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. :)

The Wild Within

A couple weeks ago I started seeing commercials showing up on a couple of the outdoorsy shows that I DVR for after work.  Seemed to be along the lines of Man vs. Wild and Survivorman, both of which I'm pretty down with so I set it up to record.

Totally not like Man vs. Wild or Survivorman but still pretty awesome.

It follows a guy who is upset that most of Americans have a disconnect with how their food gets into the freezer at Wal-mart.  So he goes into the wild and hunts and fishes for all of his family's food.

It's not really like those survival shows because he's not in immediate danger and has firearms/shelter/etc.  But it's also not like most hunting shows because he's hunting for food and not just for sport.  He also cooks the food but it's not like any cooking show I've ever seen, as Bobby Flay doesn't go out and shoot the cow he turns into steaks. He also seems to have a huge respect for the animals he killed.

It may be a little soon to give the show a full review but it's definitely worth checking out.  It shows on the Travel Channel on Sunday nights.

EDIT: Check out my continuing coverage of Wild Within here.

Losing my mind.

So my plans to go up to Chicago changed kind of last minute.  My cousins' parents decided they weren't ready to let him go (can't blame them) so I stayed home with pretty much nothing to do all day except watch playoff football.

Then Clif linked to a blog with amazing flies and my day was done for.  I've spent the rest of the night looking at  warm water fly fishing blogs and regretting my decision to pursue higher education rather than bluegill and bass last fall.  Here's a rundown of the few that I pored over:

Warm Water Journal:  Amazing flies, some of which look like they should be thrown by a baitcaster rather than a flyrod.  Also some awesome fish pics.

Blue Gill on the Fly:  Outrageous amount of panfish/bass flyfishing pictures and stories, with alot of other species mixed in.  This is pretty much what I want 1/3rd of my blog to be.

Pondbass:  Guy who seems to be quite a bit younger than me but is already way more experienced and accomplished as an angler.  Lots of good fish pics.

All this reading of flyfishing blogs got me thinking, perhaps I should upgrade my fly equipment a little before spring.  Not to a $1000 setup or anything, just something that's a little more modern and cheap, rather than cheap when I bought it 10+ years ago.  Plus my rod has a crack in the plastic threading where the reel sits and one of the guides are kinda rough....

So what do you think?  I was thinking of a Eagle Claw Featherlight in the 8 foot 5/6 weight.  Mainly because it's inexpensive but also because the author of The Fiberglass Manifesto uses them from time to time and he's a self-professed "Glass Geek."

I'm very open to suggestion though, please let me know of any other relatively (I'll leave relatively open to interpretation.) inexpensive options.

At least I don't need a new fly reel.  Yet....

Goals 2011

I'm going to try to keep this brief as I went way overboard when I first tried to lay out some goals, made up an overwhelming amount of goals and then failed to meet a single one of them.  Nice!

In keeping with the new theme of the blog, I'm going to do a few goals for fishing, shooting, and hunting.

Fishing:

1. Catch a bass over 3lbs.  (And document it better than a terrible picture and a good story.)
2. Catch a fish in a state other than IL. 
3. Catch 4 different species on the fly.  

Shooting:

1. Purchase a rifle in a higher caliber than .22lr.  (But don't tell my wife.)
2. Attend an Appleseed.  
3. Become proficient enough with my shotgun that I can bag a deer.

Hunting:

1. Bag a deer.

There you have it.  Mark it down.

I'm stoked to start blogging regularly again, but it'll probably have to wait until after next week.  

I have a 3 month old cousin who has been on a respirator for the past three weeks.  After alot of consultation with various doctors, his parents have decided to let him pass away this Sunday.  With everything that'll be going on the rest of the week, I can't imagine I'll have much time to be online.  If you're the religious type, prayers for Baby Maddox and his parents would be appreciated.  If you're not the religious type, good thoughts are just as appreciated.  

Hope you all have a good week, good luck to anyone heading out to bag their deer, is heading out on the ice or is lucky enough to live somewhere with un-frozen water. 

Changes coming...

A reenvisioning if you will.

Just gonna expand the blog to include my newer obsession of shooting that I've gotten into over the fall and hopefully hunting as I want to start getting back into it.

Also, going to start posting links to products that I review.  Hopefully it doesn't take away from the overall blog.  It's just that I get the most traffic by far from random searches for the couple reviews I've done. (Probably because I haven't written anything in forever but whatever.)  Might as well make a couple bucks if people will be looking at it anyway.

The reports and experiences are for me and my followers, the reviews will be for my tackle box and range bag.

Merry Christmas!

Hope you all get to relax with your families, have a good one.

Still Alive

Sorry for the lack of posting.  There's been a lack of fishing.

Had a hard time finishing up the semester and now that Finals are over, I'm sitting here wishing I was able to go out fishing with all the free time I have now.  Sadly, there is an abundance of snow on the ground, the temperature has been below freezing for the past couple weeks, and I'm too large of a man to comfortably go ice fishing.

So I'm counting down the days to spring.  Here's to a quick winter, hope you all have a good holiday season!