State Of The Union

I still haven't landed a fish, but I did manage to [almost] forget about it for a little while thanks to a busy weekend in the local fly fishing community. 

First, there was the Fly Fishing Film Tour's Cleveland stop on Friday Night. Good to see all the familiar faces and a few new ones as over 500 people attended the sold-out showing. The movies definitely got everybody's blood pumping and I'm sure the Kayak and Expedia mobile sites experienced a temporary surge in traffic as all of us were undoubtedly conjuring up plans for our next grandiose expedition. 

It was also cool to see familiar faces lighting up the big screen, including  WorldCast Anglers' Mike Dawes, friend and film maker RA Beattie, and the one and only Alejandro Vega Cruz (Mr. Sandflea) who stole the show with their chronicling of the Scorpion Reef Expedition. Some Orvis colleagues of mine also put on a great showing in the film Urban Lines. And as for the afterparty? 

No names, please...

Saturday morning meant another round of Fly Tying 101, always a family affair at Orvis Cleveland...

and Saturday night brought around the man meal. Frog legs anybody? 

Good times and good food were had by all, and after a chat with Lake St. Clair's Captain Brian Mezaros I am counting the days until warmwater season and lookin' forward to flickin' chickens at some toothy critters. 

Meanwhile, winter keeps ticking along and the rivers keep blowing out on my days off. 

As anglers we're always looking for signs of hope during this time of year. The arrival of these little guys usually suggests that while we're not out of the woods yet, at least we've turned the corner...

Finally, we gave the site a little facelift just to keep things fresh. We'll probably do a little more tinkering in days to come, so keep visiting often and let us know what you think. In the meantime we've got the hound on the scent in hopes that we might actually be able to share some fish pictures by the time this weekend rolls around...