[roballen]

Ok just I just now read Ed Wards letter for the first time. I am in complete agreement with everything he said. I find it interesting that his perspective on things is so similar to my own on every single point that he mentioned. I personally don't see how anyone could have a problem with any thing he wrote.

For my spey casting i use a windcutter when i am using tips and I use a long spey line (120ft double taper) for all my floating line work. They are both lines that make the most enjoyable casting (for me) for their appropriat situations.

Only met Ed briefly at the Spey Clave. and did not get a chance to form an opinion about him there. Maybe it's not my place to have an opinion about anyone. OK well Maybe I have the right to have a bad opinion of one person. ( A guy with a pattented fly). Anyway I am getting off my point.. All I wanted to say is that I don't "think Ed Ward is a God" But everything he wrote in his letter is exactly right.

 

[juro]

Maybe not a god... but fish fear him just the same. I have the pleasure of knowing Ed as do others here and can vouch that he sees it clearly despite all the hoopla. Ed Ward is among the quiet pioneers that steelhead country seems to produce when someone is that dedicated to steelhead flyfishing, not through hype but through a real connection with the river.

Whenever all the hoopla starts to bother me, and it does tend to now and then, I think of days where as Rob says "only steelhead matter". Days like the spring day on the Skagit and Sauk with Andre and Ed Ward.

Lines, rods, all that - are just tools. The river and her fish are the spirit and life of flyfishing.

.02

Juro