Last Saturday I drove to Me-Kwa-Mooks Park in West Seattle for the Emerald Water Anglers (EWA) Fly Fest. This was the first time I’ve attended – and wound up driving as waiting for the ferry up in Port Orchard would have taken longer than driving.

Me-Kwa-Mooks, meaning “shaped like a bear’s head” was what the Duwamish tribe called the West Seattle peninsula when the first European-American settlers landed at Alki in 1851.

The park is across the street from Puget Sound – the view from the beach is incredible. While it’s an undeveloped park with only a porta-potty, it was enough for a group of enthusiastic fly fishers.

The EWA Fly Fest is about seminars, casting fly rods, and a guide’s cook-off. For me, the main thing was to cast fly rods. A number of fly-rod companies had their reps there with rods for casting: Hardy, Loomis (Tom Larrimer), Reddington, Sage,Scott, Thomas & Thomas (Jon Covich), and Winston.

I got to cast a number of rods, including the one I was very interested in: the T&T Exocett. While much more powerful than the Avantt (which I really like, as can be read in my previous posts), it was still easy to cast while having tremendous line speed.

One of the best things about events where there is shared interest is that everyone is friendly. While waiting to get some lemonade, a young father in front of me was filling a glass for his very young daughter. He turned and asked if I’d like my glass filled.

I had to leave before the guide cook-off, and all the free food. While I hadn’t gotten to attend all the seminars I wanted or sample the free food, it was a fun and worthwhile trip. I’ll add it to my calendar for next year.

And hopefully with a bit of better planning I will be able to cut down on the driving by riding the ferries.