It is hard to believe that it is 2013 already. Life has been one crazy mess since my last post. The fishing season came and went problem is life always seems to get in the way. I had some great guide trips this past year and want to thank all those great people who enjoyed one or more day with me. I really enjoy the time I spend guiding as I get to see people them learn new things or discover new places. Due to a crazy injury exploring a way off the beaten path spot, I tore up my left knee early in 2012. It had been already damaged from years of abuse by July it was to the point that everyday things were growing increasingly difficult so I went to the surgeon and had surgery schedule for Mid-September. I want to thank Dr. Murray for an excellent job, maybe too good as I have seemed to overdo it often. I did manage to make our annual Steelhead trip to the Salmon River but it was cut short due to the knee not holding up as well as hoped. I did get a couple steelhead, a Coho and a beautiful Atlantic salmon in the 3 days I was there. I got to fish with some old friends and some new ones. Actually bumped into a guy I have known from a fishing club for years and we got to fish a bit the final afternoon I was there.

                The knee is pretty much healed up and I am about 85-90 percent mobile again and it is getting better by the day. I am really looking forward to the upcoming season. With the big snow storm we just got we will have some much needed run off this spring. While we most likely will not be dry fly fishing to rinsing trout like last March we will have better flows.  Last Saturday Jt and I were at the Connecticut Fly fishermen’s Association expo at Maneeleys in South Windsor. To say it was a great show would be an understatement, there had to have been 300+ people come thru in the time it was open. While I was a bit under the weather it was still great to see so many old friends and clients. We also got to meet some new and hopefully becoming old friends. It was really nice to see so many young people there seeing what was new. One very encouraging thing was the number of people who were taking the club tying class. It is a great way to get into the next part of the sport. I have always been a believer that tying your own flies makes you a better fly fisher. You tend to be less weary of where you put the fly because you can always go home a tie more inexpensively thus you’re a bit more aggressive with your casting to the places trout like to hide. Speaking of tying I have been basically chained to the vice tying up orders for the last month and a half. Everything from steelhead streamers to size 26 midges and a lot of stuff in-between. I have been trying for local shops now since 1995, in that time I have come up a with a few patterns of my own design. We sell most all of them thru JTs fly shop but at the encouragement of one of our sales reps I have submitted about 13 patterns to one of the large wholesale companies for consideration in being added to their 2014 catalog.

                There are a few upcoming events that I want to mention. One is the Western Mass Fly fishers Expo on March 18^th from 6-9 at the Ludlow Elks club. Yours truly will be doing  a presentation on small stream fishing and also an in-depth talk on different types of nymph fishing.  Sometime in the next few weeks we will “begin tying and lying” at Jts fly shop, for those who don’t know what that is, it is a were a bunch of us experienced and new tiers get together over coffee and snacks , we ties up flies as well as tell fishing stories. It is a great way to learn new techniques or relearn something you had forgot. I will not promise to write more this year because promises are meant to be kept. So I will do my best to update this blog as much as possible in 2013 and beyond.

 

Steve’O