The Beat Goes On
Settling down now, taking a long drink off my R Wood coffee cup. The trash is out for pickup. Came back in, dried my feet off. Dogs barking, came back in, dried their feet off. Nothing else seems dry though. Lost, never to be found, are weeks and weeks of what would be fantastic fly fishing in Texas. Once again this year, because of the epic Texas rains. Why is Texas so epic?
LIVING ON TEXAS TIME
So we wait for the rains to stop as they always do, and for the water we love to get back to the science of normal. Meanwhile, the newest impoundment in Texas, The Bois d’Arc Lake is filling up at a pace that has stunned authorities, and excited recreational crowds who are accessing the CLOSED lake through whatever means possible. But, we wait.
I have learned, only this year, that the life of a manmade waterbody, a Texas pond, small or large lake, is measurable, and for the smaller waterbodies? it can be finite. The beginning of a lake, like Bois d’Arc, is what we hear about from those old geezers … “It was so great when it first opened …” blah blah blah. We’re always too late, we should’ve been there/here then, it’s never been that good since …
So we wait for our local lakes and rivers to “normalize,” and let us back on to their rearranged habitat and estranged fish. Many lakes in North Texas have park facilities underwater, while other lakes are teetering on closure. The dams that can open, like PK (Possum Kingdom), are letting it rip. And there’s the exception: Once PK Dam closes down, we must go there for some epic fly fishing! That one’s a predictable excitement.
SPINNING THREADS
When we are sequestered by the weather, I find slight balance by tying flies. But what does it say about Texas weather when your fly count reaches the level of RUNNING OUT YOUR EARS? I have experienced plenty of “manly teasing” about my fly counts: Maybe you’re familiar with the conventional fisherman’s Plano 3700 snap box? But are you familiar with having twenty-one of those boxes, three large Cliff’s, three medium Cliff’s and probably ten pocket-sized boxes, almost all loaded with flies you’ve tied? Maybe that is why I dislike doing fly tying videos so much! Or maybe that’s why being landlocked is such torture.
But while we wait, I did slap together a new fly tying video on how to tie rattles into our normal flies, like the Clouser Minnow and saltwater bait patterns. This kind of bling, added to tried and true flies, can make your day – especially if it has turned hard, or if you are in what we may all be into very soon – a PROSPECTING MODE of fly fishing. If you don’t know what a “Prospecting Mode” is, feel free to ask. That video comes out this week.
DELAYED GRATIFICATION
Now, we wait and see if the rain will stop, or will it be one of those years. If it stops, I’ll rewind to where we left off – chasing down lakes in other parts of Texas, trying to breakdown their opportunities and bringing them to you in amazing low-fi and low gloss packaged video. I don’t want to think about what happens if the rain doesn’t stop. The best way to know when that happens, because the videos are typically published first is – Subscribe to the Texas Fly Caster YouTube Channel today!
Thanks for reading, fear those flood waters, turn around and don’t drown fool! Remember what rushing floodwaters force can do to a car, a human or a raft. If think you have to get close, go ahead and wear your PFD – better to look goofy than look dead.
Category: Adventure, Body-Mind-Soul, Fishing Reports, Fly Fishing For Carp, Fly Fishing for Largemouth Bass, Fly Tying, Life Observed, North Texas, Texas Water Conservation
