Post  Tweet  E-mail  Submit Your Fish Tale

Video 1: Salmon Fishing Video
Video 2: Basic Single Handed Spey Video

Up until about six years ago, I lived a somewhat nomadic life. I was rarely home and my home seemed to change every year. I suppose this fast paced and always changing lifestyle was a bi-product of a career in digital and internet technologies. As digital technology spanned the globe at record speed, so did I. For many years, I lived like a true digital cowboy. My life was spent in airplanes, hotels, rental cars, unfamiliar fly shops, faceless corporate headquarters, server rooms, video production studios, code and circuitry classes and every type of broadcast event imaginable. The Kentucky Derby, Super Bowls, Rock Concerts, Political Campaigns, Formula 1 Car Racing, PGA Golf Tournaments, Air Shows, World Series, Olympics, X Games, etc.. If there was an event with 50,000 + people that utilized SONY Jumbotron Video Technologies, I was there. There were two things I always traveled with, my fly rod and my guitar. Any downtime on the road was spent either picking notes or picking apart streams and river with my fly rod. It was an exciting life until I woke up one day in some hotel sick of traveling, tired of all the hype with these events and realizing that I was essentially alone. All of my friends stopped calling me because I was never home and never around to do anything. Somehow, my longtime girlfriend (now my wife) stuck with me. She would travel to meet me sometimes and we would spend time together when I was “home.” But home was always changing, she was tired of the Boston lifestyle, we had plans to get married and she said to me, “Let’s move to Maine.” I looked at her and said, “Let’s go.” My wife was born and raised in Maine, and she was worried that I would not like it. Boy, was she wrong. I remember crossing the state line in a U-Haul truck with all of our belongings and seeing a sign that

read, “Welcome To Maine, The Way Life Should Be.” I didn’t just read the sign, I lived it. After so many years in cities, airports, hotels and surrounded constantly by tens of thousands of people at wild events; I soaked up the Maine outdoors like a sponge. I spent all of my time and the little money that I had saved fly fishing and exploring the Maine rivers and ocean. No computers and no code just fresh air, lots of space and lots of water. But, I was out of money and I knew I had to either get a job or make my own. So, I decided to take a stab at making my own. I dusted off my laptop and built a power point presentation with a bunch of slides that explained my digital skill sets. I named the Power Point presentation “Simple Solutions” and saved it to my hard drive. So, there I was with my laptop, a bunch of code skills and a pretty Power Point presentation to prove it. Now, I had to sell it. So, I decided to approach it like fly fishing and I said to myself, “Jeremy, you got to go door to door selling your stuff just like trout fishing. Throw a bunch of flies and try a bunch of rivers. I am sure you will get shut down and refused but keep switching flies and always keep a fly in the water and something will bite.” And that’s exactly what happened. I knocked on so many doors it was mind boggling. Some folks kindly listened and watched my presentation, many showed me the door before I could even open the laptop and others simply said, “We’re not interested.” So, I kept pounding the pavement determined to catch a fish and I would ease the pain of rejection by going fly fishing. I wanted to try a new spot on the Kennebec River that evening, so I called the only fly shop and fly shop owner that I knew, Mike Holt at “Fly Fishing Only”. I asked him some information about the Shawmut section of the Kennebec and, as always, he was more than happy to help me. He sounded a little distracted though and said something like, “I am doing some work with a database and it’s driving me nuts.” The rest is history. Mike was one of, if not the very first customer of mine. Since that day, Mike and I have had a dynamic relationship that involves technology and fly fishing. Simple Solutions has helped Mike with many technology projects through the years. The most recent is an online, subscription based streaming media portal for fly tying instruction. Fly fisherman, world wide; use www.rotaryflytying.com to learn how to tie a myriad of flies at their own pace in the comfort of their own home via streaming video. Mike Holt is a valued customer of mine, but more so than that he is my source for everything fly fishing related. I am a big believer in the benefits of relationships and any wise fly fisherman certainly appreciates the value of a solid relationship with their home fly shop. Mike’s shop is awesome. It is located right on the banks of my favorite river in the world. It is always nicely lit and clean and fully stocked with everything I need. But more than that, Mike and Linda (Mike’s wife) appreciate people. They recognize me and value me as a customer of theirs and not just another fly fisherman. They are sincerely happy to see me when I come through the door (if they’re not they do a great job of faking it.) Mike is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to fly fishing and fly tying. I use Mike all of the time to learn something new. He teaches me about entomology, fly tying, techniques and fly casting. Oddly enough, through all of our years together on the phone, on computers and in his shop we have never actually fly fished together. Or, maybe there is nothing odd about that at all. See, I believe that business is business and friends are friends but to fish with someone is something that transcends those relationships. I certainly would never invite myself to fly fish with someone and I knew that in due time and if it were meant to be, Mike would invite me. So, when my phone rang the other day and I saw it was Mike Holt, I thought to myself; “Oh great, what’s broke now?” But, Mike was not calling to discuss code or computer stuff, he said, “What are you doing tomorrow? Do you want to come fly fishing with me?” I was shocked and honored and, of course, accepted the offer. Mike took me to one of his favorite spots that he grew up fishing with his brothers. Mike was born and raised in Maine and has spent a lifetime fly fishing in Maine. He has a wealth of knowledge about fly tying, the river systems, the Trout and Salmon species and fly fishing with single handed and spey rods. So, as always, I used my time with Mike to learn something. I said to Mike, “Hey Mike, you have been spey casting for years. I am looking for a Simple Solution. Can you show me a few spey casts that I can use on my single handed fly rod?” Mike said, “Of course, almost all spey casts can be done on a single handed rod and spey casting refers to a type of cast.” So, Mike and I spent the day catching countless Landlocked Salmon and spey casting with single handed fly rods. In fact, the location we were at demanded spey and various versions of roll casts because we were in a gorge with huge walls at our backs. And, except for a select few positions, there was no room for back casting. My good friend Greg who is a long time Atlantic Salmon spey fisherman has also been teaching me spey casts on the single handed rod for a few years. Interestingly enough, Greg acquired his skills from Mike Holt and the spey classes that Mike hosts every year with Jim Rusher. So, it is nice to know that spey casting is not necessarily about using a spey rod. Spey casting is a casting technique that can be used effectively on a single handed rod as well as a two handed rod. And for me, that makes sense and that is a simple solution. Certainly, Maine has huge river systems that are conducive to spey casting with spey rods. However, for various reasons and preferences the spey rod is not always the most effective tool to use. So, if you have a single handed rod remember that you can do spey casting and you certainly can swing streamer flies and nymphs with floating lines and various sinking tips. Mike and Greg gave me a DVD that I have watched many times. It is entitled, “Spey To Z” and done by Greg Pearson, Topher Browne and Way Yin. I liked the video because it focuses on the casting and less on the rod and helped me to understand Traditional, Scandinavian and Skagit style spey casting with a single and double handed rod. So, Mike, it was a pleasure fly fishing with you. Thank you for the spey casting lessons and I look forward to our next outing on some huge water with the 12 foot spey rod. Hopefully, the fish will be as cooperative. If you are reading this, hopefully the little video with this article helps you to apply some spey casting techniques to your single handed fly rod. Like anything else, this is obviously just the very basics and a person could spend a lifetime refining the art and learning the many different methods of spey casting. But, this is a good start and you can practice with the gear you already have! Mike Holt is a great teacher, and if you like this little ad-hoc single handed spey how-to video, be sure to visit Mike’s impressive online fly tying instruction collection at www.rotaryflytying.com. And, if you come to Maine, visit Mike in person at his fly shop Fly Fishing Only

• Re: Fly Fishing: A Lifetime Of Learning by mikefisherman on February 03, 2008
  

  ---

• Re: Fly Fishing: A Lifetime Of Learning by Shaq on November 01, 2006
  

  ---