Slipping into Fall
Today is the first day of fall, which is mostly meaningless here in North Texas. Fall is as illusive as spring in North Texas, a short-lived season that acts much like a crack in the sidewalk between two slabs of winter and summer. We don’t often have time to contemplate the fall colors or the spring flowers, as they appear and disappear like one of those sped up time lapse images where the flower blooms and the petals quickly fall off. When it comes to those two seasons – fall and spring – around here we rarely talk about their glories or compare them to same-named seasons past.
We talk in terms of summers and winters around here, and in this decade it seems the brutality and lack thereof respectively of both. We would have to think back to remember a flea killing winter now, while summers seem to go on forever now. Springs are loaded with rain, and summers we hang on, heads tilted back tongue out waiting for a drop of rain. Strange days indeed.
SEASONS ON THE SALT
As my time has been so regulated these past couple of years, I am maybe finally finding my own rhythm to when to fly fish and where to fly fish. For example, I still have NOT been to check out the remains of what was once a reasonable destination Bend Bow (Beavers Bend in Broken Bow), Oklahoma, and have tired of going to the Blue River alone.
So what are my options? I have observed before that if you draw a circle that reaches Bend Bow, from the DFW epicenter, there’s a close call with a whole bunch of other places, and nearly to the salt.
With a skiff in tow, it only makes sense to TEST THE METAL against all the variables that are presented by Texas seasons on salt*.
And we’re getting this new strategy underway immediately! I have mentioned my ties with the Lower Laguna Madre of Texas, and my total blank when it comes to Port Mansfield, Texas. Mansfield, as I call it, has been on fire for years now. I can’t think of another coastal Texas area that is mentioned and hushed as much in recent memory, a place that is as untouched by the crush of the new generation of Texas Coastal Marauders …
So for those of you who want me hushed, don’t worry! It is very probable that the only persons reading here – are people who already know about Mansfield. So my job next week is to take lots of photographs and listen and learn – basically: Sit down. Shut up & Hold ON! . There will be several boats in attendance, and things could easily move offshore from the shallow Laguna Madre. We don’t discriminate either — if the wind blows, we are all ready with fish-matched spinning gear.
*Stole that one from a book title.
Category: Adventure, Body-Mind-Soul, Culture on the Skids, Destination Fly Fishing
