Get your bass bugs ready for our Sweetwater Classic
First off, wishing all our fellow fly anglers and their loved ones the best wishes for a safe, healthy, and prosperous year ahead. May your loops be tight and your flies get victimized often. And may there be many great fishing stories to tell, even if some are borderline truth.
As you can see from the Calendar page, there are many great activities coming up this Spring for those of us in the Gulf Coast Council, and in our neighboring councils.
The highlight for the Gulf Coast Council will be our first-ever “Gulf Coast Sweetwater Classic” on Friday-Saturday, March 13th and 14th at Percy Quin State Park near McComb, MS. This event will be part tournament, part festival. Many activities including casting instruction and skills challenge, fly tying demonstrations, a seminar or two, raffles, and of course, lots of fishing! Lake Tangipahoa is a trophy bass fishery, but also offers great crappie and redear action too. Proceeds from the tournament and raffles/auction to benefit the GCC conservation and education projects. Admission to the park and festival is free, there’s an entry fee for the tournament. Look for the Classic webpage here in the next week.
A trio of regional clubs will be hosting festivals featuring seminars, fly tying demos, casting instruction, and much more. The Kisatchie Fly Fishers will host their biennial “Cenla Fly Fishing & Light Tackle Festival” on Saturday, January 18th. The Red Stick Fly Fishers will host their annual “Red Stick Day” fly fishing festival on Saturday, March 7th. The Texas Fly Fishers of the FFI Texas Council will host their annual “Dr. Ed Rizzolo Fly Tying Festival” on Saturday, February 8th.
In addition, the Kisatchie club and the Fly Fishers of Northwest Florida (Pensacola) clubs will be having introductory fly fishing clinics this Spring. These intensive clinics put a premium on casting – the gateway to fly fishing success. They’ll have FFI Certified Casting Instructors leading their programs.
