Announcing the Winners of the 2016 PHWFF Rod Building Contest
Veteran participants from across the country submitted hundreds entries to the 2016 PHWFF Rod Building Program and Contest. Contest host Ron Weiss of The Hook & Hackle Company, was astounded with the high quality of rods submitted for the 2016 competition. The annual PHWFF Rod Building Program wouldn’t be possible without the tremendous support of Ron Weiss, The Hook & Hackle Company, and all those who contributed their time, talents, and expertise to judging the high volume of entries. Due to the tremendous skills of those veterans participating, the judges spent over 100 hours methodically reviewing all the submissions. We’re pleased to announce the winners of the 2016 PHWFF Rod Building Contest!
The judges of the contest vary from year-to-year but typically include: Professional Rod Builder, Lay Person, Hook & Hackle employees, PHWFF participant, and a PHWFF volunteer. These judges use a 10 point scale for the 3 Categories that include: “Neatness” (evenness of the thread wraps, no excess glues or finishes on blank/grip/seat, etc); “Functionality” (guide spacing, components in line, etc.); “Creativity” (open to interpretation of the judges) and so on. The totals are then tallied for each participant and the winners in each category with the highest overall scores are the winners.
The top three winners in each category are eligible for the National Rod Building Contest prizes including: 3 slots in the 2017 Bamboo Bend Project in Grayling, Michigan or a PHWFF National Destination trip. Congratulations to each of the winners and all the volunteers who helped to teach them their rod building skills and techniques. It was very difficult for the judges to select the contest winners due to the high caliber of this years submissions.
And the winners are:
Join us in congratulating all those who took part in this fun, annual contest! It is always remarkable to see the incredible creativity and craftsmanship of our amazing participants. Their awesome talents were truly on display with the fine fly rods submitted by those participating. Our thanks, again, goes out to Ron Weiss and the employees of Hook & Hackle for their support of this yearly endeavor! They put tremendous effort into making this annual contest possible for PHWFF.