5th National Fly Fishing Championships & Conservation SYmposium
Posted on November 6th, 2006 by Rodney Hsu, webmaster

The 5th Fly Fishing Canada National Fly Fishing Championships and Conservation Symposium will be held at Grande Prairie, Alberta, in late September of 2007. The dates aren't yet carved in stone, but 18-22 September are looking good.

Once the preliminary correspondence and phone calls were dealt with, John Beaven, National Competitions Chairman, of Parksville, BC, and Mac Stark, Sponsorship Chairman of Yellowknife, NWT, visited Grande Prairie on 7-10 October. A modern, cosmopolitan city of 44,000, it is located about 460 km northwest of Edmonton. It is readily accessible via highway or air (WestJet or Air Canada Jazz).

Their first day was spent checking out the area's rivers within reasonable driving distance, the second its lakes. None of the rivers were deemed suitable for competition fishing, but three lakes and one pond were considered excellent choices. Moonshine Lake is stocked with rainbow and brook trout, while Spring Lake and Swan Lake have rainbows, as does Kakut Pond. The lakes will be set up for boat fishing, and the pond will have beats established along the shoreline for casting from shore.

A meeting was then held with representatives from tourism, business and recreation. The roll call at this well-attended meeting included:

Emilia Browne, Grande Prairie Regional Tourism Association
Louise Cote, Grande Prairie Regional Tourism Association
Ron Dallaire, Tackle Shack
Lorraine Ehlert, Service Plus Inns
Jim Epp, Peace Country Fly Fishers
Craig Johnson, Alberta Fish and Wildlife
Jean-Marc Lacasse, City of Grande Prairie
Perky McCullough, Director of the Alberta Sport, Recreation, Parks and Wildlife Foundation.

John said the meeting went very well, and it was quite apparent that those in attendance were eager to promote the area's recreational fishing potential.

If you are interested in learning a bit more about what I'm told is now Canada's second-fastest growing community, check out the following web sites:

www.cityofgp.com
www.gpab.net
www.discoverthepeacecountry.com

There will be periodic updates as more news becomes available. The entry fee will remain at $250, and the addresses for registering by mail or by Internet will be posted as soon as they are finalized. In the meantime, if you send me your name and mailing address, I will see that it is passed on to the tourism folks at Grande Prairie for any future mailings they might have in mind.

Congratulations to Peter Huyghebaert of Nanaimo, BC, the recent recipient of the BCFFF Jack Shaw Fly Tying Award, which recognizes master fly tiers who excel in the art and craft of fly tying. Peter comes by it honestly. During his military career he had opportunities to fish throughout Canada, the eastern USA and Scotland, and while stationed in New Brunswick, he studied tying under Wally Doak and Frank Wilson. Members of the Ottawa Flyishers Society will remember him as a founding member in 1983, along with Dr. Eden Bromfield and Paul Marriner, a Past President and Life Member.

"A Compendium of Canadian Fly Patterns" is still available through mail order only, with all profits destined for the Youth Branch of Fly Fishing Canada. It's a 9x11-inch, spiral-bound hardcover edition with 240 pages and over 1,600 fly patterns in full colour. Check it out on the Fly Fishing Canada web site.

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