Bryon Anderson

Beautiful knives and sheaths, Mark! I don't hunt myself, but have friends who would love one of those. Will keep that in mind come gifting season... 🙂

A few weeks ago, my wife and I got a literal rude awakening. Around 5:30 a.m., she (who sleeps with earplugs in) and I (who sleeps like the dead) were jolted awake by what sounded like a jet airplane buzzing our house, but in actuality was 75+ mph "straight line" winds generated by a powerful storm system over Lake Michigan. As we peered out the sliding screen door between our bedroom and a small deck outside, between flashes of lightning we could see nearly every tree in our woods being whipped violently around, and we could hear the ominous creaking and cracking of limbs being ripped off. About the time it registered that maybe we should take cover somewhere, a large mature White Oak came crashing down on our little deck, about a foot in front of our noses. It tore some gutter down, but, incredibly, didn't contact our actual roof. Once the sun came up a bit, we could see the full aftermath of the winds. At least 10-12 mature trees in our woods were either completely felled, or had been literally twisted apart, their trunks in splinters and shreds. It was just an awesome sight to see. 5 or 6 trees had fallen across our 1/4-mile-long driveway, which meant we couldn't leave the property. And (naturally) the power was out for miles around. After we were able to get a tree crew out to clear our driveway and remove the tree from our deck, I was able to walk down to my pole barn, which serves as my wood shop. It had sustained much worse damage than the house - a lot of siding ripped off, along with the boards that the rafters rest on (I don't know their actual name). We're still waiting to hear what our insurance is going to cover. We were very lucky, in the big picture; many of our neighbors had their roofs and vehicles crushed by falling trees. We're very grateful to have gotten off as lightly as we did, comparatively speaking. I am, however, keenly feeling the inability to get into my shop and work. I'm hoping to have it repaired and power restored to it by September. Mother Nature giveth, and she also taketh away.

There are so many places I would consider "must fish" if they didn't require passports and overseas travel. The only one I would endure that for is New Zealand. I want to do the Canadian lodge/daily fly-out giant brook trout thing before I get too much older. (If giant Pike and/or smallmouth were on offer as well, so much the better.) That leaves the realm of the more realistic trips, all of which include weeks of bouncing around the American West, hiking to small mountain streams every day and camping in my car at night.

Congrats on the sweet find! I've always wanted to try the Sage LL -- I've heard they're something special.

Amazing catches - I had no idea you could get all those different species on flies. Honestly, that looks like a more fun version of saltwater fishing than the kind I experienced in the Florida Keys -- at least in Alaska I can tolerate the weather! 😄 Great report, thanks for sharing.

Lol, sounds about right! (re: the markup). I was just curious because I just recently built a 9' 5 wt. on the Eternity 2 blank, and I'd never seen another blank of that exact color. I like the Eternity 2, it's super light in hand and very accurate. It's not as fast-action as I thought it would be, though. I had to step down from the Rio Outbound Short line I'd been using to something more true-to-line-weight; the Outbound Short was overpowering the rod.

Beautiful work as always! That wouldn't be the Rainshadow Eternity 2 blank by any chance, would it?

I agree with Gadabout on both points, and I would add that the extra time you'll spend chasing down suitable substitutes will often negate whatever negligible cost savings there might have been to start with.

Why is the one-clump method "superior"? Is it just because it (theoretically) requires fewer steps? I'm not trying to start something, honest; I'm just curious. I was elated when I discovered Charlie's method, because, try as I might, I could only get the proportions right on about one out of five flies using the one-clump method. With Charlie's method, it's well worth the extra step to me to get the wings perfect every time, and I can't see a difference in the finished fly, nor can I detect any difference in performance between the two. To me, the "best" method is the one that allows a given tyer to tie the fly correctly the majority of the time. To me, Charlie's method is just a variation, no different than the foam Humpy, parachute Humpy, or any other.

I've been buying "factory second" poppers from Booglebug and they are, as advertised, some of the most durable popper bodies I've ever owned. However, on every last one of them, the thread used to tie in the tail feathers has come undone after the first use. All were easily replaced, of course, but I found that interesting. Maybe that's what made them "seconds" instead of first quality.

I love my 2017 Outback Touring edition, but I had to turn off lane centering and auto-steering; they were driving me nuts. I got spoiled by the heated steering wheel and the automatic high beam/low beam adjusting headlights though! I definitely want those on all my future vehicles. BTW if you want to talk about getting eye rolls on the boat ramp, try rolling up in a Subaru towing a kayak -- the big-boy boat guys love that! 😄

Sweet! Beautiful smallie, and I love the vintage glass/Medalist combo. Well done

Same! Couldn't agree more. Cotton may be "the fabric of our lives" (as the old commercials used to sing), but it is only suitable for climate-controlled indoor leisure wear, IMO.

I got one of these from Amazon for pyrography and wood carving, and found it such a game-changer that I ordered a second one for my fly tying bench. https://a.co/d/7vLUKAk

The only fly that I've attempted and that I still struggle with on a regular basis is Jack Dennis's Parawulff, which has a hair wing with the bottom half of the wing being a parachute post, and the top half divided into two separate wings. I get maybe one out of every 4 I attempt to come out looking halfway right, especially if the hook is a 16 or smaller. I used to struggle mightily with the Humpy, until I finally gave up on trying to use the same bunch of hair to make both the shell back and the wings. Now I usually just tie the foam-backed version (wings tied separately) and call it a day.