US Youth Fly Fishing Team National Championships

[Rich Reedinger]

Well, here we are a few days away from our first Youth FF NationalChampionship. We will have 26 young anglers competing for 12 spots on the US Youth Team. The waters in and around State College are in near perfect condition and the weather forcast for next week is looking good.
    Many volunteers have put a great number of hours in to prepare for the event and I want to shout out to all of them for a job well done. We have in excess of 50 volunteers just for controllers and many others to help with all the extra things going on around the competition site.
    Many of the kids have been in State College for a couple days already to practice and enjoy some fishing on many other available creeks. The actual comp will take place over two days, Tuesday and Wednesday, on 4 venues. There are two venues on Spring Creek on the normally inaccessable Rockview Prison property. The third  and fourth venue is on Bald Eagle Creek, which is a new creek as far as recent competitions here are concerned.  Very nice spring creek fed water with loads of large holdover trout and a good deal of wild trout as well. Great hatches and consisitently low water temps, even in mid summer.
   We will also hold a casting comp on Thursday morning to allow the kids a chance to show off their skills and help the coaches select the new team members. Present team members must earn their spot on the new squad each year, so there is a lot riding on all of this.
    We will post results here after the comp is completed. Any fans or friends of the team can visit and watch the anglers compete. Send them your good wishes and support as I am sure most of them are on pins and needles waiting to get started.
It is time to get serious and have a load of fun. Let's go!

[Dejon Hamann]

Thanx for the update Rich.  Good luck to all the competitors and another thank you to all the volunteers making this happen.  Won't be able to make it down, but I'll be watching closely from afar!  

btw, do you guys have a list of competitors and where they are from? 

[Rich Reedinger]

Thanks, Dejon, for the encouraging words.  I will post the names of the competitiors and their hometowns in our final results.

[Chris Smith]

Best wishes for an excellent tournament Rich.  With a group of exceptional anglers and the volunteer base you have up there, I expect it will be World Class!

[Mike Norton]

Good luck to the youth competitors and Rich and his team and the volunteers

[Rich Reedinger]

First day results are posted on Youth Team website.  www.usyouthflyfishingteam.com.  

[Pat Weiss]

Anyone know what happened on day 2???

[Anita Coulton]

Final results are now posted via facebook as well as the US Youth Team site.  Congrats to all competitors.  Sounds like fishing was tough.  What is with competing in blown out conditions???.....guess we know where we should be focusing our practice time.....

[Dejon Hamann]

Congrats to everyone! 

So, it was another blown out situation down there Anita?  We just can't catch a break around State eh?

1 Hunter Hoffer - GNYF 6 4340 27 36
2 Cody Burgdorff - EMAY 6 4160 26 34
3 Aston Boone - DTIG 8 6840 42 33
4 Stephen Salwocki - FSTR 8 6120 38 35
5 Dan Marino - ABRK 8 4060 25 37
6 Justin Lyons - GNYF 11 2500 16 35
7 Zacjaru Acunzo - ABRK 11 2120 13 33
8 Owen Welch - BBRN 13 2880 18 33
9 Noah Thompson - CBOW 13 2280 14 35
10 Austen Randecker - BBRN 13 2060 13 32
11 Cameron Chioffi - CBOW 14 3460 21 50
12 Joseph Benson - DTIG 14 1480 9 33
13 Robbie Wirth - EMAY 15 4180 26 38
14 Andrew Brown - ABRK 15 1820 11 43
15 Tyler Befus - BBRN 17 1500 9 39
16 Angelo Conti - DTIG 17 1340 8 40
17 Andrew Loffredo - CBOW 17 1180 7 34
18 Robert Torsell - CBOW 18 1660 10 40
19 Ryan Heydt - FSTR 19 1380 9 33
20 Jonathan Dietz - EMAY 19 1280 8 31
21 Matthew Michel - FSTR 20 940 6 25
22 C. J. Pelligrini - FSTR 22 480 3 25
23 Harrison Orr - BBRN 23 620 4 30
24 Thomas Summers - DTIG 24 980 6 38
25 Derek Edwards - EMAY 26 600 4 27
26 Open Two - GNYF 26 480 3 26
27 William Weis - ABRK 27 460 3 34
28 Open One - GNYF 28 0 0 0

[Pat Weiss]

Bald Eagle was pretty muddy when i stopped down to watch Justin fish on tuesday.  For the first session at least, catch numbers looked pretty low.  Couldnt make it out yesterday too busy at work.  work is always getting in the way!!!!!!!!!!

[Pat Brechbill]

How many made the team?

[Dejon Hamann]

Top 12 I believe. 

[Anita Coulton]

D, I wasn't able to make it up to the event, but yes, it was blown.  Bald Eagle was especially tough, I heard.  Congratulations to everyone involved up there!

[Loren Williams]

judging by the spring creek flow chart i'd be hard pressed to say blown.  muddy probably...but not blown. 

[Paul Bourcq]

Great job boys.  Congrats to NC members andrew brown and hunter Hoffler for making the team.  Extra kudos to hunter for bringing gold down south.  Its been a fun journey.

After winning nationals Hunter called me and said "I just won but I have alot of work to do.  We need to fish when I get back.  I dropped fish and spooked some".

I was quite impressed

[Lance Egan]

Congrats to all who participated.  Especially the controllers!

To all you PA folks......Is your water ever REALLY clear?  Mother nature sure has it out for PA comps!

[Pat Brechbill]

Great job boys.  Congrats to NC members andrew brown and hunter Hoffler for making the team.  Extra kudos to hunter for bringing gold down south.  Its been a fun journey.

After winning nationals Hunter called me and said "I just won but I have alot of work to do.  We need to fish when I get back.  I dropped fish and spooked some".

I was quite impressed

Paul, I'm glad to see both Andrew and Hunter made the team. Great kids and outstanding ambassadors to the sport.

[Loren Williams]

Does anyone have the new team roster?

[Pat Weiss]

Lance it sure seems that Mother Nature has it in for us.  The water conditions were close to ideal for this time of year the evening before the comp.  That night, a localized blast of rain hit the upper Spring crick area.  THe upper Bald eagle stayed clear, all the area springs stayed clear, Logan Branch stayed clear, but Spring got muddy, it didint come up much but was heavily stained.  I cant remember the last time Spring ck got muddied but the Bald Eagle stayed clear!!

[Rich Reedinger]

We had a great comp and all the kids did well. Thanks goes out to all the volunteers that make these events possible and support staff behind the scenes. One of the previous post shows the final results. I promised I would give hometowns of the kids and I will also name the anglers who made the team.
*Denotes new Team USA Youth Team member
1 Hunter Hoffler, Suwanee, Georgia*
2 Cody Burgdorff, Lafayette, Colorado*
3 Aston Boone, State College, PA*
4 Stephen Salwocki, Danville, PA*
5 Dan Marino, West Cornwall, CT*
6 Justin Lyons, Uniontown, PA*
7 Zach Acunzo, Branford, CT*
8 Owen Welch, Lewistown, PA*
9 Noah Thompson, Austin, Texas*
10 Austen Randecker, Mill Hall, PA*
11 Cam Chioffi, Wellesley, Massachusetts*
12 Joseph Benson, Loudenville, NY*
13 Robbie Wirth, Moraga, California*
14 Andrew Brown, Alpharetta, Georgia*
15 Tyler Befus, Montrose, Colorado*
16 Robert Torsell, State College, PA*
17 Jonathan Dietz, Corry, PA*

The following anglers competed well but missed the cut. They are great kids and hopefully will try again next year.
Angelo Conti, Hopewell, NJ
Andrew Loffredo, Averill Park, NY
Ryan Heydt, Allentown, PA
Matthew Michel, Banner Elk, NC
C.J.Pelligrini, Pittsburgh, PA
Harrison Orr, Roswell, Georgia
Thomas Summers, West Decatur, PA
Derek Edwards, Greensburg, PA
Grayson Hirst, Lancaster, PA
William Weis, Pittsburgh, PA