Monday Morning Sidewalk! Let’s Get Fished On
Wipe the sleep from your eyes, and get ready to be broiled alive! It is almost thirty days late, but the magic century mark is about to arise in your thermometers my friends.
Saying the local fish are running behind has, so far, been mostly a theory that we based on our own instincts. After the fish I saw Saturday (July 24), the actual evidence is mounting; carp spawning behavior, their eating habits and numbers tell me we may just have been right.
Now that the switch has been flipped to 100-degrees here in North Texas, we are left to more guesses about what carp habits show up next. Stay tuned.
PORT O’CONNOR FLY FISHING
I hope you had the chance to watch the video I pieced together for the Texas Fly Fishing Report last week. It included a tiny bit of video from Port O’Connor – catching redfish on conventional gear. I also broke out a new video ON the conventional rod setup I used on the Coast and a rundown on the spinning rod/reel’s performance. As I say in the video: Know before you go! That is especially true of Port O. – a Texas fly fishing hotspot, but one that has never been the same twice! It changes more, and is more variable in my opinion, than any other SPOT on the Texas Gulf Coast. In contrast, the Lower Laguna Madre is, in my opinion, the most consistent SPOT on the Texas Gulf Coast. The huge bay is more protected, the weather more consistent, the tides more reliable and I cannot remember the last time (non-hurricane) that I heard about 21-inches of rain falling directly on South Padre Island. There is drainage from the Arroyo Colorado, but it is pretty manageable.
HOME AGAIN
The song, “You Gotta Move,” comes to mind this fine morning, and that’s the mode we again find ourselves in – the only problem being “moving” to get away from the heat? means moving at least 100-miles from home base nowadays.
If we do pull up short, nearby, it will have to be early-in-early-out places like Lewisville Lake, Bridgeport … easy reaches. Looking back at (one of) my dry erase boards, it’s easy to see just how wrong this year has gone, blown up and away by the extraordinary Texas weather of 2021. Couple this year with last year’s COVID travel stopper, and we have a pretty devastating one-two punch.
We will just have to move forward with reshuffling of the old game plan, converting it to the “New Game Plan” for late Summer and Fall 2021. Of course that means we lose some of our quarry by seasonal temperaments, but I honestly enjoyed chasing what was there this year – in places like Lake Bastrop and Lake Sommerville – – – before the rains.
I can honestly say I have never made more plans than this year, and God must still be laughing. He/She probably has a bellyache as a matter of fact … gas a dollar higher at the pump, rent rates for the Coast up 20-percent? It’s perfectly FUBAR.
DENTON TRINITY RIVER GREENBELT CORRIDOR UPDATE
The Denton 380 Greenbelt may well be a black hole of my time and space, but I am being drawn even closer into the gravitational pull this week. I have a meeting on the books with an official person (imagine that) from the City of Denton, and once I clear that meeting, and what she had imparted to me, both previously and in this meeting, I will be sure to bring you another Denton Trinity River Greenbelt Corridor Park update.
I do have an update for those of you who have wondered about the Texas Parks & Wildlife Foundation, in relation to this debacle, and it isn’t good.
ETERNAL OPTIMISTS
Fly fishers, though, are the kings of fishing’s eternal optimist club. We have as many carp, more and bigger carp, then I have found in any past year on Lake Ray Roberts. So there is that to look forward to – for the remaining August – October 2021 carp season. I refuse to accept any hurricanes this year. And it will rain only when I tell it to rain, until further notice.
Thanks again for reading the Monday Morning Sidewalk, the longest running column here in Texas Fly Fishing land, and on the Texas Fly Caster website. I hope to talk to you before next Monday, and always appreciate hearing from you via text, email or comments here on the site.
Category: Body-Mind-Soul, Conventional Spinning Rod Reel Fishing, Culture on the Skids, Destination Fly Fishing, Fly Fishing For Carp, Fly Fishing for Redfish, Life Observed, On The Road, On The Water, Saltwater Fly Fishing Texas
