Bryon Anderson

Wow, that is excellent news! Thanks for sharing!

All I can tell you about is my favorite places that I've fished so far, as I still have the waters of most of the U.S. and all of the world beyond to explore (I know I'll never get to experience but a small fraction of the whole, but a man can dream... ). If you put a gun to my head and forced me to pick only one as my current favorite, I'd probably have to say the Pere Marquette River in Michigan. It's the trout river I know best, and the one where I've caught 99% of my biggest trout. The most beautiful water I've fished so far is probably Michigan's upper Jordan River - that place just looks ethereal and magic, like something out of Lord of the Rings. I've only fished out West a few times, in Utah (Jones Hole Creek), Colorado (Roaring Fork and tributaries), and Montana (Yellowstone, Lamar, and Slough Creek), but all of those outings were tragically short and sporadic due to the fact that I had my family along at the time and couldn't begin to explore them properly. The Nantahala in North Carolina was gorgeous in November, but I'd love to visit it in the spring to really see it show off. New Zealand, Slovenia, and Argentina are all on my must-visit-before-I-die list.

+1 on jewelry jump rings. I used to build a lot of furled leaders (even sold a few). I started tying in the jump rings because my leaders were made from fly tying thread, and the monofilament tippet material would abrade the thread and eventually cause it to break. I never had any issues with the jump rings cutting either the thread leader or the mono tippet. This was many years ago, before the idea of tippet rings caught on in the industry, and they weren't yet commercially available. I remember seeing the first factory-produced ones in a fly fishing catalog priced around $1/ea. and having a good chuckle, as I was then buying jump rings at something like $5 for 100.

Sounds about right 😄

That is a sweet rod - I've always wanted to build a Lamiglas fly rod and now you've got me thinking about it again. As for the wraps, I can see that they are gray, but I can also see that the yellow blank somehow makes them look lavender. Either way, it's a very pretty rod.

Kim, are we going ahead with this swap with just the 4 of us, or will you "call it" if you don't get at least 6 by a certain date?

I'm in - I'll do an STP frog. Good to see you back Kim.

That looks fantastic! That's exactly the kind of experience I would look for out there. Beautiful pics.

Thank you, sir 😁

"floating" as in anchored only to wall studs; exterior carcase supported by an invisible interior bracket. Something along these lines, but customized for fly tying. The design in my head would swap out those two deep drawers for 2-3 shallower drawers per slide...built-in tool organizer and areas for material prep/staging, etc. We'll see what actually gets built though...

Thanks Chugbug! I'm still tying on that desk, although I don't have the recliner anymore. I like it, but I didn't think the storage compartments all the way through. The tops make a great place to put extraneous items while tying, but then I'm forever having to clear one of them off so I can open the top to get new materials out. Now that I have a dedicated tying space in my home office, I'm planning on making a larger "floating" desk....one of these days.

I don't think my wife loved mine either, but I had already built her a jigsaw puzzle table, so she couldn't really refuse... 😄

I built this bench specifically for tying in my recliner - I designed it so that I could sit (with the footrest down) and slide the bench up over my lap. It worked great, and I spent many a freezing Michigan winter afternoon and evening cozied up making bugs.

I started with the traditional vest; went through several versions but could never find one that quite suited me. My mom once gave me one from Bass Pro that I liked a lot, but it was heavy (even empty). Even so, I used it until all the zippers on the pockets failed. By that time, I had gotten to the point that I carried mostly buggers and streamers for trout, or streamers and poppers for bass, so I was getting into larger fly boxes that barely fit into the largest pockets on a vest, so I turned my attention to various types of packs. I think I've tried just about every kind of pack they've made; they all had good features, but there was always something I didn't like that kept me on the lookout for something better. Chest packs got in the way, sling packs were forever whipping around to the front when I had to bend over, etc. My biggest gripe about all of them (vests too) was that none of them had what I considered a good way to store a net. (I hate having a net dangling on my back where it can flop around and get caught on streamside foliage.) For the last couple of years, I've been using the Fishpond Switchback Pro system, which I like pretty well. It holds plenty of stuff, it's comfortable enough to wear for a full day, and it has a nice loop that holds my net securely in an easy-to-reach position.