S everal years ago while having breakfast with Dennis Potter I threw out an idea of the Grand River Fly Tyer’s (GRFT) club of hosting its own fly tying expo. As acting president at the time and in support of our club’s mission, I was looking for ways to encourage and promote the art of fly-tying and fly-fishing through education.
Dennis, a nationally known fly tyer and fly designer would certainly have an opinion and an opinion he did! Dennis asked question after question. It became clear to me that Dennis was only lukewarm to my idea when he said, “I don’t think you can pull this off, Wolf!” We decided to investigate a possible venue just in case this idea might work.
We went to the Knights of Columbus in Clyde Park where we met with Paul, the manager. As soon as Dennis saw the facility with all the tables and chairs arranged for the weekly fish fry, he got noticeably excited. and said, “I think we can do this!”
With the venue set, we picked a date, gathered a volunteer set-up crew from our club membership, and started calling fly tying experts. We set up tables for 35 tyers and invited people such as the well-known Bamboo Rod maker, Ron Barch, and custom net maker, Dr. Sam Lacina. We invited big fly tying names from the fly tying community such as Jeff “Bear” Andrews, Kevin Feenstra, Ray Schmidt, and Jerry Drake. Dennis arranged two monitors on stage for demo tyers, so the audience was able to observe every detail of how the tyer created a fly. That last Saturday in February finally came, and the first Celebration of Fly Tying was a great success! Thanks to the great job of Dennis as the chair, the enthusiasm of our club members, and last but not least Paul’s troops at the Knights of Columbus.
Our event is now called the “INVITATIONAL CELEBRATION OF FLY TYING” and we are celebrating our seventh year! We have enjoyed sharing our knowledge about fly tying and fly fishing with many people and look forward to doing so in the years to come. Join us for this year’s Celebration of Fly Tying Event on February 28, 2015!
Now you know the rest of the story.