Frozen Monday Morning
Snow Shovels Anyone?
Texas has taken it on the chin once again. Cold hurts more when you get punched with it less often – than other parts of the USA. Most of Texas is completely shut down this morning, and it should come as no surprise that JANUARY has become THE MONTH for winter to show up and shut everything down – anymore. I have been saying for years the calendar is “off,” and I still believe that to be true. And welcome to Texas.
Before this shutdown, I spent some time exploring the Clear Creek Natural Heritage Center in Denton, Texas. It is surprisingly CLOSE to Downtown Denton, and it seemed like a good time for a follow-up to see how this Natural Heritage Center has changed and been developed since my last visit. My best recollection of my last visit to Clear Creek, and the destination – CONFLUENCE of Clear Creek and the Elm Fork of the Trinity – was that of a humid, soggy spring walk down trails that were actually HOLDING WATER from the rains I hoped were triggering sand bass at the Clear Creek Confluence. I am pretty sure that trip was aborted before I even saw the Confluence.
Clear Creek Confluence
This time was different. Although the area, today January 26, will look nothing like this video, all things will melt away, dry out, and when it’s time, if you so choose, you too can have a great hike … with a “Fisherman’s Trail” to tantalize, and if you take the right turns, find the ONE SIGN directing you to it, you can visit the Confluence of a decent creek and the USACE disaster Elm Fork — only about five miles from Downtown Denton. The thing is, seeing the water waiting patiently in Clear Creek, it may be the color of over fertilized water now, but there it invitingly sits.
Time For Science to Step In?
I wonder, unlike the hoards of natural science/biology majors at UNT, what IS IN THE WATER of Clear Creek? Is that deep aqua-green color “naturally” occurring? It is essentially the same color as water in the Blue River of Oklahoma fame. I refuse to speculate, but I do intend to fly fish it when conditions and the season calls for more close research. It just BEGS us for more “research.” I will speculate: Fish, if they are there, will be rare and hungry, potentially trapped by swimming up in flood stage, and captive when the water quickly receded afterward. Today, the water looks fishy, but there are ZERO fish signs, but for the lonely small gar gulping air. (LET US KNOW if there is ANY RESEARCH GOING ON NOW!)
Indoor Creativity
First, welcome to Texas and Texas fly fishing! Guess what? These are the days that happen to us here in Texas, not every year, but just often enough to make us, the Natives, crazy. If you came to Texas from another fly fishing State, you are potentially MORE prepared for days like these than WE are. We natives never seem to be prepared, and when it ices in, you would think it is the first time it has ever happened in Texas. The truth is, we try to deny every winter, “… maybe this is the year we will get through without …,” and sometimes we get through and more times Texas does NOT get through without one of these episodes.
OUR obvious turn is to indoor fly fishing activities. What else is there to do, but sidle up to the bench and tie some flies? I love tying flies, and it is a great escape into the discipline and organization fly fishing demands for fly tying. With concentration, (pardon the simile) time flies. I have been a bold derider of fly tying videos, and their awful production, to the point of trying to make some whacky fly tying videos to attempt to BREAK THE MOLD of fly tying videos. Never have I heard so many crickets as when I published THIS VIDEO about tying a killer sand bass fly!
While my fly tying videos of old, are either SO OLD, or SO SOUGHT AFTER, that they have racked up thousands and thousands of views. The original Coyote Carp Fly tying video, published in 2009, is a perfect example with 31,600 views. BUT, it is also a PERFECT EXAMPLE of a low resolution video that is painfully hard to see and watch NOW. I was denied the YouTube privileges to upload a HIGER RESOLUTION video at that time, way back then, because of the few subscribers I had to my Texas Fly Caster YouTube Channel. Now? Now it is time to update these videos with 4K (maybe 8K?) new videos of these great Texas carp flies, like the Coyote Carp Fly and more. The only question is: How to twist them into something more interesting than what they actually are (kinda boring)? I can’t help but try to sabotage myself!
Thanks for reading and watching this Monday Morning. Let me know if there is a fly fishing video you think is a killer Texas fly. I would like to see it for my own education. If it is a good, unique or interesting video? Even better!
