Just so nobody...

...thinks I've really been sleeping and doing little all winter, I thought I'd show the results of a what a long winter of goofing off online can achieve if we 'REALLY' put our minds to it.  New/Old acquisitions...I really can't say much more.  I feel fortunate to finally locate two rods I've been searching for for a long time.  One dry fly 0 ferrule and the other a 1 3/4 ferrule...one dry fly rod and one for tandem wets I love to fish.  The dry fly 8 footer is from about 1940 and the beautiful 3 piece 8 1/2 foot...both light trout designations...is from the hand made division of Heddon in 1955.  One of the last before the tonkin cane stocks ran out.  Matched with a Heddon Daisy 'featherweight' reel for the 'featherweight' Heddon rod, and a same period vintage Bakelite Henshall for the 'Bill Stanleys Favorite' and its Bakelite reel seat.  Bring on the season...

Hibernation...

...I looked out the window and trout season had started.  And the temp is in the 60's...Wake Up!  There is fine cane and waders and flies to be tied...Damn winter.  Never enough time...a constant when you've just turned 65.  We all holed up pretty well between the new shop and upstairs office.  Work, school, eat, and sleep...winter has its hold after deer hunting and the holidays.  You just have to endure it...and then one day its over.  Ominous perhaps for a weather pattern but I'll take it.  A couple of weeks of warm weather and winter will not get its grip on us again.  It will leave us with weak knees, and sore joints but the fresh air of spring heals.  Somewhere...somehow...I picked up some great new/old fly rods during this last winters hibernation.  I am inspired...renewed.  It all awaits.  What we can achieve in the sleep of winter.  The goals of summer...