2009 Fly Rod Building Contest

Monday, April 20th, 2009 | National Capital

 

March 17, 2009

Project Healing Waters hosted its first ever “Fly Rod Building Contest” this year in an ongoing effort to help their Wounded Warriors.

About 55 participants in a dozen clubs around the US signed up to build, which was for most of them, their first fishing rod ever.  Classes were held by PHW volunteers who had some experience building fly fishing rods and chapters from California to Maine were represented.  The rods were to be built by participating soldiers with instructions from the volunteers, but the complete building and finishing of the rod had to be done solely by the individual program members.  The materials for building the rods were received in December 2008, and the actual construction took place from January 1 – March 17, 2009. 

About 18 of the participants submitted finished fly rods for the final competition.  Two categories of winners were judged.  The first group was represented by those soldiers who had disabling wounds, injuries or illnesses of the upper limbs or nervous system causing greater than 10% loss of use of their upper limbs or illnesses/injuries causing greater than 10% loss of vision.  The second group included all others who participated in the event.  Prizes were a choice of fishing trips offered by Project Healing Waters, to the top 3 winners in each group

 

The folks at The Hook & Hackle Company judged the rods according to 4 different criteria:  accuracy, neatness, creativity and overall.  The winners in the first group were:

1.     George Draper

2.     Rusty Emmerton

3.     Robert Cruz

The winners in the second group were:

1.     Jesse Garza

2.     Carol Russell

3.     Bruce Beebe

We view the contest as a success and look forward to making this an annual event for PHW.