Further Down the Rabbit Hole

I'm afraid I've created a monster. Mark's started building some rods and is becoming, shall we way, quite addicted to this silly fly fishing game. He's currently working on a 4/5 weight that he's hoping to finish up for this week's trip. While he's doing very well with it, I do get some quality entertainment out of the little oops moments. He'll be sitting there intently working and suddenly blurt out some great exclamation when something blows up. Thinking back to my first attempts at rod building, I don't feel too bad about laughing at him. At least he's got someone looking over his shoulder instead of trying to figure it all out on his own. If only I could have been so lucky...

It looks like another trip down to Utah this week and maybe a quick run up to the Snake, the midges are blowing up around Jackson and it should be great dry action if the weather cooperates.

Custom rod madness

I've been working the past several days on some custom rods for some folks in the area and finished up one last night. It's a Winston BIIx 9'6" 6wt that I would love to fish myself. It didn't come easy, however, with seemingly never ending problems with parts manufacturers as well as no small amount of parts modifications on my part, it was a nail-biter to say the least. With all the problems as well as some serious personal issues coinciding with the build there's a lot of heart and soul in this one and I'm going to be proud to present this fine rod to the customer tomorrow. Hopefully it means a lot to him because it certainly does to me. With spring runoff approaching I've got one more to finish for a good friend before I can even think about starting on my lake rod which will be a serious departure from the traditional. If progress continues as it has in the past few days I should be able to get out and fish this week for a few days and maybe get over to the Henry's Fork with Burkhart.