Hello there!
I’ve been perusing these boards and posts for too long not to get in and comment. My name is Andrew Lawson. I am 25 and I live up in Boston.
I picked up a fly rod about 5 years ago when I transferred up to a school in northern New York and lived about 100 feet away from a river. I was playing lacrosse at the time and needless to say I stopped playing lacrosse and have spent the last 5 years of my life thinking about throwing flies at anything that lives in water.
I’m partial to Pike because of how they crush flies. I also prefer fishing for them when I can sight them as sight fishing is my addiction. SM Bass, LM Bass, Trout, Carp, Salmon, Striped Bass, Bluefish, Shad, Billfish, Tarpon, Sharks, Albies and probably a bunch of other things I’m forgetting at the moment are what I like to hunt, and with the exception of billfish and Tarpon, are fish that I hunt with some regularity. I fish carp probably every week considering I have a “secret” spot about 5 mins from home which is about 5 mins from Fenway park! You should see the looks I get walking around Fenway w a 9ft rod!
About 2 years after I learned to fly fish I had some spare time between my undergraduate degree and law school and decided the best way I could spend my time would be to go to NZ! I worked for 5 months in the town of Turangi for the Department of Conservation. I then spent 5 weeks driving the South Island and foolishly trying to will Browns to eat my silly feathers strapped to hooks. Needless to say, my efforts were much less successful than my efforts when I lived in the Taupo area. I could have counted the number of trout I had caught on two hands before I went to NZ. Kind if a backwards progression in trout fishing. Being able to see through the crystal clear water was a hell of a lesson in where trout sit and feed that has helped my fishing back in the states immensely.
The worst decision I made when I was driving the SI was trying to cover the entire thing in 5 weeks. Too much driving not enough fishing. I had a hell of an experience in Fiordland involving a marsh, rising water, and no escape, so I drove from there all the way back to Nelson for nicer weather in one day!
These days I do most of my fishing in Cape Cod, Maine, or the Delaware river system.
Look forward to getting active on the board.
Andrew
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Paul Arden
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New to the Board!
Hi Andrew,
and welcome to the Board!
I've visited Boston a few times, once while travelling and a few times while driving through. Haven't been Stateside for quite a while though and have a small problem getting in - but that's another story!
I dropped out of University and went to NZ for 6 months back in 1991. I went back the next year of course - and bam! That was it, travelling from then on; I couldn't ever imagine going to an office every day at the same time every morning, living in a concrete box, working my whole life for what? To go fishing for 5 weeks every year, with possible evening options in the summer months? 200 days was not fulfilling enough and I was fishing 330/340 after I started fishing NZ for the other summer. There was simply no way back from that.
Consequently I got to know NZ really well. Fished Turangi quite a few times - worked in a backpackers at Bellbird lodge (it's not there any more) but mostly fished the South Island travelling and living in a car, van and ultimately 4x4. Had around 18 summers fishing NZ for 5-6 months/year.
That put me in a quandary. Because the fishing was getting busier, didymo arrived, tourism was booming, NZ was less friendly to fishing bums (or whatever they called us), rivers that were once rarely fished had beats, and basically I'd done and seen most of it. I reckon it takes around 3000 days to learn a fishery - of course you always still learn - but you've got most of it by then.
So I spent about three to five years looking for something else. Spent quite a lot of time in Eastern Europe, Balkans, Tropical SW, and finally settled on the Malaysian Jungle which hit me like a ton of rocks and still does. I've been based there for 5 years now, will base myself there for another 5-7.
By the way, I once slept up a tree in Fiordland to avoid a flood! Fiordland has or had some of the best fishing, but it can also be a wet, miserable, sandfly hole. I've always loved it and it's where I learned to light fires in a rainstorm
Cheers, Paul
and welcome to the Board!
I've visited Boston a few times, once while travelling and a few times while driving through. Haven't been Stateside for quite a while though and have a small problem getting in - but that's another story!
I dropped out of University and went to NZ for 6 months back in 1991. I went back the next year of course - and bam! That was it, travelling from then on; I couldn't ever imagine going to an office every day at the same time every morning, living in a concrete box, working my whole life for what? To go fishing for 5 weeks every year, with possible evening options in the summer months? 200 days was not fulfilling enough and I was fishing 330/340 after I started fishing NZ for the other summer. There was simply no way back from that.
Consequently I got to know NZ really well. Fished Turangi quite a few times - worked in a backpackers at Bellbird lodge (it's not there any more) but mostly fished the South Island travelling and living in a car, van and ultimately 4x4. Had around 18 summers fishing NZ for 5-6 months/year.
That put me in a quandary. Because the fishing was getting busier, didymo arrived, tourism was booming, NZ was less friendly to fishing bums (or whatever they called us), rivers that were once rarely fished had beats, and basically I'd done and seen most of it. I reckon it takes around 3000 days to learn a fishery - of course you always still learn - but you've got most of it by then.
So I spent about three to five years looking for something else. Spent quite a lot of time in Eastern Europe, Balkans, Tropical SW, and finally settled on the Malaysian Jungle which hit me like a ton of rocks and still does. I've been based there for 5 years now, will base myself there for another 5-7.
By the way, I once slept up a tree in Fiordland to avoid a flood! Fiordland has or had some of the best fishing, but it can also be a wet, miserable, sandfly hole. I've always loved it and it's where I learned to light fires in a rainstorm
Cheers, Paul