Steeldrifter

Being on a diet for the past 40 days, I'd kill for a good pizza right now 😁

Latest out of the shop. A very light weight IM12 graphite 9' 5wt in royal blue & silver wraps, single foot guides, and burl reel seat. Total weight of this rod is just 2.7oz

That's why I went with the box I did here. It's about an inch & half between the two foams so there's no chance of crushing the hackles. That was a problem I had in some of my normal store bought fly boxes. Once you filled both side the hackle would always get mushed down which always drove me nuts.

Still working hard on it and making progress, but slower than it use to be. In the 10 days since posting this I have only lost 3 1/2 lbs more. I guess that's actually pretty good when I stop and think about it, but when you are extremely strict with your eating, and doing so much exercise, you want to lose at a faster rate which is probably expecting too much. Down to 247.5 lbs now, so have about 25-30lbs more to go to hit my goal.

I'm not sure of all the specs, but I have owned these here for the past 4 yrs or so now and I really like them. I use them almost every night while watching TV. The sound is good, they hold a charge for a long time (4hrs or so of use on a charge) and they are comfortable. Headphones usually start giving me a headache or make my head/ears sore after awhile, but with these I have to have them on for more than 2-3hrs to start annoying me even in the slightest. https://www.amazon.com/Sony-WH-CH510-Wireless-Headphones-WHCH510/dp/B07WSKKYPR?th=1

Looks like a fantastic day with your Dad on the water. Like niveker said, enjoy it to it's fullest. I use to love fishing with my Dad. What I wouldn't give to be able to have just one more day on the water with him.

Greg I dunno why I never did it with my dries & nymphs before, because I have been doing it with my streamers for years, but for some reason never really thought about doing it with my other flies 🤪 Definitely will be nice though to get a few of them boxes out of my chest pack pockets. Older I get the more I try to lighten the load while on the river that's for sure.

This one I used Shoe Goo to hold the foam in place. I have three of the streamer boxes I made where I used glue on, but with this box being thinner (1" deep) I figure there might be a little more flex to it. So I'm thinking the Shoe Goo with how it flexes without popping lose might end up working better in the long run.

Little project that I think will make my fishing days better. Got sick of having 10+ different fly boxes and having to sort through and carry multiple boxes on the river each day. So went to Michaels and bought a large art supply box and some thick craft foam for $12 and making one large box to keep most my dries & nymphs in. Then each day of fishing I can just fill one small box with the flies I'll need for that day and will have a much lighter load in the fishing vest/pack.

Getting down to the last couple rods that we'll be doing before we shut down for the month of June for an extended fishing trip. This one just out of the shop is a nice looking light weight 8'6" 3wt.

I haven't built myself a new rod in probably 5 or 6 years, too busy building for customers and also I haven't really "needed" a new rod for a while. I decided to build this 10' 5wt for myself for my trip next month. I don't like a ton of flash on my rods, but I do like a nice clean custom look. So went with a turquoise & silver wrap, rosewood burl seat, and the grip I used a green spotted cork for the center and some brown spotted cork for the ends. Should be a good rod for the bigger waters of the Au Sable.

She was a helluva entertainer. She was one of those people that you could tell put all she had into her performances.

Good sized bow 👍

Personally I would try selling on here or other tying forums first, as well as FB marketplace or some of the larger FB fly fishing groups. Ebay imo is such a rip off these days. It use to be a good source, but now a days the fees have gone up so many times you end up giving a pretty good sum of the sale to ebay. I personally stopped selling anything on there myself about 5yrs ago, and now just sell on FB groups when I sell something outside of my normal rod customers.

There's some nice movement in those branches 😎👍

Great report Mark. Nice smallies and those are some huge red ear. The locals ain't too shabby either 😁

Latest out of the shop this morning is a 6'6" spin rod. Color series blank with matching green reel seat, microwave guide system wrapped in royal blue with metallic gold trim and spiral over wraps. 12" of rear handle as requested by the owner so he can hold the rod under his arm.

This Alberta spruce bonsai forest was 10 yrs in the making. I planted all 5 trees in this upright container I made back in 2013 and decided at the time to just let them all grow for 10 yrs before I touched them with any sort of bonsai work. So I started working on them finally yesterday, and after about 7 hrs of work I finished up this morning. First picture was before any work was done. And rest of the pics are after all the pruning & wiring.

Have you considered mounting a seat on a riser on the built in seat of the jon boat? They make these which clamps right onto the built in factory jon boat seat https://www.amazon.com/Attwood-15700-3-Adjusts-Powder-Coated-Aluminum/dp/B001O0DE8A/ref=sr_1_15?keywords=jon%2Bboat%2Bseat%2Bmount&qid=1684756804&sr=8-15&th=1 Then you could get a riser to mount to the above mount https://www.amazon.com/attwood-90720-Economy-Pedestal-7-Inch/dp/B001O0DFQ6/ref=sr_1_23?keywords=jon+boat+seat+mount&qid=1684756932&sr=8-23 Then just mount a seat to that. With the riser as well as the seat itself, that would probably raise you up a good 12"-14" or more which might make it a lot more comfortable on your back/hips/legs.

Thanks. I'm hoping the Azalea does well over the summer and then blooms next spring. I bought that one a few years ago and it bloomed really nicely the first year, but the past 2 yrs it hasn't bloomed. The Forsythia which was behind it grew so big I think it stole all the water and sun from the Azalea and kept it from blooming. So I think moving it out into the open now hopefully will get it going again next spring.

Finished up the entrance into the bonsai garden which I started building last week. Looks totally different than it did just 10 days ago when it was just all empty grass and dirt. Added some more flower beds, moved my Azalea, my rose bush, the Peony, number of hosta and ferns as well as mulch and other things.

Cool, glad you are feeling well/recovered enough to start getting out and doing things. And just in time for summer 👍

It's really funny that I have had this thread spool for so many years and yet never used it till now. I never knew what color blank it would look right on.....till now that is 😁

Here's a really neat looking color combo 7'6" 3wt. This one uses a thread that hasn't been made in probably 20+ yrs now. It's a brown and metallic gold twist style thread that was on a foam spool so that tells me the thread has quite a bit of age to it. So makes for a somewhat unique rod for the owner. Trimmed the main wraps with metallic gold to go along with the color scheme.

8'6" 4wt 4pc just out of the shop in garnet and silver wraps with walnut seat and burl accented grip.