Friday Night Camping Report by Puck P. (President – TFF)
The first of us arrived on Friday about 10 o’clock in the morning and immediately started fishing. Plenty of fish were caught before the wind picked up, giving us hopes for Saturday’s event. There was some prep work involved for the next day. With the group’s efforts, this didn’t take long, and we quickly went back to fishing. There were seven campers on Friday night, plus two fur-persons.

The tents range from a Taj Mahal to a pop tent. One guy didn’t want to go through the trouble as setting up a tent and crashed out in his car. He actually looked pretty comfortable. Dinner was “what you brought.” We considered doing a “pot luck” but were worried about having too many leftovers again. Sitting around the campfire swapping stories we got carried away and didn’t start drifting off to our sleeping bags till almost 11 o’clock.

Coffee started at 5:30 the next morning, along with breakfast, while we waited for the rest of our people to join in on the fun.

Saturday Fishing by David D. (Trip Leader)
We had 52 attended this terrific event at Damon’s Seven Lakes (D7L). We had one RSVP no show and four non-RSVP who attended on the day of the event. Attendees spread out and fished among the lakes and enjoyed the great weather that day, fishing, seeing old friends, and making new ones. The lake water was clear and beautiful to view the depths. It was fun to see several families attend who encouraged their children’s or grandchildren’s fly fishing and/or casting skills. The covered picnic area with picnic tables became a haven for re-hydrating, visiting with friends, and exchange fishing stories especially on what flies were working. No safety incidents were reported, yeah! Go to this link to read the event announcement to TFF members before the event.

Casting Report by Jim R. (FFI CI)
Phil S. and I were at the 2024 John Scarborough Sunfish Spectacular to provide fly casting instruction to any participants who were interested. Phil and I are both Fly Fishers International Certified Casting Instructors (FFI CI) and longtime club members.

We were provided with a large, freshly mowed casting lawn by Matt and the staff of Damon Seven Lakes and drew some spectacular weather for a great day of casting. Students began arriving around 9 am and continued throughout the morning and into the early afternoon. The students had an experience level from beginner to advanced; all were enthusiastic, attentive, and seemed to be appreciative of the tips Phil and I were able to provide in an effort to improve their casting skills.

So, we had a fine day of casting and also a great day of visiting with all of the students and fellow club members. There were a lot of stories, some good casting, a nice lunch and also some great fellowship, all of which made for a fine day of fun for all.

Buffet Lunch by David D.
The lunch bell and whistle were sounded at noon. The volunteers did a great job preparing the buffet tables and the cooks had all the food cooked by noon. We enjoyed hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, cookies and cold drinks. This year, the cooks included sliced onions and tomatoes with the other condiments to the joy of everyone. The covered picnic area accommodated the seating space needed for most of the attendees with the rest using their folding chairs.

Puck P. and David D. gave announcements after lunch. Puck P. described who was John Scarborough and how the event was named, John Scarborough Sunfish Spectacular. John S. was an amiable and humorous person and annual trip leader of this event to Damon’s Seven Lakes for many years. He always included the longest Sunfish competition. During the event, John always found ways for one of the children to win the longest Sunfish award… he gave mysterious explanations as to why the adults’ measurements were always off, ha. After his long service to this event, the TFF decided to name the event after him.

Raffle Result: Matt A. (owner and manager of D7L) donated a new Wild Water fly fishing kit that included a 5/6 weight rod, reel with fly line, a zippered canvas storage bag and more. Raffle tickets were given out during registration and Mike A. (Matt’s dad) picked the lucky number. The raffle winner was Delia C. who was surprised and happy to have won this nice equipment! Earlier that morning, Delia accidentally cracked her fly rod and could no longer fish. She asked Chris S. if there were any TFF equipment she could borrow for the rest of the day and Chris lent her his equipment. After winning the raffle, Delia returned Chris’ equipment and thoroughly enjoyed fishing with her new equipment!!

After lunch was over and attendees went fishing, volunteers emptied the TFF storage containers, sorted and organized the items (utensils, backup plates, cups, etc.) back into the containers to facilitate the next TFF event. The volunteers also cleaned the picnic area and stacked the filled trash bags.

Longest Sunfish Winner

I decided to bend the longest Sunfish rules FROM longest Sunfish caught by anyone TO caught by children because of the notable story Puck P. told earlier about John Scarborough at lunch. Therefore, Thomas E., 13 years old, won the longest Sunfish for the day measuring in at 7.0”. David D. presented TFF’s award certificate and Puck P. gave Thomas a large box of flies Puck tied for the winner. As far as the longest sunfish caught by an adult, Russell C. won with a 9-¼ inch sunfish. Congratulations Thomas and Russell! There were several great entries for the longest Sunfish by others.

Volunteer Appreciation

I thank all the volunteers for signing up before the event and for helping out during the event! Our volunteers included Matt A., Russell C., Jim D., David & Barbara D., Scott F., Puck P., Michael Q., Jim R., Eric R., Hugh R., Scott R., Phil S., Tom S., and Chris S.

Attendees appreciated all the volunteer’s assistance and camaraderie including safe ground conditions (i.e., Matt A. mowed lawns around most lakes and the fly casting area), the tying and donating hundreds of flies that typically catch the fish at D7L, food purchases ahead of the event, retrieval and return TFF’s coolers and storage containers from the TFF mini-storage, install TFF banners, registration services, fly casting instructions, food safety, post-lunch clean up, an all day first aid station, and other efforts to make the event special and fun.

Cheers,
David D.

Additional Photos

Event Comments and Suggestions

James D.’s feedback and suggestions:

1. Cooking
   • For 2024 event, 72 hamburgers were cooked and 54 consumed – we did not need to cook the extra bag (18 burger patties/bag).The hamburger meat must be completely thawed out by event day because it was hard to cook frozen meat and not burn them. David D – We bought Kirkland frozen hamburger patties by noon Thursday and put them on ice in the cooler. Even though the patties were more than 50 percent thawed by Saturday, we will buy the patties on the Wednesday before the event next time.
   • Put the circular grill in front of the BBQ pit because you need complete access around circular grill. David D – I agree. The circular grill was accidentally located next to the pool this year. Next time we will move it away from the pool.
   • Great idea to use the BBQ pit’s charcoal grill to heat the hot dogs as it worked great.
2. There were about 10 hot dogs left out of 96 purchased.
3. I would ask for 4 volunteers again for next year to assist with lunch preparations – 2 cooks and 2 for food preparations.
4. Great job on ice cold drinks.
5. I would add a kid only Fish Trophy for biggest fish and buy a plastic trophy.

David D.: Please provide any comments and/or suggestions on what we could improve for next year’s JSSS event in the ‘Leave a Reply’ comment box below or send me an email.