Spey-o-rama 2009

[Bob Pauli]

The members of the Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club, in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, California, USA are proud to announce Spey-O-Rama 2009 will be held April 17-19, 2009.

Everyone is welcome to enjoy several days of outstanding casting, instruction, competition and the latest in terrific gear. Plus, and most importantly, great comradeship and FUN!

We look forward to renewing old friendships and making new ones. Come and join us.

Practice dates and times, FFF certification dates and further contact information will follow. SOR's outstanding 2008 Chair, Donna O'Sullivan, will e-mail many past participants and vendors. We'll post an e-mail address on this thread for those interested in participating.

[Bob Pauli]

For all correspondence please use

info @ speyorama.com

[JDJones]

It really helps to have a lot of lead time on things like this.

[Grampa Spey]

2009 Speyorama - 17. 18 & 19 April

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club will be presenting the Jimmy Green International Spey-O-Rama & Fly Casting Festival April 17th, 18th, and 19th, 2009 at the world renown casting ponds located in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. GGACC is devoted to introducing everyone to fly casting and angling at their historical club and facility. The event is open to the public and admittance is free.

The event will center on Spey casting competitions and single hand and two-hand casting demonstrations by fly casting experts. There are three ways to cast a fly line with the traditional single-handed rod; the roll cast, the overhead cast, and the Spey cast. The Spey cast originated and was developed in Scotland and is most often used with two handed fly rods.

Local, domestic and International casting masters will be offering free demonstrations and clinics each day.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Friday is my favorite day: "Premium Fly-Fishing rod and reel manufacturers will have their products available for you to use to hone your skills."

Also, Spey experts from America, the UK and around the world will be there, and most will help you with casting problems and gaining new skills.

http://www.speyorama.com/

Originally Posted by Bob Pauli

For all correspondence please use

info @ speyorama.com

[speyforsteel]

In 7 days I'll be headin to G G-
Whit Monster
Brian Speyskal and The Three Amigo's
-Mean Gene(aka Mr 160)
Kaptain Kruk(Lord of Kanada)
And Me-The Champ/Chump/Chimp depending on who you talk to.

[Bob Pauli]

speyforsteel:

Good news! We look forward to welcoming you all.

Bob

[Bob Pauli]

Thanks to Fred Evans for asking about Doug Duncan. Doug will compete in SOR 2009. He is looking for gold this time, having garnered silver last year.

Doug's name will be added to speyorama.com asap.

Sorry about that Doug.

[Simon Hsieh]

Bob,

Good to hear that you guys already set the days for SOR 2009. That would give me whole a lot of time to practice for.

From what I heard, there will be many more excellent US casters entering this contest (they are practicing hard as we speak) which will well promote our spey community not only in US, but the whole world.

I do really hope to see our friends from UK, Norway, Japan, Canda and other spey worlds making their time availalbe to this casting event.


Simon Hsieh

[tweedside]

....do a wonderful job in producing the 'engine power' to set-up and run these events in the US.
The UK events are mostly 'bolt-ons' to other more diverse events such as the Game Fairs, Kelso Angling Fair etc. I don't know the figures but it is certain that we have a very large percentage of salmon fishermen who fly fish with two-hand rods. There may even be a few who use light two-hand rods for trout fishing, though I have never met one. We should over here be able to have a few properly organized regional competitions for the total amateur and for the pros such as gillies, rod-trade personel etc who would love to 'have a go' using off the shelf noprmal rods up to say 15'. (I would be against imposing the old one rod+ line for all rules as those who already use the chosen rod would have a very unfair advantage.) It would be fun and a good day out socially. Also we may all learn a bit from the experience. Other than the (one-off?)Emerald Masters a couple of years ago, I don't know of any such independant event in the UK.

[Bob Pauli]

Thank you all for the good words. The members of the GGACC appreciate your comments and participation, and look forward to a terrific SOR 2009 next April.

On Saturday evening, July 19, 2008, the GGACC is hosting our first fund raiser for SOR 2009, featuring Donna O'Sullivan's famous meat loaf, plus pasta, plus an auction of new Spey equipment. If you want to join us, reservations are still available. How can you beat a complete dinner for a good cause for only $18? It would be wonderful if Simon Hsieh and Doug Duncan could join us to give our group the flavor of what competing in the SOR is like.

Go to http://www.ggacc.org/p/ViewEvent.aspx?eid=190
for details of the dinner, directions to the GGACC, and a list of cool auction items donated by top names in angling and Spey. It would be wonderful if Simon Hsieh, Doug Duncan, Frank Chen and others could join us to give our group a brief taste of what preparing for and competing in the SOR is like.

[Bob Pauli]

There are many volunteers that make Spey O Rama a success. The volunteer deserving of special attention is the chairperson. The chair spends months on planning, getting volunteers to meetings, correspondence and tons of followup.

Our last two chairs were Kazu Koshimizu [2007] and Donna O'Sullivan [2008]. If you get a chance to thank them in person, i'm sure it will be appreciated.

[Bob Pauli]

Chair Donna O'Sullivan and Chief Judge Nelson Ishiyama approved the following rules for Spey-O-Rama 2009. The rules are the same as 2008 except for one change. That change, in italics below is the requirement that a caster or her/his representative be present during the random draw for casting order in both qualifying and final rounds.


Jimmy Green International Spey-O-Rama 2009

Spey Casting Competition

Equipment
Rod: Must be model that is or has been available for sale to the general public
15’1” maximum length
Line: Floating synthetic line, either full line or shooting head. No restrictions on running line.
Leader: 9 foot minimum, 15 foot maximum.
Fly: Will be supplied

Required casts
Casters can use whatever cast they choose in four situations:

Line from the right – over right shoulder and over left shoulder
Line from the left – over right shoulder and over left shoulder

Casting rules
Change of direction will be set by markers at about 40 degrees (same as 2008)
Caster will be in water – about 3 feet deep
There will be a barrier 33 feet behind the caster. No penalty for hitting it, but it will
affect the cast
Fly must anchor in front of caster
If Perry Poke used, only one “dump” allowed per cast and fly may not leave water on
“dump”.
Perry Poke (or similar casts using a “dump” or “poke”) can only be used with lines
of head length up to 55’, measured from tip of line to start of level running line.
Once a cast is begun, it counts as a scoring cast.
An inadvertent “extra” cast in a required category will not be counted against the caster’s
allowed casts in any other category, but will use the caster’s time.

The Competition
Qualifying will be held on Saturday morning with top 10 casters going to finals on Sunday morning.
Casting order by random draw for qualifying and final rounds.
Casters (or representative) must be present for the random draw.

Qualifying
•3 casts each for the 4 required casts. Score is total of best distances
for each of the 4 required casts.
•Time limit is 6 min. with 2 min. warm-up


Finals
•3 casts each for the 4 required casts. Score is total of best distances
for each of the 4 required casts.
•Time limit is 6 min. with 2 min. warm-up


Friday practice time (20 min) at official casting station can be reserved by signup.

Women's Division

The Women's Division will have the same rules as the Men's Division, with one exception:

The casting station for women will be at the 50 foot mark in the pool, 20 feet farther forward than the casting station for men.
We will have separate markers for line placement to start the casts, so the angle change will be exactly the same as for men.

Note: The purpose and effect of this one rule difference is to make the water shallower (6-7") to compensate for the differences in height between men and women.


Tie-breakers

In the event of a tie for any place, the tie will broken by totaling each competitor’s second best casts in each of the four categories.

Perry Poke

We want to include all styles of casting as they continue to evolve through the efforts of innovative casters. Jimmy Green was not a traditionalist, but an innovator who encouraged and invented better equipment, casting techniques and fishing methods. Skagit casting, using compact heavy heads, is not only an effective casting and fishing style, but was developed with help from Jimmy over a decade ago. We are therefore deliberately including Skagit-style casts and equipment in this competition.

We will allow the Perry Poke (or similar casts involving a “dump” or “poke” of line to the water) to be used only with Skagit-type equipment, which means short heads, 55’ or under. This will not allow a “poke” with longer headed lines, which could distort the competition to emphasize switch casts over all others.

Nelson Ishiyama
Chief Judge

[Bob Pauli]

Things are warming up for Spey O Rama. An "anonymous" Scot long-liner was at the club last week, as was one of the great casters from "Scotland West," that being the group from Sacramento, California's American River spey casters.

Donna O'Sullivan took to the water yesterday, and she is looking good! And her casts are too!

FUN, FUN !

[Speyirideus]

Hats-off to GGCC for, yet again, putting together a nice Spey-head gathering. Had a ball demoing rods on Friday. Thanks to those suppliers that attended. The SF weather was gorgeous, as well. I would like to see a "quick n'dirty" results on the Competition if anyone out there is privy to same. Thanks.

[Splake]

This is how we build future Spey casters. SOR Champ Simon and son.