Founded 1988

 

            Pineywoods Fly Fishers

                          Founded 1988

                          Chapter of the Southern Council of the Federation of Fly Fishers

                                                                            Web Site http://home.sprynet.com/~waltermc

                                                                  President: Jimmy Lee        Secretary/Treasurer: Bill Heugel

 

                                                                                                   August 2004

From the President

 

It is almost time for our annual club fundraiser, the Annual Craft and Garage Sale at the Angelina County Expo Center.  The dates of the event are August 7th and 8th.   We will set up our booth the afternoon and evening of Friday August 6th; if possible we need your help at this time.  Gather all unwanted or unused items, remember one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, bring them to the Expo Center and help with the event.  This is usually our major fundraiser of the year.  The monies made from this year’s garage sale will be used to off set the cost of stocking and feeding trout at Tonkawa Springs.  In order to fish the springs you must donate and assist with the sale or an appropriate fee will be charged.   We look forward to all club members assisting with this event and enjoying the trout fishing in the winter months.  If you need assistance with items donated to the garage sale you may call Walter McLendon or me.

 

The Dog days of summer are here the temperatures will be nearing the 100-degree mark.  It seems the fish get a bad case of lockjaw this time of year and all but a few hardy souls would rather stay in the comfort of an air condition home.  But there are fish to be caught if you know where to look.  Black Bass can be hard to find and still harder to catch with the fly rod.  Instead of wasting time with the big boys try the smaller species.   Sand Bass (White) travel in large schools and attack baitfish with a vengeance.  In all our larger lakes the schools will surface, sometimes in schools that may cover an acre or more in size.  Flies fished near the surface or on the surface will be taken as fast as you can land the fish and make another cast.  Down size your fly rod size and go after the Bluegill.   Late evening and early morning are the best times, but mid day can be very productive.  Don’t forget the proper clothing, sunscreen, the big hat, and remember to drink the proper amount of water.

 

Remember nominations for club officers will be done at the August meeting.

 

The Federation of Fly Fishers National Fly Fishing week is August 13-22, 2004.  Clubs are encouraged to share their knowledge and passion of fly fishing with the local community.   The club will sponsor some type of event during this week.  Bring your ideas to the club meeting August 3rd.

 

I have had this idea of teaching and fishing running around in my head for some time, I haven't said anything because I thought none of our club members were in need of such a class, I guess I was wrong.  My idea was to have just a how to cast and fish class, no history, discussion of lines or anything technical.  Just casting, flies for the type fish we would be going after and placing the fly in front of a fish. It would be best to do this on two different days. Teach casting let everyone practice at home then meet somewhere and apply what was taught. I would like to use Rayburn, Houston County, Nacogdoches, or Toledo Bend.  We could get people with boats to take the students out and fish and give instruction. If the student had a boat we could supply the instructor and do it that way.  We could likewise use float tubes or kayaks or canoes. This would take a little planning and setting up, but it could work. We have several people in the club with boats and such.  

 

Good Fishing

Jimmy Lee

 

Note from Editor: I reserved the Chamber Room in Lufkin for August 17th from 5:30pm on so we can have a tying class or whatever you wish. You new members should ask for instruction on things you need to know. We are open to ideas! I told Jimmy that we have club members seeking help in fly fishing. If we all share in teaching them then there will be no need for them to pay professionals to teach them what we already know. Let us know your ideas by email or at our next meeting.

 

Deer Hair Fly Tying Class

Bill Heugel

 

There have been some requests for another deer hair class so if we can, please plan to have this class in September after I return from my trip, preferably on a Saturday. Please send me an email if you would like to take the class.  mailto:[email protected] 

 

 

Grand Isle Outing

Walter McLendon

 

Gene Sullivan and I attended the Red Stick Fly Fishers’ annual Grand Isle, Louisiana outing on July 16 thru 18. It was a long drive but well worth the effort. We first waded the surf on Friday evening but the water was like chocolate and though others caught specks earlier, we got nothing. That night we were fed very good boiled large shrimp, potatoes and corn on the cob, spiced to the Cajun taste. We know that 63 people had registered when we checked in but we never heard a final count but there were many attending. I probably already knew a dozen or more of the guys. Gene and I shared a nice apartment with a kitchen, 4 bedrooms and 2 baths but it slept about 11 guys on sofas and cots. 

 

We met Mike Hess who showed us where to fish on for specks on his aerial photomap. He also showed us his Mini-Cork Popper called a VOSI. It is simply a white foam tapered cork 3/4“ long x ½” diameter at one end tapered to ¼” diameter at the other end. It had a 1” long plastic rod or plug to fit in the center hole where you normally run monofilament through and lock in the cork place. Mike took a blunt object and compressed foam around the hole in the ½” diameter end to form a recessed or concave popper face, then slit the cork lengthwise to the hole on one side only. Then you just slip the cork over your tippet and lock it where you want it with the rod. Add a dropper fly and you have a ready-made popper to aggravate specs or bass with. Just pop it about 3 times and pause then 2 pops, pause, etc. Mike gave us a green popper and small special pink Clouser dropper to fish with.

 

Saturday morning Gene and I set out for our destination in the marsh just after daylight, I chose a wrong marsh cut so we fiddled around several ponds in the marsh that we very shallow and full of grass but we did see tailing reds. Gene went so close to one in his kayak that he could have touched it with the paddle. We finally found the cut we were looking for and ventured out into a lake no one could name correctly and we followed our right hand shoreline as instructed. Gene finally found the specific cut Mike had described but located his kayak exactly on top of the area he should have been fishing. I saw Mike motoring up in his canoe so I paddled out to meet him and he shouted for Gene to relocate. We fished our spots for about an hour when I finally caught a small speck. Mike decided to move on to another area to fish and Gene and I kept on casting until suddenly the wind really picked up. We got tired of fighting it and decided to paddle and explore the area in case we came back. We faced white caps on the lake on our return and even watch a porpoise feeding in the marsh.

 

Saturday night we were fed an outstanding meal of fried fish, shrimp, onions and French fries capped off with a peach cobbler. We both agreed with what we had been told by Kyle Moppert, the trip was worth the food alone. We were then approached by Steve Lee to take us to a new location on Sunday morning, either where he had fished or up the road to Leesville. We got up at 4:30 to drizzling rain and lightening. We watched a system approaching on the weather channel and 3 hours later went to breakfast in the rain. Gene was not a happy camper since he had laid out $60 for his license (I am over 65 so it is free) and I was tired of waiting to start our long trip home. We drove in the rain for over an hour I think so we are sure we could not have fished all day if we had stayed.

 

One very interesting thing that was done was to display a leader board to register each species of fish caught, the size, the fisherman and the fly used. About the first 7 or 8 fish were caught on chartreuse flies, I could not believe that. Then a white fly followed by gold, pink and white/red flies but still more chartreuse flies, which clearly outnumbered the other colors.

 

Welcome New Member

 

Tom Tayloe just joined us; his wife Cynthia joined last month. Tom is a CPA and owns his own business at 3015 Ted Trout Drive (Hwy 94). Tom is also Business Manager for Woodlawn Water Supply. He is an avid hunter and want-to-be fly fisher. He and Cynthia are beginners but as I said last month, Cynthia already bass fishes every week. They both now have new kayaks and are ready to learn all about fly fishing. Tom makes our 38th club member; we only reached that level in 1995-1997. Welcome to both Tom and Cynthia, I hope we see a lot of them, even though Tom is very busy at tax season.

 

Paul and Carrie Steinbach

 

Paul is now teaching at Benedictine College, in Atchison, Kansas and he and Carrie are adopting a little girl. They are still unpacking and reorganizing. You can contact them at mailto:[email protected]

 

Good News for the FFF?

Walter McLendon

 

After reading the latest issue of Flyfisher magazine, I see more hope for successful changes being planned in the FFF. For you new members, the FFF (Federation of Fly Fishers) is our mother organization. PWFF is a FFF Affiliate Club while a FFF Charter Club is one where all club members are FFF members. The FFF has over 300 clubs and 11,000 FFF members. It is estimated that those 300 clubs have over 40,000 members. Joining the FFF costs $29 a year and the benefits have drawn much controversy over the years. For potential members, the controversy has been important but for individual FFF members, there has really been none. About two years ago, the FFF saw the need to solicit an Executive Director (ED), so they hired one at $75,000 a year who had an impeccable background and experience in the area of fund raising. The FFF had managed to lose money in its efforts to move our National Conclave closer to its members in different states that had never been able to attend. Once bitten, the FFF pulled back to headquarters for the annual event. Our new ED resigned months ago and then new FFF leadership emerged with all new plans that are basically leading us to reorganize the FFF to be much like Trout Unlimited (TU). TU requires all members to join TU and then they are assigned them to their local chapters, Texas only has one chapter, the whole state, while Texas has about 17 FFF clubs. TU is very successful financially because they have managed to grow into a gigantic organization.

 

The FFF just hired R.P. “Van” Gytenbeek to be our new ED. The good thing is Van’s background; he has been president of the FFF in 1883-85 and he was ED of TU in 1969-74. I wont bother you with all the other positions he has held over the years but they all qualify him to be the perfect man for FFF. The best thing to me, is that if we are going to reorganize like TU, why not have someone who can do it? Aside from that, the FFF has a serious problem of membership. National members are just like individual club members, they do not get involved. This leaves the few dedicated members to do all the work. You would think that 11,000 FFF members could get things done. When you divide that number by 300 clubs, you get an average of 37 members per club. PWFF has 38, so we are average. Of our 38, there are only about 6 or 7 core members who do all the work. Then we have another 3 or 4 members who will chip in occasionally but that leaves about 27 to 29 members who never volunteer or commit to supporting the club. Our Southern Council lost 3 clubs in the last 12 months and I have communicated with each of them. Since they suffer the same illness as PWFF, I found that the core members just got fed up or burned out with doing everything for everyone in their club. One club intends to still meet but that is the core group going fishing and tying flies together. We have some marginal clubs in Texas were they struggle to maintain a minimum membership. Texarkana Area Fly Fishers is one, you would think that they could have a much larger club than us but they can only get about 5 to 7 members. When our club was that small, the president spent his own money to fund everything. When Jimmy Lee and I joined PWFF in 1993, the club basically had no money but the membership was in excess of 20 or 25. We now are financially stable but that all came from the 6 to 11 members who care. We have kept our club dues to only $15 so more fly fishers could afford to join.

 

If the FFF becomes another TU, then be prepared to pay annual FFF dues of say $30 plus pay to support your club or chapter. PWFF has managed to get much more out of the FFF than we have paid in. We pay $50 a year plus $1.00 per club member to be a FFF Affiliated Club. PWFF formed in 1988 so we have probably paid FFF dues of about $1,200 to $1,300 while benefiting from a $1,000 grant and another $2,300 plus, in donated items to us. Those of us who are FFF members, have a different outlook on fly fishing that most non-FFF members. We see our task as sharing what we have learned, so we volunteer to teach and lead the club.

 

Fishing Trip

Ken Baker

 

Last week, Jay Renken and I went fishing at Lake Nacogdoches.  The water was a little dark but not as much as it had been.  The wind wasn't too bad and really the heat was not too bad for July. We started of catching a couple of pretty good bream and then caught several small ones. We would catch a good one now and then. All in all we caught about 15 that were watchband size and a lot that were close to that. I used a foam spider and also finally used a Bully's Bluegill Spider.  And no I did not ever use a round Denny. Jay used a spinner he ties and a Bull Spider mainly.  All in all we had a good day.  We fished several locations on the lake and caught fish at nearly all of them. We saw several different nest and most of them had fish on them. I was surprised that we did not catch one bass, even a small one. If you get a chance, be sure to try the lake out.  We have got more at times in the past, but it was well worth the trip.

 

This was a good day, but even if it had not been, "A BAD DAY FISHING BEATS A GOOD DAY WORKING".

 

Annual Garage Sale

 

August 7-8 will be our opportunity to raise money to stock trout in Tonkawa Springs. We need your help and donations. We have booths 75 & 76 in the Expo Pavilion just outside and north of the Exposition Center (the main building) located on the north loop in Lufkin, across from Brookshire Brothers’ Corporate. To drive in, enter from the rear gate on the street between Expo and the Zoo. As you enter our building on the concrete drive in ramp, our booths are the first two on your left. The restrooms are on your right. This is a prime location to stop the 10,000 or so people who attend. The facility will open at 9am on Friday, the 6th (with full security through Sunday) so we can begin setting up our tables. We should be in full swing in this task by 6pm and the gates are open until late. All booths must be set up by 7:30am on Saturday.

 

The flea market opens to the public on Saturday, the 7th, at 8am until 7pm, Sunday from 9am until 4pm and we must man our booths during those hours. We are allowed to drive in to unload all day Friday and from whenever they will open the gates until 7:30am on Saturday. You must have your vehicle out by 7:30am on Saturday. If you donate anything you want back in case it is not sold, it must be removed by noon on Monday but should be removed before we leave on Sunday. By the way, we allow you to donate items where the value is in excess of what you would like to donate to the club. We just ask that you designate the amount you want back above and beyond what it is sold for. You can also put a minimum selling price on it. We normally donate our leftover items to an organization that comes by after the market has closed but you are welcome to take home anything you choose but it is better that you purchase it before the closing.

 

Parking is provided in the rear lot just north of our building but expect that to be full early. There is a large lot on the east side of the main building accessible from the loop and another behind it. There is an entry gate from the east lot for walk in. You may be able to drive in there but do not count on it.

 

Bring a card table if you have one or a sheet of plywood or door blank to set on boxes for tables. Bring a lawn chair, water or drinks, snacks and lunch or purchase from the concession stands. Please pre-mark all your donations. These are usually items you would donate to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. Of course we will take better items to ensure we reach our goals.

 

Please mark your items on the high side of whatever value you choose for it, we can always come down during negotiations with customers. What we do not want is to give items away; this is our one chance to raise money. Fishing items always go fast so mark them high. If you need help on marking some items, Linda and I are pretty good at determining what price to assign; in fact, we will either mark up things priced too low or lower those that are too high.

 

We look forward to a successful garage sale. We need your donations for sure so call us if you cannot come help at the sale and drop off your items at our homes nearest you. For those of you who cannot help, be prepared to pitch in some cash later to fund what we need for stocking and to be eligible to fish for trout from November through April at no cost. 

 

 

National Fly Fishing Week

 

August 13-22 is National Fly Fishing Week. The theme of NFFW is "Get Hooked on Flyfishing". It will run over a two-weekend, ten-day period from Friday (August 13th) through the following Sunday (August 22nd). The Idea: For every FFF Club and Council to teach a class, give a workshop, do a conservation project, hold some public educational activity to share our knowledge of some aspect of flyfishing with others - all in the same week, August 13th to 22nd, 2004 - so that we make a statement, as an organization and as flyfishers, so loudly and clearly that it can't be missed or mistaken. So that the Federation of Fly Fishers is seen and heard as an organization that shares its knowledge of flyfishing, that we are an organization worth joining. To be sure, the goal is to share, but it's also to promote the Federation nationwide. Now I expect that you and your club or council already hold some regular educational events or programs at some times during the year. The idea of NFFW is not to change that or to supercede these initiatives by you that are already in place and working fine. It is your choice whether you want to add a new event to your club or council calendar or move one of your current activities to correspond with the dates of NFFW.

 

Texas Forest Awareness Week

Walter McLendon

 

 

Back in May, we took part in the Texas Forest Service’s annual Forest Awareness Week. Local Junior High’s or Middle Schools are invited to attend. We normally dedicate 3 days to man our club booth when each day, one of the school’s send several bus loads of students to spend the day going through each station learning about forestry. PWFF has been involved for longer than I can remember, meaning at least back to 1993. We are lucky to have the prime booth location under a parking garage. We set up tables for demonstrating fly tying and we also teach the kids to cast the fly rod.

 

This year, Ken baker, Royce Feaster, Buddy Price, Jay Renken, Jimmy Lee, Bill Heugel and I participated. Each class of students came through our station one after the other. This year, we only had 20 minutes instead of the 30 minutes we have had previously. We immediately split the 30 or so student in two parts so one can watch fly tying while the others learn to cast. It is hard to believe that we can do this but we usually give ever student who wishes, the opportunity to try casting and the tyers get a fast fly tied for them. The reason we take part is that many of these kids have never ever fished much less have even heard of fly fishing. We hope that at least some of them will give our sport a try sometime during their lifetime.

 

Vibro Vulnificus Bacteria

 

We had better begin investigating this particular bacteria before we wade fish in saltwater bays again. If you have an open wound, the bacteria can infect your flesh and typical treatment is surgically removing the infected area. What bothers me the most is that doctors amputated a man’s foot on a Thursday and the following Monday or Tuesday amputated both legs!

 

Monthly club meeting are held in the Lufkin Room, Lufkin Mall at 7 PM, the program for the first hour and then door prizes and fishing discussions until 9 PM.

Calendar

Aug 3      PWFF meeting, Lufkin Mall
Aug 13-22  National Fly Fishing Week
Aug 16-21  National Fly Fishing Show & Conclave, West Yellowstone, MT
Sep 7      PWFF meeting, Lufkin Mall
Sep          Texas Forest Festival
Oct 1-2    Conclave, Mt. Home, AR
Oct 2      TPWD Expo, Austin
Oct 5      PWFF meeting, Lufkin Mall
Oct 16     OctoberFest - to be announced
Nov 2      PWFF meeting, Lufkin Mall  (Capt. Sally Moffett from Rockport program)
Nov 5-7    Rendezvous, North Toledo Bend State Park
Nov 20     Little Missouri River Trout Outing
Dec 4      PWFF Christmas Party

 

Newsletter

Send your articles, photos and other material to mailto:[email protected] or mail to Walter McLendon 139 Lancewood Circle,   Lufkin, TX 75904. I can scan your photos and return them at the next meeting. If you know of any future events or activities of interest, please send them to me. Monthly article deadlines are set on the 25th of the month so the newsletter can be completed by the Thursday preceding our Tuesday meeting.