Ladies & gentlemen, it's time once again for my annual Sate of The Rod Shop Address:

My goodness, how this year has just flown past!! I believe one reason for that was just how busy things were. Folks, this was probably the busiest year in the rod shop ever!! You folks kept me hopping all year long & for that I am so grateful to you all.

Looking back over last year, I was once again lucky to be able to make so many different fly rods! From the smallest little ultra-light rods to some bigger heavier bass rod, this year saw a big variety of fly rods being made in the shop. There were so many rods there's not enough room to show them all here, these are just a few examples:

There were even some really cool graphite & fiberglass rods I had the opportunity to make this year as well:

There were also some truly unique & beautiful rods that folks requested this year, too. I'm always learning from all of you out there about what looks really good on a fly rod. Different color combinations, etc that look fantastic that I would never think of on my own, you folks bring to me & show me just how well they do work!!

The Accessories made here in my shop were, once again, very popular among anglers this year. I think more & more folks are dicovering that we can make a rod bag & rod tube to fit your rod exactly - for a truly custom fit. Also, the leather fly & leader wallets this year received a very big upgrade in their quality, with finished leather edges. This was a very nice touch, indeed!!

Also this year, there was a huge upgrade in the shop with a brand new set of Wagner planing forms!! These will allow me to make an even larger range of fly rods - & they're the best forms on the planet!!!

So much happened in the past year that it has me looking forward with entusiasm to the New Year ahead!! I've got some awesome things planned for the rod shop!!

In the very near future, you're going to see yet another improvement to the leather fly & leder wallets I make in the shop. These are already some of the finest wallets being made today, but soon they will be even better!! I can't wait to show them to you. 

A lot of the ground work & research for some new accessories was laid this year in the many experiments we did. I had the opportunity to work with a few folks on truly custom accessories that I hope to be able to make available to all of you in this year. It's pretty exciting & ambitious, but I think there's a few needs that we can fill & take some things to a higher level. If you have an idea for an acessory in the new year, please let me know. I'm always up for working with folks to make truly custom fly fishing items.

Speaking of fly fishing accessories, I have some really big plans this year for some new leather items that I think you're all going to really love. Right now they're a work in progress, but hopefully an entire new line of items will begin to slip into my offerings as we go through next year.

There are also more rods on the way!! Next year, I believe, will see some very interesting & excellant fly rods listed here on the Available Rods page for your consideration. Please keep checking back to that page as I'll be adding more rods there to help you gear up for this year's fishing season.

All of this is great, but the best things that happened for me this past year was all the nice people I got to meet & the friendships we continued through this 'labor of love'. I am blown away to think that I have fishing friends all across the world!! Itis amazing how fly fishing ties us all together.

This was anawesome year in the rod shop & I couldn't have done any of it without you folks!! From the bottom of my heart, I thank you all so very much. Every day I'm able to do what I love for some of the nicest people in the world - all of you!! I am truly blessed.

So the state of the rod shop is great!! I can't wait to work with you all in the New Year!! To all of you, I wish you a happy, healthy, & prosporous New Year!!

There are times along a stream when I've noticed that my ability to tie a leader knot or a fly to my tippet will decrease inproportion to the amount of hatching bugs & rising trout. In other words, sometimes when a hatch is going good & the trout are rising like crazy, I'm all thumbs & it takes me longer to tie a knot. Obviously, at those times, I'm suffering from what I call an acute case of 'trout fever'. 

There are different forms of trout fever. There's the very sudden, acute version I just described. Then there's the more chronic version which can take over your life. Chronic trout fever creeps into your daily life at times when you should be focused on something else. A symptom of chronic trout fever would be not hearing what someone is saying to you when away from the stream, because in your mind your thinking about fly fishing. You might even give a one sylabol response to a question you've been asked & then move your arm through a casting motion (air casting), while not making direct eye contact with the person speaking to you. The sevarity of your condition can be judged by the situations in which your mind wonders back to the stream when you should be paying attention to what's going on around you (it's really bad if you do this while speaking to any authority figure).

All of us, from time to time, will suffer from some form of trout fever. It is a consequence of fly fishing, maybe it's a side effect, I can't be sure. There is no real cure for trout fever. You can, however, releve the afliction by going fly fishing. The better day you have along the stream & the more fish that you catch will extend the time that your symptoms are supressed. If you can't get to a stream to fly fish, a substitue treatment would include tying your favorite flies &/or reading a good fly fishing book.

No matter how you celebrate the season, I want to wish all of you a very happy Holiday filled with happiness & good health!! 

Merry Christmas!!!

My favorite song of the season:

Looking for something to hang on your Christmas tree that will remind you of how much you love fly fishing? Why not decorate for the season by tying up some Christmas tree flies? This one here falls somewhere between crafts & fly fishing. Tie up a bunch & give them to all your fly fishing friends, too.......& this way you'll be able to say you helped make some ornaments for the tree this year!!

Watch this video below to see how its done:

Now that Jack Forst has come to visit many of us, it's a good time to take care of those maintenence jobs on your gear & tackle, like cleaning your fly line. Hey, it's cold out there - what else are you gonna do?

There are a bunch of different ways to clean a fly line & I've personally tried a bunch of them. For me, the method described below is the best way I've found - especially for really dirty lines. Keep in mind that we're talking about modern synthetic lines here. For silk lines, the process is similar, but a little different. We'll talk about silk lines in a later post. For the modern lines most of us use, this is a great way to get your lines clean.

Peacock herl is an excellant body material for wet flies. It has this life-like translucence about it, & the color is just right to match a lot of insects, that it's no surprise that many of the standrard wet fly patterns used peacock for a body.

There is one draw back to using peacock herl: it's not very strong. If you were to tie a wet fly body with only one strand of it, wrapped around the hook, it would be destroyed after one fish. The answer is to add more strands & to form them into a rope. This gives them much more strength to last through a few fish bites, at least. In the video below, we see a great way to make this peacock rope.

Those new to fly tying will often begin with the wooly bugger & then go right to basic wet flies. These basic wets almost always have a collar of hackle. The biggest mistake a beginner makes with these collars is that they make them too heavy. It's almost as though we think that it couldn't be that easy to make a decent wet hackle collar, but it really is. Again, we see this in the video below.

For those of you who are new to fly tying, it's so important to get started on the right foot before bad habits creep into your tying. The Peacock & Partridge is a very verastile fly that will catch fish - & it's a great fly to get started tying wet flies with. Check out the very good video below & see how it's done.

On this date seventy five years ago, 1941, the United States was attacked by the Emipre of Japan without warning or cause. By the time the attack was over, 2,403 Americans had been killed. It was one of the worst days in the history of the United States. The next day, The United States declared war on Japan & entered World War II.

Let's take a moment to pause & think about those who lost their lives that Sunday morning.

Let's also thank those who took up the fight & spent the next four years saving the entire world from tyranny - the brave men & women who fought in WWII.

As we pause this day, let's listen to this popular song of the time, about a military chaplain who took up a gun to help fight the enemy, & think about what the USA went through on that terrible day. Beacuse of what they did back then we are free today to fly fish, tie flies, speak our minds & be free to live how we choose.

Senety five years is a long time. Most of us weren't even here then. Be that as it may, we should never forget the evil & tragedy that befell our nation on December 7, 1941. 

Listed on the Available Rods page I have a really cool, 8'-0" 2 piece fiberglass fly rod made for a 5 or 6 weight line. Just in time for the Holidays, the price of this rod has been reduced!!! Now's your chance to get a very versatile glass fly rod for a great price!

For those of you looking to start the new season with a new fly rod, or maybe you need a fantastic gift for that special anglers in your life, this fly rod will be able take on a lot of different types of fish in a variety of fishing situations.

​This rod features:
-Chromed stainless steel snake-style line guides, tip top, & U-shaped hook keeper
-Reverse half Welles style cork grip
-Up-locking, screw-lock reel seat with a gorgeous, highly figured rosewood spacer
-Nickle-Silver winding check above the grip
-Real stone red agate stripping guide in a Nickle-Silver frame & bezel
-Beautiful red silk thread wraps tipped in orange silk throughout the rod
-Custom made red cotton flannel rod bag with black embellishment stitches, made for an exact fit to the rod
-Custom made black canvas covered PVC rod tube with padded ends, zippered closure, & leather name tag describing the rod inside

To see more photos & to read more about this fly rod, please visit the Available Rods page & please contact me with any questions you have.

Also on the Available Rods page, I've reduced the price of a fishing bag that's listed there as well. Folks, this is a fantastic price for one of the best made fishing bags on the market today - just $40!!!!

This is a great deal on a really nice fishing bag - & you better hurry, as I only have one of these bags available at this price!! This bag was made as part of a bigger order of fishing bags, when the order got changed. It's exactly the same as the other bags made right in my shop, except that it does not have an inner lining. But that's okay, as it's still a fantastic fishing bag. Here's a chance to have one of the best made fishng bags for a very low price......bags made half as well as these sell for more than twice the price in other places.

To learn more about what makes these the best fishing bags you can get, please read this short article HERE. For more photos, or to learn more about these fishing bags in general, please visit the Accessories page of this website.

​If you have any questions at all, please feel free to contact me anytime!

Burlap is an an intersting material that has been used from time to time in fly tying. One use of it is as a body material is in the steelhead pattern - appropraitley named - "The Burlap". A simple & effective pattern, it can be used not on only on steelhead, but salmon just about anywhere as well.

The recipe for this pattern that I've always used is this:

Hook: Mustad 9049, or any low-water salmon hook sizes 2-8
Thread: grey, brown, or black
Tail: grey deer hair fibers, tied about as long as the hook gap is wide
Body: burlap sack material
​Hackle: grizzle, like a wet fly collar

There are other variations on this pattern, one of which can be found at fly anglers online (where the photo above came from).

One reason burlap came into use for fly body material is because you can easily color it along the stream if need be. It's natural color fits the bill for a lot of acquatic life, but if you take along different colors of permenate markers, you can have this fly brighter than a cannary in no time, if you needed to. Plus, burlap is pretty easy to attain, too & cheap. You can't beat that! There are other patterns where burlap has been used & we'll look into those in a later post.

So tied up some of these burlap flies & give them a shot. The steelhead - & all salmon -seem to love them.