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:
Ken Baker
December 2004
From
the President
Jimmy
has an article floating in cyberspace on the Internet. As soon as I find it, I
will forward it to you.
From
the Editor
By
Walter McLendon
Christmas
Party
December
4th at the Chamber Room, Chamber of Commerce on Chestnut @ Loop 287
diagonally across from Lowe’s. Bring a covered dish to share (club furnishes
the meat) and a $10 white elephant exchange gift from each family member who
wants to take part in the game. It is always a lot of fun whether you end up
with the grand prize or the oil filter. Hope to see you all there.
Lost
a Good Member
Tammy
Plumer moved to Lake Jackson and asked to be removed from our email list. She
said they are getting into saltwater fishing now. I hate to see us lose members
like her and her son. Life dictates these things but I know she enjoyed her
short exposure to our club and hope she decides to seek out the Houston club and
continue in fly fishing.
Trout
Stocking Project
Our
trout were stocked at Tonkawa Springs and Thanksgiving Day was our opening day
of PWFF trout season. Only three members have taken advantage of this
opportunity so far. Don McMurry, Howard Hinton and Ron Scheepstra all caught
about 5 fish each on their separate trips. There did not seem to be any magic
formula, the fish are aggressive and Don said they really fight. So pack your
rods and flies and go give them a try. Take your family and have a picnic.
Free
Fishing
Texas
State Parks is hosting a special year long (until 8-31-05) “Family Fishing
Celebration” to encourage parents to take their children fishing and adults
will not be required to purchase a fishing license to fish in any Texas State
Park. The significant thing here is that your family will be able to fish the
special trout stockings and you can spend more time with the kids.
Soft
Hackle Tying Class
I
conducted our first fly tying class in a series just for our new trout stocking
program. Since several members have never fished for rainbow trout before, we
decided to teach some good patterns to fish with. Rusty Byrley, James Vest,
Howard Hinton, Don McMurry and Ken Baker attended while Jay Renken looked on.
Don was again our gracious host at his home and Delores baked apple strudel that
melted in your mouth. That Don is a very lucky husband. I was surprised that
most everyone managed to break their tying thread. I want to apologize because I
should have stopped and taught everyone to properly set their bobbin tension to
prevent that. You first pull on the tread to see how much tension the bobbin has
on the spool. If your bobbin pulls the thread under its own weight then it is
too loose. You loosen the spring between the two arms holding the thread spool
by spreading the arms apart enough to bend them a little to lessen the hold or
press them together to increase it. Then you pull on the thread to see how much
the tension has changed. If you choose, you can leave the tension loose and use
your fingers to cradle the spool to prevent it from turning unless you loosen
that pressure. I like to use the bobbin tension. If you are breaking thread then
the tension is too much.
We
learned to dub the fly body and to make a dubbing ball behind the hook eye to
help spread the soft hackle umbrella. If this is Greek to you then shame on you
for missing my class. We learned different methods of preparing soft hackle to
palmer around the hook to make life-like legs in the water that makes soft
hackle flies come alive to fool the trout. I hope everyone learned enough to go
home and practice tying these beautiful effective flies.
We
hope to have class each Tuesday night if we can coordinate it. For you guys not
receiving email, you need to be calling someone to keep up with this or get your
kids to relay the news to you.
Electrofishing
Houston County Lake
Jimmy
Lee and I assisted Texas Parks & Wildlife with their regular survey of the
lake’s fish. We kept all the bass we shocked up along with their normal food,
shad, minnows and bream. It was our very first really chilly night but things
went well and the night was beautiful. It was Jimmy’s first time and he
immediately asked to be invited again. TPWD has a very nice aluminum 18 foot
flat bottom boat but much bigger than you are imagining. It has large live wells
in the center section, a center console, a front raised deck with a railing
enclosure and a 90hp Mercury motor. Jimmy and I rig up 7 or 8 foot shocking
probes that protrude out front at about 45 degree angles. Each probe has four,
5-foot long cables which drag through the water to deliver our 1000 volts at 8
amps. Volts and amps depend on the water conditions, they can deliver from 500
to 1000 volts at about 12 to 14 amps under the right conditions.
We
stand beside each other separated by a large cooler filled with ice to keep the
fish on. Each of us has a floor button we stand on to energize the probes when
we are given the command. We shock for 5 minutes at 12 computer predetermined
locations on the lake, each located by GPS. Jimmy and I each have 8-foot long
nets to dip out the stunned fish. We try to fill our nets until we can no longer
hold the weight, then we swing the net back to a person who dumps our fish into
his container and then we return to dipping. It can be a challenge to determine
which fish are bass when they turn upside down or drift down head or tail first.
We were lucky that most of our catches were exactly what we were assigned to
retrieve but some odd balls always get in. The water in most places had a steam
cloud rising about one foot above the surface making detection difficult. I had
never seen that before. Like Jimmy said, it looked like sand flowing though the
water at first.
It
was disappointing to see what once was a trophy lake yield only 1 or 2 pounders.
I saw one 3 to 4 pound bass drift under the boat before I could reach him. We
also were instructed to bring in at least 30 bass below 9 inches in length and
we figure we did that without specifically counting. The experts on board do the
culling of specific species not to be removed from the lake so that makes
Jimmy’s and my job easier. Even the experts get stumped sometimes and did that
night too. It was a lot of fun and an unusual experience that fly fishers do not
get to see.
Flies
to MSFF
Slim
Mitchell, Ken Baker, Jay Renken, Buddy Price, Bill Heugel, Corinne McLendon and
I tied a dozen or more flies each for Mid South Fly Fishers in Memphis, TN.
These are to be used for their club fundraiser on December 4th.
IDEAS
FOR DISCUSSION AT OUR JANUARY MEETING
By: Jay Renken
(1). During the TEXAS FOREST AWARENESS events, we have many kids come by our
station. Most of them are casually interested and others quite interested
in Fly Fishing. We could have a sign-up list for them for them to come to
a Beginner Class for Fly Tying and a Fly Casting Class as a Saturday event.
(2.) It has been mentioned that the Club has a good cash reserve that we should
spend. We could give away A GUIDED TRIP with one of the guides that has
given programs and discounted trips for the Club. Possibly a rental unit on the coast for a GROUP TRIP.
From
Bill Heugel:
Trout
Stockings
Each
year TPWD stocks trout in some of our local ponds and small lakes.
These are really a put and take arrangements since the fish do not
survive the summer here. If you
want to have your line stretched some and try out some of the flies that you
have tied this presents a great opportunity.
Last year I fished for one day at Boykin Springs and actually out fished
one of the bait dippers using power bait. While
the pond is small getting there during the week in the late morning or afternoon
seemed best. Also fishing from a
float tube can be very effective and gets you away from the weekend bank
fishermen.
Boykin
Springs Jan 9,
2005
3,500 fish
Lake
View Pond Jan 23, 2005
530 fish
Rusk
State Park Dec 16,
2004
1500 fish
Tyler
State Park Dec 3,
2004 & Jan 7, 2005
4000 fish.
Fish
Hatchery
The TPWD has decided on the new location for the Jasper fish hatchery.
It is scheduled to be located somewhere close to Sam Rayburn, I would
guess somewhere below the dam. It
will require a minimum of pumping since according to the article there will be
gravity flow for part of the time. The
hatchery will be put on 200 acres of land previously owned by Temple.
Fly
Tying
The
first class on trout flies class was scheduled for Nov 30 at Don McMurry’s
house. Walter Mclendon will be
teaching soft hackle flies. Some of
the most effective fish catchers one can have in their box. Walter sent out information on this class including the time
and what will be covered. The next class will be on Nymphs taught by Jimmy Lee.
This will include bead head and weighted nymphs.
The class will include Prince, Red Squirrel, Hares Ear, and Pheasant Tail
nymphs. Royce Feaster will be teaching the class on streamers and Ken Baker will
do dry flies.
This
is the beginning of the trout fishing season both here in Texas and in Southern
Arkansas and Southern Oklahoma. While
some of these areas support trout fishing all year round the best times are in
the winters. No crowds, the fish
population is up and the fish are active.
January
8, 2005 we will have a class using rabbit fur.
I have used flies with rabbit to catch trout, bream and black bass. A
look through the pattern books shows how a large number of flies that use rabbit
in some way. This is testimonial to
their effectiveness. In addition to
tying the rabbit flies, we will be covering how to cut zonker strips and
crosscuts. The rabbit hides are
readily available at Hobby Lobby for about $4.00 each for the white.
Even some of the highest quality hides can be bought for about $12.00
from the fly fishing suppliers. Rabbit
also is easy to die. Most of the
hides purchased in the store are tanned and clean.
This only requires cutting them and dying the strips.
One rabbit fly designed by Scott Sanchez won the Yellowstone one fly
contest so many times it was banned.
Programs
Library
Don’t
forget to return your video or book to the library at the meeting.
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.
Club
Calendar
Dec
4 PWFF
Christmas Party, Chamber of Commerce
Dec
7 Fly Tying
Class at Don McMurry’s at 5:30pm
2005:
Jan
8
Rabbit Hair Tying class,
place to be determined
Feb
5
Fly Tying Festival, Houston Holiday Inn (I-59 @ Kirby)
Feb
18-20 Little MO’ Fly Fishing
Festival Murfreesboro, AR
Feb
26 Lower
Mountain Fork River Foundation meeting Broken Bow Library
Mar
5 Fly
Fish Texas Athens, TX
Mar
17-19 Sowbug Roundup Mt. Home, AR
Apr
9 Workshop,
Kurth Lake Staff House
Apr
15 Spring
Rendezvous Lake D’Arbonne State
Park, LA
May
6-7 Smallmouth Rendezvous
Tahlequah, OK
Jun
2-5 Southeastern
Conclave Calloway Gardens, GA
Jul
15-17 Grand Isle Outing LA
Aug
8-13 FFF Conclave Livingston, MT
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.