S5, Ep 15: An Evening with Chuck Furimsky

Marvin Cash (00:00:04): Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of The Articulate Fly. On this episode, I'm joined by fly fishing show elder statesman Chuck Furimsky.

Chuck shares his fly fishing journey. We discuss his 30 plus year career as a show promoter. We update you on what to expect at this year's fly fishing shows. I think you're really going to enjoy this one.

But before we get to the interview, just a couple of housekeeping items. If you like the podcast, please tell a friend and please subscribe and leave us a rating and review in the podcast of your choice. It really helps us out.

And a shout out to this episode's sponsor. This episode's sponsored by our friends at Nor-vise. Their motto is, tie better flies faster. And they produce the only vise that truly spins. In early 2023, the Nor-vise team will be on the road demonstrating the Nor-vise at fly fishing shows across the country. To check out all of Nor-vise's great products and to see if they'll be coming to a town near you, head over to www.nor-vise.com today.

Now, on to our interview. Well, Chuck, welcome to The Articulate Fly.

Chuck Furimsky (00:01:11): Well, thanks for inviting me.

Marvin Cash (00:01:12): Yeah, I'm really looking forward to our conversation. And we have a tradition on The Articulate Fly. We like to ask all of our guests to share their earliest fishing memory.

Chuck Furimsky (00:01:22): You mean I have to think back almost 80 years? Not quite, it seems like it. Well, I don't know where I grew up, but it was a small town outside of Pittsburgh called Keysport. It was a fabulous town. It's not so great anymore because when the mills closed everything changed.

But the only place I had to fish was about a 15 minute walk from my house. I walked down over the woods which was there at that time, now it's the senior high. But I walked on through the woods and I went to Lake Emily. It was about, I'd say, an acre of muddy water stocked with carp and catfish. And that was my fishing experience when I was young.

I was probably starting to fish there when I was maybe in sixth or seventh grade. I had an old metal level wind casting rod, the kind that you grab the tip and pull it out, and it stretches out to like five feet instead of foot and a half. I guess it was the pre-runner to the rod that they always, what do they put in your glove compartment? Oh, something, what did they call it? Something, pocket fisherman, that's what they call it.

Marvin Cash (00:02:46): Like one of those Ron Popeil things, yeah.

Chuck Furimsky (00:02:48): At least I had a real fishing rod, but it wasn't a fly rod. It was a level wind with a Dacron or whatever line that they had at that time. I don't even think they had much monofilament. That came out when the spinning rods were popular.

But that was my first fishing experience, fishing for carp. And I made a lot of dough ball. And I was a young kid. Sometimes when I didn't have time to take a lunch, I'd eat some of my dough ball. I hate to confess.

Marvin Cash (00:03:19): Oh, there you go. And so when did you come to the dark side of fly fishing, Chuck?

Chuck Furimsky (00:03:25): The dark side? Well, my parents, we used to drive after church on Sunday morning to a state park about an hour from Keysport, Keystone Lake State Park. That was our big, big trip together. The whole thing. I don't have any brothers or sisters. It's my mother, dad, me, and my dad would always like to do the hamburgers and hot dogs, and my mother would help out and just have a good time.

And that's where I started to really start to fish. And that was the first time I saw someone with a fly rod. And he was on the breast of the dam casting a little bobber with a white streamer catching crappies between eight and ten inches long. And everybody else, of course, was using worms and minnows.

And I thought, gee, this is cool. He's catching them on something that you don't have to sane in the street before you go fishing and get a can and keep the water right or they'll die or dig up night crawlers or whatever. And eventually I went and pestered the guy and he put the rod in my hand.

And that was like, light came out of the sky for me. I said, this is so light and flexible. And I caught a crappie, and it felt like I had a sailfish on the end of my rod. And that's the first time I really touched a fly rod. And he was really, really nice. He showed me how to roll cast. Of course, he couldn't do a regular cast like you normally would with a fly rod.

And that was the first time. I can't think of anything after that. There wasn't anything after that for a while, because I was only, I don't know, 11 or 12 at the time. So my dad wasn't a fly fisherman. He was always a worm fisherman for perch up at Erie.

When we went up to Erie, we fished with worms and caught perch and would come home at the end of the trip and have to clean about 150 perch till 2 in the morning. There was no catch and release at that time. We ate perch and they were delicious.

I should tell you, we were having lunch one day, and I saw some largemouth bass right off the beach where we were having our lunch. And I took a little piece of white bacon, and I threw it in the water, and a largemouth came and ate it right away. And I thought, huh, that's cool. So I put a little piece of bacon on my hook.

And that was not artificial. It was functional, I guess, like putting a fly on, but it was still meat. It wasn't a feather or anything. But then it's funny because later on in my life, I started using leather for flies, and I made flies that reminded me of that first time I had that bass eat that piece of bacon because I cut real thin stripes of leather now.

Well, you know how popular the worms are now. Everybody has different names for them. They started off with the San Juan Worm, and that was, what, I don't know, 20-some years ago, 25 years ago. Now, what's the other one that I always kid Tim Cammisa about? Oh, I don't know.

Marvin Cash (00:06:52): I know, like, a lot of people.

Chuck Furimsky (00:06:53): It's like a rubber. Oh, it's a squirmy. Yeah, the squirmy-wormy. I always kid him. I said, would you catch him on the squirmy-wormy? Because we fish once in a while together, and we're always teasing each other.

Marvin Cash (00:07:07): Yeah. It's interesting, too, because I know, you know, I don't think everybody kind of in the industry, we all know you from the shows, but you've got probably, I don't know what, a dozen patterns commercially available through Rainy's. When did you get into tying, Bud?

Chuck Furimsky (00:07:22): Well, what happened was it started with what I just mentioned in our conversation. I had a leather goods store at Seven Springs. That was my business at the time, and I started that when I was after I quit teaching. I went to get my master's and then I couldn't get a teaching job because everybody wanted to pay the beginning teacher. They didn't want someone who had more credits.

So I ended up opening this leather goods store at Seven Springs and eventually over the years I started using scrap leather, real fine lambskin and making flies. And that's how I was saying I copied that bacon with the leather. And of course they had white leather, orange leather, red leather, pink leather. So that's how I transitioned from bait to artificial.

Well it's not artificial. It's actually from an animal just like rabbit skin. You wouldn't put rabbit on your hooks and call it meat because it's from a rabbit. It's the rabbit skin and the hair. So, because I always argue with Theo Bakelaar. I don't know if you remember him. He called himself Theo Eelskin Bakelaar. He saw me using a lot of leather patterns.

And that's when Rainy came and asked me about the flies. And eventually I'm answering your questions. She said would you like to be a contract tier? I said well what do you need to do? And said you have to tie five flies the same ones of one pattern that you like and you have to send them to me and you have to make a little video of how you do the steps. And that was when VHS was popular and I would make the VHS tapes to send them to her.

And I don't know if people know what I'm talking about, so I hope it's interesting. They send the flies back to you that their tiers copy from your video. And you look at them and you pick the one that you think is the best and eventually that person ends up tying your fly commercially and you get the name on it, your name, and you get usually it's 10% of what they sell.

So, you know, I get a check for 10%. It might not be a lot, but sometimes it is. It pays for another bunch of fly-tying material and maybe gas for my boat. But that's how it happened. And then she asked me for another pattern for the next group of catalog pictures.

And so I eventually kept designing different flies. And mine are all different than the ones that she has because I tie them with the leather products. I call the leather products bug skin. It's not commonly known to everybody because I don't have time to promote it. But when people find out about it, they always ask me, how can I get some? So it is available.

But that's how it started with Rainy. She saw me at a show and asked me to do it. I never really promoted myself to make money like that. But, hey, if I get a couple hundred dollars for gasoline, it's not bad.

Marvin Cash (00:10:52): Yeah, there you go. And so, Chuck, what was the impetus for you to kind of become a fly fishing show promoter? And can you tell us a little bit about the first show you promoted?

Chuck Furimsky (00:11:03): Well, as I mentioned, I had the business at the ski resort, Seven Springs Mountain Resort. That was my leather shop. And somebody told me about a fly fishing show in Detroit. I said, Detroit, that's quite a drive. They said, well, we're going to drive there because we're going to set up a booth. And you could go with us. I said, okay, I'll go and split the gas or whatever.

And that was the show that was by FFF at that time. And they had two celebrities, Gary Borger and Gary LaFontaine. And, of course, I knew about these people because they were famous already. And I got to meet them at the show. And it was so nice to talk to them. And the show was so interesting and fascinating. And I thought, boy, this is great. But it's so far from me. It's like six hours to drive.

And I went back to the resort, and I talked to Herman Dupre, who we had a good relationship, and he was the owner of the ski resort. And he said, well, why don't you try to do something like that here, that you don't have to drive to Detroit? I said, well, I don't know if I could. Yeah, it's going to cost a lot of money.

He said, well, let me check the calendar. And he found out in the spring one weekend after the ski scene was over, things slowed down until the summer starts. And the convention hall that he had there was gorgeous. It was a real nice size. He says, I'll tell you what, I'll give you the convention hall for the weekend and try to do a show.

I said, well, how much is it going to cost me? He says, I'm not going to charge you. I'm giving it to you because it's available that weekend. All you have to do is fill my bar and restaurants with people and make them book rooms at the hotel. He said, but you're in charge of that hall. Don't ask me to make security available for you. You have to take care of all the expenses of hiring anybody.

And that's how I did it, because I got the whole exhibit hall for free. And I don't know how much they cost now. You don't get anything for free anymore. But that's how I started the first show. I was nervous because it was all my money. And I was the first one that I knew of that did a show as an independent promoter. I wasn't a club.

And there weren't that many clubs that did the shows. That was the only one I knew up in Detroit. And I think I ended in 32 years, and they were doing their 35th year. So only a couple years ahead of me. And they're still doing that show. And we make sure we don't compete in the same weekend dates in March. Because our last show was in Lancaster, PA. And our show is usually the weekend after our show. So we try not to be the same weekend.

And those guys are really great promoters. They did a super job. But they have so much help when you go there. They carry everything in for you. They have an open bar. They have a buffet for all the exhibitors.

And when I did the first show at Seven Springs, what do you think the first question was? Where's the bar, Chuck? I said, what bar? It's down in the hotel where it always is. No, don't you have a show bar? We always get complimentary drinks and then the buffet dinner at the show in Detroit.

I said, oh, I didn't know you expected that. I don't know. I'm not going to feed everybody. And that floored me, you know, and I didn't find out a couple of years ago why they did that, other than just being really nice. But because they have the tax deductible with the government, but you can't make any profit.

That's what Bill Keough told me, who owns Whiting Farms. He said they can't show a profit or they can't do the show because then they have to fill out income tax forms and pay taxes. So they have to use the money and break even and show no profit. So they use it and give everybody food and a lot of drinks for free.

And I said, well, I want to make some money if I'm going to bust my butt and work real hard to make an event successful. If it isn't successful, I lose all my money. I'm not a club. I'm a person that has a small bankroll.

Marvin Cash (00:15:42): Do you remember after that first show kind of when you realized you were onto something that would grow into what we all know as the fly fishing shows today?

Chuck Furimsky (00:15:52): Well, at Seven Springs, I always had a real nice crowd. Everybody sort of knew each other because we were all in the Pittsburgh area. But I never had a huge crowd. And I always thought, wow, what would it be like to get a show in an area where there were a densely populated area that was close to the show? So I started thinking about that.

And I did Seven Springs for three years, I think it was. But I could never increase the crowd because I would get a few people that would drive up from Washington and Baltimore. But most of the people were from around Pittsburgh.

And the other thing that I don't know if you knew about this, but it's part of the history of the shows. The first year I decided to think about moving the show someplace else, there was another show that started in Carlisle, near Harrisburg. And I thought, well, who the heck is doing a fly fishing show in Pennsylvania? And I'm the only one that did it for a couple of years.

And so I went to the show and it was called, I think Barry called it the book and tackle show because he had a business called Angler's Art and he sold nothing but fly fishing books. This was before the internet. He had catalogs, and you would order the books on the catalog, and it was sent up to you.

Anyway, I met Barry, and Barry and I hit it off. Even though his show was in July, it didn't bother me in April. So we start talking about whether we ever want to do a show someplace else where we might get more people, and we ended up deciding to become partners instead of competing.

So we went in 50-50, and we found a location that was available with a big exhibit hall in the middle of billions of people. And that was Somerset, New Jersey. We're close to Eastern PA. We're close to Delaware. We're close to New York. And on the map, if you drew a circle around Somerset of a 100-mile radius, there was like 5.5 million people. We thought, wow, we should get a good crowd.

So that's the history of me moving the show from Seven Springs and becoming a partner with Barry. We put in I don't remember how much exactly it cost for the facility, but if we didn't have 2500 people we were going to lose money. And that's a lot of people because at Seven Springs we had 1000 people, but I made enough money to do it again because Herman always gave me a break on the exhibit hall in the future when I started paying for it.

Well, we had, I don't know if you knew about this. This is going back in the beginning. We had 6,500 people the first year we did the show in Somerset. We had a fire marshal that closed the doors and wouldn't let people come in unless people left. And that would be a kiss of death to anybody. But for us, it was like Golden Globe Awards. Everybody knew the show was so great, you couldn't get in because it was so crowded.

And that kicked off the whole idea of doing shows for the crowds in places where you knew they would be successful. So I left Seven Springs, and we did Somerset. And then Barry and I decided to do another show since that was so good. And we just agreed that each of us would pick a show one year somewhere.

So the first one he picked was up in Marlboro, which we still do, near Boston. And then the next show, it was my turn to pick. And I picked Maryland, University of Maryland, for Baltimore, D.C. And then what was after that? I think Barry picked Charlotte. And then we did that. So every year we added a show.

Eventually, I don't know how many years we did that until we hit 10 shows. I thought 10 weekends toward the winter. There's only like 12 weekends to do events toward the winter. You started in the beginning of January and you had the beginning of March. So that was pretty stressful. You had to work pretty hard to put on nine or 10 shows in a two-month period.

My skiing got pretty bad. I never got to ski. Ice fishing was put on the back burner. Didn't get to ice fish. Didn't get to steelhead fish in the fall because I was too busy working to put the shows together, calling celebrities, hiring people, doing the programs.

And eventually Barry retired, and he sold the shows to me. And then I ran them by myself. And now you know that my son took over six years ago, I think. This will be the sixth year coming up. And he's doing a great job. And I help him a little bit, but it's hard to get involved in it when he's in charge because I don't want him to say, Dad, you retired. I'm running it now.

But I go and introduce people because that's the chance I get to see all my friends that I worked with for, what, 32 years, you know? It's like a high school reunion every year. So I'm still going to every show, and I introduce people. And I'm kind of like, what did Joe Lewis do when he got done boxing? He worked in front of the casinos, I think, in Las Vegas or whatever. That's what I feel like. I just walk around and introduce people and say hello to people. And then my son asked me to help when he needs me. So I'm available.

Marvin Cash (00:22:13): Yeah. And, you know, in addition to the fly fishing shows, you've got the International Fly Tying Symposium. How did that event come about?

Chuck Furimsky (00:22:21): Well, when I started the first show at all, just with fly fishing and casting and rods and fly tying material, I also had a group of tiers that came to the show. I set up some really nice tables along the wall, and I used elevated tables so the people didn't have to bend over and watch them tie.

And at the end of the show, usually people want to go and pack and leave. And I'd look, and there'd be guys still at the tying tables watching the guys tie flies. As far as the show's over, I kicked them out of the show. But then what happened if tiers got together? You know, there may be like 10 of them that were there. They said, Chuck, they love us. Why don't we do a show just with fly tying in the fall before the winter season starts when a tie flies?

And above the festival hall or above the exhibit hall at Seven Springs was a second hall that was smaller. And it was called Festival Hall. And that's what I did. In November, I called it the fly tying symposium. And I had the first year I did. I got the best fly tiers I could find.

And I could name a few of them, and I'm sure you know them. I had Clouser was there. Gary Borger was there. Dick Talleur. Gary LaFontaine. Ernie Schwiebert. Ed Koch. I'm just thinking of all I don't know if Jack Dennis was there that year, but I had all these great fly tiers and people loved it. But it was only maybe a show of 400 people which was enough to cover expenses because I didn't have to build a casting pond.

And that's how the tying started and eventually when I left Seven Springs I did the International Fly Tying Symposium, and that's when I did the hotel next to the Somerset Convention Center, and it was the Hilton, and I did it in their ballroom, and that's where we did it this past year.

And we get a big crowd there, and we get, I think we had six European countries represented, and we get 100 tiers set to show in addition to all kinds of products that you can purchase. Well, you know, this is the one that Tim missed, and we had a few other vise people, and then the people that had shops were selling all kinds of vises.

And Keough had 30 feet of space with all of his hackle. And the first time we had a hook company from Europe came, and I didn't know a whole lot about them because they're only a few years old. And they're from Denmark. And my mind just went blank. What's the name of the hook that they produce?

Marvin Cash (00:25:45): I think it's Ahrex, right?

Chuck Furimsky (00:25:47): Ahrex, that's it. Ahrex, I couldn't think of it. But I didn't know those hooks real well because they really weren't into trout fishing hooks. They were just about to introduce them. And they called them, I think they called them Gore, G-O-R-E. That was the name they gave the trout hooks.

They introduced them at the show, and that's the first time they came to the United States with their hooks. And they were swamped with people. They loved it. They would have come back again. So the tying symposium is not big and successful. And if I broke even, I was happy. I never tried to make money on that show. I just wanted to sustain it and just pay for it because it was everybody's favorite show.

It wasn't a big crowd. But just like you were saying, when we talked before, people could walk up to the tier and talk for five minutes or 10 minutes or half an hour, until they get pushed away from somebody else coming there. But it's such a personable atmosphere. Everybody loves to talk to the tiers and learn all the tricks and see all the different patterns that are available. It's everyone's favorite show.

Marvin Cash (00:27:01): Yeah, absolutely. And it's really interesting, too, because I'm sure the Ahrex guys, all the musky and predator fly guys love those hooks. So I'm sure they were absolutely swamped, right?

Chuck Furimsky (00:27:11): Oh, absolutely. They were giving samples away. They had really nice samples of all the hooks, and they were handing them to people. They loved it. And then they brought some of the tiers over that use their hooks in the United States. They brought them into the show. I gave them a free entrance because they were going to work with a paint exhibitor and tie and demonstrate. So they were going to attract people.

I don't know all the ones that were there because I was so busy. I didn't get to stay at their booth more than a couple minutes every few hours. They had different people all the time. But, yeah, they're a big name. Those hooks are really, really excellent. But we'll be getting a contract to look at.

And I think by the end of next week, the girl at the sales department called me and she said that she has the same date for me, penciled in, and she'll do up a contract and see if I want to return again. So I think I'll do it as long as, you know, I want to talk to some more people. I need a few more people with merchandise because we had one guy, unfortunately, that fell down a week before the show. And I don't want to embarrass him by mentioning the names, but he hurt his back so bad he couldn't go to the show. And that was like 30 feet of space that he couldn't find any products to buy.

Marvin Cash (00:28:43): Yeah, it's always interesting, right? Because, I mean, that's a lot of time tables to replace 30 feet of vendor space, right?

Chuck Furimsky (00:28:48): Yeah, exactly. I have about 30 vendors. So that's a lot, really, 30 people. Sometimes that's like a small one-day Trout Unlimited show. If they get 30 vendors on a Saturday, they do a show in Pittsburgh called Cabin Fever. Because after I left Seven Springs, the guys that always supported me at Seven Springs were from Pennswood's chapter in Pittsburgh. And I knew them all. They were all friends.

And I said, why don't you guys start a show in Pittsburgh? And then they did, and it's still going on. As a matter of fact, the guy that runs it called me, and he says, what do you charge for your tables? He was trying to find out how much he could increase the tables because of the economy. Everything's going up in price. The cost of a facility where they do the show, I guess, increased their price. And he was trying to figure out how to balance it out by charging them extra ticket money or table money.

So, but anyway, I don't get to go to it because that's the weekend we do the show in San Francisco. And I'm out there in California that weekend. They're doing their show in Pittsburgh. Where I'd go.

Marvin Cash (00:30:01): So it's interesting too, right? Because you literally have been kind of, you know, with fly fishing shows from kind of the beginning at ground zero. You know, what changes have you seen in the consumer fly fishing show over the years, Chuck?

Chuck Furimsky (00:30:16): Well, there's a lot of positive things. And the only real negative thing was obviously the COVID. It closed the shows completely. It couldn't get anything worse than having the show closed. I was watching something on television the other night, and it was a, I can't remember, he was on Friends, and I never watched Friends a whole lot, but it was one of the best TV shows that they had.

And he was talking when the COVID hit, they shut down all the theaters where they had plays and musical performances. And all the musicians were out of work. The actors that weren't super famous, they had nowhere to work because all the theaters were shut down. So that was the biggest thing that hurt the fly fishing show, too, because they shut us down.

It happened a weekend after our show in Lancaster. That was our last show in Lancaster, beginning of March. And the decorator that set up our show for us in Edison called me from Edison. He said, Chuck, you know, I'm down here setting up the hunting and fishing show. And you're not going to believe what I'm telling you. That's why I'm calling you.

It's Thursday and it's noon and everybody's getting their booths set up for the three-day weekend and the governor just shut the show down. I said what do you mean? He said we have to tear down all the booths and all the exhibitors were just told by the show promoter that the show is closed and we missed that by one week. We had our show in Pittsburgh or in Lancaster and they had I said What is he going to do? Give everybody their money back? He can't give everybody all their money back. He's still got to pay for the facility. And what about you? Are you getting paid?

He said, yeah, we set up the booths. We did our job. Now we have to tear them all down. That's what we get paid for. And he has to pay us. And he doesn't have a show to earn money. So that was really scary. And that was the beginning of two years. And thank God now that people are still wearing masks if they want to. But basically, hopefully nothing springs up again with any kind of dangerous flu or virus or whatever. The shows are going to really bounce back.

So that's the worst thing that ever happened to the shows. But the thing that I wish would improve is that the major manufacturers now, they don't seem to be owned by fly fishing guys or celebrities or lovers of fly fishing. They seem to be owned by millionaires that made their money in real estate or stocks or whatever. And we call them bean counters. All they want to do is make a profit.

They get stuff cheap from Japan or Korea. They bring it to the United States and put guides on the blanks and say they're made in the United States. They're not. They're just making a fortune. And instead of using some of that money to come and show their products to the people at the shows, they're so big they don't want to bother going to show. They don't have the help to sit there because they're busy at their offices working on the computers trying to figure out how to get things more profitable.

And that's disappointing because we're promoting the sport with all these shows. And how are you going to, you know, you can't cast a fly rod by looking at it on your screen. I know that the people buy a lot of stuff now over the internet, of course. We never had that when I first started the shows. I don't even think cell phones were invented then.

I think the first one I saw was a friend of mine that I bought buckles for, my leather goods store from New York. And he came down to the beach to see me, and we went down to the beach together. And he was carrying this oak box. It was like the size of a beer box. And it was his satellite phone. So if he was getting orders from people from all over the country, he would be able to take them. But it was probably a foot wide and a foot and a half long. It was like a little suitcase.

So I saw that and I thought, okay, good luck. I don't think I'd want that. But here we are talking on cell phones, right? And people are listening to us.

Marvin Cash (00:35:07): It's interesting right because I mean we sort of see this kind of shift in kind of the philosophy in fly fishing brands and you know we see the technology. I mean do you think Chuck that there's always going to be a place for consumer shows?

Chuck Furimsky (00:35:20): Well that's what I was worried about when it really really took off with people ordering over the internet because once the pandemic hit, there were small shops that never really had a lot of internet purchasing because they were busy. They might have been on a river in Wyoming or Montana where the people fished and bought their products, but they really didn't have time to hire people to ship and box and take things to UPS and get picked up or whatever. They had guys, clients, and they made enough money.

So all of a sudden, people stopped traveling. They couldn't go places. And so some of these small businesses were totally bankrupt. But then when I mentioned Bill Keough, he had bought Whiting Farms. And when the pandemic hit, how many people stayed home and started tying flies like they had plenty of time now because they didn't fly anywhere to fish? They didn't go to concerts. They didn't go to the movie. I mean, they had a lot more time, and the fly tying materials just increased almost double.

So certain people did real well, and certain people didn't. But I was worried about the shows because I'm thinking, you know, maybe everybody's going to order online. And when I mentioned that to Bill, he said, no, when they come to the show, the first thing they do is they come over and all my feathers are laid on in plastic tubs and hanging up on the pegboard. And they grab those feathers and they bend the necks. They look at the feathers. They feel them. They can't do that when they're ordered on the Internet. They wait till it comes in the mail to get it.

And we can send anything we want and tell them it's the best feather that they're going to ever see. And we will if we're going to be honest. But there's a lot of people that are on the Internet now that sell things that you don't know what you're going to get until you get it. And then you have to mail it back.

So the shows have not been hurt by the Internet. They actually probably increased in a certain aspect where they could see celebrities doing Facebook videos and anything else there on social media. They could turn it on in the evening and just type in Woolly Bugger, and there's 10 videos on how to tie a Woolly Bugger. But you still want to go see that person that you saw on the video in your library, like Tim Flagler, for instance. He got into the video thing in the beginning.

But everybody that sees him on his videos sees that he's going to be at one of our shows. Hey, let's go to the show. We'll go tell Tim. We see him all the time. We watch his videos. He's taught us how to tie flies. Let's go watch him. He's going to do a fly tying demonstration.

Marvin Cash (00:38:44): Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's interesting too, you know, Chuck, you want to maybe share some of your favorite memories from the fly fishing shows?

Chuck Furimsky (00:38:54): A lot of things that I did at the end of the show were so much fun. We always tried to do a banquet where all the exhibitors would come. And I wasn't like the FFF doing the free buffet. We usually had a ticket to try to cover the cost, but you have to eat anyway. So you might as well eat at a banquet with all the exhibitors.

So the craziest thing I did that started off trying to figure out what to do every year to be crazier than the previous year, I had a roast of Lefty Kreh. I don't know if you ever heard about it. It was a long time ago at Seven Springs. We had a big barbecue, and I hired, I found out from somebody about this girl that wasn't a professional, but it was like her hobby to roast people. She would come to the show and follow him around, and she asked me everything I knew about his secrets, about everything that I could tell her that she could use to smear him in a roast.

So she, Lefty's up at the microphone. I introduced you know Lefty to come up and tell a few jokes of course I had all this planned. Nobody knew what was going on except my son. Not even the exhibitors. No one knew. So he's up at the microphone telling a few jokes. Everybody's howling. We had 150, 200 people there.

And at the end of the building where he was talking you hear a voice and a lady comes in dressed up like a bag lady. You know, she had a shopping cart and she had all kinds of old clothes on her. Bernard! Hey, honey, where are you? Well, that's Lefty's real name, Bernard.

And Lefty's like at the microphone going, what the heck's going on? Who is it? Bernard, you left me at the motel. You said you were coming back. You had to finish that book on tying knots. You tied me to the bed and you never told me and you left. I thought you were going to take notes on all the different knots so you could finish that book.

And Lefty's going, oh my God, who is this? So I told her about all this stuff and she just roasted. She roasted Lefty like crazy. And everybody just loved that. My son actually videotaped it. And I have that tape. It's precious.

I was afraid that I would get in trouble. When Lefty called me a couple days later, and he had showed — we gave him a copy of the tape because we made it there. And he showed it to his wife, and he said she never stopped laughing the whole night. So you're okay. She loves you.

But I was afraid that he was going to be in trouble because she came in as a bag lady, but all those clothes that she had on didn't stay on forever. And she was sitting on Lefty's lap on the stage after she threw a bunch of stuff off. But it wasn't real gross or anything. I mean, it wasn't like, you know, a gentleman's club or anything. But he was a great sport. He just, it was so fun.

Bob Clouser couldn't stop laughing. He had tears running down his cheeks. He was taking pictures with his camera. And he had a riot. And that was the craziest thing I ever did. But we've done a lot of things after that that were a lot of fun.

Marvin Cash (00:42:36): Very, very neat. And, you know, I think you mentioned, I think it was, what, in 2015, 2016, you kind of stepped back and Ben took over. And I was kind of curious, you know, what is it like as a dad kind of watching your son take over this business that you built and to continue to grow it?

Chuck Furimsky (00:42:58): Well, I'm real proud of him, but I, first of all, I left it to him and ended the year later COVID hit. So that made me feel like really sad that such an unfortunate thing happened. And he made money and then two years he made nothing. It had no job because he took over the fly fishing show.

You know, he had been working the shows with me, you know, all that time. And he knew what was going on, but he wasn't the owner and he wasn't splitting the profits or anything. He had the experience. So I was so happy that he knew how everything was run.

And he improved the shows so much because, as you know, I grew up when we had no cell phones, no internet, no text, no emails. He does all that, and he gets to talk to so many people his age. They don't, you know, I know a lot of people, but too bad they're not under 60.

You know, everybody, that's the saddest thing for me with the shows. Because, of course, who was the latest person that I won't see anymore? Dave Whitlock. I mean, his wife called me the day after he died, and I was shocked. I said, oh, here's another. I mean, Lefty was a big disappointment. I thought he was going to live to 110 or something.

Well, just like George Harvey. I think he was 95 when he died. 94 or 95. But he worked until he was almost 90. But he told me, he said, Chuck, I love doing the shows for you, but I just can't remember these people that come up to me that I had as a student. My mind isn't as good. I hate it when I don't know their names.

He was always wanting to be a perfectionist. Everything he did was always perfect. And if it wasn't, it frustrated him because he couldn't make it perfect. So he just decided that was the end of the shows for him.

But that's the sad thing about the shows. I'm still here, and I get to see everybody that I love, that I've worked with all these years. But it's tough when someone passes away. And that's life, I guess. That's the way it is.

But there's a lot of young people coming up, hopefully taking over some of the old-timers that have made a legend for themselves. And some of these young people are growing quicker because of the internet. That's a positive thing for people get, like, look, like we mentioned, Tim Flagler, Tim Cammisa. Tim Cammisa has a big following. When I tell people he's a school teacher, they think he's a professional fly fisherman. They think he just makes a living talking about fly fishing and doing seminars and programs and classes. But he teaches sixth grade. So, yeah.

Marvin Cash (00:46:11): Yeah. It's interesting too, you know, because speaking about younger people, I always think it's great to see your grandson at all the shows too.

Chuck Furimsky (00:46:17): Oh, that's, that's who was, that's who was on my iPad. I have my iPad on a counter in front of me because I was looking at some of the questions that we might talk about. And his face came up because he FaceTimed me.

But he worked at the Tying Symposium this fall. And he worked at the front door and he stamped the people's heads and he's, he loves it. Yeah. He's a, he's a real smart guy. He can, he can, he can do anything. He's Ben, of course, you know, he lives in Crested Butte, Colorado and Tiki, his name is Tiki T I K I.

And all I can think of when Ben said that his little boy, they're going to call him Tiki. All I can think of was Tiki Barber and the football player. But Ben told me that Tiki is the name that they give to the first male born in New Zealand. And he was on his honeymoon in New Zealand. And I think that's when that all started with him starting to grow.

But anyway, he is the coolest guy. He helps at the shows and who knows, maybe you'll be interviewing him in about 15 years or so. When are you going to be? You're going to be 70.

Marvin Cash (00:47:40): Yeah. Yeah. I'm 53 now. So, yeah. Oh, are you? Yeah. So I suspect it won't take 15 years to bring him on the show. And, you know, it's funny because, you know, I'm spoiled, right? I go to a lot of these shows. But, you know, I always realize that there are a lot of people that don't have that as kind of part of their regular winter fly fishing routine. For someone, Chuck, who's never been to one of the fly fishing shows before, you want to let them know kind of the general format?

Chuck Furimsky (00:48:12): Well, usually you could go to a program maybe that a Trout Unlimited club puts on one night out of the month. Maybe they meet the second Thursday or whatever. And they try to attract members to their club, and they'll hire somebody to do one talk. And usually they might charge $5 or $10 just to get enough money to pay for them.

But our ticket price, you have a choice of, God, I just got the brochure for Edison, and Ben must have 40 pictures in the brochure of our celebrity speakers. But those aren't all of the speakers. There's a lot of people that are just getting into the sport that are guides and work for shops, and they do destination theater. And we have, I think, six destination theaters going on every hour.

And then we have the catch room, the release room, and the strike room, which are major seminars where we have seats for 200 people. And that's where we get the big pros that are coming in, the big names in fly fishing. And then we have two casting ponds. And then we have 200 exhibitors at Edison or more. Yeah.

And the price is $18. I mean, it costs you $18 to go to a crummy movie, and it lasts an hour and 20 minutes, and your popcorn is greasy, and you dropped your Coke or whatever. And you can do anything you want. And then we have another 60 fly tiers at Edison. I mean, all those fly tiers that do the international also want to go to the big show in Edison, too, because they get to see more people.

You know, Edison might get, I don't know, if it's not going to snow, we might get 10,000, 11,000 people. But it's enormous. So you get to go everywhere and see everything you want for just the price of admission. And you'll be blown away once you go through the door. You'll see everything there is in fly fishing just about. And a lot of things you never knew existed.

Marvin Cash (00:50:30): Yeah.

Chuck Furimsky (00:50:31): And I ask people at the seminars, usually all the time, it's my chance of getting kind of a market research done in a couple of minutes. Hi, everybody. Hey, can I see the hands of those people that have never been to the show before? And do you believe like 20% of the people raised their hands? I'm thinking, what the heck? Where have you been?

Well, I remember saying that in Denver one time. This was like 10 years ago. I said, where have you been? In prison? And the one guy was in prison. In the front row, he said, yeah, I just got out. So I don't say that anymore. I don't say that anymore. I don't want to insult anybody.

But why do these people not find the show? But once they find it they come back every year and they don't ask how many people have never missed a show and there are guys that have been to every show for like 20 years. They never miss it. But you know that's pretty hard especially if you're married and have a couple kids because the kids are going to get married. There's going to be some music thing that they want you to come to see or they're on a play or church or whatever.

So you don't always have a weekend free when the show's there. The show's only there one weekend of the year and hopefully you can come. But we always have new people coming all the time. And I guess the people that don't show up, maybe like we talked about, they get older and they pass away. You don't see them anymore. You don't know that, especially with the pandemic. There's two years where you didn't see anybody, and you don't know what happened to them. You don't want to go around and ask, hey, what happened to Bob? Yeah. Yeah.

Marvin Cash (00:52:25): But, you know, it's interesting, too, you know, talking about having 20% kind of new people. If you're new to a fly fishing show, what are your suggestions for that new person to get the most out of the event?

Chuck Furimsky (00:52:37): Well, I know that you just can't walk through the door without a plan. I saw that question that was on the iPad, a couple that you gave me, and I thought about that. And I thought, you know, I'm going to answer that like this. This is what I was going to say.

Well, I am going to say, you go to a show like you're going to approach a stream. You don't go and start wading in the water and flailing your flyline. You don't go to a show and just bust through the door and start walking through and try to figure out where something is that you want to find.

You get a floor plan. You see where the booth is and for something that you know you want to see. You look at the seminar list. Now, when the computers started becoming very popular, guys were coming that were sharp through the door. And they had a printout sheet that they printed on their printer. And they had a schedule. They knew what seminars they were going to go to.

If they were going to go on a trip to Montana, they were definitely going to go to this destination theater talk that the guide was doing that represented the Bighorn River, say, or something, the Missouri River. If they were going to go to Chile, they were going to see that talk. If they wanted to improve their casting, they were going to make sure they came and watched Lefty cast or Gary Borger or Jeff Currier or any... Gary Borger always does a great, great job. And Cathy Beck comes and does demonstrations for the ladies.

So there's something for everybody. And then Edison this year, we have a whole section. I didn't say this. You probably didn't even think about it. I'm asking because maybe you didn't know it existed. But we have a whole section for women. There's like 30 exhibitors that have nothing but products geared towards women for fly fishing.

Because 10 years ago that was a big topic in fly fishing. Why aren't we making waders that fit women? Why do they have to look like some kind of a robot wearing stuff that doesn't fit them? Why don't we have nice light? They even went so far I remember Rick at Temple Fork he made a couple hundred pink fly rods for Casting for Recovery people. That was something really great, I thought. You started to pay attention to what the customers didn't have and you provided that for them.

So when you come to the fly fishing show, if you don't find something there that you're looking for or something that you would like to have, then I'd be amazed. What you would really do is to buy more than you ever expected or to see more than you ever expected. So you can't do it all in one day. You can't even do it in three days. We have a lot of people that book a hotel room and stay for like, it's like going to Disney World. They can't go there for one day and see all the rides. You know, they're going to come to the show and stay for three days and see everything.

Marvin Cash (00:55:45): Yeah, plus your friends, right? I mean, it starts to become a big thing where it's like one time a year to get to see your folks.

Chuck Furimsky (00:55:51): Yeah, I know there's a group of guys that get on social media and say, hey, we're going to the show and we're going to meet for breakfast. And they pick a breakfast place and they all, there's like 15 guys and they all meet and they hang out together. And then they go to the restaurant at the bar that night and stay in the motel.

And it's like a whole fraternity that there are hundreds of fraternities that come to the show. You get to see people that you fish with and you maybe haven't seen them for five or six months with their families. They're busy. So it's a big personal place to make contacts face to face. You don't have to look at someone and say, hey, text me. We're going to sit down and have a beer and talk about the trip we had last summer together. So that's the whole idea at the show. If you're unhappy at the show, I feel sorry for you, but I don't know why.

Marvin Cash (00:56:52): Yeah, and I would say too in Edison, if you're talking about a good place to eat, I would say you need to go get a Reuben at Harold's, right?

Chuck Furimsky (00:57:00): Oh, my God. I never went to that place until the first time. I couldn't believe it. And you know who was at the door? It made me feel proud because I'm at the show and introduce everybody and help out. The guy that owns it was right at the door. He seated us at the table. I think he knew because we had fly fishing show shirts on, and he knew who we were. And he took care of us because we were like a third of his business that night.

I don't know if people know what we're talking about, but they do a corned beef sandwich. It's what, two feet high with corned beef?

Marvin Cash (00:57:38): Yeah, and they've got a matzo ball soup with a matzo in it that's the size of a coconut.

Chuck Furimsky (00:57:43): It's a great food. The only thing, you have to make sure you're not impatient because you'll get a table, but it might take a half an hour. Yeah. It depends. You just have to go maybe like at five o'clock instead of six or quarter to five. I always like to go quarter till the hour because how many people want to meet together? Say, what time should we meet? Well, let's meet at six. So I go at quarter to six or let's meet at seven. So I go a quarter to seven, try to beat them by about 15 minutes and get a table before. So anyway, yeah, that's a great place.

Marvin Cash (00:58:19): Yeah. And so, you know, you've got the Women's Showcase in Edison. Anything new kind of in the fly fishing shows at 2023 we should let folks know about?

Chuck Furimsky (00:58:29): Well, I wanted to go through the brochure and you don't know this, but I'm getting a meniscus taken care of tomorrow on my knee. So I've been getting all these pre-tests so I could get the surgery and I got the brochure, but I haven't been able to read. If I was doing the show, I would probably have most of it memorized.

But since Ben does it all, I have to see who he has coming. And I'm going to have to learn everybody's name that I don't know. And there's probably, out of the 45 celebrities or so that are doing talks, there's probably four or five that I don't know. I just never read their books or saw them or met them. So I can't give you the answers to that question because I'd have to just try to think real hard.

But the one thing I can tell you, that the people that have been coming every year, people want to see them over and over again. And they know that. And they want to see them do different talks because they're knowledgeable in all aspects of fly fishing. So we have people that maybe did a talk on trout. They're going to do a talk now on salmon in Alaska. They're going to do a talk on tarpon in Florida. There's saltwater talks. There's freshwater talks.

There's a talk going to be in Marlboro, and I don't know who's going to do it. I have to look on Martha's Vineyard because I always like to fish at Martha's Vineyard, and I haven't gone for a couple of years. I want to find out if the fishing has slacked off or come back or what. So I might go try to sneak in that talk and tell Ben to get someone else to work for an hour.

Marvin Cash (01:00:13): And so what I'll do is I'll drop a link in the show notes so people can go find what they're looking for, wherever they're going to be able to make a show. And it's interesting, too, right? So we're going to release this right before the Atlanta show. And I know this year is the first year you've gone from a two-day show in Atlanta to a three-day show in Atlanta.

Chuck Furimsky (01:00:31): Yeah, right. Yeah, the people wanted it because it was so busy. At 5 o'clock, there were 1,500 people there, and usually it's down to 300, 400 at the end of the day. But they were packed in there, and the exhibitors that come from great distances don't mind a two-day show, but it costs the same to do a three-day show plus a motel room.

You know, we don't charge anything extra for your booth. It's usually the same for two days as it is for three, but then the only expense you have is like another motel for one extra night. So to get a three-day show out of it, maybe that third day you book someone for five thousand dollars to your camp in Alaska. Well maybe more like seven or eight thousand now. But sometimes the three-day show is more desirable than a two-day as long as you have the people and the people were coming to Atlanta. So we're doing it and we'll see how it goes.

Marvin Cash (01:01:38): Yeah, it's I'm interested. I'll be there for all three days and you know what I'll do Chuck is I'll drop a link to the website for the fly fishing show as well as all the social media stuff because I know in particular Ben and his folks have been super active on Instagram and I'll drop all the links so you know anyone that wants to find out you know if there's a show close to them and all the details I'll drop all that stuff in the show notes.

Chuck Furimsky (01:01:59): Oh yeah and the press releases. Bennett Mitts is our marketing director out of California. He's been in the industry forever. I think Bennett is 88 years old and I don't want him to be crossed off the old timers list and retire. I want him to work forever. He's such a good writer. His press releases are they have everything in it and he just sent the press releases out today and he sent them to me. He always sends them to me to read and I love it because I found a mistake. He had one comma missing.

And when I write a press release I always sent it to him when I did the shows. He didn't, he didn't do the first I wrote the press release and I sent it to him and he would send it back with about 10 corrections and I say oh my god. Is my dad stupid that I made all those spelling errors and put the punctuation wrong? But I finally got to correct them on one comma.

Marvin Cash (01:03:01): Well, there you go. And you have a nice stack of press releases to read while your knee is propped up for the next week or so, right?

Chuck Furimsky (01:03:08): Oh, yeah.

Marvin Cash (01:03:09): Yeah.

Chuck Furimsky (01:03:10): And he sends them to all the outdoor papers and all the magazines and outdoor writers. So they'll start popping up everywhere where people just Google the name, and you'll find them on the computer to see. So, yeah, I'll be looking forward to you coming, so it's great.

Marvin Cash (01:03:28): Yeah, absolutely, and I appreciate you making some time for me, Chuck, particularly in light of the fact that you're going to go have surgery tomorrow. I hope it goes well.

Chuck Furimsky (01:03:36): Yeah, I'm sorry I don't own the shows anymore. I'll give you a free ticket, but Ben said I could give you 10% off if that's okay.

Marvin Cash (01:03:42): Fair enough. I'll grab you when I get there, and we'll track Ben down.

Chuck Furimsky (01:03:48): I'm only teasing you. I tell that to all my friends. They think I'm going to give them all free tickets, and I do anyway.

Marvin Cash (01:03:56): Well, listen, I really appreciate you making the time to chat with me, and I look forward to seeing you in person here in a few weeks.

Chuck Furimsky (01:04:02): Great. Great. I hope I gave you some information that you wanted. And if you forget something, ask me at the show. We'll have time to talk a little bit.

Marvin Cash (01:04:10): I'll do it. Take care.

Chuck Furimsky (01:04:12): All right. See you. Thank you.

Marvin Cash (01:04:15): Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed that as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. Again, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend and please subscribe and leave us a rating and review in the podcast of your choice. And don't forget to head over to www.nor-vise.com to see if the Nor-vise folks will be coming to a fly fishing show near you. Tight lines, everybody.