As I found out the hard way, you are never ever really ready for a tradeshow.  On Thursday night I pulled up to the doors at the BC Tradex.  My mind was racing.  A million things to do and a limited amount of time...a bad combo.     

With an hour before the show we were able to transform our 10 by 10 foot booth into a fly tying space that even the most hardcore of tiers would envy.  I never really appreciated how small 100 square feet was until I stepped into our booth.  But with a little creativity and apparently a hidden talent for interior design it all worked out.  

The Young Guns Fly booth...  

The coolest thing about being apart of the show was the help and support we got from a ton of different people.  To start off, the raffle prizes that were donated by Pieroway Rods, Moby Nets, and fly tiers Justin and Dimitri were unbelievable.   

Many thanks go out to the Pieroway, our official sponsor, for not only donating a beautiful custom rod to our raffle, but donating a grand total of eight rods to our group to use at all of our events and youth program.  We can't wait to get kids using these fly rods.

A huge thanks goes out to Don Chatwin, from Moby Nets, who also helped us out by donating a one of a kind handcrafted net, "The Muskrat".    

Justin Berry and Dimitri Roussanidis lent their skill to the raffle by donating some buggy flies to the steelhead box.  I must admit, I was a little jealous of the winners and if it was not for strong will power, a couple of those flies would of ended up at the end of my fly line.   

Not enough can be said about the fine people of Pieroway Rods.  When I first got in contact with the head rod designer, Geoff, I thought I was going to have to put on my salesman hat and sell the "dream".  It wasn't long into our conversation over the phone that Geoff was bouncing off ideas of how they could help us out.  As he said, "Alright, I'm in".    

The very next day I received an email from Geoff and thought, "Cool".  Because, as I've learned there are the "talkers", and then there are the "doers".  Pieroway is a "doer" and they definitely know how to get things done.  Young Guns Fly is looking forward to working with Pieroway and getting more youth into the sport of fly fishing...the possibilities are endless.    

The Young Guns Fly booth was a huge success.  All we really wanted to do was get some kids tying buggy flies and tell people what we were doing.  Well, I think we was mission accomplished.  By the end of the weekend our personal fly tying stock had been ravaged and many young kids walked away with their very first creation.  It was a ton of fun...by far the best part of the whole event.  

I do believe a few new fly recipes were invented by some up-and-coming local fishing talents...watch out fish!!!

...and with the big show come the big names.  I stopped by April Vokey's booth to hang-out for a bit.  She did some awesome casting demos for kids over the weekend.  I even talked to one dad that said April spent 40 minutes giving his daughter a private casting lesson.  The very next day his daughter bought her very first fly rod...very cool!

I also got the chance to talk to  Kevin "Sturgeon Slayer" Estrada and RA Beattie.  Kevin is another one of those guys in the industry who has been really awesome to work with and has done a lot to help promote our group.  And RA Beattie is pretty much a fly fishing celebrity.  His movies are unbelievable and he is a really cool dude to boot.  

I actually saw a private showing of the Fly Fishing Film Tour , which RA had a killer film in, last week and it was truly epic.  I can't wait until we show it in Vancouver on the big screen this August.  

YOU GUYS AND GALS ARE GOING TO FREAK OUT!!!  

And so after a weekend of tying flies with the next generation of fly fishers, and giving people the scoop of what we were all about there was only one thing left to do, " The drawing of the Young Guns Fly raffle".  

Geoff had the honour of drawing the raffle for us Sunday afternoon and picked three great winners.  Thanks to all who supported our group by buying a raffle ticket and to those who donated the prizes.  

The Crew:  Tim Kilcullen, Franky Blanchet, Justin Berry, Pieroway, Yos from Chromer, and the Whistler dudes.  

-Thanks for all the help, wouldn't have happened without you-

...and we are truly thankful to Les, who donated the booth to our group.  We are already looking forward to next year!