First Monday in October
OKAY SO IT’s ALREADY WEDNESDAY
Can you smell it yet? Is fall in the air where you are? The North Texas fly fishing community generally comes out of their air conditioned hibernation and actually begins fly fishing again, more-or-less.
While most of the North Texas fly fishing community focuses on trout stocking schedules (those poor witless hapless stockers), others know there is a burst of warmwater action as fish like largemouth bass begin to prepare for winter. Looming large as always is saltwater action that never really quits anymore. Funny, back in my dark ages, the ’60’s and ’70’s, we just assumed the salt shut down for winter, and all the fish simply weren’t there. Of course there weren’t as many game fish then as there are now, so why endure the weather for limited returns?
There are a couple of interesting stories in the growth stage, and they include an open ended, scientifically backed, anecdotally charged discussion on scent and the role it plays in flies and fly tying. Specifically, we will be looking at products that add scents that humans smell, and ask do fish smell them too?
The free lessons on photography continue, and we’re going to take a look at the explosion in waterproof cameras from all manufacturers. With the camera phone wiping out whole sections of the low end market, about the only thing major manufacturers have left to stand on is their durable waterproof offerings.
We are going to take a look at the future of fly fishing discussion boards on the internet. Once thought to be the ultimate community resource, virtually all internet discussion based sites are suffering through what could be a cyclical depression in activity, or the dying of a breed. Case in point; Facebook.
I will also be writing one of those “E-Books” this fall on fly fishing for carp. Joel Hays has agreed to write the introduction, and he doesn’t know it yet, but he’ll be the main source for the science of carp fishing as well … I’m no scientist!
And the politics of fishing will find it’s way into this fall as well. We’re going to go back and look at the who, what, when, where, why and how of stocking Texas lakes is done. Perhaps we can begin with making sense of numbers that are staggering in their bias. It’s a whole big can of worms that somebody has to open, and will demand your participation to the ultimate degree. You get to determine how this one ends, but when this one’s over – it really is over.
I will also be going undercover this fall – to local fly tying events, rod building events, and fly fishing club meetings —- just to see what makes all these things tick.
Last but not least, I need to take a look back and see if promises of stories have all been kept. On occasion, I will throw an anchor out ahead of the boat, a story idea, a video or some other nugget, but the anchor doesn’t hold and the boat drifts with the wind in another direction. It would be quicker, if you the readers, reminded me of my short comings … which stories were promised and not delivered. By January, the decks should be cleared for new chapters on epic adventures yet to be written.
As always on MondayWednesday; I call on you to lead me into research, writing and discussion on topics that interest you from wherever you are about whatever you want to know. I hope we all arrive safely in our “shiny metal boxes” every day this week, and love our work nearly but never, as much as the fly fishing adventure.
Category: Causes, Culture on the Skids, Life Observed, Science and Environmental, TECHNICAL
