Doing anything on March 12th?

Well cancel your plans.

That is, if you live within driving distance of East Peoria, IL.  (I'm looking at you Wolfy and Zack.)

Why, you ask?

Well you remember that post I put up last September about my first trout on the fly?  You know, at the Hooked on Fishing park?  The one where they usually don't let anybody fish so the trout are huge, dumb, and fly hungry?

One of the smaller ones of the day.  I know there's no size reference but he was probably 14-15".  The biggest had trouble fitting into this same net lengthwise.

Well they're holding another fundraiser.

For a $25 suggest donation, you get fly fishing instruction from pros the like of Jonn from Streamstalker and five hours of fishing these fly-dumb trout.  If you've never flyfished or aren't very experienced, don't worry.  When I went last year I had probably used a fly rod less than a dozen times and Jonn had me casting and catching fish in no time.

Big goofy grin guaranteed.

The $25 goes towards the Hooked on Fishing park, which offers fishing opportunities to the elderly and people who normally wouldn't be able to have access to excellently managed fisheries.  Check out Nate's blog for more info.  It's a great cause and honestly, people go on vacations and spend thousands of dollars to get access to fish that are smaller and much harder to catch.

Even if you're not interested in showing, try to spread the word.  It's a great opportunity to get someone involved in the sport, especially those who haven't flyfished or kids.  (There was kid who was probably 6 or 7 years old who was fishing while we were eating lunch last year and he was having a blast, hooking fish all on his own, if only for a few seconds.)

For more information, check out Lunker Hunt.  Clif has a bunch of photos and some awesome footage up from last year.

Hope to see ya there!