This Blog Just Turned 11 Years Old!

Technically, this blog turned 11 years old a few days ago on July 11 but that's alright.  It's better to celebrate a little late rather than not at all.  In keeping with tradition, I try to do a couple of things each year when the anniversary of this blog comes along.

First, thank you so much for visiting my little slice of the Internet and for reading this blog!  I mean that from the bottom of my heart because if people didn't read what I type, I would quit doing posting.  I am happy to say that people are reading this blog and viewing my posts more than ever.  Currently, I am averaging between 1,500 to 3,000 views per day which is AWESOME!  I celebrated the 1,000,000th view earlier this year and as of the time this post was published, this blog has been viewed 1,569,376 times.  Sure, some of those are bots and might even be AI, but I hope that a lot of those are real people.  

What is more incredible to me is that people are still reading posts on websites.  In a world that is aligning itself with more social media and videos, it feels good to know that folks are still reading.  More so, it feels good to know that people are reading what I type.  Speaking of typing, please know that every word that I put into a post is coming from ME.  I don't use AI to generate posts and I promise that is the truth.  The reason that I started this blog was because I wanted an avenue to share my fly fishing experiences.  Letting AI create a post takes the personality out of the equation and to me, having personality in a blog post is an enormous component.

Second, I like to share the same video each year.  This video was included in the first post that I ever published on this blog so it seems appropriate to share it if for nothing more than keeping with tradition.  It is a beautifully worded tribute to fly fishing with some breathtaking scenery.  The footage comes from Michigan and the words come from John Voelker.  If you've never seen the video, I hope you dig it.  If you have seen the video before, I hope you like it as much as the first time you watched it.

So thank you again for your support.  Thank you for reading this post.  If you've bought flies from the online store, thank you very much!  If you've left a comment on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or Tik Tok, I appreciate your interaction.  Thank you for being a part of my fly fishing adventure and for helping me express how much I love fly fishing, fly tying, and being immersed in the outdoors!