Monday Morning Sidewalk – Winds of Change and MORE
Good Monday Morning to those new to the Texas Fly Caster website, and to the faithful readers arriving for yet another anchor column … accidentally short looped to our ankle and thrown out into the oblivion.
If you haven’t seen it yet, I am helping a friend by marketing his East Cape Fury skiff, which we put on the market last night. I have spent many hours on this skiff, poling it and being poled. And it fits your needs? this skiff is in fantastic condition. And it comes with all the bells and whistles. Here is your link to the 2014 East Cape Fury on www.microskiff.com.
We fished off the East Cape last Thursday, and were like visitors in fish world, where we could look-but-not-touch a single fish we saw. And see fish we did. Carp, gar, buffalo and wild green trout were all over the flats and not eating any offerings.
Saturday, I was invited out with CK, and we started salt practice off his Hell’s Bay by going out for carp – the best freshwater practice for the salt world – and the story was once again close to the same with the exception of one carp that bit out of a mud cloud. This carp is the perfect example of a Ray Roberts carp you can expect to find there, and again we had shots at all the same species as Thursday. I was a bit surprised for the fly take as well – an Egan’s Headstand.
Those two days – April 30 and May 2, 2020 – really could not be more different when it comes to Ray Roberts habitat and the wind. Poling Thursday was basically “at will” with no wind, while Saturday meant ducking into protection from the early high winds (10-15), but at the same time clarity was better Saturday than Thursday. That’s what happens on Ray Roberts after the storms and after the calm – storms leading into Thursday, and the calm after. In the background? Lake levels were 1.2 feet over conservation pool, and the USACE has had the dam rocking for a long time now. If there was ever a possibility of generating “current” on Ray Roberts, this would be a text book time for it.
One great thing about the younger fly fishing addicts I know is they are great at adding a layer of technical sophistication to the sport, and the the technical things I covet the most are those that do what I have been attempting to do for years – ELIMINATE THE VARIABLES. I am not talking about “Live Scope-ing” fish with cutting edge electronics, but I am talking about software (APPS), like PredictWind.com, which I would probably never have discovered on my own. Texas, and the Texas Gulf Coast are a fishing ecosystem that has WIND as one of the factors we always have to consider.
South Beats Back North
It is, without question, May in Texas, and that means the battle for prevailing wind is ending with the south beating down the north, and surging until it settles in a few weeks. We will have changes, even this week, as cool fronts make feeble changes in North Texas patterns, but for all intents and purposes, it is over for the north wind until October. The intensity of these south winds are evident on the Predict Wind APP, and my reading of that APP had me thinking tomorrow would be a settled day to go out again. I realize I was wrong for the local outlook, but zooming out? East Texas does have milder wind predictions, and when you combine that with the sheltered characteristics of those lakes, gas up the tank and check your tire pressure! Yes WE CAN get there from here!
Thanks for reading this Monday, and be sure to check back – or sign up for notifications for new stories – this week. Let me know where you are and how your knees are feeling during this prolonged hunker-down era.
Category: Body-Mind-Soul, Culture on the Skids, Fishing Reports, Flats Boats, Fly Fishing For Carp, Fly Tying, Life Observed, North Texas, On The Water, Science and Environmental, Technical Poling Skiffs, Texas Skiff, TIPS
