Tying Expo

[Randy Diefert]

Check out the innagural Tying expo this weekend in Ellensburg! fish the Yak on Sunday

http://washingtoncouncilfff.org/WAFlyTyingSymposium.htm

Randy

[halcyon]

Unfortunately, it is the same weekend as the 14th annual fly tying expo in Idaho Falls, ID and some of us that would have enjoyed tying in our home state will be in ID. Hopefully, next year the WA FFF Council will be able to schedule so as not to conflict with long standing fly tying expos in other locations.

Regards,

[Randy Diefert]

To bring you up to speed and shine a little brighter light on this thread , I'd like to tell you that for the first Expo put on in Washington it was a well attended event and ran very smoothly. All of the people that I noticed throughout the day were having a great time learning some new techniques and rekindleing old friendships. There was a whole lot of comeraderie there.
The banquet went off without a hitch, A lot of money was raised for Project Healing Waters which in case you weren't aware , is a program that helps injured or disabled Veterans recouperate through the "Hands -on" experience of fly fishing and tying flys which is truely a great program that is enlisting the help of several remarkable volunteers from manty Puget Sound Clubs. I hadn't heard of this program before Saturday night but, Now I'm glad to be a supporter of it. Capt. Eivind Foresth was a powerful speaker and showed great willpower along with all of the other disabled veterans from the recent war.
Another great thing that I was glad to see was when John Newbury recieved his award for the WSCFFF Fly tying Hall of Fame. Well deserved John!
Jimmy LeMert of Patricks Fly shop recieved the Councils Award of Excellence and Tony and Marilyn Vitale received the "Jimmy Green Fly Casting Instructors Award for all of the hard work that they've accomplished.
The beautiful Quilt that Joan Simonson made with the fly fisherman in the river was really nice. It was auctioned off and all of the proceeds from that went to Project Healing waters.
Overall, It was a great Day and Thanks to all that came, stoped and said hello, and to all of you that volunteered your time to make the event the success that it was!
I was happy to finnaly meet Jesse and John Clarke, a couple of the good guys from this site. Although I regretably didn't have enough time to spend with them. Les Johnson and Steve Rohrback was there (you missed Steve tying up some awesome Saltwater patterns). Ron and Krista Torda from all about the Fly (Sponsors), Larry Nicholas, Ronn Lucas, Preston, and a host of other very good tyers and to top it off there was a guy making hooks too. It was very cool stuff, Paul and I watched him for almost an hour.
We even got a little fishing in on the River before heading back to the Westside.
Overall, I could'nt find a way to make it a better weekend.
Randy

[Steve Rohrbach]

Randy, I echo your comments on a special day in Ellensburg. It was amazing to have so many interesting fly tiers in one place. The group was friendly and everyone was sharing techniques and patterns. It was great to see many old friends and to make some new ones. I hope that FFF plans to repeat the event in 2008. It will be a must attend for me.

[flyfishr]

Thank you for the kind words on the Councils first attempt at a fly tying expo. Because of the hard work of many of our Board Members and the support of the fly tying community, the event was a huge success. We are looking forward to next year’s event.

Picking dates is always a problem but due to the fact that there is always something else going on and the availability of venues we will always conflict with some other event. We did learn that the Idaho Falls event is one we do not want to run against in the future. We are in the planning stages for next year’s event - picking a date and a venue, since we have already out grown this year’s venue.

If anyone has suggestions or would like to help with the planning on next year’s event, please contact me.

Carl Johnson
President WSCFF

[P-FITZ98]

Wish I could have gone. John Newbury is my cousin and has taught me everything I know about fishing and tying flys.I an very proud of him, and beleive he is very deserving of the honor he received.Glad to hear it was a good show and hope to make it to the next one with John. Fishing and tying with him is allways a great experience.

[FlyShopKristin]

I need to pile on too - this was a fun event. Thanks to WA FFF Council -- and a special thanks to Carl - for hosting this event. I can only imagine the work behind it - the event was very well organized & overall i say :thumb: :thumb: .

Ron and I are looking forward to next year!