it is ON. The game is afoot.
Good Monday morning and welcome to the sidewalk. This is the day we leave our front porches, stagger like the 1960’s Kris Kristofferson version – to the sidewalk, and put one foot in front of another, staring down to make sure we really are walking with both feet forward. Forward, always forward.
My Mondays have evolved in the last year to be a day of simple physical recovery from weekly three-day epic workouts – going on nearly a year now. Nietzsche said, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger,” and if you believe that …
BODY – MIND – SOUL
Today is the official melanoma Monday, and time to recall the ways we can take care of our skin – and our eyes as well!
I have written many stories over the years on how to take care of different body parts by protecting them from the sun. Rather than send you to those stories, let me take a minute and do a brief rundown.
- Wear a wide brim hat. I like the hats offered at a company called, Sun Body Hats out of Houston, Texas. They are importers, not actual makers of straw hats. Don’t get too sentimental over your hat. Pull out a can of black paint, stuff the crown area with paper and paint the underside of the brim black.
- Wear polarized UV blocking sunglasses to protect your eyes from UV light.
- Buff neckwear may look funny, and it may be unappealing to some, but it will protect your neck, and pull it up to go around your face / ears / jawline and mouth. Consider buying a straw big enough sized to actually allow your Buff to go under the hat! Neckwear also does a fantastic job of regulating body temps as well.
- Long sleeves and long pants with UV ratings are a must for our tropical exposure.
- If you choose to expose anything to the sun, I firmly believe in Smart Shield products, which are proven to be effective and do not harm fly lines or live bait! I was introduced to Smart Shield on a photography trip to Tulum, Mexico, in 2006 – by a Smart Shield executive, used it on that trip, and never ever considered any other sunscreen since then.
- COVER YOUR FEET too, or be willing to slather them with sunscreen. Feet are as sensitive as any part of your body that never sees the sun (know what I mean?).
Consider post exposure maintenance with your own formula of oils. Sun or no sun, because of my cancer experience, I use a concoction that includes a base of coconut oil with helichrysum, frankincense, CBD rich cannabis oil (no THC) and a dose of vitamin E just for good measure. This stuff is pretty easy to find, with the exception of the most vital ingredient in my personal formula – helichrysum. That one is expensive and not easy to find. Here’s the deal: In the long run, considering insurance deductibles, missing work, and the cost of formulated moisturizers – YOU WILL SAVE MONEY!
ON – Winds are a paltry 5-10 today, so make sure you get some sunset action at the very least, and if you are looking to pull the trigger on a guided skiff outing – time to start working on YOUR calendar. Be sure to request the new Guide Pricing brochure today. The format has changed this year – after years, to make more numerical sense of how and when we fly fish for carp.
Water Wednesday – Rainy Season Yet to Come to Texas
Substantial Rain Precedes Texas Rainy Season Huge Impact on Warm-water Fly Fishing Season
The rains are finally letting up here, and I am taking a lunch break to sit down and search for that drought map. We’re not even in the rainy season yet, and lakes in the TPWD “Prairies & Lakes Region” are either full or filling nicely. We all know what these rains mean to our warm-water fly fishing – Boom or Bust. I heard a conventional fisherman complain about dropping water confusing fish, “They don’t like it,” and I believe that to be true whether it’s bucket mouths or carp. An upward surge is fantastic, but the way they drain lakes so abruptly? Heck, it even confuses me!
DON’T FORGET
Don’t forget the CCA Fort Worth Crawfish Boil tonight! Here is the flier on that event – Crawfish Boil CCA Fort Worth. Be there!
SUBSCRIBE!
Be sure to subscribe to my premium YouTube Channel soon! I have a detailed ariel map of a local lake that is small and loaded with big bass. It’s public, and the only way you can get these fish is on kayak. I am going to lay out the structure that makes it a killer location. It is the number one place I have caught the most big bass in the shortest time (a single outing) – ON FLY. There are double-digit bass, and a strange assortment of aquarium fish in the pond as well.
Water Wednesday – Port Lavaca Texas
TPWD Report Lavaca Bay Texas Alcoa Aluminum History
FROM TEXAS PARKS & WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT NEWS RELEASE
“Achieving conservation goals requires effort by all of us, from individuals to government agencies.
At times, combined forces are called for, as in the mercury clean-up of Lavaca Bay, seen in this video. The ongoing effort to keep the Gulf stocked with game fish relies on strong partnerships, too. It also took a group effort to bring about Gulf restoration to compensate for effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill; see the project tracker for updates.
Individual anglers like you also play an important part. Your license fees support conservation, as does your compliance with regulations. Your vigilance is also necessary. If you see a fish or wildlife kill or suspect a pollution event, immediately report the location by calling (512) 389-4848 or (281) 842-8100, 24 hours a day.”
Coal Burns Out in Texas Water Wednesday
Dominoes Begin To Fall In Texas
It may be a brand new day for the Texas environment, and we actually lived to see it happen. Taking three of Texas’ coal powered electricity generating plants offline means cleaner skies for Texas, less fallout in our water and healthier fish.
I have quietly railed against coal for several years now, and do believe that one of the great (maybe history will say the only great) things we will be left with from Obama’s years is – HIS positive impact on the environment, on our environment.
The closing of these plants will cost jobs, just as the horse stables and buggy whip makers lost their jobs with the coming of the horseless carriage. Families will be effected by this, and we cannot underestimate their insecurity and instability in this era of endemic underemployment, insanely low wages and people’s seeming inability to relocate to where jobs really are these days.
However, we rejoice at the idea of cleaner land, water and air – brought about by the huge growth in Texas wind power and natural gas. Texas is number one in the Nation when it comes to wind power, and we got there pretty darn quickly. Now, wind moves up in the percentage of power it supplies, and natural gas is the king of all power supplied in Texas (Yes, T. Boone, there is a Santa Claus).
The plants that are closing are:
- Monticello
- Big Brown
- Sandow
Luminant still has a couple more plants open, and they are:
- Oak Grove
- Martin Lake
Closing the above three plants will cut 10-percent of Texas power plant’s carbon dioxide emissions, which amounts to 26-million tons of carbon dioxide annually. Coal has been on a downward trend since 2010 – more than half of the US’s coal powered plants have announced their “retirements” in this decade. In case you’re wondering. That’s a GOOD THING. Let us all just hope that President Trump doesn’t do anything else stupid – to prop up coal power, and just leaves coal as another of his empty promises, this one best left empty. Continue Reading
Monday Morning Sidewalk – Back To The Path
Monday Morning Fly Fishing Sidewalk Harvey Talk
What a Monday! I know you’ll be happier wherever you are than meeting with accountants and lawyers, right? Monday, it seems, can be a day for medicine of all kinds. Nevertheless, I hope you all had a great weekend, and don’t pin your happiness on the Dallas Cowboys who you should expect to disappoint you by now (unlike fly fishing in every way).
Last week was nearly a thousand-miler, and I touched on the scene at Rockport – Port Aransas, but then got pulled away for the weekend job. The burden of the scene down there on the Texas Gulf Coast weighs heavy, and I am still trying to figure out what to do, more specifically WHAT I CAN DO about it. I am pretty sure my greatest skills for contributing to their recovery are not a chainsaw (have one), or a hammer (have many) and shovel (have too many).
I am looking to employ what I call the “skills” I have here – story-telling through photography and writing – on a larger scale, to a broader audience … somehow. I want to make a public appeal to you club members who are reading this: I would like to ask for a few minutes of your next meetings to show some photographs from Rockport, tell their story as it begins, and present you with a snapshot of the problems, and inspire you to respond to the Hurricane Harvey disaster in your own unique ways that go beyond the usual giving you do to broader fundraisers for cancer and national efforts. This is a Texas disaster that needs Texans to respond with pinpoint efforts.
Cutting this morning short, and off to those meetings. I will dribble out some more about last week soon – and go big on the discussion boards to focus more eyes on the Hurricane Harvey effort — within the next day or two.
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