MOLLY SEMENIK BY JOHN BERRY

The North Arkansas Fly Fishers (NAFF), our local fly fishing club, which is affiliated with the Federation of Fly Fishers, sponsors the Sowbug Roundup. This is the best produced and most successful local fishing event and has been gathering a lot of national notice and respect in recent years. A successful show like this also creates a nice source of revenue. NAFF uses a substantial portion of these revenues to currently fund $13,200.00 in scholarships for local area college students. 

Another primary use is to bring in National speakers on fly fishing to help educate the public. Such an event will occur this weekend Saturday, October 29 and Sunday, October 30 at Gaston’s Visitors Center over looking Bull Shoals Dam. It will feature Molly Semenik a Federation of Fly Fishers Master Certified Casting Instructor, a member of the Federation of Fly Fishers Certified Casting Instructors Board of Governors, an experienced professional fly fishing guide and outfitter, an accomplished fly tyer and author. The programs will run from 9:00 AM till 4:00 PM on Saturday and from 9:00 AM till 3:00 PM on Sunday. Attendance is open to the public at no charge. 

Molly is known primarily as a casting instructor and the range of programs she is presenting illustrates this. On Saturday, she begins with a seminar, on fly casting faults and fixes, based on the most common casting errors she sees, when guiding and teaching. Then she concludes the day with a seminar, on accuracy casting. Both are taught outside and feature group participation. On Sunday, her casting seminars are about distance casting and making the Spey cast with a single hand rod. 

She has several travelogue type presentations featuring the Yellow Stone River (she guided there for fourteen years), Tarpon fishing in Florida, Steelhead fishing in the Pacific Northeast and Christmas Island. She will also talk about fly fishing technique like how to fish from a boat or how to cast to a pod of rising fish during a midge or Blue Wing Olive hatch. Both of these would be very valuable around here. 

What really interests me is a presentation on her new book, 25 Off the Beaten Path Montana Fly Fishing Streams. I have been to Montana a dozen times and I always find myself fishing the same famous trout streams over and over again. I think it would be nice to check out some lesser known streams that are off the beaten path. Unfortunately, I am scheduled to guide this Saturday and will be unable to attend. Maybe I can chat with Molly about that on Sunday. 

This is a rare opportunity to improve your casting and learn a bit about fishing in various locations and techniques that will help you here. The fact that it is free and open to the public is wonderful. Thank you North Arkansas Fly Fishers. I hope to see you there.