Monday Morning Limp Along
My sidewalk limp is just about gone now, and amazingly it was not a limp from the prop cut, but a limp from a persistent achilles heel over-stretch that has been nagging the entire year. So a left heel, and a right calf … sounds like cuts of white meat to me. Seriously though, the cut is down to butterfly band-aids and some Med Derma for a less Frankenstein-ish scar.
We are getting pounded hard here daily in North Texas right now, and it looks like an old 12-round middleweight fight. Sun comes out about noon, the skies clear, and it’s a beautiful day … between rounds. In the early morning, before the sun even has a chance to trigger, we have loud thunderstorms passing through, dropping copious amounts of rain in the inches volume, for the past three mornings running. It is a true downer.
Re-Imaging the Texas Gulf Coast
I have buried myself in fly tying, and reimagining my Texas Gulf Coast, or maybe I should say “re-imaging” my Texas Gulf Coast approach. All I can do is prepare right now, and try a new approach to this daunting adventure. This new approach, planning, de-randomizing time and having some set time boundaries that could actually allow me to achieve the saltiest of intentions in the time I have remaining to devote to salt this year. This “planning” thing is only in its infancy, as I actually am learning how to plan as I plan. Normally, a plan involves a single-shot approach; go to one location, hit it hard, bring back the bacon and cook up the words that properly describe the hit.
Nowadays, recognizing the opportunities a deadly virus has given, there is an abundance of time that could, and I emphasize could, be used for an epic pursuit of several coastal locations & stories, doing what the Eagles titled, “The Long Run” of the Texas Gulf Coast. Make no mistake, it IS a Long Run.
BUT FIRST
First this week comes the return home of the Airstream Trailer. It is amazing what you can’t do without money, and the Airstream is the perfect example of that. A vintage 1970 Airstream Safari is a game for players with money, so it remains long unfinished now, and quite honestly I do not know if I will live long enough to finish it. It’s visibly closer to finished than not, but what remains is the most technical and artisan of work … well beyond my pay grade.
Some time will get filtered off this week for the Airstream, once long ago dubbed “The Fly Shack,” and now mostly just a metal shack. Our “Mountain-Lake-Beach House” won’t be doing any of that anytime soon. Some time will get filtered away for steel art by the way, STEEL YARD ART FOR SALE with zero contact and 100-percent social distancing in my front yard. Some time will get filtered away for boat upgrades – becoming coastal worthy. Some time will get filtered away for the NEW FLY LINE MAT, the “Clint,” which was a real piece of work making the mold for this new HUGE fly line mat having 216-square inches of surface area! According to my photographer’s math, that is roughly 2.5 times more surface area than the original mat. The true test will come when pouring the first prototype this week! This one has been months in the making.
Whether there will be a sneaking in of a fly fishing outing is yet to be known. I do know that excess water, and overcast skies on Lake Ray Roberts, means there should be big gar and huge grass carp roaming around the lake.
Realistically? This is a “heavy-weight” week of a “to-do” list with not much in the way of rewards coming on the front end, but progress is still progress, and planning is still planning. Check Monday off, and check back here often. I will be intermingling the Airstream Trailer life with the Texas Skiff Life with ______________ fill in all the blanks! You’ll find it here first. Thanks for reading.
Category: Adventure, Body-Mind-Soul, Flats Boats, Fly Tying, Life Observed, On The Road, Saltwater Fly Fishing Texas, Texas Skiff
