Wow, I get lots of hits on my reel building posts! It has been a very interesting couple of years. I wrote The Reelsmith’s Primer to teach others how to build reels. That led to making and selling kits and starting my company The Eclectic Angler. I also conduct Reelsmithing Workshops all around the country – over 150 anglers attended my workshops this year (2011). Here are some additional resources if you are interested in building your own reels:
I frequent a number of forums on a variety of topics. One in particular – CNCZone.com, or “zone” to its members – has been a great resource for me in learning machining skills and converting my MicroMark mini mill to CNC (computer numeric control). Here is a photo of the basic mill before conversion:
These mills are made in China and fall in to the class of Seig X2 mini mills. They are quite capable little machines especially once converted to CNC. I keep a log on my CNC … Continue Reading
Since moving my hosting provider last year, all of the links to the demo files for my post on Assembling Demos from balsamiq Mockups have been unavailable. I still get lots of requests for these files so I dug them out of my backup archives and reposted them! So, the links on the original pages should work now. If not, please let me know.
Also, I’ve included the actual demo I put together here: Shrugh and I’ve zipped all of the files including the balsamiq source and made it available here: BalsamiqDemosDemo.zip.
Hopefully that will help … Continue Reading
My small business, www.EclecticAngler.com has really occupied a lot of my time! Turns out that reelsmithing books and build-it-yourself reel kits are quite popular! I’ve also put some time in to figuring out the infrastructure to support a home based business and learned quite a bit about how to do it organically (i.e. only spend what you make). I do intend to write about my experiences in the upcoming year.
Meanwhile, my most frequented posts this year have been the Pumpkin Borani Recipe and 19th Century New York Reel Reproduction. But my posts on … Continue Reading
I’ll be posting how I created the ePub version of The Reelsmith’s Primer in a future post but it’s done and now published on iBooks! I used this experience to really dig in and understand the electronic publishing process from start to finish. I began with my original manuscript (in Apple’s Pages format) and converted it to ePub with Sigil. I applied for and became approved as an iBooks publisher and then helped my publisher set up his account on iTunesConnect also. Finally, I uploaded the book and entered all of the required information (pricing in … Continue Reading
I got my iPhone 4 the day it came out – replacing my iPhone 3GS, which replaced my iphone 3G, which replaced my original iPhone (see a pattern here?). With each iPhone, the camera has improved markedly. The camera in the new iPhone 4 is really nice, well, both of them are! There is the standard camera on the back-side of the phone and the iPhone 4 introduces a front-side camera for videoconferencing and taking photos of yourself.
This new camera is 5 megapixels (back, the front camera is VGA) and shoots HD Video – yes, HD Video! The same touch … Continue Reading
I am continually amazed at how easy and reliable it is to upgrade WordPress. This upgrade to 3.0 was no different! It took less than 1 minute start to finish. Highly recommended!
Willard Brook is a small stream that runs through Willard Brook State Forest in Massachusetts. You drive right through it on 119 and, for a short distance, it is like being transported to another place. I’ve often wondered if there were any fish in the stream with its small cascades and plunge pools. You never see anglers – most likely because it is very small with lots of underbrush.
My son and I drove through WBSF yesterday morning on the way to drop him off at Boy Scout camp. Nick asked, “Do you think there are any trout in there Dad?”. … Continue Reading
My book, The Reelsmith’s Primer, is now shipping! I spent the better part of the weekend packaging books for all of the pre-orders and fulfilling the new orders that came in after the availability announcement on Friday. Now I have one more major event to look forward to – “The Reviews”! I did have very positive feedback from the dozens of people who I gave access to the draft version of the book, so I hold out hope that the reviews will be favorable.
In any event, … Continue Reading
As I’ve mentioned in past blogs, I was asked to contribute to a fishing exhibit being created for the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site.A group of 5 of us – The Van Buren Boys – are creating a period rod, reel, horse hair line, creel, flies and baits. Our ringleader, Dr. Todd, is documenting the work and Van Buren’s fishing history in a book that will be offered at the museum.
My contribution is the reel and a horse hair line. I’ve already blogged about how I rediscovered line making, so I won’t cover … Continue Reading