Monday Morning Sidewalk – Watch Your Step

Good Monday morning to everyone tuning in this first Monday after the holiday season. We can’t avoid in any longer, we are back at our grindstones this morning. Our excuses have all expired. I trust you have found fly tying potential in your present wrapping still lying around, and have turned the heat on in your fly tying shed in order to keep your fingers from stiffening up.

The North Texas fly fishing outlook for this week is nothing short of fantastic, as weather does a dipsy-do – rain for the next two days from Southern Oklahoma to south of DFW, with accumulations of rain predicted at one inch for the entire two day event. That’s hardly a drop in the bucket in terms of what’s needed, but is one of the necessary ingredients (I believe) that turns the Southern Oklahoma synthetics (stocker trout) ON.

Needless to say, it’s time to find out, so a morning of fly tying is in order – to stock up on synthetic flies and decompress from the weeks out in the Middle. Coming back in from the Middle always requires some realignment with; TV, noise, shelter, people, plumbing … everything essentially.

The one thing I did take advantage of out in the Middle was an internet connection (imagine that), and I know enough to say that there are some events happening all over the State starting this week. I also know there are places to buy flies online that are difficult to resist.

I read about Miller’s Fly Shop in Tyler, Texas, and got my first order from them a couple of weeks ago. My split personality had me ordering tarpon flies on the first go-round, and this order is a few peripheral carp flies – influenced by the consumption of the book, “Carp on the Fly – A Flyfisher’s Guide.” It’s amazing to read this book was published in 1997, but then look at the photographs of the anglers, and … ouch!

The first batch of flies from Millers was satisfactory, but once you’ve tied your own, things like color brightness and deer hair heads that are still spinning on the shank give pause. I am ordering flies to test anyway, so if they work, you can bet I will be making my own versions for the prime of the seasons.

I also scoured the fly fishing pages at Sierra Trading Post, and came away with a few dozen synthetic trout flies for less than $10-dollars per dozen.

I may constantly harass fly rod makers about where their fly rods are made, but my white North American guilt seems to stop at our shoreline when it comes to where flies are tied en masse. It appears everyone who sells flies is on the same page when it comes to online bulk fly sales. Actually, as the depressionrecession runs on, I have certainly wavered considerably from my anti-foreign fly rod stance.

We had to euthanize one of our pet (egg laying) chickens while I was momentarily home last week, so before you wonder, NO – I DIDN’T save a skin full of feathers. There is this other chicken running around out back now though …

Category: Culture on the Skids, Equipment, Fishing Reports, Fly Fishing For Carp, Fly Shops, Fly Tying, Industry, Life Observed, North Texas, TIPS