Check Your TP Before You Sit Down

Good Shutdown Monday Morning! Do you feel it? Did you have to get your own roll of toilet paper before diving into the stall in your Federal government building bathroom? Now that you’e seated and enjoying the view – of your screen – on a Monday where the sky is not falling, and we will all get along fine during this continuing debacle.

IT IS TIME for some good questions though. Do these antique politicians get paid to not do their jobs? When the government “shuts down” do these fat cats still get paid? Why should they?

Politics. Politics are the third rail of fly fishing (the one that electrocutes you into ash), but there are other sections of the third rail line that are equally deadly to peaceful fly fishing conversation. And that’s why I have tried, successfully in my opinion, to avoid the third rail all these years. Locally, there are plenty of red meat bomb throwers, who just throw out something to generate polarizing debates. I always call those guys out.

CONFESSED: RED MEAT BOMB-THROWER

This past weekend, mostly to see who is actually looking and following on Instagram, I threw out a red-meat-bomb. It was a simple photograph of an auto window sticker, reading, “Does Your TRUMP STICKER Make You Feel Stupid Yet?” and it lit a fuse that burned through a record (for me) 33 comments and paltry 26 likes. I wish there was a “dislike” for fairness. It enlightened me. My “takeaway” is that people actually LOOK at the images on Instagram feeds, and the folks that comment fall into two distinct categories – I Got Money, and Now I Got More Money, and two, the other side that realizes exactly what all this great income is actually costing the environment, the future and their children’s future.

For goodness sake, why can’t we all just Rodney King (for young readers that means “get along”)? The only politics I care about are those that have a direct effect on fly fishing. I know I am done and gone as an economic force – as long as no one cares about, and understands and supports the values of quality, creativity and integrity.

And politics – State of Texas politics – leads US to what will be the longest discussion about, arguably, the most political geography in Texas – THE DEVIL’S RIVER! I was talking to family at a recent gathering and a couple of cousins have boys that are the right age for a Devil’s River trip, and are familiar with that area from behind a rifle scope (hunting leases in the region). The time may well be right …

THE DEVILS RIVER

So taking on the last great wild ride in Texas is a bit daunting to me. In my mind, I see it as my own personal “health statement” about just how well I have healed, and as I see age 60 off in the distance … the time seems right.

Let the gathering of information begin! If YOU KNOW ANYTHING about the Devil’s River, if you have done the Devil’s River, I would sure like to know about it. I know the situation on the ground there – has changed in recent years. But I don’t really know exactly how it has changed. I am going to reach out to people I have seen have done the Devil’s – people like Alvin Dedeaux (check out that Devil’s YETI video), and Thomas Flemons at Diablo Paddlesports. I know there are more people than that, but I will start there (and try to jog my memory at the same time).

I am cautiously optimistic that I can make this trip happen, and if you are interested in making this trip – let me know. This is starting from scratch though … the Devil’s is in the details.