Zach Matthews
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
We depose eyewitnesses wherever they may be in cases with as much potential exposure as this one has.
I dug this, which I think might be our most venerable post, back up in order to add the shots from this weekend.
Tim –
If I may say so, if you had left the flies in those fishes’ mouths, I suspect those would be cover shot candidates for the magazines.
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