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Greetings and Merry Christmas to ya’all! In this day and age, not a politically correct phrase according to the liberal newsmakers, but reflects my sentiments and an expression of joy and anticipation of better things yet to come. I am looking forward to spending quality time with family, sharing gifts, participating in social and dinner gatherings with those I may have influenced over the years and those that presently influence my life. For me the Christmas season is always a time of reflection (seems I reflect more and more as my life goes on – more moments to reflect upon!) back to a time when as a boy a popcorn ball, an apple, a hand knit sweater and a pair of socks brought immense joy to the present time with internet shopping and instant credit.
My gift to myself is going to be fly fishing with two friends out of Rockport with Capt. Chuck Naiser (361-230-9392) on December 18th and 19th. A far cry from a pair of socks! One day will be spent with Senior Command Sergeant Major (retired) Ron Garrison recently returned from Iraq after spending a long career in the U. S. Army serving our country honorably and the recipient of numerous purple hearts, and just in the past three months had his ‘hooch’ (living quarters) destroyed not once, but twice in mortar attacks and RPG attacks. As he phrased the situation, the military is trained to kill and capture and now that the State Department is running the military in Iraq, their duties are so highly restricted that being the warrior he has been over several decades, it was time to bid them farewell. My second day fishing partner will be Col. Randy Bland (retired) presently employed as the ROTC instructor at McArthur high school. Randy does most of my formal fly fishing clinic’s and in the past year has been employed by Joshua Creek Ranch to run and maintain their fishing program and to provide a little ‘structure’ to their employees. Two days I am looking forward to with great anticipation!
I appreciate all those that ‘relieved’ me of some of the wall inventory at 60% discount; however, when I look over the wall I see a huge inventory remaining of fly tieing material, leaders, tippet, and far more flies that I care to maintain. I hope many of you will take advantage of these savings in the next 6 weeks.
I literally have my house ‘in order’ spending the last two weekends re-arranging rooms within, and the garage to accommodate my rod building equipment and am coming to terms with my feelings of withdrawal aided in part by the support and encouragement of so many of my customers. As I said in my previous announcement, I am not going away, only down the street. I fully anticipate designing and building rods as I have in the past, providing ‘package’ deals when a fly reel, Royal Wulff fly line, Sage rod/reel case are acquired with a new rod and continue to build quality rods at below market prices. I anticipate I will continue to do rod repairs and of course, honor factory warranties. I will maintain my Sage inventories which as many of you know, does include spinning and casting rod blanks, in addition to their fly blanks, not typically seen elsewhere and keep a good supply of Ross Reels and Tibor Reels on hand. At the moment I assume I will be able to keep the same phone number, Web address, and email as I presently have and will keep everyone informed as I verify with SBC via email newsletters.
I recently ordered and received the new for ’06 Sage fly rod blanks in a TCR 9 foot for FOUR weight 4 piece. A good customer just built the first one to come out of the shop and I am anxious to give it a test cast. I fished a TCR 5 weight for Bone Fish during my last trip to the
I will be returning to Costa De Cocos (www.costadecocos.com) February 17th through the 23rd for part of the make up trip created by hurricane Wilma. One of the returnee’s actually arrived in
I hope you all have a GREAT Christmas. Till next year . . . . . .
Dennis O. Freeman
210-479-3477