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This is celebration time around our house.
My husband, Castwell/JC, and I had our 30th Anniversary
this past week - and if you don't know the story, we
met fly fishing and were married about a year later
on the AuSable River in Michigan where we met. There
were crossed bamboo fly rods, Coleman lanterns hanging
in the trees, mayflies in the punch and I had to beat
on the judge who married us to at least put on a sports
jacket for picture (he had his waders on.)
We live a long way from that water now, but all through
our marriage we have fished together. We credit our
marital success so far not just to fishing together,
but the fact we had so many things in common - a joint
frame of reference, and value system. Since we both
had been married before, we knew the difference.
The ability for us to be able to work together may not
work for a lot of couples - but we feel blessed we can
and neither of us really likes working at separate
jobs. We've done it, but it just isn't the best
for us.
It's that commonality which has enabled us to create
and produce Fly Anglers OnLine (FAOL). The years of
experience certainly help too, but we can discuss
where we want to see this website go and how best to
achieve our goals without one of us having a temper
tantrum. We don't always agree, but at least we can
hear each other out before a decision is made.
Considerable thought does go into FAOL on a
continuous basis.
With the publication of this issue, Volume 6, week 52,
we complete our sixth year!
The September 1st issue will mark the beginning of our
7th year OnLine - which is almost unheard of on the
Internet. The average life span of a website
(according to industry figures) is 3 months!
The industry claims a website which has not been updated
or added to in three months is DEAD! Search engines stop
visiting or cataloging those sites and move on to new ones.
By publishing a new issue every week, we keep the
search engines coming back - and they keep sending
us new people! 10307 found us this month via
google.com, 3763 from Yahoo, 2353 from MSN and
several thousand more from other search features.
It is amazing. There are a huge number of search
engines, the most we've had in one day was over 500.
But the reason for a weekly issue of FAOL is not search engines.
It is you.
We created this website to give you the opportunity
to enjoy the international fraternity, (FAOL is truly
international, people from 103 countries visited last
month), and fellowship which are central and unique
to the sport. And to create a sense of community which
we felt was missing in today's world of 'extended families'
who hardly see each other much less share the knowledge
they have with their loved ones. We wanted to re-establish the
sharing of information which was the way it was done when
JC and I grew up fly fishing. And lastely, to encourage
you to share the information and love of fly fishing with
the younger folks you know or run into.
We plan on being here for a long time. We hope you
will continue to use this resource and to bring
your friends here as well.
It is for you! ~ The LadyFisher
If you would like to comment on this or any other article please feel free to
post your views on the FAOL Bulletin Board!
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