Fly Fishing Jewellry

FAOL Community Fly Anglers Online
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It’s nearly Christmas and many of us are trying to think of that perfect, unique and very special gift. What about the fly fisher on your list??? Well there is always a new rod or reel – fly tying materials or equipment – maybe a trip to an exotic fly fishing destination – a great video or book – or even a guided day on the river or lessons on casting or fly tying. There are lists and lists of ideas on various fly fishing websites and forums.

But what about a piece of jewellry. Just quickly going through a list of items found after entering “fly fishing jewellry” on the Net you can come with a myriad of items. There are pendants with dancing trout. Or rings of fly fishers. Or various fish species. Or different trout and salmon flies. There are even ear rings made out of flies. And tie clips also made out of flies. There are cufflinks and money clips with fly fishing inspired provenance. Not to forget watches with fly fishing scenes. You can even give engraved fly tying boxes or rods or even reels – not to mention any number of other “personalized” fly fishing related items such as fly boxes or wallets and pouches for leaders or flies.

So Christmas giving for fly fishers can be very interesting to say the least – even that special fly (that caught that one huge fish) to grace your ear lobe.

Tight Lines,
Mike

P.S. This thread was intended with “tongue firmly planted in cheek”.

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Really, Mike, you don’t have to give me jewelry. Honest.

I prefer gift certificates as flyfishing-related gifts. That lets ME pick out the items I need, versus the items some well-meaning but uninformed relative or friend THINKS I might need.

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But a gift certificate is just not very personal??? OK OK what store do you want the gift certificate from (considering we haven’t even met I guess it’s not that impersonal!!!)

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Wandering off topic…

Call me Grinch, but I think there needs to be more common sense and less warm happy “I mean well” in gift-giving.

99% of the “personal” gifts I have received in my life are lost in the mists of time. I recall almost none of them, other than a few which were so ghastly that I can’t get them out of my brain no matter what I try. My mother is well-known for buying me T-shirts which cannot be worn in public, for instance. In the wrong size.

Would you buy music for a teenager?

Would you buy clothes for your wife?

Again, well-meant gifts which are NOT something the recipient needs or wants are, to my mind, not useful or meaningful gifts. I will smile and thank the person who gave it to me, while wishing fervently they had listened when I told them I didn’t want anything, then file it away in the closet of crap I don’t use, then get rid of it at the next fish-in (who knows, someone else might want my 14th landing net – the reason I don’t have one on my back being that I don’t USE one, not that I don’t HAVE one). The only person qualified to know what I need, want, or will use in flyfishing-related stuff is ME. And if I want or need something that badly, I will already HAVE it, or be in the process of getting it.

Trying to outguess someone who is accomplished at something, and already HAS a large supply of stuff, is almost always doomed to failure. The thought is there, but do you really want to get someone a gift that they don’t want? Especially one they will then feel obligated to use, or to wear, or to display in their home? Say you did send me a fly earring – should I pierce my ear just for that, to make you feel like I appreciate your thoughtfulness? Even thought I don’t wear jewelry of any kind, ever?

This is the 21st century. Ask them specifically what they want, or find out where they DO shop and let THEM decide on the gift. While this may not meet with old-fashioned, mom-knows-best surprise-them-they-love-you gift-giving tradition, it certainly wastes less money and reduces the amount of embarrassment, deception, and downright lying about how much you like your gift.

Dennis the Grinch

P.S. Hard to go wrong with Cabelas, although my family manages to get me gift cards for places I have never before, and will never again, shop.

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Nicely said, Dennis.

Except for the part about being a grinch. Because if you are, I am, and I’m not, so you aren’t. Got that ??

John

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Mike,

Something I’ve really gotten into in recent weeks is taking some of my digital photos to an imaging shop and having the photos enlarged and printed on matte paper. At the shop I go to, I just slip my photo-containing CD (or memory stick) into a machine that pulls up the photos, after which I select what size print I want for each photo.

This is not expensive at all to do. For example, I had a 16" X 24" poster-size enlargement made and it cost me only $15. I then glued the enlargement to a 20" X 30" piece of 3/16-inch thick foam board, trimmed the edges and now I have a nice huge photo of a river campsite on my wall. No expensive wood frame or anything; I prefer just the foam board mount look.

Anyway, not counting the tools needed to accomplish the foam board mounting, that big photo cost me just $18 to change from a digital photo buried in my computer to a beautiful poster portrait.

A couple of my fly fishing buddies and a number of my canoeing buddies don’t know it, but they are getting mounted photos like this from me for Christmas. (Not 16" x 24" but still pretty nice-sized shots, and even cheaper to have printed.)

And boy, wouldn’t I love it if they tell me they don’t need these photos! Right back on my wall they’d go!

Joe
“Better small than not at all.”

p.s.: Thanks for citing that quote about going fishing longer when the problems are longer. That one got used on the site’s banner page a couple of years ago. It’s so true.