8 Years

And suddenly, here I am, 8 years later, after writing 827 posts, around 300 fly patterns, and over 3,700 images. Little did I know then I would keep writing a post on my blog every week for 8 years without missing one week!

I hope you will allow a little departure from my normal weekly posts and take a moment to celebrate the 8 years I’ve been operating RiverKeeper Flies with me.

I wonder how many hours I’ve spent on the computer creating content? How many keystrokes have I made creating all those posts and fly pattern sheets? It might be the reason my fingers are so nimble and still able to tie the number of flies I do.

It’s been an unbelievable journey.

I’ve had over 1,041,000 page views on my website during those 8 years. Kinda hard to get my head around the fact of a million page views!

I’ve learned so much in the process.

Fly tying skills – I never would have tackled some of the flies without my website. Customers have Googled “custom fly tyer” and my name pops up. I’ve learned new flies from them which are now staples in my fly box. The quality of my flies continues to improve because of the number of flies I tie.

Photography skills – This is the area I’ve improved the most. I look back to the first year of images and am embarrassed at their quality. I’d like to thank my friend and mentor Al Beatty for suggesting ways to improve my images. His encouragement and tips helped tremendously as I tell my weekly stories. His gentle nudge made a significant difference in the quality of images you view here at RiverKeeper Flies. In fact, the UPS driver stopped at my house last week with more gear!

Website skills – I didn’t know a thing about blogging or running a website. How many hours have been spent on the backend of RiverKeeper Flies? I’d hate to venture a guess. My updated website has been up and running for over a year.

I must admit, there are days I wonder what I’ll write about. When I struggle to come up with a topic, I’m reminded of a comment a friend of mine made when I started the website. He thought I’d quickly run out of content and wouldn’t be able to keep writing each week. My goal wasn’t to prove him wrong; I just have thoughts in my head that need to get out, I guess.

If you have some time, I encourage you to use the Archives tab on the right sidebar and check out some of those 800 plus posts. There’s a lot of useful information in them.

With Covid, I didn’t travel to in-person tying demonstrations. Instead, I learned to teach on Zoom. With that experience, I went ahead and created videos for my RiverKeeper Flies YouTube channel. Last year, I added 16 videos. So far this year, I’ve published 4 and hope to add more in the next month or two. I probably stated at one point a few years ago I wouldn’t join the crowded YouTube fly tying video space. There are quite a few quality tyers out there. I hope you find mine enjoyable and learn something from them.

It’s been quite a journey. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

We’ll see what the next year holds.

Enjoy…go fish, stay safe!

PS…

I’ll be teaching a Zoom fly tying class this Thursday (3/10/22) for my own Central Oregon Fly Tyer’s Guild beginning at 5 pm Pacific time. This week’s flies are:

McPhail’s Golden Stonefly Nymph – Variant

Silvey’s Caddis Pupa

Join Zoom Meeting with the following link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7963775593?pwd=c1F0a0JwMHRHR3lydDJMMnNZOWh5dz09

Meeting ID: 796 377 5593

Passcode: 7RxFew