Gulf Coast Sweetwater Classic
Friday-Saturday, March 13-14, 2020
Percy Quin State Park, McComb, MS
Free admission to park & festival
Entry fee for tournament: $25
The FFI Gulf Coast Council will host it’s first-ever Sweetwater Classic fly fishing festival and freshwater tournament this Spring on lovely Percy Quin State Park in Mississippi. This event will feature two tournaments, fly tying demonstrations, flycasting instruction, a Casting Skills Challenge, an Iron Fly Tying competition, and a large raffle to benefit the GCC’s education and conservation initiatives.
The event will take place on Lake Tangipahoa, considered one of the South’s premier big bass waters. The lake also has a reputation for large crappie, with many 2+ pound slabs taken in the last couple years.
PQSP has nearly two dozen cabins and several motel rooms available for daily rental, as well as top-notch RV facilities, and tent campsites. PLEASE book ASAP as weekend rental of cabins are very popular in Spring.
There are also numerous motels and restaurants in nearby McComb, roughly five miles from the park entrance.
The festival kicks off on Friday at 1pm with fly tying and a few other activities. There’s an optional “Big Bream” CPRE tournament from 3pm to 6pm. Following that, it’s the Captains meeting for those anglers fishing the main tournament. The Tournament Directors will go over the rules for Saturday as well as give the latest fishing report.
Bass in Lake Tangipahoa love flies!
On Saturday, things kick off early with the main tournament, with Bass, Crappie, and Bank Divisions. This is a CPR tournament with roughly 50 percent of the proceeds going to winners, and the remainder donated to the FFI Gulf Coast Council. The tournament runs from 6am to 12pm. At the awards ceremony, each of the winners will be required to tell the audience the tackle, flies and techniques they used to target their big fish. The value of this tournament is to share information on actual fishing – much the way that many kayak tournaments do.
The festival portion kicks off at 8am and runs until 4pm. There’s fly tying demonstrations, casting instruction, a Casting Skills Challenge, an Iron Fly Tying competition and much more. We are also working on a couple of speakers for the afternoon session.
Again, the festival is free. Admission to the park is free when mentioning you are attending the Classic. Say “I’m here for the Classic”. Only if you enter the tournaments is there a fee. The “Big Bream” tournament is $5 cash payable at the event. The “Sweetwater Classic” tournament is $25 with online registration in advance, or payable onsite Friday until 8pm.
A complete webpage with detailed information, including tournament rules, registration links, and info about Percy Quin is under development and should be up in a couple weeks.
In the meantime, book your cabins, rooms, RV spots by going to this website:
CLICK HERE.
