I own a fleet!

OK, a fleet of plastic boats but a fleet nonetheless.

I met Roland from Lakeline Watersports at the shop this afternoon and he kindly installed the extra Scotty rod holder mount I had and also the anchor trolley system I bought from him.

The anchor trolley is something I am really glad to have purchased since it will allow me to face in the direction I want when fishing regardless of which way the water current is flowing. This was always difficult with the old setup I had since I had a pair of cleats in which my anchor line was wrapped so I was sort of limited to the position in the current.

I got home with the new kayak and showed it to the family. My wife likes the brighter yellow of my old kayak. I admit that the golden yellow sort of looks like baby poop yellow color but I still like it.

My son came over and sat in "his" kayak and one of our dogs came over to congratulate him.

I have a fishing trip to Corpus Christi late next week where it will receive a baptism in saltwater and hopefully some speckled trout slime.

I may also take it out this weekend in Lake Travis if the weather cooperates.

A kayak with character and memories

I was out by the shed out back where I keep my kayak trying to figure out how I am going to stow two of them now. While planning out how I would screw two by fours to the wall to stack them, I took a good look at my old kayak. The thing has character.

The bottom of my kayak is a series of scratches. There are a few deeper gouges here and there but otherwise the hull is sound. That polyethylene plastic sure is tough stuff.

Even then, I had to repair the keel a couple of times as it had worn thin from dragging it on concrete, oyster shell, and limestone rock. It looks pretty bad but should be fine for a few more years.

The cockpit has a few blood stains here and there that don't ever seem to come out. The bungee cord is weathered and doesn't stretch much anymore. The hard plastic pieces here and there have cracked and the bungee that holds my seat back has broken.

The interior has algae from where water occasionally still gets in it. The reflective tape on the stern that my cousin added five years ago so he could spotlight the dark to find me at night is barely there.

The rubber cup behind me that holds my C-Light for night fishing is crumbling apart.

I don't think I can count the number of speckled trout I have caught in this boat. Hundreds. Maybe more. Lots of bass, too.

All my kids have paddled in it with me from time to time.

It's been a good boat and I am going to miss paddling that kayak but will try to still get in it from time to time. It is a nice thought to know that my son will be paddling it alongside me sometimes.

Buying a new kayak

My wife went out of town with my son to visit her parents this weekend so I stayed to take care of our two girls. Even so, fishing wouldn't have been possible anyways given the high winds. Instead, I took this opportunity to take a look at some kayaks that I was interested in. In particular, one was the latest 2009 version of the Wilderness Systems Tarpon 120 that I have owned for the past 6+ years. The other was a very similar boat by Native Watercraft called the Manta Ray 12.

The new Tarpon 120 has had many improvements to it. This topic on the texaskayafisherman.com forums provides a good review of the '09 models. It describes major upgrades to the hatches, improvements in the seat, gear packets, and paddle holders as well as other improvements. It is a very nice kayak and I got to see a couple of them at REI (I wouldn't purchase it from them but it was the closest place that had them).

The second kayak, the Native Manta Ray, was one that I had been reading about for a while now. It is a boat that a lot of folks really like. It has a comfortable seat, tracks well, well thought out storage options and so on. I wanted to see this one at a shop since it reminded me so much of my own trusty Tarpon 120 except a little nicer.

I wanted to stay with a 12 foot kayak. The 14 foot ones are roomier and tend to track better, are more stable in choppy water and paddle faster but are not the best choice for small rivers. Rather than have one boat for lakes and the bays and another for the rivers, I wanted another general boat like my Tarpon 120 since the Tarpon was going to my son.

I went over to a nearby small kayak shop called Lakeline Watersports and spoke with the owner, Roland, about this model. He was very helpful and he mentioned he had two new 2008 models on closeout at a reduced price. One was red and the other yellow. My current kayak is yellow. I like high visibility colors like orange and yellow as opposed to colors that blend in to their surroundings. I do this so motorboats can spot me easily as well as when part of the kayak is hanging out the bed of my truck, it can also be seen by motorists behind me.

While I would recommend to anyone to paddle a kayak before purchasing it, the Tarpon 120 was already familiar to me and I had read the Manta Ray was very similar to the Tarpon. I did want to try the seat out and after adjusting it, it seemed quite comfortable. So, I pretty much committed to Roland that I would take the Manta Ray and for him to hold it for me. I just need to wait until my wife comes back tomorrow to get a Scotty rod holder mount out of my truck so that he could install it and also rig up an anchor trolley to it and I would pick it up on Monday or Tuesday. The price was just too good to pass up. While the new Tarpon 120 is very nice, I really couldn't justify the $150 to $200 extra cost. With the savings, I decided to order a new Stohlquist Fisherman PFD from REI that should get here next weekend. I'll review it after I get it but it is the type of fishing PFD that I have been looking to get for a long time.

So, I am pretty excited about this new kayak. My current Tarpon 120 will become my son's kayak. He already has a good Stohlquist kayaking PFD and a Carlise paddle that I had as extras for it. I hope it serves him as well as it has served me.

More news on Fly Fishing the Texas Hill Country

Kevin Hutchison was kind enough to provide me with some additional information including some exciting news about kits that may be coming for tying the flies in the book. Thanks Kevin!

In answer to a few of your questions and statements.

First, I am very proud of the cover art, my Daughter did it. She is a Fine Arts major at North Texas State and she worked hard to achieve the "look" i was going for with the Sunfish. Working from a photo I gave her she did numerous test drawings until we were both happy with the resulting image. The original watercolor is a treasure that I will never let go of.

Second, we will be adding recipes for all the flies on the web site (www.fishheadpress.com) in the coming weeks and months. Along with the recipes you will be able to buy kits for each of the flies. Each kit will come with ALL the materials needed AND a DVD showing the fly being tied by one of my staff. I have always hated fly tying kits because they usually don't give you all the materials and they never have good instructions, ours will have both!

Third, I can't take credit for the spiral binding. Bud had the spiral binding on the first and second edition, it was lost, along with any integrity, in the third edition. I wish you could have stayed to hear the history of the book and that third edition. The Priddy and I have very strong feelings about that edition. I'll just say that it took me about seven years to convince the Priddy family that I would put the book back in it's original form and rewrite the content back to a useful form. The third edition was a train wreck...enough said.

Well, I hope that everyone finds the book as useful as you have. Remember, it will only get better if the entire fly fishing community tells me what they want and need the book to be. If there is a mistake or something that needs to be changed just let me know. If I forgot your "special" spot and you want to share that with your fly fishing brothers let me know that to. The book is "organic" and will change over time, that is truly what Bud would have wanted.

Sincerely,

Kevin Hutchison

New edition of Fly-Fishing the Texas Hill Country

We had a cold front come in through the area last night that put a damper on my fishing plans this weekend. This is not necessarily because of the cold as the highs are supposed to break 60F but due to the very windy conditions with gusts to 40mph during the day. In any event, Chris Johnson, owner of my favorite local fly shop Living Waters Fly Fishing, was holding an all day event today at his shop with some presentations from local guides on fly fishing for white bass. In addition, local guide Kevin Hutchison and now author, would be selling and doing a book signing of the long-in-coming 4th edition of the "Fly-Fishing the Texas Hill Country". Kevin is a very well known and respected fly fishing guide in the central Texas area and he's a heck of a nice guy to boot. Funny, too.

I have a dog eared copy of the 3rd edition of the "Fly-Fishing the Texas Hill Country" published in 2000 that I bought in 2005 after searching high and low until I located a few copies at a fly shop that Kevin worked at. They sold out quickly so I was glad to have gotten a copy.

The third edition contained some updates contributed by a variety of experienced Texas fly fishers. It still had a lot of the original knowledge from the original author, the legendary Bud Priddy, in those pages. The book is more than just a collection of access points about the local rivers and streams; it contains information on the species that can be found in each river, flies that are appropriate for each as well some guidance on techniques to catching them. The book is an invaluable treasure trove of information for fly fishing the Texas Hill Country. As good as it is/was, it had been some time since it had been updated and so of course, like the rivers and streams themselves, things change.

This latest edition took nine years to present itself primarily thanks to Kevin. I am not sure anyone else was better apt to make it happen. I've attended several presentations of his and he is a great instructor. He's personable, knowledgeable, witty and the one quality I think that is the reason for this new addition seeing the light of day...passionate. Passionate about fishing and traversing the area lakes, rivers, and streams. Passionate about the fish that swim in them. Passionate about providing fly fishers with the knowledge to make their experience fishing these waters all the more productive and memorable.

There has been a lot of anticipation these past couple of years about this book once word got out that Kevin had acquired the rights and permission to publish the 4th edition. I can only imagine the stress. I am sure Kevin is relieved now that the book is out. There are a lot of fly fishers looking forward to it.

I had several family commitments today so I couldn't spend more than an hour at the fly shop. Just as I was going to leave, Kevin showed up with a box full of the new edition. Chris laid them out on a shelf. I took the first one and asked Kevin to sign it and apologized for having to leave early. He made some joke about me probably getting bored with his presentation that afternoon but I really wish I could have stayed.

When I was finally done with all of my family commitments, I started reading the book at home. To begin with, the cover art is fantastic. It's a watercolor of a sunfish. For some reason it reminded me of another favorite book of mine, "The Sunfishes" by Jack Ellis, though the cover art is not at all similar just the subject.

The sections on the local fish species and techniques for catching them was improved quite a bit. In addition, now there are four complete pages listing descriptions of recommended flies along with color photos of each. Very nice though tying recipes would have been very much appreciated. Maybe they can be added to Kevin's website in the future. By the way, this is another appreciable difference in this latest edition which is the introduction of references to Internet web pages. It also opens the possibility to have a vehicle to extend the book and accommodate change.

Another improvement is the introduction of GPS coordinates for all of the access points listed. I have a handheld GPS unit that I have used a few times to locate some lake and bay fishing spots and for measuring paddling distance that I now have a new use for. Very practical improvement.

While I have not read every page yet, it is obvious that a large majority of the information across the book has been revised or completely improved upon. This is no small feat as I am sure it required a lot of verification in the field to ensure it was correct.

Lastly, one subtle but very welcome improvement in this edition of the book is that it is spiral bound. This make it possible for it to be placed flat on a table and the pages stay put while, for example, you are typing an entry in your blog on your laptop while enjoying a read or two of the book at the same time. :-)

In summary, this latest edition of "Fly-Fishing the Texas Hill Country" should be required reading for anyone wanting to get the most out of fly fishing this area of Texas. For those folks that don't have access to one of the local Austin area fly shops, I would recommend they visit the publishers web site at www.fishheadpress.com and contact them directly as to how to obtain a copy of it for yourself.