I am a lieutenant in a fire dept. in a city 20 minutes from the semi-rural (5200 people and one traffic light) town where I live - which is conveniently located between the Farmington and Housatonic Rivers. We work 24 hour shifts. The positive aspect of that is that it leaves me plenty of time to fish during the week, avoiding the weekend zoo. I like to joke that it is "me and the retired guys" during the week, with teachers joining us during the summer. I'll be the first to admit that one of the primary reasons I took the job (and the healthy pay cut that came with it) was because it allows me to fish more often, and that's not a bad thing.

I've got my hands in a little of everything. I'm kind of a learning junkie in that I love to learn new things. I have tied my own flies almost since I started flyfishing almost 30 years ago. I'm just starting to make my own rods. This is probably more out of economic necessity than actual desire. I am what I refer to as "artistically challenged", so like the flies I make, the rods I make will be practical, but may not be eye candy.


My next project will be to build a bamboo rod just for steelhead. I just need to figure out what taper I want to work with.*

Away from the sporting world, I love wine. I like to make it as well as drink it. It's pretty satisfying to me to make a good quality homemade wine, not the high-octane death juice that some folks call wine.

*Ummm, never mind that part about building a steelhead rod. I broke down and bought an older Orvis rod. An 8.5' 7 weight. I couldn't help myself, it was about the same price as a blank and components. And it felt pretty nice with a steelhead on the other end!

That's me with a 33", 11.5 lb Lake Ontario steelhead in October of '07. At this point, I'd prefer a steelhead over any other fish. They are just an absolute blast on a fly rod. I've noticed that in almost all of the photos I have of myself with a steelhead, I manage to have an incredibly dopey look on my face. I finally figured out why - If the steelhead is large enough to be worth photographing, I have usually chased the damn thing downstream. So I am breathing heavily and my hat is falling off. Not to mention that I am not particularly photogenic,and maybe a little dopey looking to start with.

I need to remember to breathe, and to fix my hat before posing for a picture. As for looking dopey, well, that I can't fix as easily....

And this is the brown I caught in October of '09 in the Salmon River in Pulaski. It was caught on a size 12 sucker spawn fly using my 8.5' Orvis Battenkill 7 weight with a Hardy St Aidan reel.


******************************************************