Fish Deficit Disorder
DO YOU HAVE IT?
At the Starting line, and the gunpowder is wet from two days of rain. I knew I wasn’t the only one suffering from Fish Deficit Disorder early this week, when I ran into two other fly fishers at LLELA – Lewisville Lake Environmental Learning Area – below Lake Lewisville-Dallas.
They are new to the area, and were desperately searching for sand bass. Their instincts, to be at LLELA, were spot-on, but nothing was going on for anyone. They whipped out their phones to show me maps of Soggy Bottom Boys territory, all of which I had long ago forsaken for the comfort of a skiff deck. What they didn’t know, I was happy to abide. “Have you heard of Denton Creek?” They slid over to it both looking at one’s phone. I added details. They got that look, and I could hear the keys rattling. Time to move on!
They had that same look I saw when I looked at myself in the rearview mirror – a combination of frenzy, exhaustion from research and desperation for the northernmost Central Texas to come alive. We want the mouths of fish to open in slow motion, just like a flower time lapse video, and swallow hard one of our humble flies. But again, there are no takers near the space we were standing in.
Fishing is a lesson in many things. Patience being one of things that appears on almost all lists of fly fishing’s lessons. For those of us who run out of patience, not with the act, but with the place we find ourselves in? This is the time when we go into overdrive, as in we drive over and over to the same place we caught fish in the past … and we expect it to be just like it was when it was at its best on the fly.
Then we drive to the next place, and the next and the next … until we accept the fish god’s lecture; it isn’t happening now, just be patient. Conditions are absolutely perfect right now – for a perfect spring and summer of fly fishing in North Central Texas. Just be patient, we’re down to weeks from months, from seasons.
The spring spot I miss the most, and is absolutely empty of ANY fish? The dam riprap at Ray Roberts. Why? Because of the log jams. The difference is? The fish WILL NEVER COME to this spot in any season because of the Elm Fork Trinity Log Jam Disaster. Yet, I keep going there, filled with hope, but knowing what governmental mismanagement has done, and knowing no one else cares.
END NOTE: I am out for a few days! It’s an end-around run to San Antonio and then Houston, not in frenzy but in family time. Maybe there’ll be some flowers along the roads? We shall see … stay tuned.
Category: Body-Mind-Soul, Fishing Reports, North Texas, On The Road, Science and Environmental, Soggy Bottom Boys
