When you think of Texas, flyfishing isn’t the first thing to spring to mind, but on writer and poet Nathaniel Riverhorse Nakadate’s locals-only Lone Star tour, died-and-gone-to-heaven BBQ, chorizo and potato breakfast tacos and chicken fried awesome (not to mention bass, redfish, Spanish mackerel and Shiner Bock) are around every corner.

Words: Nathaniel Riverhorse Nakadate

There’s a full French press with a creamy head of Sumatran and it’s a hair before 4 a.m. on a Saturday, far south of the Mason-Dixon. The air outside is moist as thighs. So much water and nothing but time. Moments like these you feel like you’ve got the world by the neck even though the whole damn ride is so often a beautiful farce.
I’m in the kitchen of a century-old Houston bungalow with a shit-eating grin as a grainy, lo-fi reel of fishing vignettes plays through my mind. All the possible roads I could simply waltz out the door and roam once the coffee is poured and the gear is slung into the truck. Hell, I still haven’t even made the call for freshwater delving or salt flats—it is that rich and wide-open down here. What to do? Fish, goddamnit.

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