McKay’s Web site aids anglers

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Not too long ago, anglers looking to learn more about their sport, share information with others, or find a new fishing buddy had relatively few options.

Most of us just plodded along, wound up finding a few friends who shared our passion … and ended up meeting others by chance.

The Internet, for all its limitations, has made fishing easier for all of us. If you want to learn how to tie a fly … sites are available to help. If you want to hear opinions about the best tackle, or the top rod for your money … you can find that, too.

And though many of the fishing-related Web sites you’ll find are pretty generic, or may be targeted at more of a national audience, there are options that fit the northern and eastern Maine angler perfectly.

Kevin McKay, a registered Maine guide, has revamped one such site you may be interested in checking out.

McKay’s Web site is called themaineflyfishingjournal.com, and (as the name suggests), it focuses on us, the places we love to fish, and the flies that will succeed once we get there.

McKay said he built his Web site two years ago in order to share his passion for fly fishing, and to share information he struggled to get when he discovered the sport 10 years ago.

“When I first started [fly fishing], I found it very frustrating,” McKay said via e-mail. “I would show up [at] a river, open up my fly box, look at all the flies I had [bought] from a fly shop, and just not know where to begin. I had general information on rivers but no specific advice on selecting the right fly.”

Over time, McKay learned his lessons … the old-fashioned way … and decided to share that information with others.

In the two years the site has been operating, he said visitors often sent e-mails asking for specific information his site didn’t provide.

Now, it does.

“I was very limited with my knowledge of Web design, and by myself I could only fish so many spots and provide so much information, so I was stuck,” he said.

Last November McKay met fellow guide Richard Babine, who has a fly-fishing school in southern Maine and began providing new content for the site.

A month later, McKay’s friend, Tim Venoite suggested some changes to the existing site, and the duo started the redesign. McKay’s wife, Jennifer Bowman-McKay, along with writer Jeremy Trainor, Veinote, and Babine, worked together to create a polished finished product.

The result?

“[It] is a site that is for the beginner angler to the advanced. There is river flow information, river articles that break the river down into individual pools, and flies that work,” he said. “[There is] a Maine hatch guide, fly-tying videos to download, stories, fly shop reviews, guides and outfitter reviews. There is a section dedicated to conservation.”

And (perhaps most popular with anglers themselves) there’s the chance to share opinions and advice in a number of forums.

McKay’s is just one of several that Maine anglers may be interested in. As the weeks progress (and as the warmer temperatures draw even the most fair-weather fishermen afield), I’ll likely tell you about a few more.

There’s plenty of useless (and worse) material on the Internet. But computer-oriented anglers might want to surf the Web a bit and find out what’s out there.

You may learn something. You may decide to venture away from your customary fishing haunts and try a new place your Web pals recommend.

Heck, you may even end up with a new fishing buddy.

If you’re a prospective moose-hunter hoping that this year … finally … is your year, make sure you don’t miss out on the deadline for the state’s permit lottery.

Everywhere I go I meet folks who lament the fact that at some point or another, they forgot to enter the lottery … and by doing so, they forfeited 10 or 15 years worth of “bonus” chances.

As you likely know, the state essentially “pays” us for our pain by giving a prospective hunter a bonus chance for every year he or she has been unsuccessful in the drawing. This way, resident hunters (who are allowed to purchase up to six chances, if they’re willing to pay $23 for them) can end up doubling … or tripling the number of times their name is tossed into the digital hopper.

The catch: If you don’t enter every year, your bonus chances vanish and you’ve got to start at the beginning again.

The on-line deadline for the moose lottery permit drawing is 11:59 p.m. on April 1.

Luckily, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s Web site offers a quick and simple way to enter via the Internet.

I finally stopped procrastinating and entered on Monday. The entire nine-step process took about five minutes.

Keep in mind that in order to fill out the form, you’ll need your credit card information, as well as your sub-permittee’s birth date and year.

Then it’s just a matter of keeping your fingers crossed … and dreaming about your first moose hunt.

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.