Over the years I have tried to stay as positive as possible when I comes to fly fishing, after all it is just fishing. I have been fly fishing for 37 years next Saturday and trout fishing for about 46 years. having a dad who is a trout fisherman I am lucky having been introduced to it early and often. For the last 15 or so years I have been guiding part time and doing some commercial fly tying. 5 years ago a good friend opened up a fly shop and I have been helping him out ever since. We have a great mix of guys who help out at the shop from Passn thru our very own It guru to the bunch of shop rats that gather on Friday nights to tell stories and share the food and spirits. we all pretty much have one thing in common while we all take fly fishing very serious, none of us take ourselves very serious. we all have strengths and just as many weaknesses.
So this is all well and good but were is it leading. Well in the last 5 or so years with the increase in the ease of creating web pages, many so call guide services have sprung up. nearly all of these are niche services serving a small area of the state or specializing in one water. Of the ones I have met or spoke with they all seem to be good at what they do. But there are a couple that have cropped up in the last year or so that every time I hear the name I cringe. They are all over the web and post all kinds of reports. Now I spend a good bit of time on the waters of eastern Connecticut in the fishing year and I am constantly surprised by some of the s%^& that gets posted and passes as a report. It is far more shameless promotion than any actual info and some times I think they just make the crap up. A few years ago I was at the Marlboro Mass. fly fishing show with a good friend, we ended up eating lunch with a couple of guys who are full time guides here in Connecticut and work hard to make it work. The conversation was the normal " I had this guys who .............." but then on of them asked what I thought of the idea of licensing guides In Connecticut, normally I am hands of when it comes to government but he had a point. It would actually create a better product for those who use guides. I had forgotten about it until this past winter I bumped into one of them and he said he had been basically put off by the Deep with the idea. too bad I think the resource would have benefited from it.
well onto another note, not knowing really how many read this stuff, I wanted to put out that this coming weekend is the 5th anniversary of the shop opening and we as we have for the last 5 years will have the spring fling at the shop. Saturday from 8-4 Sunday 8-1 so stop down to JT's fly shop for the specials and to chat.
Steve'O
No comments:
Post a Comment