coastwatcher42

It's a long story but here's the condensed version. While I was attending Duke University in the 1980's, I met a girl from South Africa and we ended up dating for 3 years. We broke up shortly before graduation. She went home to South Africa and we both went on to marry someone else and then divorce. Through a mutual friend, we got back in contact about 4 years ago. We visited each other several times and carried on a long distance relationship for 3 years and decided to get married. She is the CEO of her family's shipping company and I was a lowly insurance agent so we decided that I should move to South Africa rather than her move to Tennessee. So, here I am in South Africa with a new wife that I adore and a lot of new fishing opportunities to explore.

Greetings all. This is a very much delayed introduction. I grew up fly fishing the waters of East Tennessee and joined the forum last year while living in Greeneville. In January, I moved to Cape Town, South Africa. Since I've been here, I've been busy exploring the country and doing as much fishing as possible. There is some excellent fishing here and I would recommend that everyone, if you have the chance, come here at least once to fish. Now that my life has started to settle down some, I have rediscovered this forum and hope to both learn and give of the knowledge that I posses (however little that may be).

Keeper of the fly tying materials

I'm pretty lucky to be near several good fly shops. My favorite is Fly Shop of Tennessee in Johnson City, TN. They have a great selection and are great guys, always willing to help in any way they can. Another good one in Johnson City is Mahoney's Outfitters. Asheville, NC is a little further for me but is the home of Hunter Banks. I would happily recommend any one of these.

I bought a fly tying kit from Cabela's several years ago and have been using the vice that came with it until recently. A few weeks ago I got a Griffin Montana Mongoose and am very happy with it so far. I am still experimenting with the rotary aspects of it, but I think I'm going to like it. I looked at several vises and cost was the bigest issue. I was just about ready to order a Renzetti Traveler ($180) when I looked for vises on eBay. The Travelers that I saw were about the same price as in the Cabela's catalog. Then I saw the Griffin, brand new, for $140. It came with a c-clamp base, pedestal base, carry case, ceramic bobbin, and a hackle gauge. The Renzetti comes with none of these except the base and then you have to choose one or the other. I'm sure the Renzetti is a great vise, but I feel that you get more for your money with the Griffin. By the way, the Griffin is $200 in the Cabela's catalog so I think the $140 I spent on eBay was a pretty good deal. If you are looking for a new vise, it might pay to check it out.