“You should do  it. You should write about fly fishing.”

We had spent the day fishing the West Branch of the Delaware,  A number of fat brown trout came to hand, fooled by sulpher emergers. After the mist and the dark made seeing difficult and wading treacherous, we retreated to a riverside pub.

“You’d be good at it, and you’d have a blast doing it.”

Jeff has always encouraged me. In things more important than fly fishing writing. However, over a cheeseburger we were talking about my idea to write about something. I had a lot of ideas. Perhaps it was the West Branch flowing within earshot, but fly fishing rose to the surface again and again.

“‘Casting Across’? I  like it.”

I had already thought about the name. It works on a few levels. It sounds good. The domain was available, which helped. Jeff approved. It was June 18, 2015.

A few days and a few fish later, I thought about what Casting Across was going to be during the drive back to Boston. Colors and logos. Interviews and articles. Tone, voice, and all that writey stuff. My wife approved. I started learning a few things about websites. More importantly, I started writing.

Four months later and Casting Across was up. I had a few pieces available at launch (read them below).  21 different people visited the site that first week. I imagine Jeff, my wife, and other close friends and family made up the bulk of that number.

In the past five years, a few more people have checked out Casting Across.

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Whether this is your first time here or your 780th, thanks for checking out Casting Across. It’s been a pleasure to share my perspective on the people, places, and things that go into the pursuit of fish with you.

Here’s to five more years. I can’t say what they’ll look like, but I know that I’m planning on continuing to explore the quarry and culture of fly fishing.

As promised, here are the original articles that appeared when Casting Across went live. I think they still hold up pretty well.