The Northern California Fly Fishing Board

If you attended the Festival, please take the time to let us know your thoughts. What could be improved? What did you enjoy?

Thanks

Dustin

The average age was in the late fifties (it seemed). Same old people. About as exciting as a knitting club. After a half hour my friends and I left and went fishing (it was slow, but at least not boring). Some people seemed to be enjoying themselves, simply not my cup of tea.

I attended on Saturday from 9:30 to 3:00. It was the first NCCFFF conclave I have attended and I liked the event.

I thought the workshops that were provided were a good mix. Lots of good destination specific presentations. There were a good number of casting classes that seemed to be very well attended. There were five guys from my club (Stanislaus Fly Fishers)that took the fly casting clinic with Al Kyte, and that was excellent, although I have to say that I was totally overloaded with information (not a bad thing!).

Our club participated in the rod building contest, for which I was the designated builder. This added a lot of interest for me and it was great to see all of the various club's rods in the silent auction hall. Friend of the board Pappy won first place with his entry for the Shasta/Trinity Fly Fishers. As usual, it was a beautiful rod.

For constructive criticism, let me toss out a few thoughts:

1. The PA system in the main hall was ineffective. This was probably due mostly to the amount of noise there, but the speaker was almost completely unintelligible.

2. There was no good schedule (that I saw) that included all of the scheduled events. I was able to find out via word of mouth that there would be a presentation of the winners for the rod building contest in the main hall, but no information on what time it would take place.

3. A handout with a map of the venue, with the various rooms and meeting locations ID'd would have helped. Our casting class took place on the lawn in the back, but we were to meet in the main entry way. But none of this was shown on paper. You had to luck out and hear the (nearly unintelligible) announcement before the event.

Those are the only things that jump out at me as being an issue. I really liked the facility, and thought that the layout was great from the standpoint of how the conclave events worked. Lodi is also a good location for me, being from the Modesto Area.

What were your thoughts on how attendance worked out? Were there more members there this year as compared to holding the event in Redding?

One other thing comes to mind. The Stanislaus Fly Fishers is located pretty close to Lodi. There are a good group of guys in our club that would loved to have lent a helping hand (and were told that our help could have been used). Give us a call next time.

Thanks for all of the hard work you put into the event, Dustin, it really showed.


Buzz

Did they give any reason as to the change in location? Redding was a pretty good location for this event and it was well attended during the three years it was held there.

I know the number of attendees from Northern CA (Redding and points north) was likely drastically reduced due to the current high cost of gas.

Brian

Redding is a great venue and we hope to return in a year or two. Fact is that the Shasta Trinity Fly Fishers and the very hard working Shasta Mayflies really needed two years off. It takes a heck of a lot of work to put on one of these events and the Lodi convention center was fantastic.

@ Maz- What could we have done to make it your cup of tea? Do you belong to a knitting club as well?
@ Buzz- Thanks for participating in the Rod Building Contest. Pappy also donated a rod for the raffle that he wove the Project Healing Waters Logo onto the blank. Once again it was beautiful work. As for the CC: I would have thought that they could have had the PA System cover the entire building so that it could have been heard in all the rooms. It might have helped if I had been making announcements, but I thought that I heard Herman OK while he was doing them (and I in the room of course). I did not even hear about the presentation of the award for the rod-building contest. Also I thought that the General Raffle could have been better off in Crete Hall where the fly tying theater was. This was our first crack at this and I came away with a few suggestions for next year, if we have it in the same location. One of which is to involve more clubs in the process of planning it. Split up the major functions between the clubs and have one club in charge of one thing, like speakers, registration, auction/raffle etc. Thanks for the feedback though.
@Bamboofisher As Marty said the clubs wanted a break. After helping Herman coordinate this event I can definitely see why. The other issue is the attendance seems to stagnate if you have it in the same location for a long period of time. The same gas argument could have been used for everyone down south about driving to Redding for Conclave. Lodi is about the geographic center of the council (North to South in California). It is almost equidistant from Redding as it is from Fresno.

Anyone else?

Since Northern CA covers such a large area (some of the counties are larger than some states in the northeast), it's probably best to rotate the location around and not have it in one place for too long for reasons you and Marty have mentioned.

I belong to the flyfishing club here in Siskiyou CO so can certainly understand why the flyfishing clubs in the Redding area needed a break from organizing the event, etc.

I'll mention the reasons for moving the location from Redding to Lodi at our next monthly meeting later this month since some members may not know the reasons why.

Brian

Hi,

I liked the location since it was only 80 miles from Oakland. The hall was fine with free parking. Maps of where the rooms were located would have definitely been helpful. The raffle room was kinda far away from the central action.

The major problem I had is with the date. Why is it in October which is prime flyfishing time in California? Why not move it up to August when it's usually to hot for good fishing. Also the American Casting Association NorthwestTournament was being held the same weekend at GGACC in San Francisco. members of the GGACC, Oakland Casting Club and San Jose are casting at the tournament instead of being able to attend the Conclave. I think better date selection would definitely allow more people to attend the event.

I enjoyed the presentations by Ralph Wood and Jerry N. I was able to hear everything.

Loretta