With the announcement this week by the American Fly Fishing Trade Association (AFFTA) that it would “sponsor and/or endorse and/or ignore and/or relocate an Independent Fly Fishing show in 2010,” it came as welcome news to the industry this morning that the trade group has settled on the lobby of the Rock Springs, Wyoming, EconoLodge as the location.
“Since nobody could seem to choose between Salt Lake City and Denver, we decided to meet in the middle,” says group spokesperson Tawnya McMend. “Plus, the girls over at Mike’s Astro Lounge are offering free table dances to the first 50 guys not named Cody.”
Other local activities available to show attendees include cow-tipping and windmill-watching:
Much confusion had been brewing recently over where next year’s Flyfishing Retailer Show might be held, especially after an Outdoor Retailer show director sent an open invitation to all flyfishing companies, asking them to come join O. R. in Salt Lake.
However, that invitation was quickly called into question, since the author wrote that “more than 25 percent of Flyfishing Retailer companies already exhibit at Outdoor Retailer”—clearly forgetting to add a decimal point between the 2 and the 5.
Thankfully, none of that matters now. But attendees in Rock Springs will need to act fast, as the only date the EconoLodge had available was on Feb 7, from noon til 6 p.m.. Also, though winter fishing will be available on the nearby tailwaters of the Green and North Platte, a scheduling conflict with a local snowmobile club meant the casting pond had to be relocated to this Twin Falls I-Hop:
See you all there!!
Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.