Explantion of the name "Feather Forge Fly Company" Part 2

The Feather Forge Fly Company. . . . . . This won't make much sense till you read THIS from yesterday.

Summer of 2017 I decided that I would stay in Terrace and guide here instead of returning to Calgary to fish the Bow. This was a big step for me. I was going to walk away from the river I started on, walk away from the loyal regular clients that I had worked hard at acquiring and maintaining for the last decade. I was also going to leave the shop (Fistales) who are great friends that I am forever indebted too for giving me an avenue to enter the flyfishing industry. They allowed me to practice and refine my craft, travel to places I never would have been able to afford otherwise and still to this day my only commercial tying is done for them. Guiding in Fernie for ERGC wouldnt happen that summer either which was a drag. I genuinely enjoy my time in Fernie. Its a great fishery with the added bonus of friendly and professional people.

I never thought about what guiding just anadromus fish all year would be like. If I had, I might not have made that decision. Truth is, I really like trout guiding and the Change up throughout the year keeps it fresh. That variety doesn't help me find parking space in my shop or driveway right now tho, as with the variety of fisheries comes the need for a variety of different boats.

To make a long story short, that summer the work wasn't there, and it made the decision easy for me to go and get my own BC angling guides licence and start doing my own thing.

"So what are you??" I haven't heard those words yet, but I am sure that there are people who have thought it. Is it a fly company? . . . . .is it a guide service ?? . . . . . Well, it's both. . . . . . And a bunch of other stuff. Its the Blog, its the Guiding service, it's the flies that I tie and sell. It's the Galleries where people can go and check out my fly patterns or fish photos of trips past. I'm treating the "Company" as the sum of all my parts flyfishing.

Because the majority of my annual income comes from guided trips I had a little panic for a minute about how my name didn't describe the fact that I was a guide/outfitter, so I axed the "Fly Company" and added "Outfitter." That didn't fix my web address or email addresses that were already out there. I never loved the "Outfitters" part. Just another reason that you shouldn't go with something unless you are all about it.

The name may be a little confusing to some, and I may not come up in searches as well on the Google machine, but it speaks to me. I am thoroughly enjoying having the website regardless of maybe not pulling random searcher folks off the web. One of the biggest reasons that I like my site is that I can now link people who are inquiring about trips and flies to the information they're looking for. Then I will field any unique questions outside what's covered on the site.

By the time I had all the fishing programs, dates, descriptions, the why, what, when, where and how about each of them, I was sooooo tired of writing it out. So tired of going over them asking myself did I oversell it? Did I undersell it? Are there spelling and punctuation errors? Literally, if I would have lost all the content of the website descriptions outlining one of my programs, I'd of been mad enough to kill kittens.

I have heard a couple people butcher the name when they try to repeat it back to me. More than once I've heard "Feather Force. . . . . Cool" as if I was a masked superhero running around with an eagle feather tickling people. For now, it's good for me. Maybe one day I will switch the name to "Big Brown Floaters," but for now it remains.

"Feather Forge Fly Company" (in blue neon, with a purple outline . . . and it's so razor sharp and powerful that it blows up the sign) Drop mic.