Happy to Be Back

I received my first vaccine shot a few weeks ago, and I immediately planned a fishing trip and rallied the blog team for a separate jaunt to Maine. It was thrilling once again to ponder travel and new possibilities. These vaccines have been miracles, and I cannot imagine where we would be without them. Last year, all of my trips were cancelled. So I’m happy to be back in the overnight game.

This week, I’ve been out of town on a fishing trip and it feels so surreal and awesome at the same time to get back to some degree of normalcy. I put in quite a bit of time on my own. But, to max out on learning, I fished with Brian Gilbert of Hilltown Anglers and Harrison Anglers’ Tom Harrison and Phil Nogee. Fellow blog-team colleague Jamie Carr joined me for one of the outings, and we had a lot of fun.

There are many OK guides out there, a handful are cranks, and some are really amazing. I would put Brian, Tom, and Phil in that last category. They came highly referred, are good with people, and are very skilled. I learned quite a bit and have immediately tried to practice the new techniques.

And, three cheers for the Thomas and Thomas team. Due to user error, my Contact 1 1133 snapped during one foray. I drove to Thomas and Thomas to drop off the rod for repair and pick up their new Sextant saltwater rod which I had ordered. A two-fer. At the lobby, I ran into a very friendly person, and we started to chat. Before I knew it, he went to the back and gave me a new Contact 1 rod for a free loaner. Turns out that I was speaking with John Wolstenholme, a T&T senior exec.

I didn’t tell John that I was part of the #1 fly-fishing blog in New England to get that favor. John was simply being a good person. So I am happy now to give the company some free P.R.! Thank you, John and Campbell Morgan, for all the help!

Last, here are some videos and pics from Instagram. Was a great trip and saw some good fish! The most memorable one was a 19″ beauty that crushed a Kelly Galloup’s Hare’s Ear floated up top and twitched as a wet fly. It’s the first fish featured. There was no “hot” fly this trip, but a size 16 nymph did crush one run: curved hook, brown goose biot, ostrich herl for the thorax, black bead, no tail.

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