From pleasant farm ponds to hidden mountain streams to huge saltwater, from largemouth bass to native brook trout to stripers, Virginia is for anglers. However like so many nice American pastimes, fishing has fallen on arduous occasions. For generations, kids spent their summers with a fishing pole in a single hand and a sort out field within the different; at present, too a lot of them—and us—are glued to smartphones and social media.
Prepared to alter all that?
On January 10 and 11, 2025, the 24th Annual Virginia Fly Fishing & Wine Pageant will draw attendees from all through the Commonwealth and Mid-Atlantic in addition to from Ohio, Georgia, South Carolina, New York, and even Vermont. Held on the Meadow Occasion Park, simply 15 miles north of Richmond on the positioning of the state fairgrounds, the Virginia Fly & Wine is the primary occasion of its form to mix fly fishing and wine tasting. Fly fishing producers, lodges, guides, artists, fly tyers, wineries, distilleries, and specialty meals firms are among the many greater than 90 distributors who hail from everywhere in the nation.
All Ability Ranges Welcome
The Virginia Fly & Wine is for novices and skilled anglers alike. “Right this moment, many individuals have by no means fished earlier than,” says competition director Beau Beasley, creator of Therapeutic Waters: Veterans’ Tales of Restoration in Their Personal Phrases. “They’ve definitely by no means thought of selecting up a fly rod. We work arduous to demystify the quiet sport of fly fishing. Many novices are too intimidated by their conception of fly fishing and fly tying to even give them a attempt. I can relate: I felt precisely the identical method earlier than somebody took the time to introduce me to the game. On the Virginia Fly & Wine, we now have scoured the nation to convey collectively the consultants—the welcoming, approachable consultants—who make fly fishing easy and rewarding for anglers of each stage.”
One such angling whiz is Julie Mattson, member of the USA Girls’s Fly Fishing Crew and proprietor of Oklahoma-based On the Rivers Fly Fishing Firm. “Fly fishing is like the whole lot else,” insists Mattson, who’s keen about bringing others into the game. “When you be taught some primary expertise, it’s not arduous in any respect.”
Get Ideas from the Consultants
Mattson is one in every of a number of acclaimed instructors heading up the 2025 Past the Solid Girls’s Fly Fishing Symposium, the Virginia Fly & Wine’s widespread show-within-a-show taught by and for girls and sponsored by the Leisure Boating and Fishing Basis’s Take Me Fishing program. In 2025, for the primary time, Past the Solid might be held in its personal constructing (Meadow Pavilion) on competition grounds. Past the Solid will kick off with a girls’s wine-and-fly-tying combineer on Thursday night time, January 9, from 5:30 to eight p.m. Symposium programming continues on Friday, January 10, from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., and covers quite a few matters of curiosity to out of doors girls of any angling ability stage.
Whether or not you’re a novice or an skilled angler hoping to stage up, the Virginia Fly & Wine has one thing for everybody. Fly fishing legend, Tom Rosenbauer, will educate courses on studying the water and matching the hatch. Josh Miller, Jake Villwock, Captain Gary Dubiel, Beau Beasley, and plenty of extra will educate specialty courses on the whole lot from fly tying to casting to fishing for crimson drum in saltwater. New in 2025 are courses that mix fly fishing matters with wine and bourbon tasting. In all, greater than two dozen instructors will educate greater than 50 courses, most of that are included with competition admission.
Fish and Sip!
For many who merely love somebody else who fishes, ten of the Commonwealth’s finest wineries might be on the 2025 Virginia Fly & Wine, together with Goochland-based Midnight Brewing and three Virginia distilleries. Better of all, wine tasting is included in competition admission (for patrons 21 years and older). Landlubbers can even take pleasure in trying out specialty meals distributors, artists, and jewelers.
Pageant attendees can even enter a drawing to win every week’s fishing with Nomadic Waters on the Amazon River for peacock bass. This journey of a lifetime consists of all meals, skilled guiding, and lodging. Different Virginia Fly & Wine sponsors embrace the Leisure Boating and Fishing Basis, Shenk Capital Administration, Harman’s North Fork Cottages, Midnight Brewing, Norvise, TrailHead Inventive, and Trout Limitless.
To see this yr’s promo video click on right here.
To be taught extra in regards to the 2025 Virginia Fly Fishing & Wine Pageant click on right here.
