Troutfest this Weekend
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Hey guys –
Troutfest is this weekend at the visitor’s center in Townsend, Tennessee. There’s a banquet tonight (tickets available at Little River Outfitters) then the event itself will be Saturday and Sunday.
Here’s the event schedule with locations:
http://troutfest.org/PAGES/schedule.htm
I’ll be giving beginner casting lessons on Saturday and Sunday at 10AM in Casting Area 2 and advanced casting lessons on Saturday and Sunday at 12PM in Casting Area 2.
The beginner lessons are open to all ages (and genders!) I’m a certified instructor and all that but mostly I believe in teaching casting in the lowest-stress situation I can create. We’ll customize the lessons to you (or your wife or kid) and make it upbeat and fun. Positive reinforcement is the way to go in my opinion.
The advanced lessons will probably be more collaborative than instructive. If you have a Fly-O bring it; we’re definitely going to be looking at single hand spey casting techniques, and we will also definitely be doing some distance casting. If you have a tailing loop issue when you reach out we can work on fixing that.
Looking forward to seeing you and tell your friends! The event is free to enter although you may need to donate a few bucks for parking. Last year 4,000 people came in a thunderstorm. This year we’re looking at a 30% chance of spotty showers but nothing like last time. Vendors will be there from most of the major manufacturers; I passed Dave Chouinard’s Simms bus on the way up from Florida yesterday on the highway. Bet he’s going to Troutfest!
See you there.
ZachPS Seriously tell your friends.
Nice list of headliners. I have heard of Bob Clouser, Joe Humphreys, Lefty Kreh and Tom Rosenbauer, but who is Zach Matthews?
This is really great to hear man. You gotta feel proud of yourself to be in that line up. Keep up the good work bud. Make sure you swing through God’s country this Fall so we can do some fishing.
Hey guys –
I am not sure if very many of our fellow Georgia folks made it up or not (I met a couple), but I just wanted to post a note about this year’s festival.
Byron told me the head count on Saturday was between 1500-1800 people. They were trying to figure out how many folks were just walking in on all the footpaths as opposed to parking cars. That’s amazing attendance for a fly fishing show of any kind, and especially outside of a major city.
The vendors at the show included Simms (their Southeast Rep Dave Choiunard is always a treat with his Simms bus and his really extensive knowledge of their product’s features; as good as anybody’s at the actual factory), as well as Scientific Anglers, St. Croix, Mystic, Ross Reels, Lamson/Waterworks, Orvis and TFO. Lots of the stuff there was product you may not have seen on store shelves; Scientific Anglers for instance is already distributing product which will be “new” this summer to their reps for sneak peaks.
As always there were tons of cool displays, including some on honeybees, trout reproduction, and interesting sportsmen’s NGOs that I hadn’t heard of (more than just Ducks Unlimited and Trout Unlimited). Healing Waters had guys tying for wounded combat vets (and it is indeed impressive to see a dude with two carbon fiber legs casting a fly rod like a champ and obviously getting around just fine).
Kids had games, face painting, various animals and plenty of food to keep them interested. All the kids I saw looked like they were actually having a good time.
Paula Begley put together a wickedly difficult Smokies casting course. You had to hit a target the size of a tea saucer. You mountain guys can do that; we tailwater anglers not so much. 🙂
And of course there were lots of free casting seminars and lessons. I think probably 20-30 people on average watched the seminars I taught, and probably three times that were crowded around Lefty. Lefty just is an amazing presenter of the art of fly casting. Not only is he a spectacular caster, but he really has the common touch and can make things appealing which otherwise might be dry and boring. His trick of casting with just the tip top of a rod still impresses me even having seen it many times.
Troutfest is a yearly thing, so if you missed it, I’d encourage you to consider going next year. The fishing in the Park was excellent by all reports with huge hatches of Yellow Sally Stoneflies coming off. This festival is getting stronger and better every year and it’s really become the go-to event in the Southeast for fly fishermen.
Zach
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