George Abernathy, Founder, Sun Lakes Fly Fishing Club

Periodically, a Sun Lakes resident will contact us about donating fishing equipment. Once we receive it, we either drop it off to Project Healing Waters for the purpose of distributing it to their disabled veterans or we auction it off to our members. When items are auctioned off, all proceeds go to PHW. The Phoenix PHW’s annual budget is approximately $20,000 and it all comes from donations. Last year, the Sun Lakes Rotary Club managed to raise in excess of $8,000 and they exceeded that amount this year, thanks to the effort of Stan Kauffman, Palo Verde resident and Rotary member.

I know numerous Sun Lakes residents have fishing gear or fly-fishing equipment that’s sitting in their garages gathering dust and taking up room. With spring coming on, this is a perfect time to clean out your garage and donate some gear that will greatly benefit our disabled veterans. Please contact me directly, and I will personally come over and pick up the items.

Everyone in the club has been chomping at the bit for better weather and the opportunity to wet their lines. It seems like the month of March received a lot of rain and windy weather. As with golf, this is the worst weather for fly fishing. Hopefully, by the time this article is published, members will have been out several times wetting our lines and planning future trips for this coming summer. One of our planned trips this year is to San Diego in June to fly fish for Mako sharks. I get excited thinking about hooking a large shark with a fly rod and watching him soar 20 feet into the air, trying to shake the fly loose. Of course, hooking a Mako shark tends to provoke them into wanting to attack you if given the opportunity, so this will add to the excitement of fishing for them.

The Sun Lakes Fly Fishing Club meets twice per month on the first and third Tuesday of each month for breakfast at 8 a.m. at the Stone & Barrel restaurant in Oakwood. You are welcome to join us, and if you’re interested in fly fishing and would like to meet others who enjoy the same, then the SLFFC might be a good club for you. If you have questions or items to donate, please contact me at [email protected] or 480-521-1060. You can also contact the club’s president Randy Smith at [email protected] or 480 371-8406.

“It’s always been my private conviction that any man who pits his intelligence against a fish and loses has it coming.” ~John Steinbeck

Fish On! Fish On!