January Made Me Shiver With Every Paper I’d Deliver …
Honestly, I think we will have good news on our doorsteps sooner rather than later!
WELCOME from wherever you are, to the Texas Fly Caster Monday Morning Sidewalk. This is the day that sets the tone, and the post that sets the tone for the week ahead. Thanks to the great Don McLean for the opening (edited) quote from the famous “American Pie” song. Youngsters! Feel free to look it up, and spin the LONG version today – today, don’t wait.
When posts are spread across long blank spots, a lot happens in between that leaves me fingerless on the keyboard. It is that time of year, a time when “Slow” is the first word in TPWD fishing reports for virtually all freshwater fishing opportunities. And the only option – SALT – is even a bit sketchy this time of year.
It seemed like a great time to catch up on fly fishing gear that I have found through the last few months of 2020, and bring that to you in the form of “Reviews” that are REALISTIC, HONEST and CANDID.
I have been off from producing video for so long though, it took me a good while to “warm up” to the idea of cranking it all up again, but I am finding new energy in the change of cameras, venues and the challenge of keeping it all fresh twelve full years later.
HERE’S THE THING
Here is the thing fly fishing friends: There is a significant shortage of fly fishing basics going on right now. Be it a rubber-band effect with China from the virus, or US factories forced to redesign their production floors to obey social distancing; the end result is there are things we want that we can’t get.
We are learning, some of us for the first time, and some for the millionth time – patience. It reminds me of when I was a kid. I saved all those cereal boxtops, Mom filled out the form, we addressed and stamped the envelope, and then the waiting, waiting forever, began. “Four to six” long weeks of waiting, with me asking every day, “Did it come today?”
We’re back to that now, but you can BET ON four, six or eight weeks – if you’re waiting on a top shelf fly rod, fly lines and reels. So I am picking out things that are available and recording reviews of what I find.
First up is a review of the Danco Premio Pliers. Normally, we would not spend any time on such a thing, but the more I use pliers to do the work demanded in big fish, and saltwater, the more I realize that typical forceps have their place for sure, but they have shortcomings hard to accept. Mainly the forceps are very inferior when it comes to their cutting function, and I don’t know about you, but I dig multi-function tools to save me time, space and weight.
EARLY WARNING
Let me warn you about my first video(s) of 2021. I have determined that I need, for my own sanity, to include public service announcements at the beginning of my videos for the first part of the year – until we bend the COVID-19 curve downward in a serious way. YOU CAN SKIP the PSAs by clicking the blue number in the description, and feel free to do so! I figure if you fly fish, you must believe in and use science to be successful, so that’s what these PSAs appeal to – using science to end this plague, and get us back on the fly fishing road!
So here we really get going again with another year, starting the fourteenth one here at Texas Fly Caster. I never felt that anyone deserves any more authority based just on the number of years they’ve been doing something, but ask me again when we hit twenty years, and I may just change my tune! All the shifts in media we’ve seen in the blink of an eye – the last thirteen years – makes me wonder how I’ll be delivering content as this decade gets underway FOR REAL. More on the future, our future, after this week ends …
Check out the Texas Fly Caster YouTube Channel, as I post videos in advance of them appearing here. Now on YouTube is a review of the O’Pros fly fishing net. The written review and video are coming here later this week. Thanks for reading!
Category: Backcasting, Body-Mind-Soul, Causes, Equipment, Fly Fishing Video, Industry, Life Observed
