Fly guys (Tackle store now open for business)

Kevin, Melissa and Daniel Ball have opened their KMD Tackle store in downtown Painesville.

And while the current stock of steelhead fishing and fly tying supplies is so far limited, the place does have a lot of potential plus an eager family that wants to please. The family even has a notepad where customers can jot down things they'd like to see the shop carry.

Best of all the store does have some fly tying supplies that helps take up the slack left by the unfortunate demise of Grand River Tackle. So on Sunday (the day after KMD opened) my wife, Bev, and me were able to gather up a couple of useful items. Among them was a grizzly neck needed to make some size 18 Griffith gnat dry flies for use this summer on Pennsylvania's Cross Fork and Kettle creeks.

And Kevin said he has a mess of supplies and lures on order but they didn't arrive in time for the store's soft opening.

While the shop cannot sell live minnows it will carry other live bait items that are used by steelhead and other anglers.

The store's address is 263 Liberty Street. Painesville, which is two blocks south of the old hospital and on the east side of the street. It's located in a brick building that once housed a karate school. Ample parking is found on the building's south side.

In other outdoor news, I have 16-page letter to the President and drafted by a number of conservation groups such as the Bass Anglers Sportsmen's Society, Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation, the American Sportfishing Association and several others.

Talk about complex, this document is mind-numbing and I'm not even sure what the "U.S. Recreational Fishing & Boating Coalition Comments on White House Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force Interim Framework for Effective Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning" is suppose to accomplish other than it includes the Great Lakes.

And if common folk are unable to understand such a detailed and complex issue outlined by a technically challenging response how do these groups expect to increase awareness let alone solicit support?

I'm kind of gathering the document relates to the possibility the Obama Administration wants to develop a new and more complex bureaucracy for managing ocean and Great Lakes issues. But I'm not entirely sure since the document is awash in technical and wordy verbiage.

Oh, well. It's more fun to tie flies in the evening than it is to read dry and boring reports...

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com