Fly fishing, for me, has become a much more dynamic passion that involves much more than the simple act of fly fishing. Don’t get me wrong, I love the solitude and the days when it’s just me and Juneau on the water. Nobody in sight, plenty of time to take an inventory of my life and enjoy some peace quiet. However, when I look at my personal history of fly fishing it is certainly comprised mostly of that solitary time. And, for most of my life, fly fishing involved just me and the water. I have always traveled a great deal for business reasons. On any given week I would hop on a plane to San Francisco, Miami, Salt Lake, Vancouver, Seattle, Montreal, Minnesota….etc. Actually, during a 3 year stint I was able to visit nearly every state within the United States of America. All of my business travels also involved some sort of fly fishing. I made a point to bring 2 things with me as I traveled the continent. A fly rod and guitar. There were always days off on the road and I would kill time by finding fly fishing waters. There were always long nights in hotels and motels and my guitar served as a loyal companion. My point is this. I have had my fill of solitude and experiencing things by myself. In fact, it got to a point where I felt my passion for fly fishing slipping away. I was losing interest in fly fishing alone. I was losing interest in shooting rolls and rolls of 35 mm film and video tape and having nobody to share it with. My friends were not interested in fly fishing and could care less about this fish or that fish and they were equally uninspired by river, mountain and ocean landscapes. Then, everything changed. Internet technologies exploded. People all around the globe were slowly becoming connected to this new form of communication and interactivity. I was living in Reston Virginia at the time. The internet hub of the United States. My business is Information Technology and, of course, the internet was being used in full capacity amongst the local businesses. Keep in mind, AOL was a local business in Reston Virginia. In fact, every local business was a global technology company and that is why Reston Virginia became the internet hub of the USA. Think of it this way. In the 1990’s when you first signed up on the internet, you probably went through AOL like the rest of the people in the United States. In simple terms, every email and all web traffic routed through Reston Virginia. So, I was right there in the midst of a technology that was transforming our world. During the week, I developed corporate internet technologies and watched as internet technologies began to integrate themselves throughout every household in the United States. On weekends, I would travel to go fly fishing in the Blue Ridge Mountains or maybe to some of Pennsylvania’s world class trout streams. I would get back to my office, but things were different and things were changing for the better. Rather than 35mm film and tape based Video Cameras, I had digital capturing devices and digital rendering software and hardware tools. The digital content did exactly what all digital content does. It enabled astounding capabilities from a capturing, editing, storage and delivery perspective. That, in and of itself, would have not been that great if not for the most powerful technology of our times. The internet enabled me to share my content and interact with people around the world. The internet enabled me to meet people who loved fly fishing as much as I did. The internet and digital technologies are entirely responsible for sparking a whole new interest within a passion of mine that was slowly slipping away. Granted, back in those days things were rudimentary and rough around the edges. Statistically speaking, very few people were actually connected. Many people had hardware and software issues and everyone had limited knowledge and even less bandwidth. But, I never underestimated human beings desire to connect with each other. Seriously, think back to the painful process of the early internet days. Waiting forever for pages to load, dropped connections and all sorts of glitches. But, people still did it. The value they saw in being able to communicate with each other, share their experiences and hear about other peoples experiences surpassed the absolute painful process that went along with making those things possible. A new generation of people and technology was born and began to spread across the globe at record speed. There was this virtual world that existed and operated in parallel with the physical world. Both worlds began to intersect and both worlds were an absolute reality. Many people were and some still are resistant to change. Not me. I embraced everything and helped develop and promote it. I was amazed with all of the new technologies. How could a person not be amazed? Cellular, wireless, email and internet technologies were changing the world and the way we understood our world. Suddenly, people were connected. It did not matter what town, state or country you were from. Barriers were being broken down and the technology band wagon was rolling forward and picking up momentum. There was no stopping it. My little personal world changed dramatically. Suddenly, I was able to meet people online and have someone to fly fish with rather than fly fishing alone. Or, the visa versa happened. I would meet someone fly fishing and stay connected via the internet. We would share knowledge, content and common experiences via email and web technologies. Looking back, I can remember the countless emails, personal websites, photo galleries and all that stuff that I developed and used to help connect myself with other fly fishermen, musicians and technology developers. Those were the three things that defined me as a person and, naturally, the digital technologies became an extension of my day to day realities. Then, one day my wife who was born and raised in Maine said, “I am sick of this rat race, let’s move to Maine.” That is what we did. After my first week living in Maine, I knew I had found my home for life. I could not believe the amount of fly fishermen, trout rivers and easy access to salt water fly fishing. I was made for Maine and I will never leave. I met all sorts of great people while fly fishing, playing music in local bars and working in the technology field. Those three worlds somehow began to intersect and the lines that distinguished them began to become less visible. Flies And Fins was born. It served the sole purpose of keeping new found friends and old friends connected. There were really just a couple of us and we used Flies And Fins as a creative outlet for or our music, writing, film, photography and of course fly fishing. Since those early days, I have met countless fly fishermen. I have made new friends and stayed connected to old friends. In fact, new friends are now old friends and together we are meeting new friends. Flies And Fins is comprised of people from around the globe. Flies And Fins seems to have evolved into a virtual stream of fly fishing consciousness. Somehow the dedication to and preservation of quality fly fishing only content, a specific interest in cold water trout/salmon species and salt water species, a general distaste for “know it all” mentalities and the never ending quest for the next fly fishing trip was something that attracted a certain type of fly fishermen. So, for me, fly fishing has evolved into a holistic, multi dimensional and integrated part of my life. Just when fly fishing was about to slip away into the “things I used to do” category of my life, it reinvented itself. For me, Flies And Fins is absolutely responsible for that transformation. I now have so many great friends as a result of Flies And Fins and I constantly meet new friends as a result of Flies And Fins. I am constantly learning from other fly fishermen from around the world. I am amazed to see fly fishing through the eyes of other people. I am constantly amazed by what other fly fishermen are doing. And, above all else, I am constantly amazed by what might happen next or where I might go or who I might meet. So, this past trip our group met another fly fisherman and JimM naturally fit right in with the rest of us. He caught this nice steelhead on a pink egg pattern. The temperatures were very cold that day and the Steelhead were playing hard to get. We managed a few steelhead. They were on the smaller side, but stunning none the less. JimM’s was dime bright and mine had magnificent colors. We also got this chrome Brown Trout. It must have just come into the river from the Great Lake. Certainly, size is not the only indication of a good fish. I think a good fish is defined by a combination of several factors. I have caught many big steelhead that are ugly as sin. They may be big but their colors are all washed out and lamprey marks or scar tissue makes them less appealing. Sometimes, smaller fish have not gone through a lifetime of battling the elements, eagles and other fish and they are much more aesthetically pleasing to the eye. However, sometimes we get lucky and catch a big fish that has the aesthetic characteristics of a small fish. Those are the best fish. Welcome to Flies And Fins, JimM. Nice fish.