We need folks to sign up early. The headcount is needed to buy the correct amount of food and make sure that we have enough volunteers to make a successful event.

Also by signing up early you save $10. ($20 for early sign-up, $30 for show up).

Online registration closes at midnight on Wednesday, April 29th. We like early online registrations to give David a better count of attendees; he can more accurately purchase the correct amount food for our lunch. (It takes two days to thaw the hamburger patties and a thawed hamburger cooks quicker. So the food will be purchased on April 29th.)

All of the details are here:

FW Outing: John Scarborough Sunfish Spectacular, 2nd of May 2026

TFF had great weather for campers and fishers for our 2025 JSSFS Event (see event link)! On Friday afternoon and evening (May 9th), we had 5 campers stay the night at D7L, including Grant, Scott F, Ozzy, Oscar, and Puck. Puck said the food was great around the campfire Friday night and Saturday morning… including the coffee. It was a great time to relax and visit.

Cool temperatures with a north northeasterly breeze gave everyone a sigh of relief. On Saturday, May 10th, it was 66 F at 6 am and warmed up to 84 F mid-day. Registration in the warehouse went smoothly, flies were donated to everyone, and by 9:30 am we moved to the picnic area by Martin Lake. A total of 40 adults and 4 minors attended the JSSFS event.

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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.

Longest Sunfish Winner

Eric R. won the longest Sunfish for the day, a Sun Perch, measuring in at 10 5/8”.  He also caught 9 1/5” and 8 ¾” Sunfish the same day.  Congratulations Eric!

Contestant Entries for Longest Sunfish

Trip Summary

Camping night of 4/14/2023

Three Texas Flyfisher’s of Houston (TFF) members spent the night on 4/14. After we ate dinner together in the picnic area, we settled around the fire barrel to visit for a couple of hours. We slept some that night while occassionally being serenaded by bull frog mating calls as well as heard fish splashing as they gulped down a tasty critter. Then early Saturday morning, from 5 to 5:15 am, we heard the rain pitter patter on our tent’s rain flies. Fortunately, D7L was spared the hard rainfall and extensive lightening and thunder that Rosenburg, Richmond, and the rest of Greater Houston received from 4:30 am to 6:00 am, whew! Many of the TFF members told the registration volunteers their drive down longer than normal because of traffic rain delays.    

Morning of 4/15/2023

Registration was held just inside the D7L property from 7 am to 10:30 am. A total of 54 members attended the event including 6 volunteers (Chris S., Michael and Tracy Q., Ozzy C., and David D.) who served as food purchasers, registrars, cooks, and clean up. Russell C. and Puck P. tied and donated over 300 BBBs and Yellow Spider flies. Jim R. provided free flyfish casting instructions by a certified (FFI CI) TFF member, Jim R. A total of 11 members either renewed their membership or were first time TFF members.  We had three RSVP no shows and one non-RSVP who attended on the day of the event. 

Fly fisher women, men and children fished in earnest after registration by kayak, kick boat, or on the lake banks. The skies cleared by mid-morning and it was partly cloudy the rest of the day with 0 to 5 mph winds and temperatures that climbed from 65 to 78°F… , i.e., perfect weather! All the lakes had clear water such that you could sometimes see the fish. TFF members spread out over all the lakes and enjoyed a day of fishing instead of wishing, yay!

Afternoon of 4/15/2023

The volunteer cook rang the lunch bell at noon (a job perk). The covered picnic area had about eight picnic tables and two BBQ grills to accommodate most attendees with the rest using their folding chairs. We enjoyed BBQ hamburgers & hot dogs, chips, cookies and cold drinks. Next year, we will start cooking the hamburgers at 11:15 am instead of 11:40 am on 4/15/2023 because we were unable to serve everyone at noon this year. We skipped onions and tomato slices this year. We heard who had caught the longest Sunfish that morning. Eric R. mentioned his length (10 5/8 inches) and it became the eventual winner by 4 pm. The donated BBBs and Yellow Spiders were successfully used by many hopefully with good success.  Jim R. taught about 8 to 10 people casting lessons that lasted the whole day!  Jim said, “Probably 6 or so were long lessons of hour + and the rest between 15 to 30 minutes long. It was a full day and was a lot of fun: The students all seemed enthusiastic and interested in the learning about and/or improving their casting skills.”

After lunch, the TFF storage tubs were in partial disarray, so the cooks cleaned out the tubs and organized them. By 3:00 pm, the cooks completed all tasks and stowed away the TFF equipment in a truck for its return trip to TFF’s Houston mini-storage. The predicted afternoon rain never happened at D7L, and all were happy about that! The camping tents were folded and put away and by 4:15 pm, most of the attendees went home.

If anyone knows who won the 2022 JSSFS longest Sunfish, please let me know.

2023 JSSFS Event website:  link

All the best, David D., Trip Leader

More Event Photos