The Northern Ohio Fly Fishing Expo is fast becoming a destination show and a standard by which other shows in the Midwest are judged, according to North Coast Fly Fishers, a Painesville-based nonprofit that hosts the expo annually.
In addition to featuring many of the best regional and national fly fishing tiers, the expo offers educational classes in all aspects of the fly fishing sport including fly fishing, fly tying and equipment.
“It’s a way to bring the fly fishing community together. It’s a growing niche out there and a community that’s unique,” said Paul Catalano, expo co-chair and North Coast Fly Fishers membership chair, at the annual expo, which took place this weekend at Lakeland Community College in Kirtland.
The expo allows North Coast Fly Fishers to not only promote fly fishing, conservancy and techniques, but to raise funds.
“We help out with different nonprofits like Project Healing Waters who help veterans get out on the water and learn fly fishing,” Catalano said.
This year’s expo was a little bit special because of coming out of the pandemic, Catalano said, who predicts anywhere from 200 to 400 people will come through. Roughly 35 to 45 vendors were also in attendance.
“We’re a club of only 35 to 40 people, so it’s a big show for us. Fly fishing shows are a big thing and there’s nothing in the area that typically has one,” Catalano said. “The closest one is typically Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis. Picking the right weekend is key.”
The expo was laid out with vendors and fly fishing clubs scattered throughout Lakeland, and the auditoriums upstairs were used for the expo’s speaker series, which featured two local speakers, a speaker from West Virginia, central Pennsylvania and Michigan.
“We bring people in who can talk about the same type of fishing we can fish around here, so we’re not going to bring in someone from Florida to talk about saltwater fishing,” Catalano said. “That’s the idea behind it.”
The Northeast Ohio area is an excellent area for fly fishers, said President Joseph Wantz, of North Coast Fly Fishers.
“We are known as steelhead alley. Steelhead is a type of rainbow trout that is generally in the five to 10 pound range. It’s an excellent sport fish to catch and excellent on a fly rod,” Wantz said. “Steelhead season lasts from the end of October to the middle of May, so it’s a cooler, winter fishing experience.”
Once steelhead season is done, fly fishers can take advantage of small mouth bass fishing in the same areas they’d fish for steelhead, Wantz said. They may also fly fish for trout all through the year.
“There are clubs out west. If you go down to the Mohican area, you can go fishing all summer for trout,” Wantz said. “You can go to nearby Pennsylvania. It’s a wide variety of opportunity to enjoy the sport. You can fly fish out on Lake Erie if you want to.”
At the expo, even the most experienced of fly fishers are able to learn something new, Wantz said, and it’s also an opportunity to get involved in the fly fishing community to learn new techniques or hear about a new place to go fly fishing.
“You might make new friends to go fishing with, you might run into a club or group you want to join or help support,” Wantz said. “Our club, through this expo and through the opportuniteis we develop, support the sport of fly fishing, but the environment in general. We work to help protect the fisheries and the nature so it’s there for the future.”
North Coast Fly Fishers hopes to get the younger generation involved in the fly fishing community, Wantz said.
“Young people are our future. We would love to have young people come out to learn about it and enjoy it,” Wantz said. “I can go out fly fishing and not catch a fish, and still have a marvelous day just being out in nature.”
North Coast Fly Fishers meet monthly from September through June on the first Wednesday of each month. The nonprofit meets at the Lake Metroparks Environmental Learning Center in Concord from 6:30 to 9 p.m. North Coast Fly Fishers members are required to maintain a current membership with Fly Fishers International. Visit North Coast Fly Fishers’ website for more information.
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