About Gary LaFontaine Scientist, writer, teacher, and iconoclast, Gary LaFontaine (right, with Jack Dennis) has changed the way a lot of us think about fishing through his numerous books and instruction. Gary was diagnosed with ALS, a terminal disease, three years ago. The fundraising efforts to help support the extremely high costs for care, while they have helped a great deal, need to continue. Gary is currently working on his next book about Blue-winged Olives.

Folks, I just wanted to take a minute to draw your attention to a pretty cool event taking place on line right now: a charity fundraiser called A World of Flies. The beneficiary is fly-fishing author and luminary Gary LaFontaine, who is currently battling ALS (Lou Gherig's disease). For the second year running, event coordinator Paul Dieter has received fly and product donations from fly fishers all over the world. Many have come from the tightly-knit community of fly fishers at Virtual Flyshop, who have tied hundreds of flies in support of the event.

I encourage you to have a look at the benefit page at www.flyshop.com/LaFontaine, and contribute however you can. There are still two lots of flies to be raffled off and a couple of cool auctions.

We appreciate the contributions Gary has made to the sport, and support Paul and the fly-fishing community's efforts to help out in his battle with ALS. Good luck Gary!