Monday Morning Sidewalk Thawing Out
texas fly fishing #flyfishing north texas houston
The thaw started yesterday. The sense of being stir crazy started a long time before that. It’s funny when you realize just how big this State is, when fly fishing friends in, say Houston, didn’t even know what had happened here in North Texas last Friday. The variations in snow cover here ranged few inches in the matter of a few miles. In my neighborhood it looked like about six inches of snow on the sidewalk by late Friday afternoon. And no location reported any more snow than we did right here in Denton, Texas.
That approaching cool weather and precipitation – mentioned earlier – even has the potential to give a taste of North Texas to fly fishers all the way down in Houston, Texas. That’s something new. So many of these fronts have an eastern track that spares just about all of Texas, except for the Pan Handle and those of us near the Red River.
If you are in the Houston area, and heeded the advice here last week, then you must’ve headed to Houston area lakes and creeks to take part in the sand bass runs. From what I heard, fly fishers were landing as many as fifty sand bass in just a few hours on the water. That sounds a lot like the action we used to have here in North Texas before these years of drought. That action certainly would go a long way toward knocking the ice off a fly fisher’s winter, and the larger fish look to be coming on now.
MARCH MADNESS
As far as the sand bass run here in North Texas goes; this weather could be lining up to give us conditions needed to create a good spring of sand bass on the fly. Spring sand bass runs in the creeks and lakes are, if nothing else, a fantastic opportunity to turn young anglers on to catching fish – numbers of fish. It also helps that sand bass are pretty feisty fighters pound-for-pound.
Not only do these cold snows have the potential to provide fishing relief in North Texas; they also saturate the ground in advance of spring showers. Needless to say, I am hearing from excited fly fishers who say things are, “lining up” to bring back a spring reminiscent of past North Texas springs.
After all, spring 2015 is officially only a few weeks away, and a good spring goes a long way into a good summer fly fishing season around here. If you’re in another part of the USA, and reading this, you may wonder why all the concentration on weather and rain. All you have to do is look at the drought map, and you’ll see why weather is such a big deal around here.
All this inside time sent me looking at APPS on my phone this weekend, and I actually found one that could be fun for fly fishers, that’s not a goofy fishing app. It’s called “WEEV“, and is a short video clip application that gives people a chance to respond to the video you create to basically weave a story, or weave answers together about a topic that interests you. I jumped right in, and my first WEEV was, “What’s your favorite fly for catching bass?” I think this kind of social sharing is a great way to draw some youth into the sport, answer those questions that have so many more than one correct answer, or no wrong answer.
- The Dallas Fly Fishers meet tonight.
- Red River Fly Fishers meet Tuesday, March 3.
- Fort Worth Fly Fishers meet Tuesday, March 3.
- CCA Fort Worth has a gathering Thursday, March 5, at Rahr Brewing.
END NOTE – Time does fly by, doesn’t it? A year passed, as of yesterday, since our golden retriever died, and it seems like it has only been a few weeks since that sad day. This crazy young border collie found us, and proceeded to take control of us, has been a pleasant if not overwhelming distraction, one some would describe as “high maintenance.” And it’s the same way for fly fishing stories. It’s hard to believe five years have gone since we were chasing hybrids just below the dam at Lake Ray Roberts. And that event really hasn’t repeated itself since. Those memories go through transitions – from blessings, to curses and now maybe that pendulum swings again to blessing.
Imagine being somewhere where the fishing you want to happen actually happens, every year regardless of the fickle weather gods! Sheer fantasy.
Category: Backcasting, Culture on the Skids, East Texas, Fishing Reports, Texas Fly Fishing Club
