Every day I receive an email from a reader suggesting the Trout Underground is the Bestest Fly Fishing Blog Ever.

(Thanks mom.)

Still, it’s gratifying when an independent rating service not related to me in any way says, in essence:

The Trout Underground is the Bestest Fishing Blog Ever

.

Sure, the ranking’s based on what we’ll euphemistically label incomplete data, but I’m willing to overlook that – even as I zoom in on the tasty fact the Underground’s not simply the Bestest Fly Fishing Blog, but in fact tops the list of the 50 Best Fishing Blogs.

In fact, I’m so overcome with joy and validation and happiness and a warm tingly feeling that I’m experiencing the urge to speak Latin.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

(I gloat. I preen. I strut about obnoxiously.)

Smile - We're #1

I’d like to thank my agent, my publicist, my people, Wally the Wonderdog, my answering machine and my family for standing by me while I blogged for free instead of investing the Underground’s tens of thousands of hours in my business, thereby condemning my family to a life of abject poverty followed by a lingering death in an unheated home.

Yes. It’s a day to be proud.

Of course, I can’t forget my readers, who helped make the Underground #1 (not #1 in the sense that we’re human waste, but that we’re at the pinnacle of the food chain).

As megalomania sets in, it’s clear that the Undergrounders, simply put, are as much to blame as anyone.

See you staring lovingly the mirror, Tom Chandler.