Dear RWFF Flyfishers:
I have some very exciting news for you all. During the past couple of months you have heard rumors about upcoming fishing tournaments. Yes, I can now confirm that you will not only have ONE tournament, over the 2012-2013 season you will have a chance to compete in a series of tournaments on the RWFF Forum. Sounds good? Read On!
WHAT DOES VFFL STAND FOR?VFFL stands for "Virtual Fly Fishing League". To give you a little background about VFFL and it's formation I will tell you a short story. A few months ago, Marc, a new member from New Mexico, joined our RWFF Forum and brought with him some great ideas. Noting that RWFF has gone quite stale over the past year he had some ideas on how to revitalize the members interests...competition and participation.
During the past year the RWFF Forum was kept barely alive by a host of loyal members like Badger, who made many great posts on fishing and catches. Martin, who produced many outings even when interest was very low. I tried to post a couple of outings and helped the newbies with technical problems and lately, Roger, who returned after an extended period without a working computer, made some great posts. To be honest, 2011-2012 was nothing to write home about, as they say.
With Marc contagious enthusiasm and practical ideas everyone got quite excited about things that we can do to make RWFF better and more interesting. We exchanged many emails and talked about many ideas but the consensus at the end of the day was that we should re-established the long forgotten RWFF Contest, or Tournaments. Contest always brought out the competitive instinct in members and it is fun for a group of people to compete together from time to time. Hence we came up with the idea of the VFFL League. Everyone got very excited and we were ready to launch this new idea on the Forum with Paul's consent and blessing.
Sadly Marc had some sudden personal health problems and had to withdraw from this project with a very short notice. After licking our wounds a bit we have decided to forge ahead with this idea and hence we have VFFL. I hope Marc will return one day and will be able to join us and enjoy the fruit of his brainchild with us. Thanks Marc and we wish you all the best!
WHAT IS VFFL AND WHAT DOES IT DO?VFFL is the sponsoring body for RWFF contests and tournaments. The name Virtual Fly Fishing League implies that it is an ongoing, a serial event. (rather than a one time event). Our idea was that through VFFL we will sponsor a series of tournaments for the year 2012-2013. Depending on members' interest and participation, we envision at least one tournament every two months. There will will a minimum of six tournaments for the 2013 calendar year. We can certainly consider putting on more tournaments events if members showed enough interest for them. There will be a "VFFL Grand Champion" award at the end of the 2013 calendar year. The winner will receive a very special prize plus the right to brag about himself for the next year.

To determine the Grand Champion, points will be award to the individual event winners. The points scales are as follows:
5-3-2-1, 5 points to the winner, 3 points to the second place finisher and so forth. At the end of the year the member with the most points will be awarded the Grand Champion prize.
To make things even better and more interesting for everyone, I have asked John Bailey, the owner of the world famous Dan Bailey Flyshop located in Livingston, Montana to donate one $100 and two $50 gift vouchers to use as tournament prizes. Paul also indicated that he will donate a couple of RWFF software and also his new 2012-2013 Fly Fishing Calendar to our tournament winners! My friend Harry Lam, who makes all the silver trophies for our local events has agreed to donate a small sterling silver trophy to be award to our 2012 Grand Champion! How sweet can it be?
Paul will be sending out his Christmas flyer next week and he will notify his old clients about VFFL tournaments. This may bring back some of the older members who still loves RWFF and competition. I can't wait to see how many people will actually sign up to compete in the tournament series.
WHO WILL RUN THE VFFL?VFFL will be managed by a committee consisting of Yellowstone7, Scottish Warrior, and Boston Bob. Roger (rwwalleye) will be the Administrator for VFFL Events Sticky. The VFFL committee will be responsible for the setting up of the tournaments, verification of tournament results and to handle disputes in the rare event that there is one. Roger will be responsible for posting tournament notices, updating tournamant results and other matter related to VFFL. In the event of a dispute, the decision of the VFFL committee will be final.
WHAT KIND OF TOURNAMENTS WILL WE HAVE?Over the 2012-2013 season, we envision having all types of tournaments. There will be some "stipulated" tournaments where everyone will use the same tackle and leader size. There will be a "no holds barred", everything goes tournament where the biggest fish will be the winner. There might be some combined challenges where two or more outings will be used and the person with the highest points will win. Smallest and biggest fish tournaments. In short we will try to make the tournaments a test of your skill and patience.
A SPECIAL CHRISTMAS TOURNAMENT COMING YOUR WAYI have been working on the "Congo River" outing for the past couple of months (originally intended for a VFFL event) and we will use that as our first end of the year tournament. We will call it a Christmas Tournament if you will. The Congo outing features beautiful landscape, the awesome Goliath Tiger fish and should raise the hair on the back of your neck when you hook into one. This outing will be a "stipulated" tournament where everyone will use the old V.128 rod and leader settings. e.g. Maximum size 12 rod and 0x leader. I do this to give everyone a chance to become the winner. Many of our members have not upgrade their RWFF to V.133 (with the biggest rod and leader size) and this will make the turf even for everyone. Please keep your eyes on the VFFL Events thread for the final tournament announcements.
Rules and restrictions will be set up on a per event basis as every tournament is slightly different. This will be announced in detail before the event.
HOW DO I SIGN UP FOR VFFL? To sign up is easy! Just send you name and the place where you live, e.g. Country or State, to Roger (rwwalleye) by PM or email. The earlier you sign up the more we will know what kind of tournaments to put on. PLEASE DO THIS RIGHT NOW!
A COUPLE OF IMPORTANT POINTSTo compete in the VFFL tournaments, you must first sign up with VFFL. You must post your catches and scores on the RWFF Forum for everyone to see. If you don't know how to do that please contact me and I will help you.
Please DO NOT make posts in the VFFL Events Sticky. We want to keep this thread exclusively for tournament announcements and score keeping. Your cooperation will be greatly appreciated!
If you have any questions please post them here and we will try to answer them as best we can.
It is now 7:00 am and my mind has turned into fossil. That is what I have to say right now. With your help and participation we can make RWFF even better!!
LOGIN NOW AND SEND ROGER YOUR VFFL REGISTRATION!
Best Regards,
Stanley
