Pleasanton Fly Fishing Show

For me the show season comes to an end for winter 2010. Other than a club meeting talk I’ll give in Tennessee next month, the Pleasanton Fly Fishing Show was my last gig of the regular season. It’s been an action packed seven weeks of hard work and great fun, however now I will gladly take a deep breath and get ready for some hardcore fishing.

The
Pleasanton, California Fly Fishing Show took place Friday, Saturday and Sunday this past weekend. It did not disappoint. In fact, it was one of the best shows I’ve ever been to. The show opened its gates to a long line of enthusiastic anglers at 10 am Friday morning. Usually you expect a light crowd of retired folks on a Friday, but this was not the case. Anglers from throughout California took the day off and were eager to hear about fishing trips, enjoy the many presentations and meet the various vendors and celebrities.

I gave presentations twice each day. I presented PowerPoint shows, “
Four Seasons of the Yellowstone Trout Bum”, “Warmwater Fly Fishing” and “Trout Bumming the World” at the Release Theater. Then during the afternoons I gave casting demonstrations on the indoor casting pond. I had a ball and met a lot of great people. My highlight of the weekend was catching up with old friends such as Ken Holder, Derek Mitchell, Ben Byng, Steve Potter and many others. In particular, I hung out with Phil Rowley of Canada. As you may remember, Phil and I worked together in Boise two weeks ago. Throughout the three days Phil took on several friendly bets on Sundays Gold Medal hockey game, luckily friendly bets is all they were for we all know the final outcome. You can only imagine the drama around my art table as we read the play by play on Phil’s cell phone. Fun stuff and my congrats go to the Canadians.

Another friend whom I rarely get to see was
Gary Borger. As most of you know, Gary has been teaching the skills of fly fishing for decades. Although I have been doing presentations at shows and clubs for years, I always pay great attention to the true masters of our sport when they teach. I made sure to enjoy one if his great casting demonstrations at the outside pond on Sunday. Gary and I spent some time catching up and I listened carefully as he provided me a few tips to help me with my new career. We all can keep track of Gary because like many anglers, he too recently started blogging. Check out what he’s up to at http://www.garyborger.com/.

At last, my fishing travel begins. Although flying home from the show as we speak, Wednesday morning Granny and I will head for the Amazon where we will meet up with my group of peacock bass anglers. The long awaited trip that I am hosting begins in Manaus, Brazil on Thursday. We plan to rest up on the banks of the Rio Negro then head into the jungle on Saturday morning. Water levels are near perfect and when we return on March 15th we should have some great fishing to report. Don’t miss it!

Global Fly Fishing web site

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