Why do I deserve a Hook & Hackle Xi rod building kit?

For anyone not in the know, Owl Jones over at FFSBR and the guys at Hook & Hackle are teaming up to offer the most deserving angler a free Xi 3wt rod building kit.  I decided to throw my hat into the ring.

One thing, this article is meant to be narrated rather than read.  So it will really help if you have someone read it to you.  (Preferably Morgan Freeman or the guy from the Wonder Years.  [By the way, did you know that the guy from Wonder Years is actually Marv from Home Alone?  Look it up.  Crazy huh?])

Ok, here we go:

Why I deserve to win a Hook & Hackle rod building kit?  This is the question I've been forced to ask myself over the past few days.

To my dismay, many of the reasons I've come up with just aren't very deserving.

I'm not the best there is making things with my hands and I've never built a rod, so I probably wouldn't the rod it's full justice.

I'm probably not the best business decision to give me the kit if Hook & Hackle's main goal is to get word out about their rod building, as other bloggers have more followers and certainly more unique visitors. [NON MORGAN FREEMAN: Although, you could run a Google search for "firebird spinning combo" and see what pops up.  I can compete with the big boys on some things.  BACK TO MORGAN FREEMAN]

I am most certainly not the most accomplished angler, especially when it comes to fly fishing, as evidenced by my previous fishing reports.  Certainly someone else would catch bigger and larger amounts of fish with the rod in question.

So why DO I deserve this rod more than everyone else?  Well, I can't rightly say.  What I do know...

[Cue beautiful slow score conducted by Mr.  John Williams himself.]

...Is the rod deserves me.

You see, I'm a newcomer to the sport of flyfishing, only having wet a fly line a dozen or so times.  However, I'm honestly obsessed with it, with only a few fish having whetted my appetite for more.  (Ask my boss, who has to remind me every so often that I shouldn't be looking at  fly fishing blogs while I'm on the phone with a customer.)

The problem with my obsession is that somewhere in the past year or so, my only fly rod (a relic shakespeare I bought for $20 before the turn of the millenium, which sat in my dad's basement for 10 years.) somehow got a crack in it in the reel seat area.  It doesn't seem to be causing problems at the moment but I cringe as I imagine it breaking the rest of the way and losing the reel just as I hook a bass or big bluegill.  If it were to not get the Xi, I'll end up buying an expensive fly rod such as an Eagle Claw Featherlight to get me by for a couple seasons.  I would much rather have something that was built to a higher quality and that I had my hand in constructing.

So whereas some anglers have a rod for every weight and every situation and would only use the 3wt on occasion for bluegills or brookies, the Xi would be THE ROD for me.  Here in IL we're limited mostly to bluegill, bass and smallish stocked trout so every flyfishing post after the rod is completed would be (as long as I do my part) filled with fish caught on the Xi only, and I'd be sure to link back to Hook & Hackle on each post to let people know that they can build their own and have similiar, if not better, results.

While I can't guarantee that it would catch more fish with me than another blogger, I can guarantee that noone else will appreciate it more.  Noone else NEEDS it more.  Noone else would... love it more.

[Music crescendoes to a goosebump inducing finale and trails off slowly.]

And scene.

Ok, so maybe I wouldn't love the rod itself but I would definitely love to have the rod.  Please pick me H&H, you'll be sure the kit is getting a good home.

Oh, and if I'm not deserving of a kit, I'm also in need of a good fishing hat.  I usually wear my Cubbies one and I think it may affecting my luck. :)