Pics from Best in the West Fly Casting Challenge

I just want to give a huge thanks to Paul Bourq for helping me host this thing, and teaching me and the rest of the crew a lot! I think we had a good event, gave away some great prizes and got to cast with some great guys.
Also want to give a huge thanks to Jimmy at Unicoi for donation of the TFO rod, David Cannon for his great book, and David from River Through Atlanta, and Paymaster for some great Stealthbombers. Russ (Huntfish) made it down and got to help keep score of the distance casting, Shoutout to Huntfish for helping me out! Great having everyone down!
Heres the results: 1st place overall- Robby Elliott(Striptease on NGTO)
2nd Place overall- Derek Geldhauser (Col.Forbin on NGTO)
3rd Place overall- Ted MCcool (turkeyfoot on GON)

1st Place Distance- Derek Geldhauser
2nd Place Distance David Kirby
3rd Place Distance Robby Elliott

Thanks Ben, Heather , Paul and the rest of the crew . It was a lot of fun and I think everybody learned something today. I know I did and had a great time learning . kirby

That was...

the whole reason to get this thing goin. And if I remember correctly you got some flies and a box all the way from NC as well?

WinMag.300 said:

the whole reason to get this thing goin. And if I remember correctly you got some flies and a box all the way from NC as well?

Click to expand...

I sure did !! and a good friend of mine went home with a box of super looking stealth bombers . kirby

Things I learned today .......... First , flyfishing folks are great people ! Of course, I already knew that. LOL I learned a proper way to do a roll cast and before I left , I was doing a lot better . I learned , How to do an around the rock curve cast . I don't quite have this one down yet , but I'm working on it. How to cast through a hoop . This one would have been easier without the wind messing things up . That goes for other casts too, especially the distance cast . The wind had a nasty habit of blowing when my line was about halfway to the target . hehe I learned casting while fishing and casting on a football field are really very different , but similar. I also , have a couple of things I've thought of, that may help me next year , but I'll have to test them out first , before letting others in on my secrets. One thing I would change for next year .... bump the weight restrictions up to 6wts and allow one weight difference in line weight . I heard a couple of guys say they would have like to have brought their 6 weights if the were allowed . I would have brought my St Croix , which I found out yesterday is a 6wt . I always thought it was a 5 . kirby

Had a great time and met some fine gentlemen. Got some tips ,and hope to see you guys on the water.
Thanks for all you did and look forward to next time.

Ben,Heather & Paul, Great job on putting it together. Looks like you had a good turnout; sorry I had already made plans to be out of town. When you schedule another one, I'll hopefully be able to make it.

Dfb:

Thanks so much for contributing when you didnt have to as well. I hope we can do it again, but next time it will definitely be in fall or spring. This event was so HOT, we might as well been on the surface of the sun! Take it easy and look forward to seeing you at this months meetup.