Allen Fly Fishing

So, a few months ago I won a great fly fishing outfit from an Owl Jones original contest (i got lucky, really lucky). In this outfit was a 9' 6wt salt rod from Rise Fishing company, and a beautiful large arbor reel from Allen Fly Co.

I have been pleased with the whole outfit, but a few weeks ago while fishing, I had a problem with the reel. My first thoughts was "oh no! I have screwed up my new reel and im going to have to buy another". I am not very mechanically inclined, but i tried to take the reel apart and "fix" it, but I couldn't get it to work right. Maybe I was too hard on it, maybe there was a flaw in manufacturing. it doesn't really matter now. When I got home from the river I sent an email to my buddy Owl. He advised me to contact Allen fly, but wasn't sure if they could do anything. My mind instantly races to the worst thoughts (im a pessimist). In my line of work, a network administrator, I deal with technology companies all the time, if you have a product fail, customer service is very difficult get them to make things right.

Let me tell you, The moment I spoke with Justin at Allen Fly, he assured my that he would make it right. Justin told me that if the product he sold failed, he would make things right by me, at any cost. I didn't have to provide an explanation of the incident, the purchase time frame, how I acquired his product, or any of the usual painful return procedures. Justin simply told me to send him the reel and he would get it back to me. At this point i am still pessimistic, this is going way too well thus far. I have sent products off for warranty work before to wait months and months for them to be returned.

I boxed up the reel and sent it off the next morning. A few days later I received an email from Justin saying that he received my reel and has began to work on it. Wow! I thought, "really, so soon". My pessimism starts to subside, "this guy is really going to make this right!" about a week later I get home from work and there is a package from Allen Fly, "surely not" I thought. I open the box, and there is a brand spanking new gun metal large arbor Trout 5/7 reel.

My jaw dropped! Justin, you have proven yourself and your company to me.

Justin has a great company, and provides the best customer service I have ever dealt with. I have no doubt that this rising company will do extremely well in the upcoming seasons. This is not my product review of the rod or reel, just a kudos to Allen Fly Co. and the owner Justin.

My newest addiction

Lately, because of my new job, i have not been able to fish quite as much. I have went from 7 days a week, to about 1 or 2. To get my fix i have started fishing while you cant fish. Fishing when you cant fish includes tying flies, making leaders, organizing fly boxes, reading about fishing, and anything else fishing related. Everyday on my lunch break, i will pump out around a dozen flies. I have a huge collection of downloaded youtube videos, and Dustins fly box blog archived on my flashdrive (he really is a great fly tier). Today, Sunday, it rained, and i didnt get to go fishing, so I plan on waking up at 5:30 in the morning to go fishing before work. here are a few pics of my new addiction.

My first fish on my rise fishing co. rod

I dont have much time for a proper review (just wait), but here is my first fish on my new rod, Thanks Owl, and Capt. Amanda. It took me 10+ hours to catch a fish, bit it was all worth it when i landed this pig (by my standards) I wore my rise hat all day yesterday, and would have today, but my ears were badly sunburned.

Owlie Awards!

So, winning the owljones.com / risefishing.com contest not only scored me a awesome fishing outfit, it scored my name on the owljones all of fame! What an honor! I am so grateful that I stumbled upon this awesome blog and found these bunch of people. Thank you Owl for the chance to compete with these great competitors, and thank you for doing what you do. I really appreciate  (i never spell that right) everything. now back to editing.