Go With The Flow Friday in San Angelo Texas
OUTSIDE THE BOX
So many of the old codgers I know just seem to want to limit themselves to the old codger-y ways of fly fishing the same old spots, and never want an adventure outside of their particular boxes. They leave that whipper-snapper stuff to … the whipper-snappers mostly. I’ve always been a little different that way I guess. READ MORE ==
Sure, it would have been easy enough to brush off a trip to San Angelo, Texas, this weekend for the Chicken Farm Art Center’s “First Saturday” event that highlights a number of fiber artists that includes my SO, and her Cimarrona Hats & Accessories, but here I am in a western town with some of my art family gathered, creative juices flowing and outside the old box.
Not far away is the Concho River that flows through town, the three lakes – Lake Nasworthy, Twin Buttes Reservoir and OC Fisher Lake – all of which take a back seat, or even fit neatly in the trunk – of my particular fly fishing priorities. I know I will have time to open the trunk, and put my fly rod together, but the results have never been worth writing home about in the past(around here).
WHIPPER-SNAPPER
Of course, in the back of my mind constantly runs the new and audacious undertaking of the Lower Mountain Fork in Oklahoma, and the new challenges it will present on just about every level imaginable. It’s not a hop-skip or jump from Denton. It’s a drive nearly as far as going to Galveston, Texas! And those numbers have effected my decisions to go to salt for many years now. There’ll be salt this fall-winter, that’s a given. But to learn the rules, whether there are any rules, and the lay of the water at what is essentially a new place to my knowledge? Yeah, this whipper-snapper is up for that.
It starts with playing by the rules (for guiding in Oklahoma). That means proving I’m an ‘merican, and sending in the fee and a notarized form saying I am not an illegal immigrant coming to Oklahoma to guide on their State’s waters. (Think about that one for a minute.) The fee $90-dollars, pales in comparison to the fee in Texas of $210-dollars annually. Of course, along with that comes the fee for an out-of-stater’s fishing license which is still less than the Texas fee! I wonder what effect the $210-dollar fee in Texas has had on sales. My economics education tells me – rising price for that particular item, equals lower demand (sales), and probably increased citations income making up the difference. Needless to say, I’ll play by the rules.
Anyone who is interested in teaching me a thing or two about the Lower Mountain Fork stretch of fly fishing for trout; you’re welcome to ride with me, camp with me, meet me there, drop in and wreck my spot, expose me to the wild nightlife of Beaver’s Bend, whatever … just check my calendar page for dates and let me know. CALENDAR There doesn’t seem to be a lot of “sharing” when it comes to what / where / when and how of the Lower Mountain Fork fishery, so I don’t expect to have anyone share that with me, but you can bet WHEN the time comes, I will share it all with you (as always) in a timely, accurate and thorough way – on a new website about to be constructed, and exclusively dedicated to that adventure.
Category: Adventure, Body-Mind-Soul, Fly Art, Fly Fishing for Trout, Lower Mountain Fork Oklahoma
