Fishin' with Thill....
and about a billion other things!
March 21, 2001:

Photo taken by Thill while fishin' down south this past Saturday. The "model" was very tired ;)

Yea, that's my ugly mug...and the guest of honor was just one of probably an easy hundred fish Charlie, Thill, and myself educated this past Saturday. It was a glorious way to bust into the 2001 season for me, I haven't seen one of these striped beauties since mid December! It's tough to tell in the photo, but these fish are among the healthiest I've seen in years. The wonderfully chunky feller (umm...the fish, not me ;-) in the picture was the only one I weighed and measured...exactly 32" and a plump 16 1/4 pounds. Boy, I'd like to stick a hook in this one when it's about 55" long!?!? Thanks Tony for being host to Dubs and I, we reaaally needed them fish, it's been a long winter! So....when we going again?

Yet another new is up! Once you get DP going, there's no stopping him!?! There's a terrible rumor floating around that our DP, the leader of the bunker dunkers, has been heard mumbling stuff about fly rods, fancy vests, and shooting baskets. I say there's no truth to it, but ya never know, the call of the long rod eventually reaches everyone...it's just a matter of whether you are ready to listen or not

So here we are, it's been a long time since I wrote ya a nice main page...besides being over my head busy, I just haven't had the heart to write another non-fishing oriented page! This past winter set a new personal record for me - the longest time between fishing trips! :-( This is a not a good thing mind you, I put the rods away late December and just got out for the first time late Friday afternoon with Dubs for some sweetwater yak fishing. I had (almost) forgotten just how deeply soul satisfying spending time on the water is...it's exactly the medicine I needed! We took the yaks to a small pond west of here and proceeded to cast 5 and 6 weight fly rods to a multitude of hungry fishes....bluegills, pumpkin seeds, large mouth bass, crappies, and even a few pickerel that just nipped the goods off the end of the leader and never even said hello! Oh what a blast those couple hours were, what sheer joy was the concentration of casting that tiny fly rod to the dark and cold waters trying to figure out what the big crappies and other assorted sweetwater critters wanted from me. To be on the water trying to understand the ways of our finned friends is something so special that I pray that I do not let that "new" feeling the fishing had that drizzly Friday afternoon fizzle into the plainess of routine.

Saturday morning, 'bout 2am, we jumped in the car to go meet some southern striped bastages with long time cyber compadre Thill. The ride was uneventful....if you can call almost 4 hours in the truck uneventful ;-) The ride to the fishin' hole was short, a little over 2 miles I believe. The fishing was certainly interesting! We caught fish for 12 hours on all manner of jigs and trailers, from hair and pork to Thill's ace in the hole the bassassasin....and absolutely everything in between! Dubs lost the certain pool winner just as I snapped the first picture of that broad backed 25 pound plus fish...the hook popped out as he reached to stick his thumb in the now more educated striper's mouth. Anyway, I got a real long, real good look at it...even got one or two pictures of it as it rolled around on the surface. The only problem with that is there's nothing in those pictures for reference to show the proportions of said fish...but there's always next time! The fish where we were fishing had "shrunk" in average size and max size in just the few days between planning the trip and actually taking the trip....but everyone of them was thanked, kissed on the head, and pointed north with explicit directions to follow the sand on their way up! :-)

The Lamiglas Rod & Blanks pages are really making their appearances now! So far, the following Lamiglas Rod pages are up: Surf & Jetty Rods, Ron Arra Signature Series Rods, Inshore Classic Rods, Braided Line "Tri-Flex" Rods, Boat & Pier Rods, and the wonderful Graphite Poppin' Rods! Whew, that's a whole lotta Lami's to choose from...and there's more coming! Also, for a limited time,if you purchase of a factory Ron Arra series rod, we'regoing to throw in Ron Arra's video, Distance Casting and Surf Fishing! What's that? You already have that video? Then I'll let you swap it for any one of the most excellent videos we offer here from Laptew Productions! All you have to do is pay the $5.95 for Priority Mail shipping and the video is yours, just for purchasing one of the premier surf rods being manufactured today. How's that for a deal? I knew you'd like it :-)

Sincerely,

Tim Surgent