Thanks for writing and all the support you guys are showing us! We’re humbled. Another fun story from the Lanphere family:

After another successful trip to Westport salmon fishing, the 1066 (Northwest Premier Guide Series) continues to amaze everyone on our boat. The latest example is the 34 lbs., 6 ounces dressed king caught last week. This salmon hit the pole hard releasing it from the down rigger. I grabbed the pole, set the hook, and the fight was on. When we finally got the fish in the boat, my two friends and I could not believe what we saw. This big king was hooked under the lower jaw through the skin — only a half inch was holding the fish on. If it were not for the action of the 1066, I am sure he would have gotten off. This is my second letter sent to Fetha Styx so I want to make it clear, I am not paid or compensated in any way by Fetha Stxy. Simply put, this rod is at the top of the food chain period. Best rod I have ever owned.

Thanks,
Rock
Rocky & Karen Lanphere

We have more photo submissions from pleased Fetha Styx customers putting their rods to the test. This latest batch comes from Alaska. Enjoy!

Have pictures of your Fetha Styx rod put to good use? We’d love to see them! Send them to fethastyxrods@gmail.com for the chance to be featured on our blog.

To see more Fetha Styx photos, check out:
Fetha Styx on Facebook
Fetha Styx on Flickr

We already know that fishing teaches us lessons about our selves and the world around us that transcend the mere accomplishment of landing fish. Fishing can provide more than just a positive ‘work/life balance’ — it can teach us the virtues necessary to find happiness both on and off the water. The blog post “Finding Passion on the Fly” (from Think Brilliant Media Studios) takes a moment to analyze the parallels between fly-fishing lessons and a satisfying professional life.

The key is passion.

Nothing’s worth our time unless we’re enjoying ourselves, right? Perhaps that’s a tad extreme, but passion, patience and an open mind are a few of the fundamental characteristics that lead to triumph in any activity. The lessons put forth in the article are logical, yet incredibly poignant. It’s worth taking a step back to appreciate the values instilled through fishing — and the successes they’re capable of leading to.

Also, we would be remiss for not pointing out the fabulous photo the article uses was taken by our friend Rich Schaaff.

Read “Passion on the Fly” here.

Photo by Richard Schaaff (eastforkfly.com)

Here are some photos of our ICAST booth setup, including our new NASCAR rod series, our True Hero series and our CCA series. We’re having a great time and meeting lots of fine folks — stay tuned for more Fetha Styx updates from ICAST!

I have not been in touch for a couple of days. We were a little busier in DC than originally anticipated and at times made it difficult to update the blog. We had a fantastic time on our journey and was an experience that none of us will forget!! So here are some photos from Saturday in DC. On this date we attended the memorial ceremony on the Capitol lawn, met with Dave Reichert and just had a good time.

A view of the Capitol building.

One of our officers, Jeff Carroll, was able to score us some seats for the ceremony. Generally it is standing room only unless you are “connected”. We were able to sit in the FOP / VIP seats at the rear of the ceremony.

The view from our seats.

The President was the keynote speaker for the ceremony. Leann Womack was there to sing a song and a few officers from around the country sang songs during the ceremony.

John looking dapper during the ceremony.

The sun was out and it was a gorgeous day. A little cover would have been nice as most of us did not prepare with sunscreen. We got a bit of sun but enjoyed being outside in the nice weather.

During the ceremony it is tradition that as officer names are read in the roll call that officers present from their state rise in honor and salute. There was a group of Lakewood and Seattle officers sitting together. When it neared time for us to honor our fallen we all stood at the back of the seats to pay tribute.

Here we are in formation...

...and then once they began the Washington State roll call we saluted our fallen brothers and sister.

John and I with a photo op in front of the Capitol after the ceremony.

The Memorial wreath.

As the name of each officer is read off of the roll call of honor a member of their family approaches the wreath and places a red flower in the center star. This wreath is then later taken to the National Law Enforcement Memorial where it is placed in the middle of the site and kept under the watchful eye of two honor guard members all night.

Honor guard members from the State of Washington awaiting the arrival of the wreath at the Memorial.

Present were members from the Washington State Patrol, Seattle PD, Pierce County SO, Tacoma PD, Metro Pierce (Lakewood, etc) and Snohomish County.

Washington State officers were given the honor of forming the reception line for the wreath to arrive at the Memorial.

The Lakewood officers that were present to receive the wreath.

After the wreath ceremony a small group of us went to visit with Congressman Dave Reichert at his office. Dave Reichert is a former Sheriff of the King County Sheriff’s Office. He gave us an opportunity to go to the Senate floor and observe the room where the President gives the State of the Union address. It was pretty cool to be down there. The photo above is our small group just outside of Congressman Reichert’s office, what a view.

This was an amazing trip that will not be forgotten by those that made it. The four of us that rode are certain to return next year and continue to ride in memory of our fallen and all other officers across the United States. We have been told by several Lakewood members that they are looking to join us next year. We are certain to have more than four of us from the state participating in the Police Unity Tour.

Saturday night brought no ceremonial items and Sunday was day of departure back home.

Stay tuned to the blog. Although it will not be as often, it will have updated information on fundraising and group growth leading up to next year’s ride. We thank those that sponsored us to assist in making this happen and to all of our families for allowing us to fly across the country and take part in this phenomenal week of events.

Watch the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund channel on YouTube for further insight into the week’s events.

FishTwits is an information hub that utilizes the power of Twitter and crowd sourced content. Eric and Steven, we feel, are definitely on to something. Read more about how these guys are making recreational fishing digitally diverse and social.

Introduction

Steven Speldewinde and Eric Zirgulis are the Co-Founders of FishTwits.com. Steve (a law graduate from Australia) and Eric (a history graduate from California) met whilst pursuing Masters Degrees in Entrepreneurship at Lund University in Sweden. A short time into their Masters degree a discussion of heading to the Swedish lakes in pursuit of the enormous Pike contained within led them to the realization that they were both passionate fishermen and the idea to start a company in which they could pursue this passion was born. When they met Dave Sherohman a talented web developer and John Steiner a designer with a penchant for water puns, Eric and Steve’s dream of creating an online hub for recreational and sports fishermen to find and share the best fishing content on the web was born.

Where did the idea for this technology come from?

When we first came up with the idea for starting an online company for recreational fishing we wanted to build an entire social network from the ground up. This was a very exciting stage in developing our company where the possibilities seemed to be endless. We had done a few basic designs of how we wanted our technology to look and function (just using PowerPoint) and started to approach a number of developers to find out how much it might cost (given our very limited student budget) and how feasible it was. Quotes ranged from $15K – $100K but it wasn’t until we met Manfred (another online entrepreneur) that someone suggested we do some basic concept and usability testing for our tech. It was at this point that we realised our original concept was not only going to be incredibly expensive to develop but was also essentially unusable!

At this point, to be honest, we came very close to giving up. However, the great thing about starting a company doing something you love, particularly fishing, is that the thought never really leaves your mind and when you’re out fishing, you have a lot of time to think. After a particularly unproductive trip from a fishing perspective, Eric and I had been bouncing a few ideas around and came up with a solution. Build a much simpler site and take advantage of tech that is already out there (e.g. the Twitter APIs) and then slowly build our feature set.

We started with a very basic feed of fishing information sourced from Twitter and then started to add features that we found useful as fishermen. For example, Twitter let’s user’s follow people – this is useful, but we thought it would be even more useful if fishermen could follow information on species of fish (e.g. steelhead trout), techniques (e.g. fly fishing) and locations (e.g. Florida) – we have some big plans to improve our location tech!

You are encouraging user interactivity, not much seen in the fishing world, why?

One of the best things about fishing is the people you meet! There is nothing better than getting out on the water with someone new, it’s the quickest way to learn new skills and ultimately catch more fish. Fishing has always been a pretty interactive sport for me, whether it be chatting to guys at the local tackle shop or the guy just down the river who is seemingly hooking up at will and of course there is nothing better than recounting the story of the one that got a way over a couple of beers in the evening! In our experience, fishermen love nothing more than to share their stories which is why we think that the interactivity of social media is a natural fit for the fishing world. There are more than a thousand fishermen who already contribute to FishTwits.com and we hope that this number is going to continue to grow.

We are really encouraging our users to not only share their photos and links but also to interact with other users by replying to their posts and photos (we have made it easy for user’s to track replies by including a link back to the original post with every reply).

We are also encouraging our users to help other users find the most interesting fishing information available online. To do this, user’s can vote for great posts by clicking the ‘Hit’ button, they can then view the highest voted posts by clicking ‘Biggest Hits‘. Our aim is to have a user voted list of the best fishing information online not only overall but for each species, technique and location (these can be viewed by clicking ‘Biggest Hits’ on for example the Trout page). The more people that vote, the better the information will get.

How is this tech relevant to the everyday angler?

A simple, quick and easy way to find and share the latest on fishing, whatever type of fishing you love!

What role do you see social media having in the future of the fishing industry?

Three things really excite us about social media and the future of the fishing industry.

1. mobile
2. location
3. recommendation

As the web becomes more and more accessible from your mobile phone and you are able to check-in to locations to find out what is happening locally, social media will become a lot more interesting and powerful. For fishing, we think this is especially exciting! Imagine being able to check into a fishing location and see who else has been fishing there, what they caught and how they caught it all in real-time. From an industry perspective we believe that this increase in data will enable companies and other fishermen to recommend great products to people who will appreciate them.

What is your ultimate goal with this tech?

If you look at our vision for the future of social media in fishing, you will get a pretty clear idea of what we are aiming for. We want to revolutionize the social aspects of fishing. We are also committed to promoting sustainable and environmentally friendly fishing practices to preserve the sport well into the future.

We really want our users to drive the development of our tech. If you have any suggestions please leave us some feedback.

Before you launched FishTwits.com, you ran the ‘Eurofishin Photo Contest’, can we expect more competitions like this in the future?

The Eurofishin Photo contest was a lot of fun, we got some amazing fishing photos from all over the world, including our eventual winner, the legendary Simon with his condom Pike fly. We will be running the Eurofishin competition again this year but before then, we have another very cool competition planned.

We are looking into setting up of a social fishing league table to create a bit of friendly competition and encourage people to share their photos. Points will be awarded for each fishing photo you upload – with some cool twists like higher points for being the first to upload a new species and loads more! It is going to be loads of fun, we have already lined up an iPod touch and are hooking up more prizes as we speak. Stay tuned to the FishTwits blog for an announcement of the launch date and details within the month.

Explain your favourite fishing experience

My favourite fishing experience is still my first. When I was about 4 on a family holiday down the coast and Dad and I wandered down to the rocks lining the estuary. Dad helped me bait my hook with some stale bread and started teaching me how to cast. Within half an hour my confidence was up and I thought it was time to have a cast for myself… inevitably I managed to somehow end up with the entire spool of line tangled around the reel. Perplexed, I looked up at my Dad pleadingly and he came over to patiently try to detangle while I held his line. It couldn’t have been more than two minutes later that I felt a thump on the end line which almost pulled the rod right out of my hand… Dad was quick to react and with his help we started to bring the fish under control as it darted toward the rocks. Eventually we brought in what turned out to be one of the best pound for pound (I was a lot fewer pounds back then) fish I have ever caught, a nice yellow fin Bream.

What is your favourite species of fish?

King George Whiting. These are a brilliant Australian fish, quite similar to the Bonefish. There is nothing better than wading the sand flats in some of the beautiful Australian estuaries and rivers and casting small surface lures or flies for these guys. They put up an awesome fight and they are delicious eating.

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I forgot to mention that on the night of 12 May when we arrived in DC at the conclusion of the ride the chapter that we were riding with had a dinner. We went to Fogo de Chao, a Brazilian steakhouse. It was an excellent meal and gave those that were riding under Chapter XIII one last certain chance to be together.

We also went out that evening and were able to meet with some of the Lakewood officers that traveled to DC for the ceremonies. It was great to see many of them waiting for us at the Memorial when we rode in and equally as great to see more of them that evening.

On 13 May we knew that the big event would be the Candlelight Vigil. During the day we did not do too much. We basically hung around the hotel and got our uniforms ready for the evening. Our main task for the Vigil was to be escort officers for the survivors as they arrived at the Memorial. We had to be at the Memorial at 4:30 to get briefed and ready for buses of survivors to begin arriving around 5. There were numerous officers that were a part of this detail. We formed receiving lines from the curb into the Memorial for seating. We handed each female a rose and escorted them to their seats. It was a special honor and privilege I am certain we will not soon forget.

The reflection pond at the National Law Enforcement Memorial.

The stage and some of the survivors that had arrived early for the ceremony.

This is our side of the receiving line. This was duplicated on the opposite side of the Memorial.

Here are four members of the Lakewood PD on honor guard duty. They are members of the Metro Pierce Honor Guard.

Four member honor guard details were present while the survivors arrived at the Memorial. They rotated in and out about every 15 minutes or so. It was good to see our local guys representing at the Vigil.

This is a sampling of the crowd of survivors at the Vigil.

This is half of the people that were present behind us. In front of us were hundreds off other officers, civilians and survivors.

We were told that once the ceremony started there would be a very large crowd. None of us anticipated seeing this many people present for the ceremony.

A photo of us during the ceremony.

Craig Floyd, CEO and chairman of the NLEOMF (National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund), was the emcee for the evening. Several people gave speeches to include the national president of Concerns Of Police Survivors (Jennifer Thacker) and the US Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr. It was heartwarming to hear AG Holder speak of our officers and the tragedy that occurred in Lakewood. It truly was a national phenomenon that was recognized around the globe. There were numerous fellow officers that we have spoken with during the week that are in the know of our incident.

The Vigil included a blue laser that was illuminated across the Memorial in honor of the Thin Blue Line. It was very impressive to see. It also included the candle lighting ceremony. The first candle was lit on the dais and spread across the crowd. It was amazing to see every candle lit with just a few minutes. There were thousands of people in attendance and this was an amazing feat.

The shield that we wear with pride.

The NLEOMF symbol and the thin blue line.

After the ceremony at the wall.

On 14 May we did not have anything on the agenda. We spent the morning moving from one hotel to another for our final few days. In the afternoon we walked around a bit and visited the Memorial Wall again. We made impressions of our fallen officers that we will be taking home with us. Tomorrow brings the Memorial Service on the Capitol Lawn.

May 13

Today brings the final leg of the ride journey. The morning started in Annapolis, traveled to RFK Stadium and then into the Memorial.

Mark in the courtyard of the hotel in Annapolis. We rode our bikes from here up the street to another hotel where other riders were staying. There we had breakfast and it was the starting point for the day.

The group eagerly awaiting our departure from the hotel parking lot to begin the last leg of the ride.

Mark having a snack at the Target stop. Today brought much different weather than yesterday afternoon. We had sunshine, rising temperatures and the humidity was increasing. Everyone was thankful to make it to the Target lot so that we could shed some layers!

A team photo before we leave Target and head to RFK.

Send off from the Target lot. The mass of blue and white shirts was impressive to see rolling down the streets.

Our arrival into one of the RFK stadium parking lots. As I said there was a group of riders already there and they greeted us as we rode in. When the final group came in there was another long reception line for them.

Team photo with one of the Police Unity Tour support vehicles.

When we arrived at RFK Mark had a phone message that a reporter from one of our local TV stations (KIRO) was looking for us to do an interview. She caught up with us in the lot and here are some shots of us being interviewed. Unfortunately we did not get a picture of John. He ran off to be the first one interviewed before we were ready with the cameras.

Each of us wore a metal bracelet during the ride to honor one of our fallen officers. Here is a photo of those bracelets when we were at RFK. These bracelets will be given to the surviving spouses at the Candlelight Vigil tomorrow evening.

Riding from the stadium down to the Memorial site. We started out about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way back in the queue. One of the ride marshalls came upon us and told us that we needed to get to the front of the line. He told us that it is tradition that when a department loses officers they are to ride in at or near the front of the line. We started to make our way to the front and we could hear officers asking who we were as we passed on the left. That was immediately followed by, “It’s Lakewood”. That was pretty cool. We made it to within about the first 20 riders as we went into the memorial.

There was an honor guard and bag pipe band awaiting us at the memorial. As the riders arrived we split and went to either side of the memorial. We were on the left side and were able to ride past our fallen officers and a group of our officers that were waiting for us to arrive.

The Washington Fallen Heroes as they appear on the Memorial Wall.

Coming up is a candlelight vigil for fallen heroes and further ceremony in their honor. Courtesy of Officer Porche.

The Coastal Conservation Association provides a Gulf Oil Spill media room — a nice supplement to all the other reports and news outlets out there.

The ongoing response and other details are found at the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command site. The following update is from their “Ongoing response timeline“.

To volunteer, or to report oiled shoreline, call (866) 448-5816. Volunteer opportunities can also be found here.

THURSDAY, MAY 13

Secretary Salazar Announces First Steps in MMS Restructuring

As the federal government continues its relentless response to the Deepwater BP Oil Spill and investigates the cause of the explosion and oil spill, Secretary Salazar directed Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget Rhea Suh and Senior Advisor Chris Henderson to oversee a restructuring of the Minerals Management Service that will ensure the independence of the agency’s inspections and enforcement mission.

Secretary Salazar also sent a letter to Congressional leaders asking for their ideas and input on his plan to reform the agency.

Officials Inspect Rig Preparing to Drill Relief Well

National Incident Commander and Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad Allen and Federal On-Scene Coordinator Rear Admiral Mary Landry inspected the Development Driller II, which is set to begin drilling the second relief well shortly to permanently cap the leaking well.

BP’s “Top Hat” Containment System Approaches Completion

MMS reports that BP has approached completion of the “top hat” containment system, and expects an update from BP as early as tomorrow on its operational status.

Community Town Hall Held in Port Sulpher and Dulac, La.

Representatives from the Coast Guard, EPA, NOAA, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Labor, the Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry and BP participated town hall meetings in Port Sulpher and Dulac, La., to provide an update on the response to the oil spill and continue the dialogue with members of the community, local business leaders and other organizations.

Shoreline Cleanup Teams Continue to Assess Impact

Shoreline Cleanup and Assessment Teams (SCAT) surveyed 19 miles of Dauphin Island, Ala., and the Jackson County shoreline with minimal tarball findings. An additional five teams were deployed to Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge to recovery tarballs.

The Department of the Interior has deployed 568 total personnel to the affected area to assist in cleanup, wildlife protection and rehabilitation, and shoreline assessment efforts.

Unified Area Command Continues to Build Web and New Media Engagement

The Unified Area Command in Robert, La., continues to grow its public engagement via its website (www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com), which has received more than 19 million hits since it was launched on April 23, as well as Facebook (18,277 users) and Twitter (3,707 followers). These resources contain information about response efforts, jobs, volunteer opportunities, impacts to wildlife and other important public information.

DOD Aircraft Conduct Dispersant Spray Missions

The Department of Defense’s Modular Aerial Spray System (MASS) aircraft flew multiple missions—dispensing the same dispersant chemicals being used by BP and federal responders. These systems are capable of covering up to 250 acres per flight, and flights are coordinated with the EPA and the State of Louisiana to ensure all environmental concerns are addressed. Since MASS flights began on May 1, a total of 47 missions have been flown and nearly 70,000 gallons of dispersant have been applied.

National Guard Support Continues to Build

1,304 National Guard personnel are currently supporting oil response—952 from the Louisiana National Guard are providing Command and Control and sandbagging support to St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes, supporting marina operations and conducting HAZMAT training; 323 from the Alabama National Guard are deploying protective barriers around Dauphin Island and conducting sandbag and security operations; 25 from the Mississippi National Guard personnel are providing helicopter support and liaison officers to aid local officials with emergency response; and four from the Florida National Guard are performing liaison duties in support of the response effort to the Unified Command Center in Alabama and to its own emergency operations center in Tallahassee.

Five Oil Platforms Have Been Evacuated to Ensure Health and Safety

A total of five platforms have been evacuated in order to ensure the safety and health of rig workers. Estimated oil production shut-in is 2,300 barrels a day (0.14 percent of the Gulf ‘s oil production) and approximately 1.2 million cubic feet of gas (0.02 percent of the Gulf’s gas production).

Joint Bird Rescue Operations Are Dispatched

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services and the National Parks Services dispatched a joint boat operation to Horn Island, Miss., to recover potentially oiled wildlife and transport them to a wildlife rehabilitation center for treatment. Treatment and rehabilitation operations are also ongoing on Chandeleur Island.

By the Numbers to Date:

• Personnel were quickly deployed and approximately 13,000 are currently responding to protect the shoreline and wildlife.
• More than 520 vessels are responding on site, including skimmers, tugs, barges, and recovery vessels to assist in containment and cleanup efforts—in addition to dozens of aircraft, remotely operated vehicles, and multiple mobile offshore drilling units.
• More than 1.4 million feet of boom (regular and sorbent) have been deployed to contain the spill—and approximately 1 million feet are available.
• Approximately 5 million gallons of an oil-water mix have been recovered.
• Approximately 476,000 gallons of dispersant have been deployed. More than 217,000 gallons are available.
• 14 staging areas have been set up to protect vital shoreline in all potentially affected Gulf Coast states (Biloxi, Miss., Pascagoula, Miss., Pensacola, Fla., Panama City, Fla., Dauphin Island, Ala., Grand Isle, La., Shell Beach, La., Slidell, La., Venice, La., Orange Beach, Ala., Theodore, Ala., Pass Christian, Miss., Amelia, La., and Cocodrie, La.).

Today we completed the second of the 100 mile days. This puts us over 250 miles for the trip and just one more day of riding. We are scheduled to arrive in Washington, DC at the Memorial sometime between 2 and 4 in the afternoon.

We rode from Delaware to Maryland today and have stopped for the night in the home of the US Naval Academy, Annapolis. Mother nature was not the kindest to us today. The morning was pleasant with sunshine. We had anticipated that it was going to rain late in the afternoon, but figured we would already be in Annapolis. Well just after our lunch break, it started to rain. The rain was annoying and at times came down pretty good, but it was the temperature that didn’t help. I am not certain exactly what the temperature was but one of the ladies riding with us told me when we got to Annapolis it was 53. It would be a pretty good bet that as we rode through the farmlands of Maryland it was very near 50.

As we neared Annapolis we were graced with a fly over by a Maryland State Police helicopter. He made a few passes over the group as we rode along. It was also pretty neat to see Navy-Marine Memorial Stadium as we arrived in the city. Pretty cool to see a big ole “Go Navy” spelled out in gold letters amongst the other blue seats in the stadium. As a former Navy man it made Mark proud.

This evening a number of us from the chapter went out to dinner at a seafood restaurant. Several of the ride members wore their Police Unity Tour jackets and struck up conversation with a couple in the restaurant. As we sat and prepared for dinner the manager came over to us and told us that this couple was so impressed with what we are doing that they were going to pay for a portion of our dinner tab. Very nice people and an appreciated, awesome gesture.

There weren’t many photos taken today as just over half the day was in the rain. I will be uploading a few of them tomorrow as it is late here and we still have one more day on the bike.

Tomorrow morning we ride to RFK stadium in DC where we will meet up with riders who are coming from Virgina. After everyone is together we ride into the city and to the memorial. We are all certain that the final leg of this journey will be emotional and very much worth the trip.

Today was not the best of riding days. We labored through bone chilling temperatures and became seemingly soaked to the bone. However, through all of that each of us knows it pales in comparison to the sacrifice that our friends and countless other officers have made. We take to heart the motto of the Police Unity Tour and take pride in the fact that, “we ride for those who died”.