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President's Message
by Art Hawkins |
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For those of you who didn’t sign up to go to the Past Presidents’ Picnic and those of you that signed up but whimped out because of the weather, you missed another great GBF event. I have to admit that I wasn’t one of the hardy soles that camped out in the rain on Thursday and/or Friday night, but I did get up at O’Dark-thirty on Saturday and made it up to Fuller Lake by 8:00 am to sign in for the One Fly Contest. Actually I lucked out in that I had a commitment on Friday that I couldn’t change so I hadn’t planned to camp out this year. The weather on Saturday while cool was great compared to the previous two days. Last year there were so many float tubes and pontoon boats on the lake that it looked more like bumper boats than a fishing derby. This year the number of participants was down (due to the weather) yet we still had over 40 entrants in the contest.
The official start time was 9 am but I have to admit I was still getting my act together on dry land so I didn’t stand a chance of getting the prize for the first fish landed. For the next 3 hours there were 40 of us trying to land the most fish, the biggest fish or as a last resort, the smallest fish. In fact it was so competitive I even heard some cursing when a wee trout landed turned out to be an inch bigger than the smallest one already radioed into One-Fly Central. Once I got underway it only took about 10 minutes to land my first fish and I thought, hey this is going to be a good day. But alas, it took an hour before the second fish came along that couldn’t resist my fly offering. All told I caught 6 average fish and I managed not to be in the drawing for the prize for having been skunked. There were prizes for the first to lose their fly, the Biggest Rainbow, Biggest Brown, Smallest Rainbow and Smallest Brown. There was even a prize given to an unnamed Flycaster who was whooping and hollering while catching a really big one that turned out to be a stick fish. At the end of the contest Michael Kaul was the big winner having caught the most fish (17).
Meanwhile, back at the Bear River Campground, the BBQ crew under the leadership of Head Chef Tony Hamamoto was busy BBQ’ing a ton of ribs and chicken for the traditional Saturday evening meal. And while all this cooking was going on Mike Powers and Frank Massey got their Not-So-Special Olympics underway. No one had practiced for these events because no one had ever played these “sports” before. Teams of two were established by drawing names out of a hat. The first event was Backwards Casting for Accuracy – while looking forward, the caster makes several false casts and then tries to drop the fly as close as possible to the target behind them. Next up was Two Handed Horse Shoes. It would be hard enough for one person to hold a horse shoe with both hands and try to make a ringer; well try it with two persons holding the shoe. Standing side-by-side, one Flycaster with his right hand holding the horseshoe and the other Flycaster with his or her left hand holding the shoe; then 1, 2, 3 let it fly. As if that wasn’t hard enough there were other handicaps like Larry Goodell (his towering 6’ 5” or so frame) paired with Joe Johnson’s wife (all 5’ of her). I was truly surprised how well they did. And the last event started with a 10 minute scavenger hunt for materials found on the forest floor then brought back to the camp area and tied into something resembling a fly. The creativity shown by the teams was truly remarkable. These “Olympics” were a fun and entertaining time for the participants as well as those who chose to watch us make fools of ourselves.
After the games concluded Tony and his assistant chefs rolled out one really sumptuous meal. There were enough ribs, chicken and hot dogs to be the sole item on our plates. But supplementing these BBQ delights were salads of every description (fruit, green, potato, Cesar to name a few of the offerings) and desserts to die for (cakes, pies, home made cookies and berry cobbler).
All in all it was another great GBF Get Together. Special thanks go to Tony Hamamoto for buying the meat and being an outstanding head chef, to Gary Flanagan for sourcing the prizes and officiating the One-Fly Contest, and to Mike Powers & Frank Massey for dreaming up the wacky games and running the Not-So-Special Olympics. These games were a real kick and need to become a regular part of our annual Past Presidents’ Picnic in the years that follow. In fact, if Mike and Frank put their heads together again, I’ll bet they will come up with some even wackier ones.
Finally, I won’t be at the August General Meeting but I do have an “excused absence” – I will be fishing in Montana and remember, this is a fishing club. This will be my tenth consecutive year of making the 17 hour drive to Rock Creek for a week of outstanding fishing in Big Sky Country. Thanks in advance to Paul Meyers who will conduct the meeting in my absence.
Tight lines…. Art
Art Hawkins President Granite Bay Flycasters
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