By Bruce Tyson, Program Lead, PHWFF Ft. Lewis, Washington
The Ft Lewis Program had a Rod Building session at a new facility, recently built by Ryan Caldwell of Got Your 6 Fishing (who is also a Ft Lewis Program Participant). Members of our Program, Chuck Tye and Paul Huston also helped with finishing the facility and others helped with the move into the facility a few weeks ago. This is a great Rod Building facility! For those of you who have been to PacBay, I’d say it is quite similar, although not as much automated equipment.
Chuck Tye did an outstanding job of leading the session, accompanied by Rick Davidson. We had six people who built rods at this session and four of those will be submitted into the National Competition. Two other participants could not make the session and we will follow up with them to insure they get their rods completed.
This was a great event. Everyone was into the rod building. Lots of questions were asked and we had great advice and experience from Chuck and Rick. Lukus, who was building his first fly rod, had previously made several gear rods, so he had quite a bit of experience too. Tippet, Chuck’s Chocolate Lab, was also monitoring the situation and provided much needed canine support, along with Joy’s service dog. Good people, good lunch, good dogs, doing fly fishing stuff……….what more is there?!
I want to acknowledge and thank the following participants & volunteers whose hard work and donated time allowed this to happen:
- Chuck Tye – helping Ryan construct the facility and providing expert instruction for the rod build.
- Rick Davidson – for assisting Chuck with the session.
- Ryan Caldwell – for his support of our program and the use of his facility.
- Jerry Daschofsky, Paul Huston, and son for their help in moving equipment into the new facility.
I want to wish every participant competing in the 2020 Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing Rod Building Competition the best of luck and thank you for your service.
