Monday Morning Be Mine

Valentine’s Day 2022 Sidewalk

How about this? Do I need to remind you it’s Valentine’s Day 2022? Today proves that time is already flying by this year, and there’s no time like now to start sharing some love.

SINCE THE START

Sharing the love is what I’ve always proclaimed the Texas Fly Caster website is all about, but I’ll be honest: It gets hard over the years to remember to share the love when very few of the guides and organizations you share with? Well, they don’t exactly do what anyone would describe as, “sending the love back your way.” It is what it is. 

Today we’re I’m sharing the love of the fly fishing communion. I had attempted several years ago to help fly fishing clubs, specifically Fort Worth Fly Fishers, learn how to share with a newer generation of fly fishers by going live with their regular fly fishing meetings – using the simple technology that existed back then to live stream to a wider audience and to those who could not attend. Obviously that answer was a unanimous “no” from the club powers that then existed. Then came COVID, and a time when ZOOM became normal. Whether lessons were finally learned, I will never know. Clubs have a way of being like porridge – either too hot, or too cold and never ever just right. If I ever find the JUST RIGHT fly fishing club, you’ll find me there.

STILL A DECENT START

Fly fishing clubs are still a decent place for a beginning fly fisher to start (in general) though. Some of these Texas fly fishing clubs? Well, they are virtually dead. And some even lead off their websites with the dead, which I am starting to understand, but still opposed to doing on a website professing the “fun of fly fishing.” Most of us have gone through this COVID era scraped, scratched and perhaps directly hit by death. I think we can take down the reminders from fly fishing websites … until I’m dead that is! Then you can burn the muscadine.

THE LIGHT

Life is for the living. Eventually the “old” will age out of their firm-holds in fly fishing clubs, and  no longer use the Texas fly fishing clubs as their personal assertions of power, prestige and practicing Robert’s Rules of Order instead of casting.

In fact I have heard that one club in North Central Texas – the Fort Worth Fly Fishers – has undergone something of a youth movement. I would have pursued this rumor long ago, except for the virus’ ugly head that keeps popping up like whack-a-mole. Maybe we can all have a kumbaya moment this coming March 12 in Fort Worth?

THE CLUB LIFE & The Devil’s Playground

No matter where you are in the huge State of Texas, there is a fly fishing club within Texas driving distance of your location (okay forget about the Pan Handle and south of New Mexico). God help the fly fishing club that lives only in the Devil’s Playground of Facebook. I haven’t done this in a long time, for good reasons, but here is my current list of fly fishing clubs in Texas

• Austin, AUSTIN FLY FISHERS
• Austin, TEXAS WOMEN FLY FISHERS
• Austin, GUADALUPE RIVER CHAPTER TROUT UNLIMITED
• Corpus Christi, COASTAL BEND FLYFISHERS
• Dallas, DALLAS FLYFISHERS
• Fort Worth, FORTH WORTH FLY FISHERS
• Houston, TEXAS FLYFISHERS
• Kerrville, HILL COUNTRY FLY FISHERS
• Longview, EAST TEXAS FLY FISHERS
• San Antonio, ALAMO FLY FISHERS
• San Marcos, CENTRAL TEXAS FLY FISHERS
• Sherman-Denison area, RED RIVER FLY FISHERS
• The Woodlands, MONTGOMERY COUNTY FLYRODDERS
• https://texasflyfishers.org/
• Tyler, LONE STAR FLY FISHERS
• Waco, CENTRAL TEXAS FLYRODDERS

WWYD

What would your very own fly shop look like, if you could open one here in DFW? Let’s say, for the sake of argument, you were opening a coffee-bourbon-fly-shop concept in Fort Worth, or mid-cities? Where would you open a new concept like this? The correct answer is NOT your back yard! What would it look like inside? What products would you want to find in a fly shop oriented toward the fly tying public (less toward trips and thousand-dollar reels)? What bourbons, beers and imbibes would you serve? I don’t expect any answers, but I’ll be honest: This is a chance for real audience participation!

THANKS FOR READING today! I am heading for an extended stay in Houston, punctuated by a family trip down to Port Aransas later this week. It is an extraordinarily complex personal time for my family and myself. Buckle up. We’re going for the long ride.

Tags: #flyfishing, #texasflyfishing, clubs and organizations, fly fishing, fly fishing clubs, fly fishing clubs and organizations, Fly Tying, monday morning sidewalk, On The Road, texas fly fishing, texas fly fishing clubs

Category: Body-Mind-Soul, Eating and Drinking, Fly Shops, Houston Fly Fishing, Industry, Life Observed, Next Generation, Store Merchandise, Texas Fly Fishing Club