OQUOSSOC — An award-winning fly tier will join some of the best fly casters in the region on Tuesday, Aug. 10, in showcasing their skills to celebrate Maine’s fishing heritage at the 14th annual Outdoor Sporting Heritage Day.

Hosted by the Rangeley Guides’s and Sportsmen’s Association, the event, which also celebrates the state’s hunting and trapping heritages, will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the association’s clubhouse on Old Skiway Road in Oquossoc.

Making his debut at Heritage Day is 11-year-old Sam Kenney of Dixmont, who was described Tuesday evening by association Director Kirby Holcombe as “a rising star among fly tiers.”

Kenney’s flies and fly-tying skills will be on exhibit during the day, along with other expert fly tiers and fly-fishing displays and demonstrations.

At the age of 8, Kenney won a second-place trophy for tying a Wooly Bugger fly, which is a wet fly or streamer fished under the water surface. Since then, the boy has entered the L.L. Bean fly-tying contest several times and has been among the winners every time, Holcombe said.

This past February, Kenney placed second in the open division of the Pennsylvania State Fly Tying Championship.

“He is a wonderful role model for youngsters wondering what to do with their time and creating something that brings results,” Elaine Holcombe, Kirby’s wife and association secretary, said via e-mail on Wednesday afternoon.

She said she met Kenney at the State of Maine’s Sportsman’s Show in Augusta where the boy was teaching fly tying with Trout Unlimited and Greg Ponte.

“He is a quiet youngster with an artist’s eye for beauty,” Elaine Holcombe said of Kenney.

The event will also feature fly-casting contests for youth and adults, with prizes awarded to potentially several winners; more than 20 sporting and conservation exhibitors, educational lectures and demonstrations; contests and games for children; and archery and shotgun demonstrations.

A field trial for hunting dogs will also be held, both in the field and water, by having children toss dummies into the association’s pond for the dogs to retrieve.

Kirby Holcombe said children will also get to release trout from the state fish hatchery into the pond via a bucket and the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife fish stocking truck. He expects the truck to arrive sometime in the morning.

Teachers from the Maine Primitive Skills School in Augusta will also be at the event, along with trailers from the MDIF&W Operation Game Thief, Maine Mountain Maple Products, and the National Guard.

Continuing with the day’s theme, game meals will be available, like buffalo burgers from Beech Hill Farm and Bison Ranch in North Waterford, and elk burgers from Kevin Billings’s elk farm in West Paris, the Holcombes said.

Sausage sandwiches and Canadian bacon egg muffins will also be offered.

New this year are several vendors offering custom snow shoes, wood turnings, pewter wildlife designs, outdoor sculptures, wildlife jewelry and antique sporting goods.

“Every year we get some different ones. It keeps the show fresh,” Kirby Holcombe said.

Other vendors will include sporting artwork, honey, solar art glass, decoys, hunting knives, buffalo products, and boat and canoe restoration. Many outdoor-oriented Rangeley organizations also attend the event.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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