While I fished with every thing from a cane pole to gigantor salty gear when I was younger, it wasn't until I was a bit older that I got into fly fishing. Back in 1990, I was running a small woodshop, making reproduction antiques in a town 30 miles north of Cincinnati. The owner's father used to be a employee of Caterpillar and consequently had dug most of the ponds in the county. There were three good sized ponds on the property, where we worked. While I would spend most of my break time whittling small widgets to occupy my breaks (I still find that relaxing), one of the guys in the shop would go out, with what I now know to be a short 3wt rod, and slay the panfish in these ponds.
I picked up an inexpensive, Pflueger 6wt outfit, that's now a dangerous smallie/ trout outfit, and didn't do much with it. A few years later, I took a few business trips to Montana to help open a new department store and kinda got hooked on the scenery. While spending some time in one of the many outfitters in Bozeman MT, I was asked if I'd seen "The Movie". Innocently, I answered, "what movie....?". That's when I was told to go rent "A River Runs Through It" and I was definitely hooked on the romance of fly fishing. I just didn't have any snow peaked mountain streams to catch little wild trout. I started looking for fly fishing literature and how-to and basically tripped over John Gierach as well as, the Fly Fishermans Bible. The rest is history. Any sport that can illicit that kind of Mark Twain enthusiasm and still keep your clothes on, was definitely worth a shot.
Around 5 years ago, I booked a guide to take me up on the Mad River, between Dayton and Columbus and I was truly hooked. I've never met more friendly, enthusiastic people and had more fun, than when I joined my local club and started getting a line wet on a regular basis. My golf clubs have been collecting dust ever since I discovered steelheading.
That doesn't even cover when I started tying, three years ago. Man, that stuff is like crack! I've spent far more on tying supplies than I ever have on fishing equipment.
-Jim Stuard
Buckeye United Fly Fishers
