Texas Hold'em

Several years ago I noticed Cat starting to spend more time on the computer and I asked her what she was doing. Cat had started playing free Texas hold ‘em off her facebook account. I had never seen it before but thought it sounded way more intriguing than killing time playing solitaire. She set me up an account and I was off to the races. I started with free 2000 chips and on the 2 and 4 dollar tables. What I quickly found out and fell in love with was that every table was a little different. On hands when the idiots aren’t going all in, the rush can be almost overwhelming. I remember one night begging for the right river card and when it flipped, it filled out my straight. My heart was pounding, my hands were sweating, I started pumping my fist and Cat just looked over and laughed.  Well, like most things I worked my way up and went from the 2-4$ table to the 100-200k tables and then one night it happened. My down cards were a jack and ace of clubs, the flop gave me the ten and king. My heart was trying to jump out of my chest and people started betting; the turn was it, the queen and the magical Royal Flush was mine; I didn’t care about the river card and I didn’t even bet in fear that everyone else would fold. A couple people bet and I just called. Several nh’s and a few fu’s and it was my best hand ever. I am way too cheap to ever play for real money but it’s crazy how thoroughly wrapped up in the game I became and it’s not even real. I have continued to play over the years and have realized how similar it is to flyfishing.

  Sometimes I get on a table and everyone acts like a cowboy and goes all in on every hand. I wait a couple hands maybe call them idiots and find a new table. Kind of reminds me of the bait guys in the special regs section. In hold’em we tell them bingo is down the hall, in fishing we tell them they need to go above or below the special regs section. Every table seems to play different; one table is “all in” mania and the next plays like real poker. In fishing; some days make me feel like a king and other days make me feel like I need to retake flyfishing 101. I have seen incredible sportsmanship, both ways on the tables and the river. I watched a guy win a pot with four of a kind and everyone on the table tells him very nice hand and on other days I have watched people threaten each other after someone wins a pot with a low pair. On the river I have seen the same; some of you have heard the unfortunate story of the bait and stinger guys I met up with this summer in the special regs section, I also remember the run in with the guy snagging bows off a bed and putting it on the stringer.
With the bad I have also seen a lot of great sportsmanship on the water too.  I watched one bait guy walk a half a mile trying to find a taker for a fish that he accidently killed. I can’t tell you how many people have turned in fly boxes worth several hundred dollars and other equipment they found on the river. The local TU chapter puts together trash collecting days for the river and they don’t even get paid.
Just like fly fishing some days on the tables you have one really good hand after another and other days you just hold on and try to break even with one good hand.  The river can be much the same great days, easy days, difficult days and just plain SUH-WEET days. I think that possibly the biggest similarity is that in the grand scheme of life, it really doesn’t mean anything, it just make me feel good.

  I was able to sneak to the river this afternoon and had one of those really fun days. First cast I landed a 14 incher and the fish just kept coming. Every stop produced two or three fish and almost all were in that feisty 14 to 18 incher category; kind of like pulling straights and trips on twenty out of twenty five hands. For our normal readers, Sunday was the Royal Flush of fish day that I won’t soon forget but days like today can just make a person glad to be alive. Fly du jour was the black tube midge in a size 24 and I also picked up a couple of fish on a caddis larva. Still saw lots of spawning fish and am anxiously awaiting the arrival of the bwo’s. I was looking through last years notes and saw the 24^th of March was the first real bwo hatch I saw and the fish started keying in on them around the first of April.

  I will close this blog with a little insight as to the strangeness of the weird things that go through my brain while I am fishing. The song that has been stuck on and off over the last several years is so hoakie that I think even the Virginia Tech athletics would be a little embarrassed however, I think it will be apropos to go along with this blog.  So here it goes, think back to the old movie the Gambler with Kenny Rodgers(if you remember it than you are old) If you can’t remember the movie try to think of the son and follow along with my angler’s lyrics.

 

     You’ve got to know when to float them, you’ve got to know when to sink them

     You’ve got to know when to change flies, and know when to mend

     You don’t count your fishies, when you standing in the river

      They’ll be time enough for counting, when the fishings done……

 

   Yes , I have a strange, strange mind but I continue to entertain myself. As always thanks for reading and hope you get a laugh out of some of my writing. I must warn you though, even though the song is hoakie, if you know it, you will find yourself humming or singing it next time on the river(sorry for that..hehe)

   Winston, Connell, Cat and The Drift Fly Shop……..

 

 A few from Tuesday…