Fly Fishing Film Festival Drops Line in Durango

Angling advocates are celebrating their first big catch of the year, so to speak. Hooking the International Fly Fishing Film Festival for a Durango visit, April 1st. The Fly Fishing Film Festival will headline a day full of fishing events, being hosted by Duranglers. You're watching the Local News Network, brought to you by Pop's Truck and RV Center, and The Payroll Department. I'm Connor Shreve. Duranglers co-owner, Tom Knopick, is trying to build some excitement for the summer fishing season by hosting a three day fly fishing festival.

We thought this would be a great opportunity to bring that film festival to town and dovetail it with our event. And so we talked to the local Trout Unlimited chapter, Five Rivers, and you know, they're actually putting the thing on, coordinating it with us. And it's a fundraiser for the Five Rivers chapter.

The International Film Festival, or IF Four, promises a deep dive into adventure, exploration, and cinematography, that highlights our wild waters and the fish that live in it, around the globe.

What we've tried to do, because it's a really fun event, is kind of dovetail it, you know, into the same date that we have our, what we call, Fly Fishing Festival. We had this big spring event, all day long on Saturday, April 1st, and then having fly fishing films and film tour that night, is just a really nice finale to the whole week.

Protecting and understanding habitat is a stream that winds through both festivals.

The whole idea of it is to get people excited about the upcoming fly fishing season. This year we're going to have actually three days worth of stuff.

The first two days will be virtual featuring a dive into the state of the animus, followed by a fly tying class on day two. But once doors open at Duranglers on Saturday morning for the first in-person fly fishing festival the shop has hosted since the pandemic, the list of clinics, demos, and promotions might fledge your senses. Festivities move to Santa Rita Park at noon.

There'll be a lot of things going on out there as well. All the manufacturers that, you know, we have Rods, their sales reps will be out there in the park. And people can cast rods, they can get casting instruction. We're going to cater in lunch for everybody that shows up.

Anglers trying to hone their craft will be able to take part in an on river class on streamer fishing at 1:00 PM. That's a method of fishing requiring the fly to be underwater, intended to imitate a bait fish. Raffles will take place in the afternoon, back at the shop.

And then right into the film festival, which there's two showings of. There's a five o'clock and an eight o'clock. We have tickets here at Duranglers. The tickets are also available online.

Film festival tickets cost $20 and the show features nine films, ranging from five to 15 minutes long. For more information about this and other stories, visit durangolocal.news. Thanks for watching this edition of The Local News Network. I'm Connor Shreve.