Andy Dear | Monday, 8 August 2022
Vicarious---living in a way that is experienced in the imagination through the actions of another person.
---Merriam Webster Disctionary
Years ago, I had a rod-building client that lived down in south Lousiana. He used to jokingly refer to me as a "Highlander" due to my residence in the Texas Hill Country. Although Waring Texas is a far cry from the Scottish Highlands, compared to the Lousiana Marsh, it might as well be the Andes.
As much as I love living in the Hill Country, my spiritual home is the Gulf Coast of Texas. There is no place I would rather be than one of the small towns that border the back bays of the Central Texas Coast. Unfortunately, my current residence puts me right at a 3-hour drive from the closest point of ingress, in Corpus Christi...not a walk across the street by any means.
The byproduct of the distance to my favorite fishing hole is that I don't get to fish the salt nearly as much as I would like. Of course, my idea of "as much as I would like" would be every day if I had my druthers. For a multitude of reasons, that isn't in the cards right now, so I have resorted to living vicariously through a few local fishermen who have some entertaining youtube channels that allow me to "be there when I can't really be there".
One of those is a gentleman named Jeff Ruppert, who owns the youtube channel Slappin Yachet TV. Although Jeff's channel is not in any way centered around fly fishing, it is centered around the area of the Texas Coast that I have a longstanding love affair with. Whenever I start to experience the mental anguish of angling withdrawals, I flip on the Slappin Yachet channel and at least get a partial fix through Jeff, and his exploits on Lavaca/Matagorda bay complex. There are certianly worse ways to spend an evening than tying flies or building rods, and watching some high quality footage of my home away from home.
If you get achance, stop by Jeff's channel and give him a "like and subscribe". He's definately one of the good guys down here on the Redneck Riviera, and showcases the fishing around some of the lesser known, but in my opinion more interesting locales.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiyEaTlny38
And who knows, maybe one of these days we'll see Jeff chasing those big reds at the Port O' Connor Jetties with a 10wt. and a big Clouser Minnow!
Hope you all are staying safe and healthy,
Andy