February | 2018 | FrankenFly

2018 Midwest Fly Fishing Expo
turns MCC into the region’s largest fly fishing academy

The Michigan Fly Fishing Club again brings the largest fly fishing show to Metro Detroit on Saturday, March 10, and Sunday, March 11. The 2018 Expo will turn the Sports & Expo Center at Macomb Community College into a weekend fly fishing academy, offering dozens of presentations and demonstrations on topics ranging from casting to fly tying to “reading the water” to those places most likely to be occupied by fish.

“Once again, we’ve got a great lineup,” said Expo Chair Jim Telinda. Leading the way is an impressive group of headline speakers: Tom Rosenbauer of Orvis, a name synonymous with fly fishing; Virginia’s Blane Chocklett; Canadian stillwater specialist Phil Rowley; Michael Mauri, the German-born casting impresario; and noted Pennsylvania fly tier Tom Baltz.

“Not only do we have a remarkable group of headliners, we’re offering a boatload of regional speakers who hail from Michigan and Ohio,” Telinda said. “Are you interested in fly tiers who specialize in traditional Michigan patterns or fly designers who create flies for pike and musky? We have them. Are you looking for a new venue to cast your flies? We’ve got travel specialists who will help get you to the destination of your dreams. If you’re a fan of angling literature or art, we’ve got specialists in those areas, too. If you only need to restock your supplies for the upcoming fly fishing season, we’ve got outfitters who’ll be happy to introduce you to some of the newest products available,” Telinda said.

“We’ve even got an area where kids can learn to tie flies and learn to cast a fly rod,” he said. The 41st annual Expo will feature dozens of free seminars about fly fishing techniques, fly tying and fly fishing locales and will bring together more than 100 exhibitors, including dozens of fly tiers, rod builders, artists, guides, outfitters and conservation organizations. “Once again, we’ve got exhibitors from every corner of the country,” Telinda said.

The annual Expo is the oldest all-fly fishing show east of the Mississippi and is hosted by the Livonia-based Michigan Fly Fishing Club. The Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center is located at 14500 E. 12 Mile Rd. in Warren. Show hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is $10 per person; boys and girls age 16 and under are free. Two-day tickets are $15. Parking is free.

Here’s more information about the Expo’s featured presenters:

Tom Rosenbauer, Vermont:
Tom Rosenbauer has been with the Orvis Company for more than 30 years, and while there has been a fishing school instructor, copywriter, public relations director, merchandise manager, and was editor of The Orvis News for 10 years. He is currently Marketing Director for Orvis Rod and Tackle.

Tom was named Fly Rod & Reel magazine’s 2011 “Angler of the Year,” recognizing his decades of educational efforts through his books, magazine articles and podcasts.

Tom has been fly fishing for four decades and was a commercial fly tier by age 14. He has fished extensively across North America and internationally — Christmas Island, the Bahamas, Belize, Russia, Chile, and on the fabled chalk streams of England. He is credited with bringing beadhead flies to North America, and is the inventor of the “Big Eye” hook, magnetic net retriever and tungsten beads for fly tying. He has nearly two dozen fly fishing books in print, including “The Orvis Fly-Fishing Guide,” “Reading Trout Streams,” “Prospecting for Trout,” “Casting Illusions,” “Fly-Fishing in America,” “Approach and Presentation,” “Trout Foods and Their Imitations,” “Nymphing Techniques,” “Leaders, Knots, and Tippets,” “The Orvis Guide to Dry-Fly Fishing,” “The Orvis Encyclopedia of Fly Fishing,” “Fly Fishing for Trout: The Next Level,” and “The Orvis Fly- Tying Guide,” which won a 2001 National Outdoor Book Award . “Salt,” his collaboration with photographer Andy Anderson, won a National Outdoor Book Award in 2014. He has also been published in Field & Stream, Outdoor Life, Catalog Age, Fly Fisherman, Gray’s Sporting Journal, Sporting Classics, Fly Rod & Reel, Audubon, Men’s Journal, and others. Tom is the writer and narrator of “The Orvis Fly Fishing Guide Podcast,” one of the top outdoor podcasts on iTunes. He lives with his wife and son in southern Vermont on the banks of his favorite trout stream.

Blane Chocklett, Virginia:
For the past 30 years, Blane has lived his passion. He grew up fishing the small mountain streams in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. In the mid-90s, he opened Blue Ridge Fly Fishers in Roanoke, VA, one of the most respected full-service fly shops in the region. About a decade ago, he returned to his river roots as owner/operator of the New Angle Fishing Company, specializing in float trips targeting the regions predatory fish including musky, striped bass, smallmouth bass and trout. Today, Blane operates a guide service that specializes in float trips on four of Virginia’s premier rivers: James, New, Roanoke and Jackson rivers.

Recognized as one of the most cutting-edge fly tiers in the sport, many of his inventive fly patterns are produced through Umpqua Feather Merchants. He has served on the board of the American Fly Tackle Trade Association (AFFTA) and has worked as a consultant/ambassador to several fly fishing companies including Yeti Coolers, Temple Fork Outfitters, Scientific Anglers, Patagonia, Costa Del Mar Sunglasses, Fishpond USA, Renzetti/RD Distribution, Flymen Fishing Company, Hedron Flashabou, Hareline Dubbing, Hyde Drift Boats, Towee Boats, and Hog Island Boat Works.

He has designed flies for Umpqua Feather Merchants since 1998. Through his Hybrid SeriesTM and other innovative designs, Blane crafts traditional and synthetic tying materials to achieve the subtleness of flies and the strike-generating action of conventional lures. He is the Southeast Regional Field Editor for Fly Fisherman magazine, but also has been published in a variety of outdoor publications.

Phil Rowley, Alberta, Canada:
Phil has been fly fishing for more than 30 years. His love of fly fishing has taken him across North America pursuing trout, Atlantic and Pacific salmon, char, pike, walleye and numerous other species on the fly. But Phil is probably best known for his stillwater exploits, especially as the host for stillwater segments of Canadian video program “The New Fly Fisher.”

A former commercial fly tier, Phil has written for almost every major fly fishing publication in North America. He has authored three books and numerous feature articles and two regular columns. Phil’s first book, “Fly Patterns for Stillwaters,” is a best seller. In 2014, Phil was a proud recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from Fly Tyer magazine.

In addition to his writing, Phil has five instructional DVDs. In 2007, Phil was a member of the gold medal-winning team at the Canadian Fly Fishing championships.

When he isn’t on the water Phil travels North America performing at outdoor shows, providing seminars, speaking to fly clubs and conducting fly fishing schools. Phil also provides instructional stillwater guiding on the lakes located a short distance from his Edmonton area home.

Michael Mauri, Florida:
One of the world’s outstanding and most entertaining fly casters, Michael was born and raised in Germany. He caught his first fish at age six from a small stream in Bavaria and soon began focusing on every facet of the sport of fly fishing.

Since 1998, Michael has participated in international shows and conducted single- and doublehand casting workshops around the globe. As a professional fly fisher, he has guided throughout Europe, Canada and the United States.

Welcoming new challenges, he continuously hones his skills while – at the same time – coming up with new designs for his own products just as he has long done for equipment offered by leading firms in the fly fishing industry.

Michael is an innovator in all aspects of fly fishing and he has created his own unique casting method, the Effective Fly Casting Technique or EFCT. He says the secret of EFCT fly-casting is natural movement, which makes it easy to learn – whether a beginner, novice, or seasoned casting veteran. Said Telinda, “Don’t miss an opportunity at shows or otherwise to join one of the most respected instructors in fly fishing and casting, including all aspects of single-handed and double-handed spey casting and overhead casting.”

Now based in Stuart, FL, he offers guided trips and fly casting lessons year-around,. In addition to guiding, he consults as a design engineer for a leading producer of graphite and fiberglass fishing rods and designs and handcrafts his own brand of fly rods.

Tom Baltz, Pennsylvania:
A New Mexico native, Tom Baltz has been a fly tier for more than 50 years, spending much of that time among the legendary tiers and anglers of the limestone valleys of south-central Pennsylvania, near Carlisle. He is the only four-time Pennsylvania State Fly Tying Champion. His flies have appeared in Field & Stream, Fly Fisherman magazine, Art of Angling Journal, Eastern Fly Fishing, American Angler, the Orvis catalog and numerous other books and publications.
Tom ties fishing and collector flies for discriminating anglers coast to coast. His trout and Salmon flies are in the collections of the Pennsylvania State Museum, the Pennsylvania Fly Fishing Museum and The Angler’s Club of New York, as well as private collections worldwide.
A full-time fly angling professional since 1974 and one of Pennsylvania’s first licensed fishing guides (PA Guide License #9), Tom was named Orvis’s Northeast Trout Guide of the Year (2001). He and his wife Eileen live outside Boiling Springs, PA, very near such legendary Pennsylvania streams as Mountain Creek, the Letort, and the Yellow Breeches.