By Andy Mekelburg
Spring became summer and we are still crawling into our waders and tying those last critical flies before setting out to our favorite stream for what I call “comfort fishing.” The advanced fishers are always looking for that extra degree of difficulty, like a tree overhand ceiling at seven feet, or fishing the Savage River during the water release, or wading the Salmon River without a wading stick! And that’s all fine. However, sometimes you just want to go fishing. Go to your usual place, follow your routine, and cast — just getting into a rhythm with rod and fly. I sort of feel like we’re at this stage right now with coming out pandemic restrictions.
We are now “officially” allowed to fish and, according to our members who participated in our June virtual meeting, people are getting out. We received reports from about fishing all over the area and beyond. My thanks to everyone who participated in the meeting. Thanks to some good reviews, we’re going to try it again this month. (I remember when Zoom was just a sound my son’s Mustang made). Help me out, participate and give us some stories — you know I’m going to call on you anyways!
It’s been interesting to watch see how the club is evolving to meet member’s wishes, through technology and other means. The work Don and Troy do on the “Fly Tying at a Distance” has been going great. We mailed out 22 packages of material and Don’s YouTube videos are rising fast on the charts.
This last club meeting also gave us a chance to solicit ideas directly from our members. We talked about accepting credit cards and Dennis, our Treasurer, has done the follow up investigation. The initial costs are a couple of hundred dollars, plus transaction fees. Everyone seems in favor on the face of it, however we’re also trying to assess how many members would prefer using a credit card. More to come. We are also following up Kevin Haney’s suggestion on a mentor program. We are trying to blend his idea with creating a list of members who anyone can contact to go fishing with. Any suggestions on either of these ideas (or anything else) are gratefully accepted.
Lastly, as you know, we’re still in limbo in planning any future live event — banquet, outings, meetings, live fly tying, etc. The Board is closely monitoring the situation, with safety of our membership as our top priority. In the meantime, let’s go out and catch some fish.