Starting Monday With a Hammerhead

Or is it a head that needs a hammer? 

For those who wonder, a hammerhead in this case, is a double espresso over your regular cup of joe, and that’s the name of it – a hammerhead. Try it sometime and thank me later. 

But really, as we approach nearly twenty years of FISH DERANGEMENT SYNDROME (my newly coined self-diagnosis) here, maybe I do need to take a real hammer up against my real head? 

How can I help but think that? After two weeks of mental frustration over taking the Texas Fly Fishing YouTube Channel LIVE, we finally got a few 1’s and 0’s closer over the weekend. That came after two full weeks of frustration. Yesterday saw an intense push to bring all the elements together, and finally some success. Although the platform I want to use is still not showing me anything, I was at least able to go live and have it actually get into YouTube. It was bad juju for me to assume it would be easy because I use MAC computers. In fact the opposite became apparent. If I ever get the live thing running, it will be in SPITE of using a MAC.

You Say You Want a Revolution?

Up until recently, I considered myself something of a “futurist” in the field of things like computing, AI and technology. Somewhere at some time the future got ahead of me. We have a lot to look forward to fly fishers – from generating more 3D printed fly fishing gadgets, to micro swamp coolers, to AI taking over the world, to the whacky world of Elon.

COMING SOON – Love him or hate him, Elon Musk is about to change the world with his Star Link satellite array. You are already able to have a hookup to Star Link, be it phone or internet satellite linkage. That is global boys and girls, anywhere any time. Think of the safety factor that is for we who adventure, we who take the road less traveled and of course we who fly fish! The phones alone could also be a catalyst for REVOLUTION in countries on Continents we never imagined. Free speech thanks to Elon? Yes, it may be an oxymoron, but it can happen.

We are also within months of you Tesla owners being able to take that political hot potato car, and put it on the open TAXI market. Imagine your Tesla generating you income while YOU ARE NOT driving it? That is what is coming soon, very very soon. If you choose to be a part of the network (Matrix?), instructions will be dowloaded to your car to go and pick up a rider, deliver that rider and return to where it was parked – driverlessly. ChaChing. Yeah, self-driving autos are notable in the news, but more often than not? it’s the human that causes the problem.

There are other interesting things in Elon’s pipeline, and there better be! Talk about a guy who went wrong … but all this talk leads to what technology has infiltrated and impacted fishing and fly fishing these days. 

GOD KNOWS I appreciate the phone weather apps! After a weekend of serious storms pounding much of North Central Texas, my weather app was my number one go-to for the last few days, and we have one more day of watching those radar images TODAY. But that’s just one thing we take for granted as fly fishers in the middle of the third decade of the 21st. Century.

The days of glitter boaters (bass pros) casting fan-style? That is so gone now, gone gone gone. The guys I see on the lake up the road? They are staring at a screen on the bow, and holding their fire, holding until they see the black of a bass’ eye blink – on that screen. Forward Facing Sonar (FFS) is the weekend warrior’s night vision, target acquisition, time saving hardware that turns the glitter boys into someone who can compete and catch big fish – almost at will, an any every given day. It makes big lakes, like TEXOMA, smaller. I know that because one of the glitter boys I used to fish several lakes with, now only fishes Texoma – fish in a barrel for him and his FFS. And Lake Fork is being disassembled piece by piece as well … new discoveries, like free ranging solo lunkers – moving and suspended in deep water not near any structure. Hey, you find a bass with your FFS? Just run that bait by them and SEE if they react! If not, change baits and go at ‘em again! I have seen that myself – point blank – on a pro’s FFS. So … a new (AI) article is coming out here on FFS and what it is doing to the conventional fishing industry. But there will also be a video talking about a Fly Fisherman’s Forward Facing Sonar, and what that is, and how long we have had it. I think you will like this story.

Drones are making their presence known as well – in Florida. But I was thinking about the huge advantage a fly fisherman would have on the PINS – Padre Island National Seashore – with a drone. That was years ago, when I was living on South Padre Island, and remembering the “Run Up the Padre” event that used to happen every early fall. Fly fishers ran from the last entrance to the beach up to the Land Cut at Mansfield in a spread out convoy – searching the guts and waves for fish, with a spotter doing the looking. Hit the brakes, jump out and cast maybe as close as the first gut! and see what happens. It was a blast the ONE TIME I did it, and I have always wanted to repeat it – while flying my drone over the waves of course. Another dream that comes with “Fish Derangement Syndrome.”

I will also have an AI generated story on fishing with drones. Yes, AI has already picked up on it, and the story is already written … took about fifteen seconds. It IS LEGAL to spot fish with drones in Texas as long as the drone is not doing the fishing. Put that in your pipe and smoke it a second … I know I will!

Along with all this excitement, I have a new location for doing some of the videos in cooler times! It is much closer to the lake up the road, and I have a ton of room to spread out and get more comfortable than I am around the house. Tentatively named the “Hot Box Studio” – if you watch the video, you will understand why – almost instantly. In reality, it is one of those “man cave” kind of things, a place to grab a nap or swap out an impeller. 

We have a lot of water to cover! Thanks for reading this morning. The weather has already eaten up days that add up to weeks of time – this year. And down south the wind does still howl. I feel your pain my Coastal compadres! It felt like it lasted forever when I was down there, remember? The local lakes are bulging, and local dams are letting it go now. So by the time it settles down? We will be looking at hundred degree days again. So little time in Texas, and so much fly fishing to do …