Shadows Getting Short on The Monday Morning Sidewalk
fly fishing in texas
A WEEKEND IN REPOSE
We spent the weekend in San Angelo, Texas, and there was not enough time to fish between working hours for the Cimarrona show there. I met some fantastic people, saw how incredible an isolated West Texas town can be – vibrant, high respect for the arts, individualistic, progressive, community oriented, fantastic infrastructure, art patronage … I could go on and on about San Angelo, Texas. Now, the water is a different shade of a topic. You may think dry dusty streets with the newspaper blowing down main, but we had more than an inch of rain out there Saturday! I mostly just stared at it, wondering what it was. It looks like there was some rain here in North Texas as well? All I know is my 48 kale plants are doing nicely.
LOCAL FISHING FORECAST
Obviously with temperatures dipping down into the upper 40’s and low 50’s, we find ourselves square in the fall doldrums. As much as I like to pout and examine my navel about it, that’s the signal for shifting gears. Strangely, the gears are a number one GRANNY GEAR and FIFTH WITH OVERDRIVE. On the one hand, it’s obviously time to pay due respect to Broken Bow, Beaver’s Bend, Oklahoma, and the trout living there. On the other hand, I find myself all over the salt at the end of October – from Galveston to who knows where? I am in Houston again next week for a photo shoot, then backtracking to Edom, Texas, for a Cimarrona show in that East Texas town (fly rod in hand). At the end of the month – again working for Cimarrona at the Houston International Quilt Show (on and off).
FLY RODS
“Will you ever have enough fly rods,” she said. “Yes,” I said, if they ever stop making them I thought to myself. “How much was that one?” she said. “Cheap,” I said. “Oh. Like all your handguns are a hundred dollars?” she said incredulously. “Oh, no! Cheaper than that,” I said.
The fly rod in question is a TFO BVK short trout rod that I had been waiting to pull the trigger for, and with the weather change … well, I dropped the hammer on the 8′ three weight. How much better can an Oklahoma rod get?
This summer just passed saw us wage a “War of the 8’s,” where there is clearly a winner at one price-point and a lack of even competition at the higher price-point (due to lack of funds, we will whistle that an incomplete pass). We saw the crazy 8’s play out in true fishing conditions – on the saltwater flats, and the judgement is in on that.
Now, just in time for me to be headed into the fineries of small trout rods, Sage has a new saltwater offering sure to trigger a response from other top shelf manufacturers – the Sage Motive. It’s a little disturbing that I am not hearing more about a $425-dollar big stick by Sage. Maybe everyone else has shifted gear(s) as well? Timing is everything. I know I’ll have to give it a throw.
FOR SALE – I do have a couple of rods that I need to move out of the quiver, so feel free to contact me for that list.
BEHIND THE CURTAIN
You may have noticed in most recent posts that I am being forced to throw some random phrases at the top of posts now? Well, the idiot savants at Google don’t seem to know how to respond to the fact that their new emphasis on “content over links” continues to leave some stale, old websites entrenched at the top of searches that I assume would put Texas Fly Caster at the top (permanently) – if google ranking was working properly. They’re not, and there’s no way to move into this site’s rightful position, except with experimental search engine voodoo words. I have also been advised to do away with my famous links in the left column (which no vendor was compensating me for anyway!). I will put those back on somewhere if it proves not to have an effect on rankings.
Thanks for reading, and have a great week! I hope you arrive safely to and from wherever you go this week. Please check back in for some multi-media shows of San Angelo, Texas, and the Chicken Farm Art Center in San Angelo.
Category: Adventure, Culture on the Skids, Equipment, Fishing Reports, Fly Rods, North Texas, Texas Gulf Coast
