On Saturday, February 12th, 2022, the Texas FlyFishers (Houston) celebrated the 29th Anniversary of the Annual Dr. Ed Rizzolo Fly Tying Festival.

The Festival was held at the Trini Mendenhall Community Center in Houston, Texas from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm, with lunch and refreshments provided for the tyers.

The Featured Tyer for the 2022 Festival was Jerry Coviello from Pennsylvania who is Chairman of the Fly Fishers International Fly Tying Board of Governors. In addition to classroom demonstrations by Jerry Coviello, Don Puckett, President of the Texas Fly Fishers, demonstrated several of his “Five Minute Foam Flies” and Dr. Rey Ramirez from Brownsville, Texas demonstrated techniques used to tie his saltwater “Macko Krimp Fly” pattern.

In addition to the featured classroom demonstrations, the area’s top tyers were invited to exhibit their talents and to assist other tyers of all levels in improving their tying techniques in tying a wide variety of fly fishing flies used for both fresh and saltwater fly fishing.  

Throughout the day, there were individual tying presentations of both fresh and saltwater flies and during the noon hour the Iron Fly Competition was held. The Iron Fly Competition is an event at which select tyers are given some mystery fly tying materials and then asked to create a fly from those materials. There are several “rounds” with each “round” containing fewer tyers until finalists are chosen and then an overall winner is selected. The final round featured club member Scott Fossum and Orvis endorsed guide, Kevin Hutchison https://www.orvis.com/kevin-hutchison-tx/10NX.html with Kevin coming out on top as the 2022 Winner of the Iron Fly Competition.

So, mark your calendars now for the 2023 Texas Fly Fishers Dr. Ed Rizzolo which will be the 30th Anniversary of the event. The event is traditionally held the second Saturday of February which will be February 11, 2023.  

Finally, if you are interested in participating as a tyer in the 2023 event, please leave a comment on the Texas Fly Fishers web site description of the 2022 event (https://texasflyfishers.org/2022/01/13/29th-annual-dr-ed-rizzolo-fly-tying-festival-saturday-february-12-2022/) and keep an eye out for the announcement of the 2023 event.

To all of those who attended as spectators and participants the Texas Fly Fishes (Houston) thank you for your participation.

A few photos from the 2022 event: