Shifting Gear on the Monday Morning Sidewalk
texasflyfishing #flyfishing in texas oklahoma fly fishing beaver’s bend broken bow
NOTE – There won’t be a YouTube report this morning. The clouds have cleared, and I have to time an architecture photo shoot for right now! Check the YouTube channel later this week for a sneak peak progress report on the Airstream, aka. “Silver Fly.”
Good morning and welcome to wherever you arrived this morning. We are about to start shifting gears in more ways than one around these parts.
First, there’s a rush to work on the Airstream rebuild and get it ready for an explorative, speculative adventure this coming January. At this early date, our January destination is the Broken Bow – Beaver’s Bend, Oklahoma, area to see if there are any fish there (yeah humor). For the sake of clarity, I will be calling this part of Oklahoma “Bend-Bow” – so if you see Bend-Bow, you will know where I am talking …
My experiences in the Bend-Bow have always been more hit than miss, and one of my earliest trout experiences was there several years ago. I haven’t been there in a long while, but with our limited fly fishing seasons here in North Texas, it just seems like a natural transition during the sometimes brutal North Texas winters. Why not crave those frozen guides, frozen fingers … and after all the heat; why not test our mettle?
Next, there’s another looming stint “out in the middle” about to start up in a few days. For those of you who don’t know what a stint out in the middle is, here’s a link to one of those stints – http://texasflycaster.com/looking-for-fish-out-here-in-the-middle/ . I never know how long these jobs last, and when they actually start, but I do know it’s work. It’s also an opportunity (you may not like) to do a lot of writing about fly fishing!
SHIFTING GEAR
Now that we’re starting to focus on the fineries of fly fishing for Oklahoma trout stock, it is obviously time to break down all the gear and methods used to fly fish for trout in places like Bend-Bow and on the Blue River. I believe there are some simple gear choices that will improve your success and ability to target these fish.
Obviously, you can already find a lot of information on flies, hatches and entomology for trout fishing in Bend-Bow and the Blue River, right here in past (still complimentary) posts on those topics. When I say “a lot,” I mean a lot of posts. There are even a few Bend-Bow hatch charts buried here in the site somewhere. Priceless, but there is no real substitute for taking entomological samples right there and then – before tying the first fly of the day on to your 6X trout tippet. Of course, we’ll be doing that – AND SHOWING THAT – as well, because you’ll remember that’s Texas Fly Caster’s mission statement; “Showing, not just telling, about fly fishing.”
We will be breaking all this down to every element that makes for a better trout outing in Oklahoma, and one of those factors is weather, so while you are gearing up with all your fly hardware, be sure to pull out the layers because I’m one who believes the worse the Oklahoma weather, the better the fly fishing. (You better believe I am going to install a furnace in the Airstream)
SALTWATER
You know we’re going to sneak away of course, and hit the coast when opportunities present themselves, and they will present. We have the annual flounder run at Galveston, a run that hardly materialized last year (most believe because of temperature problems). There’s always something happening on the Texas Gulf Coast, so we’ll take it as it comes.
END NOTE
Thank you for your continued reading, and watching the YouTube videos! I had an enlightening reaction from one of the posters on a Texas fishing forum last week saying, “I would never pay to read a blog!” Well, neither would I! And if you think this is simply a blog, thanks again for reading, and I hope you didn’t learn anything. (Strange. That thread is now missing?)
If you are hospitalized, or incapacitated in any way and like to read about fly fishing while you’re laid up LET ME KNOW and I will arrange a HEALTH PASS so you can read anything on the site while you recuperate. That just makes sense to me.
Category: Adventure, Apparel, Backcasting, Culture on the Skids, Equipment, Fly Fishing for Trout, Fly Rods, Oklahoma Report
