Each year I go to the Fly Fishing Show I bring along good intentions. In my head I’m telling myself that I’m going to meet and talk to a lot of people. I’m going to take a lot of pictures. I’m going to learn a ton of new stuff. Needless to say, none of that ever happens, but I have a good time nonetheless.
For whatever the reason, I hardly took any pictures. But the few I snapped, I’ll drop below for the sake of doing so.
When I walked into the show, literally one of the first “booths” featured this driftboat from Blue Ridge Boatworks. Believe it or not, I’ve never fished from a driftboat in my life, but after going on a quest several years ago I was impressed by the fact that this particular model (the King Fisher Skiff) was made of plastic, not fiberglass or metal or whatever they’re usually made of.
The guy at the booth (I forget his name, again I’m doing really crappy reporting here) was very enthusiastic to tell me how the boat is pretty much impossible to break, like they bounce it off rocks intentionally to no ill effect.
Next, I took these photos of the very orange Luong Tam at the Tenkara Tanuki booth. He was selling his tenkara and nymphing rods and was attracting a pretty nice crowd all day. He also did a fairly well attended presentation on “The Art of Fly Fishing with a Tenkara Rod.”
Shoutout to Amanda Hoffner as well. She was there helping Luong at the Tanuki booth and nudged me to do our first “Instagram Live” on behalf of the Tenkara Angler Instagram account.
Note: If you don’t know what a tanuki is, do yourself a favor and Google it. And if you’re a dude, you’ll never think of your scrotum in the same way agin. Think I’m joking, go ahead and take a peek… I dare you…
There was a lot of great art at the show. I think I liked the Danforth Art booth the best of them all. It’s probably why it was the only one I took photos of. Brightly colored renditions of all species – from trout to bass to tarpon, it was pretty cool. Reminded me of the Estrada Art stuff I’m also a fan of. I probably should have bought a print, but I didn’t. I might still… I don’t know. Man, I’m so wishy-washy these days.
I watched Gary Borger do a casting clinic for a little bit too. Not really much to say about this other than it’s really rad to watch somebody do something that they are really good at. One of these days I’ll take some legit casting lessons. My casting is good enough to get by on small water, but bigger water and longer casts just aren’t my thing. Maybe that’s why I never really took to the salt.
Speaking of watching people do what they’re good at, I did take in a few of the “Featured Fly Tier” presentations. I even got frisky and took some video of Tim Flagler tying wet flies. He was tying a traditional partridge & orange, but couldn’t find his smaller hooks (think he was looking for a size 14), so he tied it on a size 8 instead.
Ed Engel‘s presentation on small nymphs was excellent and he passed the specimens around the audience for everyone to gawk at.
Maybe one of these years my buddy Jonathan Antunez will be on that stage tying kebari. I was bummed that I missed Landon Mayer‘s session on guide flies. Next year I guess…
A little to the right of the fly tiers were these crazy pickup truck campers. I’m not sure if they were for sale or rent or whatever, I was just overwhelmed by the size. (That’s what she said). As someone known to sleep in the back of his CR-V while trout bumming, these look a little bit overkill. But if you have the cash or motivation or whatever, the gearhead in me can’t deny how impressive these rigs were. I guess that’s why I took photos.
The last photo I took from the show was of my friend Karin Miller from Zen Tenkara doing her presentation on “Big Fish on Tenkara”. I think this was one of the last clinics for the day and I’m glad I sat in on it. Many of the concepts she went over not only applied to using tenkara rods, but could be used with a fly rod and reel as well.
Karin is a pretty badass angler and catches some monsters. If I remember right she told me her next trip was to go to the Seychelles to chase GTs… although likely not with a tenkara rod.
So those were the photos I took. I totally neglected taking pictures of the joint DRAGONtail / Moonlit booth, despite spending a fair amount of time talking to friends there. I also forgot to snap any of the reel porn found at booths like Hardy, Bauer, or any of the shops selling Abel reels as I intended. The gentlemen at the Fincognito, On the Fly Magazine, and Thomas & Thomas booths were also very friendly. No pictures there either. And next time I’m definitely snapping a selfie with the guy selling rain gutter guards.
Suppose I did take this one last photo on the way home while stopping in a convenience store along I-75. It’s only fitting I end the post with this, especially because amazingly, it isn’t blurry…
You had me at ‘balls’. Michael, I am glad you are writing more here. I really enjoy it. Looking forward to fishing with you in GSMNP someday. Had my first trip last year and was blown away.
Thanks Mike, appreciate the visit and the kind words.
Love the write up! I will never forget what tanuki means now. I had no idea! Thank you for sharing that tid bit. Haha! I also really enjoy that last photo. That Sasquatch is perfect. Great to see you’re keeping up the blog and welcome to WordPress, Mike!
Thanks Carf. A sasquatch sighting outside the beer fridge in an interstate gas station is not easily forgotten. Still working through the transition, but fun to be writing again!