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"Heddon Pal #8457 Mark IV 8 1/2" |
I wasn't necessarily in the market for a new fly rod, but it sure was a pretty piece. I was especially a sucker for the yellow and black bindings around the guides. The crotchety old man wanted $20 for it, but I got him to agree to $12. I had to go ask my wife to borrow some cash, but soon was the proud owner of a new old fly rod. Emily was surprisingly open to me spending our morning bloody mary and mimosa money on a new rod. I think she too saw the beauty in it. Plus, she's been wanting to remodel out downstairs bathroom with a fly fishing motif, and the rod would look great mounted on the wall down there.
The only noticeable damage or wear on the rod was some cracking on the glue(?) that held the guide bindings in place. In its current state, I don't think the rod is fishable yet. I was in T. Hargrove's last week, and spoke to Craig, the clerk there about it, and he thinks it's fixable. I showed his the picture below, and he suggested that I could add a few coats of sealant, and he even offered to have me bring in the rod and have him play with it a bit. My only concern is that if I fix it myself, I'm going to screw it up and it won't be pretty anymore, but if I have a professional do it, my $12 fly rod is going to turn into my $112 fly rod. So for now, it's just sitting in my basement until I make up my mind.
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Fixable? |
I was wandering around pretty aimlessly when Emily shouted for me to come look at something. I was expecting her to show me some piece of clothing that I would probably never wear, but I put way too little faith in my wife. Instead, she had pulled from the rack of a scary old hippy woman the single greatest sweater in the history of mankind.
It was a never-before-worn wool sweater from the 80s (original tags and everything) showing a happy ginger-bearded fly-fisherman netting, what I assume is, a gorgeous rainbow trout. At this point, money was no object. My mind was made up and the sweater had to be mine. I didn't care that it was actually kind of warm out, or that 1980s wool is the itchiest material to ever touch man's skin. None of that mattered. I wore that sweater the rest of the day, and will someday be buried in it.
Unrelated to swap meets, as part of me putting in my notice at my current job, I had to cash out all of my HR recognition award points, a system where your peers can recognize you and give you points, that you can use to shop on HR's online catalog. Now, it sounds kind of hokey, but there's actually some good stuff on there. In addition to some new books I picked out, including a book on bamboo fly rods by John Gierach that was autographed(!), they even had fishing nets on there.
So not a bad haul for the last couple of weeks. I've really been wanting a new net, as I found that my flies were becoming increasingly tangled in the string net I have now. This new wooden net, with the rubber netting should do the trick. Plus, it's very pretty, and nothing beats free. I'm excited to try the net out on the stream, and to wear my new sweater out in public.
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