Subscriber Drive
Don’t You Just Hate Those Things?
Hey subscribers and new visitors to Texas Fly Caster! Thanks for stopping in to check out one of the top ranked fly fishing websites in Texas, and we’re not even in Austin, no dreadlocks and no celebrities present! Frankly, Texas Fly Caster is based in the sweet smelling armpit of Texas fly fishing as we now know it. We still get by though, don’t we?
But who knows? In another ten, twenty or thirty years we may be in a fly fishing desert or … an oasis. If you have been following along – BY SUBSCRIBING to Texas Fly Caster – for the last fifteen years, then you have seen a ton of changes here.
I fired up Texas Fly Caster in 2007, based on a head-over-heels passion for what was then a brand new sport in my life. And, honestly, I wanted to use the site to hone my writing skills without the pressure of pay for performance. Early writing was quite different from what you read here today. It turned out to be a sixteen-years and counting evolution and revelation to me – in what readers wanted to read, and in my desire to write stories that were less floral and more useful – most of the time.
The changes were brought by a lot of factors of course – and I had no template to copy. There was no Howler-Brothers, no YETI as they now exist, and the fly fishing personalities and companies, I looked at and covered in the beginning, were more real and serious than glamour seekers we see now. Social media? It was logical to the Texas Fly Caster message from day one. I was, and still am ALL IN on technological advances. Very early on, I openly encouraged the huge fly fishing personalities to get on board the social media train, but it would be several years before they saw the light – the bright lights we see them under today.
Why Subscribe To Texas Fly Caster?
The reason you would subscribe to new posts from Texas Fly Caster is because, as Forrest Gump’s Momma described to him, “… it’s like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get,” of course paraphrased for the purposes here! And truth be told, it would be an easy search in the archives (it’s all still here) to find what is no longer politically correct in today’s Texas Fly FIshing population that wants to “age gracefully,” and fly fish until the very end. Things like whiskey and cigars are definitely on my “OUT” while I continue to explore and blend what’s “IN” from my perspective – IN in the fly fishing world and Texas Fly Fishing Community at large.
What’s Left of the Decade and What’s in For the ’20’s Decade?
From the beginning, I have aggressively sought young fly fishers to help guarantee the future of Texas fly fishing, but most and maybe all “organizations” have been woefully behind the curve in their efforts (and my EARLY efforts to enlighten them)– slow to social media, slow to live streaming meetings, and as a consequence, hammered by COVID because of these failings. They are so far behind that (most of) their populations are still aging quickly and homogenous in membership. My take on clubs is,”The plane has already flown into the side of the mountain, sir!” – The Big Lebowski
And the demise of clubs coincides with the rise of the individual in the last ten-years, naturally. Each fly fisher has their own club – of Instagram followers, or YouTube followers and Facebook Friends – and that club can be huge or intimate. Here at Texas Fly Caster, I still share that information, that bright light, which I call, “floating everybody’s boat,” every single week, and often multiple times a week.
It’s very suspect by all those individuals out there, and takes some convincing, and honestly some fly fishers are never convinced, NEVER CONVINCED there is no “bill” coming for the spotlight they get here. I find that amazing, and will continue for the rest of this decade, to beat my head against the wall, and try to get more outside participation here and on the Texas Fly Caster YouTube Channel. The most difficult part remains; gaining trust.
Many fly fishers prefer the video world, and I think that will continue through the decade on the Texas Fly Caster YouTube Channel … at least until everyone has broken out into their own YouTube Channels! To date, my view on that possibility is dim, “Many are called, but few are chosen,” and dead and dying YouTube Fly Fishing video channels litter the digital landscape. The reason? It’s hard. And that keeps a lot of fly fishers from their own breakout hit channel. I think part of what makes the Texas Fly Caster Youtube Channel a success (with no financial value) is the width of information and the honesty used, rain-or-shine, to deliver that information. Watchers can expect the topics to ever-widen in the ’20’s to places you would never imagine fly fishing could go, or be tied in with – in a nice bundle that will reveal itself over the coming years. Personally, this video work is exciting work, and reaching for things to rope into our fly fishing awareness is a relentless adventure I am still chasing.
BE SURE TO VISIT AND SUBSCRIBE TO THE YouTube Channel as well! It too, goes all the way back to 2007, and the most primitive days of shooting video with whatever was available, yeah no phones and no GoPros back then! There are topics there, just as there are topics here, that are unique to each source.
Make no mistake, “Fish Porn” still ranks Number One in popular words and videos, but Texas Fly Caster subscribers also get spoonfuls of music, coffee, travels, art and entertainment. All of these are already here. Trust me, there is more fish porn to come in the ’20’s!
The new topics for the decade are lesser known in the fly fishing world. We continue to work to document important persons in the history of fly fishing in Texas – another slow and difficult undertaking that is again suspect for some reason. Meanwhile, this site is becoming a document of Texas fly fishing history itself! Did you happen to see this early Guadalupe Fly Fishing Video that recently resurfaced, and featuring a young Alvin Dedeaux?
We start to work on a brand new world for my contemporary fly fishers – “The Wholistic Fly Fisher©” – for those of us who know the physical and mental challenges of aging in a high physical activity sport. This topic goes on forever, until it ends.
When it comes to fly fishing politics and government decisions effecting our sport? Battling entrenched forces, like those who have destroyed the Denton Trinity River Greenbelt a few miles from my house? We can put that to bed now. The destroyers won, and there is no one – among all these young individual fly fishers – interested in continuing this fight, so it’s over. There may be an epilogue, but the establishment won.
It has become pretty obvious, over the decades, politics are an unpopular topic in fly fishing, but the “Big Picture” policies, and the difference between the D’s and R’s policies on the OUR environment and health – these differences are now plain to see, as plain as the great big nose on my face. And the Texas Fly Caster website is still one place, should you SUBSCRIBE, you will get something rare these days – an opinion – from my perspective, and reported as “OPINION” – while the “NEWS” torn from the establishments NEWS RELEASES will still appear for as long as I am here.
Thank you for reading for all these decades, and for the first time ever! The more you participate, the better the content, SO SUBSCRIBE AND SOUND OFF!
Category: Adventure, Backcasting, Body-Mind-Soul, Fly Fisher Health and Wellness, Industry, Life Observed, Literature, Next Generation, Writing
