Beau Beasley: Waynesboro festival combines trout and wine

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Quaint and quiet Waynesboro, in Virginia’s bucolic Shenandoah Valley, is suddenly on the map. Fly anglers from across the Mid-Atlantic descend upon the small town each April when Waynesboro’s Main Street hosts the Virginia Fly Fishing and Wine Tasting Festival.

The town’s history is closely tied to the South River, which runs right through downtown—but that history isn’t without its blemishes. Plagued by pollution from poor industrial management and cursed by its local citizenry because of its intermittent floods, the South River hasn’t always been a favorite with locals. That changed in 1999 when Waynesboro Downtown Development Incorporated, a nonprofit group set up to promote local business growth, decided to convert the South River into a tourist attraction. Many found the idea laughable, and it was certainly without precedent in the Old Dominion. Nevertheless, WDDI members, none of whom were fly anglers, determined to focus their attention on attracting well-heeled fly fishermen to their underdog waterway.

Len Poulin, co-chair of the Festival, admits that WDDI faced an uphill battle. “In the beginning it was a bit hard to get buy-in from the community.  I got a lot of strange looks like I was out of my mind for our committee trying to create a tourist event with fly anglers on our local river. Some folks even laughed at us. Now, however, we enjoy a great deal of support from the City of Waynesboro and area businesses alike.”

The concept is simple: “We asked those in the business community to partner with us in promoting this one-of-a-kind event, and we’ve made it win-win. Companies large and small sponsor us, and we raise funds from vendors and attendees as well. We pay off our expenses and then divide the money in half—with half going to promote the following year’s festival and the remainder going into conservation work on the South River.”

Naysayers may have abounded at the outset, but today local business owners are smiling. Thousands of tourists, some of whom come from as far away as Missouri and Rhode Island, flood the town in April to enjoy a weekend by the water, sip Virginia wine, listen to live music, and learn more about the quiet sport.

Local eatery Weasie’s Kitchen sees its breakfast rush hour soar, since festivalgoers can eat there first before heading to the festival grounds; other local restaurants were so busy last year that they actually ran out food.  Area hotels such as Best Western and Quality Inn have also seen an increase in their out-of-town guests, and B&Bs like the popular Belle Hearth and Iris Inn are completely booked well in advance of the festival. Local businesses are different as Augusta Health, DuPont Community Credit Union, Mid-Valley Press and New Dominion are proud sponsors of this unique event as well.

Support for the festival reaches beyond Virginia, however: Sponsors include Subaru of America, with regional headquarters in Columbia, Md.; Texas-based Temple Fork Outfitters, a major fly rod manufacturer; and Orvis, perhaps the best-known name in fly fishing, with headquarters in Manchester, Vt. 

Wine tasting has become an integral and very popular part of the event. Both Wintergreen Winery and Cardinal Point Winery have been with the festival since it was first opened up to vintners in the mid-’90s. Since then the winery section of the festival has grown to include eight local artisan vintners, and attendees enjoy sampling the quality wines.

The festival enjoys success in part because of the small-town atmosphere and beginner-friendly setting: Here is a place where novices can pick up the sport without fear or embarrassment. One admission fee includes classes on everything from local brook trout fishing in the Shenandoah National Park to fly angling for salmon in Alaska to fly tying. Free women-only casting classes, free wine tasting for those 21 and over, a children’s catch-and-release trout pool, and live streamside bluegrass music are also included for attendees. 

Katie McElroy, director of tourism for the City of Waynesboro, sees the festival as a perfect fit for the city as it repositions itself as an eco-tourism center. “Events like the fly fishing festival are great. Tourists who come here see what a great place Waynesboro is to visit and often return, bringing even more tourism dollars to the community. This not only spurs local businesses but helps keep community taxes low.”   

Eleven years later, the seemingly impossible dream of a few pro-business visionaries at WDDI now has the City of Waynesboro and other local businesses laughing all the way to the bank.

The 11th annual Virginia Fly Fishing and Wine Festival will be held on the banks of the South River on April 16-17, 2011.

For more information, visit VaFlyFishingFestival.org.

Beau Beasley (BeauBeasley.com) is an award-winning outdoor writer and the author of Fly Fishing Virginia. His newly released book Fly the Mid-Atlantic, may be ordered from his website.                 

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