The Roanoke Fly Rod Club has 12 two-man teams; each team uses a particular fly during tournaments, which are held twice a month during warm-weather month.
Anglers schedule tournaments at a meeting around Christmas by drawing slips of paper with names of eight to 10 rivers in Northeastern North Carolina. They discuss the rivers and decide which dates to hold their tournament on each river. The club’s “Classic” is held at the end of the season, when anglers head for a previously undisclosed river to catch large bluegill and redear sunfish (shellcrackers).
“A stringer of half-pound bluegills will put you in the running to win,” Lanny Cowan said. “Some fish are caught during most of our tournaments that weigh a pound or more. Occasionally, someone brings in a shellcracker that weighs a pound-and-a-half. The biggest panfish I’ve caught was a 2-pound, 10-ounce shellcracker. I caught six shellcrackers off one stump on a black wet fly and all of them weighed more than 2 pounds.”
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