Scarborough Fly & Bait Casting Association
23 Willowhurst Crescent, Scarborough Ontario M1R 3R7
Phone & Fax - 416/755-5663
E Mail - coachman@pathcom.com
Web Site - www.pathcom.com/~coachman
The "Reel Thing" January 2008
Well it looks like we’ll soon be able to begin getting the Reel Thing out on the more regular manner. It’s been almost six months of in and out of one hospital after another when I suffered a serious stroke, followed by several others left me in a frightening position where I discovered I could no longer even read, or understand my name or what had happened to me. It was a lot of hard and repetitious work to gradually learn once again how to print my name, so that I could it somehow get it down on paper and draw it in a legible line. At first I was wondering if I would ever be able to comprehend what I was attempting. However it gradually, bit by bit began to fall in place and make sense to me.
Then to make things worse once I had finally learned how to at least print my name and think that I might actually write again one day, my computer was stolen. It had been taken from near my bed while I was undergoing one on the many tests that I was going through. It became another new beginning and starting that procedure all over again as well. Getting my brains to operate at least a semblance of what writing and computers are all about quickly
became a huge challenge. But I knew there were guys who were in much worse condition than I. With a new lap-top to figure out how to use it was necessary to prove to myself and others, that I could do it. So a half-year later this is the result and here it is…..but believe me, it will get better.
So this should be the appropriate time and place in this, the first of the new year and of our newly revised REEL THINGS, along with a great, big thank you to my son, Ron, Jim and another good friend, Ed Gough, who helped me to get started with the new computer, while Jim Lloyd and Ronnie took over the reigns for me when I was unable to do so.
Okay, here we are now and back to square one. Whereas the ice fishing season was virtually non-existent last winter and spring it appears that we have an eager crew ready to begin battling the hard-water denizens in the Haliburton Lakes. It sounds like Sharon McIntyre is preparing her personal ice-fishing gear and the usual, extra-large bag of popcorn that she always has along with her, while the newest addition to our crew is also preparing cartons of freshly popped corn for us to munch on during the occasional break in the action. Brian, a teacher when popping all that lovely popcorn, is trying as hard as he can to become a top caster and fisherman. He also is attempting to make it to our team in San Francisco along with George Monroe, Paul Kennedy, Lee Pantridge, Paul Quarrington. It’s already a given that Sheila and I will once again be going to be the National Championships this year.
Meanwhile the casting is moving along quite nicely with everyone improving their scores in both the fly and plug games. We are hoping that several in the club are thinking seriously about giving it a shot at the distance games. With John Seroczynski reducing his personal stock of distance tackle, there should be a few great bargains there that are there for the picking. I hope that I will be at least be able to make a few casts with the big rods and remember and be able to hang on to the things without falling on my face…..I guess we’ll find out when we go to the first tournament in Kentucky in May.
Our fly tying and bamboo rod building was moving along also proceeding in the shop as we are about to continue the work as soon as the Holidays are over. There is enough bamboo on hand to probably make one or two more and we can always cut more when it’s required. We should have much more to write about after the ice fishing begins in earnest. In the meantime, here’s something for you to announce…….although I have been told that it would be impossible to write once again I am already planning a new book, one than will detail my experiences since my stroke. It may take several years and I will be eighty years old when the year, ends, but I know that one day it will happen!
Thanks,
Gord.
