MONDAY RAIN AND PAIN
Good Monday morning fly fishers, friends and those of you who just found us by the fortunes of fallible searches. Maybe you should stick around a minute …
FOR YEARS
This website has spent a lot of time focused like a laser on fly fishing, all the gear involved, techniques and the thought that goes along with the breed. Over all these years we also have heard from a fair share of people who would never touch a conventional rod and reel, heaping ridicule on “bait chunkers,” and those who choose the “easy” ways of fishing. I am always first to “confess” my sins roots of this obsession started simply with a single Garcia-Mitchell 300 spinning reel, in a day when rods were either glass or glass.
Nowadays, being on a boat most of the time typically means picking up a conventional rod to prospect for fish (other than carp). And that’s what we do, on salt and going deep in lakes to find striper schools. If my family is hungry? Out comes the spinning rod to chase lake run sand bass – on just about every Texas lake you can name.
WE CALL IT PROSPECTING
Probably in an effort to minimize, or even disguise our conventional habits, we give this kind of conventional fishing the name, “Prospecting.” In reality that is exactly what it is, but it does go by those other names as well. As prospecting is important as well, we do try and CATCH fish we are prospecting for, and that means we think our conventional prospecting gear is important as well. I know plenty of fly fishers who never prospect, and if they don’t succeed with a fly? They simply don’t succeed. There’s nothing wrong with that, until you travel hundreds or thousands of miles and invest the same in treasure. To arrive somewhere and look for clues, and not whip out a spinning rod to find the answers? It defies logic, and even Lefty Kreh carried a spinning rod, right?
SPINNING GEAR
So from no time, in the first twelve years of this site, spent on conventional gear? The year 2020 marks the addition of conventional “Prospecting Fishing Gear” to our discussions of successful fly fishing. Consider it supplemental, and woefully fundamental – because that is about all I have is secondary knowledge and information, AND the Prospecting Fishing Gear I know about and use is – ALL spinning gear.
And what I know is? Not much. I do know there has been a revolution since the Garcia-Mitchell 300’s (I still have them!) though.
While I see challenges in finding information on Prospecting Gear, I am avoiding going off the deep end and starting what would certainly be a successful website (like this one) sharing knowledge and experience with spinning gear.
I will be sticking with spinning gear, no casters, and it won’t take much time to tell you what I use and what (I think) I know about the genre. I just don’t know that much, with a few exceptions, on gear selections. And there is the cost factor which as multiplied exponentially since the Garcia-Mitchell days. That is a bridge I have no interest in crossing – without sponsor’s help.
BACK TO THE FLY
Today the cleanout of the Fly Shop continues, along with major rearrangement of furniture and creating much more space for a bigger better fly tying table. So we give thanks to the bad weather threatening today.
I am also working on my part of a new adventure in art photography and photography services – based in Downtown Denton’s Historic District – just a block off the Square in Downtown Denton. It’s a fine old building, and lends itself to back-door fly tying gatherings – if I can sneak that into the new gallery mix on an occasional basis!
I will be throwing out some “Flash Fly Sales” starting later this week. It will start with sand bass flies, and bass flies – tried and true Clousers in killer colors. Watch the Instagram Feed for Texas Fly Caster to jump on these sales this spring and summer! There will be carp flies coming in the spring!
VIDEOS
I will be producing a couple of new videos about very practical clothing for late winter and dead of summer in Texas. I hope to also prove the justification for spending the treasure to purchase better clothing that is specific to fly fishing and therefore FISHING in general.
Category: Culture on the Skids, Fly Tying, Prospecting Conventional Gear, Technique, TIPS
