Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Ramblings of a new Fly Fisher

It has been a little over a year since I started my trek as a Fly Fisherman. Actually it really started about 11 years ago. I bought a 9 wt Lamiglas rod one evening with Fred, a guy that I worked with at Sears. We were going to start Steelhead fishing. It was a great thought at the time, but I never went any farther with it. I had a rod, no real or line and I parted ways with Sears and moved away from Fred.

Fast Forward 11 years. My mom asked what I wanted for Christmas. I told her it would be nice to get a fly rod for Trout. So, now I had two rods and no reels, waders, fly's, etc. Is history going to repeat itself? So my wife and I are going to church one morning. I was talking with her about how it would be nice if we could do the fun things we do, with people from church. Like, ATVing, Fishing, Hunting, etc. We get to church and are in the 3rd pew from the front, where we normally sit and are getting ready to worship and my wife points to an 'add' in the bulletin. It was for the 'OSLC Men's Fly Fishing Ministry'. WoW my prayers had been answered and I didn't even have a chance to pray yet. I communicated with Brad and Paul via email and went to some casting classes with Brad. History didn't repeat itself! I started picking up the gear that I needed with Brad's good advise. Over the course of a few months I learned to cast. It wasn't pretty , but it would get the bug to the water. I went on the 1st annual Yakima trip with OSLC Mens Fly Fishing Ministry and had a blast. I didn't catch a fish, but lost a lot of fly's and bonded with a great group of guys who are now close friends and Brothers in Christ.

On the Yakima, during the evening, I tied my first fly. The Wooley Bugger. I have been hooked on this ever since. Don, the guy who got me hooked, apologized to my wife at church last weekend for starting me out on this very addictive, new passion in my life. We all laughed. Well at least Don and I laughed. My wife looks at the piles of tying materials and my vise always on my desk and shakes her head. She is fine with all of this. She knows that I am hanging around a great group of guys and am doing something I love.

Oh, and it all isn't only about fly fishing. We get together and study the Bible, talk, support and are a good accountability group for each other. Yes, things do seem to focus on fly fishing a lot, but we all want to use this group to bring more people to Christ. Finally as it was stated in an earlier post on this Blog. We are MEN. We like to have fun and I hope that shows thru. What you see is what you get. Within our group we can discuss and talk about anything, church, personal, whatever. It stays in the group and that's that.

Even if you don't want to join the OSLC Men's Fly Fishing Ministry, I encourage you to join some sort of small group at church. God will bless you with a Band of Brothers, or Sisters, just like he has me. I know that I would be fly fishing, but I don't think that I would have such a passion for it without my Band of Brothers.

I did finally catch a trout last summer. It was awesome!

1 comment:

Brad Nickel, Der Fliegenfischer said...

Shane, you have been an awesome person to have as a part of our team and we too are blessed by that! You perseverance has been a good example and your pursuit of knowledge has been a great benefit to all of us. God’s timing is perfect isn’t it! Now on to Cady Lake, where the big boys lie. Oh yeah buddy! Fish on!