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NCCFFF Festival of Fly Fishing in Lodi draws over 450 in attendance

by Jerry Neuburger
October 13, 2008 -- Lodi CA -- Over 450 people attended the three day NCCFFF Festival of Fly Fishing in Lodi over the weekend of October 10-12. The show featured Dan Blanton, noted author and fly fisher, with a program on Delta Striped Bass and a session on how to tie his favorite delta flies. Other speakers did presentations on Delta Largemouth, Sierra trout and other exotic fishing locations in both North and South America as well as basic to advanced fishing techniques.

This year's festival, hosted by the Delta Fly Fishers and Amador Fly Fishers, drew over 50 demonstration fly tiers. They tied dozens of fly boxes full of flies that were bid on as part of the festival's silent auction.

The two club presidents, Herman Spalinger of Delta and Dustin Rockwold of Amador put together a star studded team to pull the event off. Steve Cooper was in charge of programs, Charlie Edwards - facility and vendors, Dan McDaniel - auctions and raffles, Ron Forbes - banquet, Bill Laughlin - chili and sausage feed, Lowell Ashbaugh - pre-registration, Jerry Neuburger on-site registration, and Doug Ridgeway - publicity. The chairs were helped by a host of volunteers from both clubs, all of whom worked longer than they had pledged to make the festival a success.

The event started Thursday evening with 65 attending the wine tasting and hors-de-vours at Jessie's Grove Winery west of Lodi. The exhibits and presentations started on mid day Friday and were followed by a chili and sausage feed provided by the Delta and Amador clubs with 125 attending.

Thirty seven vendors set up booths that varied from pontoon boats, drift boats and travel destinations to retail vendors of fly fishing equipment and supplies. Mike McKenzie, aided by Chris Shutes, Corey Cate and Richard Izmirian manned CSPA's new booth in the exhibit hall during the show and collected a new series of donors and subscribers to the CSPA weekly newsletter.

Friday's activities drew the attention of the Lodi News Sentinel's staff and the event became the principal front page story on the newspaper's Saturday morning edition. The article, GETTING HOOKED, can be found on line by clicking on the linked title.

Even though it was windy Saturday morning, the fly casting demonstrations on the spacious front lawn at Hutchins Street Square featuring famous fly casting instructors such as Al Kyte and Woody Woodson  drew even more people in and by 3:45pm when registration shut down, over 450 people had walked through the doors. Saturday's afternoon activities were closed with a general raffle with over 130 prizes awarded.

A Saturday night banquet followed with a delicious salad, steak, pasta, grilled vegetable dinner catered by Angelina's. Sacramento's Bill Carnazzo, won the NCCFFF Fly Tier of the Year award and El Dorado Irrigation District's Immediate Past President, Bill George presented the volunteers of Caples Lake Rescues I and II an award of excellence accepted for them by Chris Shutes for CSPA and CSPA's Jerry Neuburger standing in for Trout Unlimited's Barbara Bania.

The dinner was followed by a live auction featuring some great fish art as well as fly shadow boxes, gift certificates and a guided delta trip for four with gourmet lunch guided by Captains Jerry Neuburger and Mike McKenzie, both of CSPA.

The event continued through Sunday with on-the-water fishing clinics extending from the Tuolumne River to the Yuba.

Early estimates of the conclave's net profit vary from between $20,000 and $25,000. The money will be spent on various education and conservation projects connected with fly fishing and California's fisheries.
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