Tag: texas fly fishing
Monday Morning Sidewalk Shaping Hats Shaping Up July
Monday Morning Sidewalk
As we stagger into another week, from wherever we are … to right here staring at your screens; I hope we are all taking the time this summer to fly fish somewhere that takes our minds off the trials and tribulations we may encounter in these days unlike any other.
It is worth reminding you that there is a ten year repository – a library if you will – of fly fishing information and wonderful getaways stored within this website. Amazing, ten full years the wheel has spun since the first words were written here. Somehow, when I started this journey, I wanted to live it like there was no tomorrow – as if I knew I wasn’t going to make it to a natural end of the road.
Cancer could have fulfilled that prophecy, but I was evidently spared – unlike some friends that are now gone. It (cancer) turned out to be more of a pothole in the road, one that severely damaged my suspension, but a pothole instead of a dead end. I don’t know how many of my friends made from Reel Recovery bother to read the site – be they administrators, facilitators or the class I participated with, but one – ONE – of my class has kept in touch over the last 2-1/2 years.
When I met him he had no signs of sickness, but his was a ticking time bomb type of cancer. Next Monday I’ll be headed to Houston to visit him after a round of chemo at MD Anderson. So send your thoughts and prayers his way and keep them coming.
One of the things that has transpired over the last three years since being diagnosed (7/7/15) was taking on a manual labor job that ate my weekends whole for the last twelve months. The only real upside was boosting my endurance and conditioning to a level (better than years before cancer), that I assume, gets me ready for the next road that I take as I reach the intersection in July. You see, my conditioning peaked about two months ago, and the body says it’s time to do something different before real injury results. That little/long road is about over now, and I’ll need your feedback to figure out where the road goes … the physical clock is ticking, and I am turning off this one-year road at the last possible second, two wheels in the air …
Speaking of July
July has always been my most sentimental month – bar none. And like it or not, I am a pretty darn sentimental sod of a person and fly fisher. July was the “Family Reunion” time of year, which meant South Padre Island (SPI), Texas, for at least a week that included the 4th., and sometimes another week just for good measure. If I had to identify geography for coming of age, South Padre Island would be one of the top two places. It is no different now. If there were a choice, I would find the full moon and put SPI on my calendar every single year.
But sometimes other more pressing needs take undeniable precedent. A huge part of the coming July will be an adventure along a road I have never traveled to a place I’ve never been. I’ll be riding and driving along with a friend of mine from here in North Texas – all the way to New England – to fulfill his late wife’s last wish.
FLY FISHING
We now have a week of cooler and unstable weather to look forward to! What a relief. As I said in last Friday’s report – the variables here in North Texas are many, and fish few. Maybe some rain and cooler temperatures are just what the fly doctor ordered? Something has to give …
So I soaked my next straw hat – from www.sunbodyhats.com in Houston – in the trough this morning, and am reshaping it to be “The Hat” for the rest of this year – if I can get it to fatten up around my fattening head! I guess you could call it shaping my anticipation for future roads?
NOTE: I did become aware of some glitches in videos deposited here (never on YouTube) last week, and will work to remedy those – and repost them, as new, very soon!
First Day of Spring 2017 Are You Ready For It?
Monday Morning Fly Fishing The Week Ahead
That big wheel in the sky keeps on turning … today is the first day of Spring 2017! What lies ahead, and what we left behind are cause for excitement and concern respectively. The warmest winter in record, what more can we say? It leads to a spring full of even higher potential for the fly fishing scene than last season’s blessings. Soggy Bottom Boys? Your time is now. Continue Reading
Monday Morning Sidewalk – Post Christmas Roll
Winter Wonders and Wanders on The Fly
Good morning. I can imagine you are probably enjoying the perfection of this dying year’s calendar, still off from work for another week if you’re lucky, and looking for a fish to catch – trying to get lucky. Well, the temperature here in Houston went over 80-degrees yesterday, and when I was checking with a couple of fly fishing friends in DFW, the temperature hit the high 70’s there as well. Amazing.
[ppw id=”157815021″ description=”Monday Morning” price=”.25″]
What’s not so amazing if you’re traveling, is the front that tailed out just over the Texas line? is looking like a hurricane formed over land. There’s a counterclockwise swirl of ice, snow and rain that looks like it reaches almost all the way to Canada – and it’s moving east. Brutal.
I hope Santa Claus was good to you yesterday, and you got whatever you wanted whether it was fly or not. I did get the missing piece of my Under Armour 4.0 (blizzard weight) long johns to cover this bag of bones, so now maybe it will get cold enough to use.
Plans for saltwater fly fishing, due to my open-ended work schedule, have been delayed until next weekend at the very least, so I can get back and hang one project, make the turn, and come back here during better tides. Sounds like a plan, right? I hear God laughing. Well, with this weather why not go home anyway?
I was able to get out to the neighborhood pond yesterday afternoon (walking distance), and entice some marauding bass into biting a tiny fly. There’s just something about fly fishing on Christmas Day … reminds me of surfing Encinitas on Christmas Day in another life.
In another month we’ll probably have a clear picture on whether Texas will have a winter this year, or not. If this year is like last, it’ll turn out without a winter, and with a torrential spring. We should be so lucky!
If you’re as dependent on seeing new information here as others are, you may suffer a little withdrawal this week, or not? It’s almost impossible to tell what this week will bring, and a little time off is deserved … by all, right? There’s still a lot to do in the Texas fly fishing world regardless of season, and there are opportunities being sent our way at the moment. So I can’t exactly say, “Stay Tuned,” and I can’t encourage you to tune out either!
[/ppw]Whatever fly fishing you do, be sure to let me/us know about it, and have a great week!
Monday Morning Sidewalk – Ice Ice Baby
Good morning and welcome once again to the original Monday Morning Sidewalk edition of Texas Fly Caster. If you are into fly fishing in Texas, you’re in the right place!
Heck of a deal! Thirteen degrees here overnight, so I guess the mosquitoes are all finally dead and frozen. The local bird population is piling on the bird feeders, and large white wing doves are spinning it around like a carousel. I went out about every four hours on Sunday and poured boiling water on the frozen birdbath so the birds would have water. They loved it.
There’s little to do here in North Texas but either bite-the-bullet, and go north, or load up the plantation and go south. Well, I’m going south later this week … and trying to decide how long I’ll be gone. The siren’s salty song calls me still.
READ MORE WATCH LESS! – Continue Reading
Backcasting 2016 – A Look Back at The Year of “Recovery”
For those who are a captive audience wherever you are this Thanksgiving weekend, please enjoy a look back at what turned out to be an epic year of chasing carp on Lake Ray Roberts, Texas. A look back at a year of recovery for me. A look back at how rough things were, and appreciation of all things, a Thanksgiving for how good my health now is. To say I don’t recognize myself from this March to this November is a bit of an understatement. But then, I certainly don’t recognize myself from, say summer 2015 to now either!
Enough about “myself” though! This long video (which you can FF at any time) is a way for me to close it out, create a document, and keep on moving; new chapters are already in the works. You may experience problems with video length / quality / streaming speeds — and there will be a lot of bandwidth chewed along with that dressing over the holidays!
If you do watch – THANKS! And if you don’t? Thanks anyway! I would rather not see myself on screen anymore, so you can keep me off screen by sending me “newstips,” and story ideas, and inviting me along on your trips — to DOCUMENT YOUR FLY FISHING (and other) STORIES for consumption by hungry fly fishers here at Texas Fly Caster. Operators are standing by!
Have a fantastic Thanksgiving tomorrow, and we’ll see you out there somewhere on Black Friday!
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