Last Newsletter

Unless your Dues are paid ASAP!

Yearly Dues:

New member.... $30.00

(Includes flies and info)

Renewal.....$20.00

Newsletter Only....$10.00

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

SCATTERSHOTS

From The Prez

We have finished our 1999 activities with a very good Christmas meeting. We honored Ronny Julian with a Past-President plaque, and also awarded Walter McLendon with a plaque and a beautiful, hand made flyrod for being named PWFF Man Of The Year! The rod was made by Ronny Julian, who also made the presentation since he was club president during the year the award was earned.

Royce Feaster was also presented with the Tag Team Tournament Paddle for the next six months. I have had it for the last six months. Royce will keep it until our next Tag Team Tournament, unless he manages to be on the winning team again.

We had great food and another good time at the "White Elephant" gift exchange. Some great gifts were selected by several in attendance and some not so good, but everyone had a lot of fun. Wendy Douglas got the "Oil Filter". She stated " I will be happy to bring it back next year!"

Jimmy Lee, Royce Feaster, and I met and have come up with a tentative Outing and Activity Calender. I am very pleased with it and hope you are also. We will present it and fill in other dates at the meeting. A copy of the calender is included in the newsletter for you.

To give you an idea of some of the activities for this year, we will have Jim Greene of BACKCOUNTRY of Tyler as our guest at the April Open House this year. We are looking forward to watching Jim work and listening to his instructions. Mark that date on your calender now.

Our first activity will be the Deer Hair Tying Classes taught by Bill Heugel which will be held January 11, 18, 25, and February 8. Be sure and be prepared to sign up for them at the next meeting. There will be a $15.00 fee to cover the furnished materials.

Also, on January 15^th the Houston Fly Tying Festival will be held. Several of us go each year and I know you would enjoy it if you like to see some good Fly Tiers. We can meet and car pool if anyone is interested in going.

A suggestion was made during our last garage sale that we begin collecting fishing items for resale at our next garage sale. We hope to have a lot of fishing items available (any kind will do). Two members have told me that they already have a number of items set aside. Some were purchased at another garage sale for very little. Please be on the lookout for anything we can sell to help make some money for the club.

I would like to say once again that I think we had a very good club year in 1999. We had good participation from club members under Ronny Julian's leadership. We had some very good programs, thanks to the program chairmanship of Jay Renken and Ski Clark. We had a very good Open House and the best garage sale ever. We also had a lot of fun on outings and other functions, such as the Hamburger Cookout, the Club Breakfast, and of course the Christmas meeting. I just know we can repeat these successes this year.

I hope you all had a good Christmas and New Year, and if Y 2 K doesn't kill us all, I look forward to seeing you at the next club meeting January 4, 2000.

Even in the year 2000, "A Bad Day Fishing Is Better Than A Good Day Working!"

FLYLINES

From the V-Prez

Christmas is over. The packages have all been unwrapped. The tree is ready to be taken down. The wrapping paper is in the garbage sacks waiting to be picked up. Were you a good little fly fisher. Did you get what you wanted for Christmas? Was Santa good to you? Were you good to Santa? Was that new 4 weight rod in one of those packages? Or was it a new tying vise? What did you get?

Does that sounds like kids talking things over after Christmas? Well, what are "Adults" but grown up kids? Our "toys" are just more expensive.

As you look over the enclosed Activity Calender, be sure and check your family calender and make notes to bring to the meeting about when your family will be free to join in as many of the activities as possible. Remember, we want to involve as many family members as possible. It is really great to see a kid catch her/his first bluegill or bass on a fly rod, no matter aged 8 or 68. So come ready to discuss the 2000 calender. We think it is good, but it is not chiseled in granite.

Our membership list is down, so call all your fishing buddies and remind them that

(with this grace copy), this is the last copy of the newsletter they will receive without payment of dues.

One idea I do definitely want to push this year is the helping of new members to get out of the club what they have joined to get:

information, instruction, and/or someone to help them find the fly fishing areas of East Texas. When you meet a new member, mark down his/her name and as quickly as you can get free, schedule a fishing trip, a tying session ( if they tie or want to learn to tie flies ), a ride to an outing or to a meeting. Do something to encourage the new member and his/her family. Come to think about, that is not a bad idea for us to do with old members as well. Everyone get busy and involve yourself and your family in the workings of the membership.

Have you thought about all that fishing tackle you have that hasn't been used since you got so involved in fly fishing? Oh, I know that you haven't stopped using it completely, but I'll bet that some of it has laid unused for some time. Well, now is the time to separate some of it out and start getting it ready ( at least in your mind ) for the "Fishing Tackle Table" at next year's garage sale. I hate to admit it, but I got to counting the time up, and I don't think I have used very much of my Bass Tackle in about 4 years! I should be able to get a number of things ready for the garage sale out of all the tackle I have collected over the years. Does this sound like something you might be saying to yourself? Think about it.

I have met at least four fly fishers at the college this year that I did not know liked to fly fish. Three of them are fairly good prospects for our club. Have you checked around your place of employment to see if there are people there that are interested in fly fishing? There are a lot of people out there that have never been asked about it, or maybe don't even know that you fly fish. It would probably surprise you to find out who does and who would be interested in getting into fishing with the "long rod".

Outings and Fishing

Jimmy Lee

A few weeks ago Our President, Vice-President, and I sat down to try and plan Outings and other club events for the coming year; I found this to be a very difficult task. There are many activities and events that our club members are involved in during the course of a year. This makes me appreciate the work done by our past club officers and committee members. They have laid the groundwork for us to work from and this definitely made the planning task much easier.

As you will see elsewhere in the newsletter we have a very busy year ahead of us. As usual we will have four major club outings. Most are with-in easy driving distance of Lufkin and Nacogdoches. It is my hope everyone will mark their calendars and plan to fish with fellow club members on these dates. Each month, in this space I hope to give you information on places to fish and directions for getting to these locations. Many times we know about places to fish, but we may not be sure what type water craft is needed, flies to use, exact spots to fish, and many other questions that need answering. I plan to use club members for reference to the many "fishing hot spots" available to our cub. So everyone be ready and Lets go Fishing!

PWFF Man Of The Year

K. Baker

At a planning meeting last January a committee consisting of PWFF club officers and any member who could attend decided to present an award to the member that the club officers {President, V-President, Secretary-Treasure} deemed had done the most for the club during the current club year. This was presented to the membership and was voted on and passed. It was decided to present the PWFF Man Of The Year with a flyrod and a plaque.

Some of the requirements are : Meeting and Outing attendance and participation in other club functions and projects.

We also decided that the selection committee { the officers} would not be eligible for the award.

Our selection for 1999 was Walter McLendon. He was presented with his award at the Christmas meeting.

Some of the things he accomplished are as follows. Perfect attendance at club meetings, Organized and led out in the Water Testing Program, Participated in the Fly Tying Demonstrations for the Forest Awareness Program put on by the Texas Forest Service, Served on numerous committees including the garage sale in August, Tied at the Mt. Home Conclave and the San Marcos show.

Congratulations Walter!

I know several others who are deserving of this award and I look forward to having several contenders for the award at the end of this year.

Texas Rivers Web Site

Texas Parks & Wildlife is creating a new web site on Texas rivers. Web master Ron Smith is designing a site that will include links to River Recreation, River Wildlife, River News, River Links, River Safety, Rivers Ethics and River Ecology. The Texas Rivers web site will contain every type of river information you can imagine and we want you to be a part of the process. We can post your clubs newsletter, outings, events, club web sites and photos. Please take a minute to forward this notice to people in the state that would be interested and willing to contribute. All fly fishing, paddling, river access, camping and recreational information can be sent now to my email address at Texas Parks & Wildlife at:

[email protected]

Your assistance in creating an exciting, informative site for all of us to enjoy will certainly be appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your help,

Constance Whiston

Texas Rivers Conservation Coordinator

Resource Protection Division

Deer Hair Tying Classes

B. Heugel

The deer hair classes will start Tuesday January 11, 2000. Start time will be 7 PM at St Cyprians. I will have specific directions at the meeting on January 4, 2000. The classes will include spinning, stacking, weed guards and trimming. We will focus on bass bugs, but there are some trout flies that we can work on later. The plan is to meet every week at the same time for about 3 or 4 sessions depending on how things go. The course fee will be $15. Make checks payable to the PWFF. The fee will include deer hair, thread, a hair packer, some strung hackle, plastic eyes, hard monofilament, straws, baggies and hooks. The club also has some hair and rubber legs we can use.

Bring your tying materials as well. This includes the vice, bobbins, thread, cement, double edged razor blades, hair stacker, flashabou, krystal flash, marabou, a comb or toothbrush and scissors .

Bring your fee to the next meeting. At that session we will determine who is going to participate and I will order the materials. We only have a week between the meeting and the first session so it's important that we send off for the materials the next day.

See you at the meeting!

Fly Fish Texas 2000

by W McLendon

Progress is being made in the coordination of the upcoming show on Saturday, February 26 in Athens.

Dave & Emily Whitlock will present a program.

Photographer, illustrator, writer, Warm Water Field Editor for Fly Fishing & Tying Journal, Paul Canada will be talking about bass fishing in Texas.

Constance Whiston, presently the Texas Rivers Conservation Consultant for Texas Parks & Wildlife, President of the Texas Outdoor Women's Network, Director of the Chautauqua River School, VP of the Austin Fly Fishers and many other positions will present a program.

Tony Guzman of the 4-H Sportfishing Program will make a presentation.

Phil Shook, correspondent for Warmwater Fly Fishing and Saltwater Fly Fishing magazines, is trying to schedule to be there.

There will also be programs from the Texas Parks & Wildlife.

Al Crise, certified casting instructor, will head all the casting activities. Two other certified casting instructors will be involved. Al needs volunteers to help with teaching kids and to supervise the casting pond where visitors will be casting real flies to catch trout. Matt Michels heads the fly tying roundtable, which will be held in a special building near the casting pond. Matt wants to setup a table for 2 or 3 tiers from each fly fishing club in Texas and still needs volunteers to tie.

Fly fishing vendors will be setup showing and selling their wares. The Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center is a fantastic place for your whole family to spend the day. Lake Athens is right next door. There is a side walk gate between the center and an RV park on the shoreline just about 200 yards away. On Friday evening there will be a social held at the center for volunteers and vendors.

So far, eight clubs have signed up to take part. Please consider attending or better yet call me at 875-3726 to volunteer to help in whatever capacity you can. This is our opportunity to meet with other clubs in Texas to develop an annual fly fishing show we can all enjoy.

###################################

Remember!

Mark your calender for our club meetings, Every First Tuesday of each Month,

7:00 P M in the Lufkin Room in the Lufkin Mall.

####################################

Calender

Outings and Events

********

January 4^th. PWFF Meeting in the Lufkin Room in the Lufkin Mall. 7:00 PM sharp

*********

January 11^th, 18^th, 25^th, and February 8^th Hair Tying Class taught by Bill Heugel

*********

January 15^th. Texas Fly Fisher Fly Tying Festival. Houston's Holiday Inn at 7787 Katy Freeway ( I-10 and Antoine ) 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Cost $10

*********

February 2^nd PWFF Meeting in the Lufkin Room in the Lufkin Mall. 7:00 PM sharp

*********

March 7^th. PWFF Meeting in the Lufkin Room in the Lufkin Mall. 7:00 PM sharp

*********

April 4^th. PWFF Meeting in the Lufkin Room in the Lufkin Mall. 7:00 PM sharp

*********

April 15^th. Open House at the Angelina County Chamber of Commerce Building.

9:00 AM until 9:00 PM.

*********

May 2^nd. PWFF Meeting in the Lufkin Room in the Lufkin Mall. 7:00 PM sharp

*********

May 6^th. Heugel Haus Outing

*********

June 3^rd. Tag Team Tournament at Kurth Lake.

*********

June 6^th. PWFF Meeting in the Lufkin Room in the Lufkin Mall. 7:00 PM sharp.

*********

July 8^th. Meeting and Outing at Houston County Lake

*********

August 1^st. PWFF Meeting in the Lufkin Room in the Lufkin Mall. 7:00 PM sharp.

*********

August 4^th thru 6^th Garage Sale in the Expo Center

*********

September 5^th PWFF Meeting in the Lufkin Room in the Lufkin Mall. 7:00 PM sharp.

*********

September 16^th Zoo Breakfast 8:00 AM till ?

*********

October 3^rd PWFF Meeting in the Lufkin Room in the Lufkin Mall 7:00 PM sharp

*********

October 5^th thru 7^th Mt Home Conclave

*********

November 4^th Toledo Bend Rendevous

*********

November 7^th PWFF Meeting in the Lufkin Room in the Lufkin Mall. 7:00 PM sharp

*********

December 2^nd Christmas Meeting

More Club Calendar to follow as dates confirmed

(Check your calender, There have been several dates that have been changed)

*************************

Outings: Jimmy Lee

Library: Jay Renken

Conservation: Gene Sullivan

Programs: Linda McLendon & Larry Copenhaver

Editor: Royce Feaster

*************************

Art work used by permission of Dave and Emily Whitlock

WET A LINE.... SOON!