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The Washington State Council (WSC) celebrated our 13th Annual Fly Fishing Fair in Ellensburg last month, a great tradition started by Carl Johnson. The fair is the key fundraising event that this year has allowed us to provide $5,717.52 to other nonprofits. During the year we made donations to Casting for Recovery, Coastal Cutthroat Coalition, Olympic Peninsula Fishing Innovations, University of Washington Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, Inland Empire Fly Fishing Club for the Rocky Ford sign project and the Northwest Youth Conservation and Fly Fishing Academy. This sum was a combination of direct donations and auctioning off items at the fair where we supplied the dinner event and the auctioneer. We should all be very proud of those significant contributions. It is impossible to underestimate the importance of the volunteers at the Fair. Thank you everyone!! A special thanks to Carl and Maura who provided invaluable support, knowledge and hard work. There were demonstration tiers, casting instructors, seminar presenters, people and organizations that donated items for the auctions, Peter Maunsel and his group that sorted and displayed mounds of donated items for raffles and both live and silent auctions. Larry Gibbs has been generating funds throughout the year with rod and reel raffles. There were people who kept track of the camping fees, set up tables, moved chairs, put out power lines, and swept up about a billion pounds of feathers after the hall was cleared out. It’s impossible to thank everyone individually in a short article. But wow, what a lot of support. Unfortunately, like many other FFI Councils, we have been seeing a decrease in fair attendance. The attendance decreased in spite of a vigorous Social Media campaign by Steve Jones and Sam Matalone and a stellar Celebrity Fly Fisher in Gary Borger. Lower attendance also [...]
