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West Michigan anglers win fly-tying titles
Chris Soule, Gerry Worden and Jim Reed have more than a little in common. Each loves fly-fishing and tying flies. Each is a member of the Grand River Fly Tyers, a two-year-old chapter of the national Federation of Fly Fishers. Most notable is that all three gained fame as world champion flytiers this summer. They won 39 of 96 medals given out at the first annual FFF International Fly Tyers competition. The event drew 156 competitors from countries such as Finland, Denmark, Canada, New Zealand and the Bahamas. "I was hoping I might get something, but I was not anticipating such a wonderful reaction from the judges who are my fly-tying heroes," said Christopher Soule, 36, of Grand Rapids. "Those guys are the best in the field.
The one that still gets away
I found the big rainbow one evening three weeks ago. I was pretty sure I hadn't seen it before, at least not in the skinny glass clear pool, where I watched as it twisted its shoulders into the sand and gravel stirring up nymphs. She - I assume the big rainbow was a female because males don't often grow that large.I watched her one other evening just before dark and she rose once to sip a small dry fly off the surface. On some summer evenings a few tan caddis dip over the water, and I've caught a few trout on a tiny tan comparaduns tied on a size 20 hook.That night I checked the sky and went back to the Jeep to pull on hip boots and string up a fly rod. It's a little seven-and-a-half foot bamboo made by Hal Bacon. He build rods for the Payne Rod Company in New York and went west to Oregon, when the company moved, then started building rods under his own name.
FISHING DESTINATIONS: NEW ZEALAND: Screaming reels in kiwi land
TURANGI, New Zealand - Tyler Shoberg, a Herald copy editor, recently spent two weeks traveling through New Zealand with his girlfriend, Erin Dixon, who was studying abroad. The following story is from a daylong guided fishing trip the pair took June 23 in New Zealand. Shoberg's parents gave him the trip as a present for graduating from UND. Twenty-five minutes: That's how long it took to land the first fish of the day. I'd never fought anything that long back home in Minnesota. My parents, my sister, the school bully; all 15 minutes, tops. But when the tired-out rainbow trout finally succumbed to the bend of the rod and the strain in my back, Will Kemp, my guide, tapped the face of his watch. "Twenty-five minutes," he grinned. "She's quite the pig, eh?" With the fish safely nestled inside a landing net, Kemp popped a clip on the handle and used the built-in scale to calculate the weight.
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