Monday Morning Sidewalk Still Rolls Around
texas fly fishing #flyfishing skiff lagoon boats
It has certainly gotten thin around here, but at least we can count on a walk down the Monday Morning Sidewalk for awhile longer. I hope you got the kids off to school, if this is their first day back, and are wherever you need to be – safe, sound and well insulated.
I had a friend, Immanuel Salas, show up in North Texas this past weekend, so we had no choice but to hitch up the Lagoon Skiff and do some prospecting on Lake Ray Roberts last Saturday. Now that there are a few (I don’t know how many now) ramps open, and the school year is tamping things down a bit, it seemed like a Saturday would be mostly harmless, and it was.
We only had a few hours to get out and give the boat a workout before getting blown off the lake by high winds late Saturday morning. A definite “groove” is finally starting to form when it comes to trailering and running the skiff, with one thing being blatantly apparent; this boat, mainly due to its size I’m sure, is a dream to launch and load. There’s none of this 250SHO gunning it onto the trailer while churning up the bottom of the ramp, or anything close to that. It’s just plain … easy.
SKIFF RIGGING
That said, there’s still a lot of work to do to bring the skiff to a point where it is fully “rigged” for function without adding a lot of unnecessary clutter. I need to find some kind of quick rod holder that simply attaches to / is part of the grab-rail, and allows us to just stick it and go. (That may be solved with a stripping bucket) Of course the push pole – the broken Stiffy – needs to be rejoined, and the process of changing the pushpole holders needs to be addressed to take that bend (too severe) out of the Stiffy. And as much as it pains me, it is apparent I will have to also put a set of those tie-downs for the YETI on the deck as well. North Texas roads just bounce that YETI all over the place. And we’re still waiting on that tiller handle extension from the folks at Strong Arm Products. I hope that’s worth the wait, as it’s been nearly a month now! I get the impression this “rigging” thing will go on forever actually.
With no pushpole, and a remote Minn-Kota trolling motor on the front, it was easy enough to take Salas around to beat the bushes in what few wind protected coves we could find on the west side. The wind actually was completely variable to the point that chop was crossing over itself as if there were boat wakes. It made finding shelter virtually impossible. As we prospected for bass, we were also looking for carp, but in the limited area we were able to reach, we weren’t finding either fish, and picking up to run across the lake proved a foolhardy proposition.
THIS WEEK
The week ahead still holds more medical appointments, and an overnight at the hospital this weekend, so you can imagine any stories will have to be squeezed out of a stone in the meantime. I am still trying to keep that information updated at the CaringBridge.org website.
Thanks as always for reading! Be sure to contact me if you have any questions, although the reply time can lag a little right now. I am looking forward to moving forward – because there’s still so much to do, like … seeing the damage and documenting the damage in Beaver’s Bend, getting the skiff ready,reporting from the skiff and the list goes on and on …
Category: Culture on the Skids, TECHNICAL, Technical Poling Skiffs
