Thank you for all the continued support this year, I will certainly never take that for granted. I hope you are finding time this season to be with loved ones and taking time for yourself as the busyness of the holidays takes over. We are closing up shop in the next few days to travel home for the holidays to visit with family and take the horses for a Christmas trail ride, perhaps even a sleigh ride. If you took casting lessons with me this year, thank you for your support in having me as your teacher. If you came on a guided trip, thank you for allowing me to show you my beautiful region; I am so lucky to live and work here. If you bought flies from me this year, thank you for entrusting me with such an important tool on the river. I hope your flies bring you luck and tails to hand this year. If you came on one of my international hosted trips, I thank you for such a wonderful time. If you came on my Fly Girl’s Rendezvous on the Skeena this year, thank you joining me with such a empowering weekend.I hope to see all of you again one day. If you came to any of my tying or casting clinics, thank you again for allowing me to share what I love to teach. If you attended any of my presentations, again, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to share my teachings. If you read my articles or tried my fly tying tutorials, thank you for taking the time to read my words. If you emailed me, met me at trade shows, messaged me on social medias, thank you for your interest and I hope we chat again in this new year.
R E C A P
2019 was a wonderful year. It was a full year and it was a year of big changes.
I was so honored to be a part of a project for the Fly Fishing Collaborative featuring sixteen of A.E. Knox Spey flies. There were sixteen of us from three different countries who collaborated together to tie a Knox pattern on Ronn Lucas Senior's handmade hooks to be framed by Jack Smrekar (son-in-law of William Cushner). It was an ode to the River Spey and the classics known and loved and the embodiment of the collaborative aspect of the Fly Fishing Collaborative. We have a similar collection collaboration project we are working on in the new year which will be really exciting to share.
Working with the Fly Fishing Collaborative again, I hosted an Iron Fly event where we tied My Little Pony Steelhead flies to catch those elusive unicorns, we tied boobies and banana flies and went "Birdbox" with Costa buffs covering our eyes. I was raising money for the Fly Fishing Collaborative and was blown away at peoples generosity in donations for building an aquaponics farm in Nepal. It was a ton of work to put together alone, but it was so worth it in the end.
Later in April I competed in the world championships again for spey casting at Spey-o-Rama and came in 5th. We had a great crew with some wild personalities from around the world but this was the hardest Spey-o-Rama yet, from the incredible line up of casters to the behind the scene melodramatics and just plain 'ol bad luck. My line tangled in the biggest birds nest I have ever seen and I panicked myself silly that I forgot I had a backup rod behind me. It was hard, and I never wish to repeat it but I will compete again this year in 2020.
This summer we had a group go to Tarponville, Costa Rica where we were met by Hurricane Dorian, which made the first three days exceptionally hard fishing, but we ended up getting into Tarpon in the end. Sometimes it's a humbling reminder that we can only control so much while we fish, but at the end of the day we are surrendered to Mother nature and her wild creatures just doing their thing.
Following the end of summer, we took an exploratory trip to Bristol Bay, Alaska with Interior Fly Fishing & Co. where I fell in love with Alaska and had the most overwhelming wildlife experience in my life with a sow and her cubs. There is so much more to say about this trip.
There were so many great spey claves, casting events, demos, courses, and guide cook offs in 2019 I cannot wait to come back for 2020. I re-branded my Fly Girl's Rendezvous trips and was so happy with the new logo. It has been something I've been working on behind the scenes and love my new mantra of having a Rendezvous, a meet up of sublime women, all with the desire to learn together, fish together and be together all while re-wilding oursouls in beautiful places with inspiriting fly girls. These trips will focus on learning, fishing and having some sort of personal time to reflect, meditate and be still.
I still have some more spaces available for This upcoming 2020's Fly Girl Rendezvous to the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming for a horseback trip and another to Alaska to fish for giant rainbows.
One of the biggest changes this year, and still fairly recently, we moved to a new region called the Cariboo and I couldn't be happier. Our town is called 108 Mile Ranch, and we are right along the "Fishing Highway of BC". We are doing so well here and are excited to lay our roots.
We're wrapping up most of our renovations right now to put on hold until after the new year. We've planned a big holiday party with new and old friends at our new home and I'm putting a big pot of mulled glögg on the stove and my favourite after dinner Spiked Coffee (I wrote my recipe there in the link if you're interested). Then we are getting the getting the horses ready for a good 'ol fashioned Christmas ride. Merry Christmas my friends from my family to yours. May this season be full of love. Wishing you a very happy new year with new opportunities to come.
Merry Christmas, xox
