Pineywoods Fly Fishers
Founded 1988
Chapter of the Southern
Council of the Federation of Fly Fishers
Web page http//freepages.outdoors.rootsweb.com/~wem1
President: Kenneth Baker V-President: Royce R Feaster Sec/Tres: Bill Heugel
August 2002
Our
own Bill Heugel provided the program at our July meeting, and as he always dos,
gave a very informative and interesting program. He talked about fly lines; and covered the different types –
weight forward, double taper, sinking, singing tip, level, color, etc. He also covered leaders and tippet. The club is fortunate to have Bill and his
many talents.
Our
Garage Sale will be at the Expo center August 10 & 11. We will set up Friday afternoon and we need
all members possible to participate.
First we need your items for the sale, and Second, we need your help at
the sale. Once again we need fishing
items that you might be willing to part with.
And remember, Fly Fishing “stuff” doesn’t sell very well. So any other fishing items you have – rods,
reels, lures, filet knives, minnow buckets, etc. We will try to make a list of workers at the next meeting. I urge you to leave this date open and help
us out. If you cannot help us during
the sale, I hope you can at least bring us some items to sell. Remember, the proceeds from this sale help
us foot the expenses for tying classes, meals at the workshop, and other
functions during the year.
At
the August meeting we will be taking nominations for officers for the coming
year. Any contested races will be
decided by secret ballot at the September meeting. New officers will take over in October. The offices are President, Vice-President,
Secretary/Treasurer. Other officers are
Program Chairperson, Outings Chairperson, Librarian, Tying Chairperson, Casting
Chairperson, and Conservation Chairperson.
Also, the Newsletter Editor has been combined with the Vice-President
for several years. If you would like to hold an office, please step forward and
volunteer. These jobs help keep you active and help us to have a better club.
It
is not too early to be thinking about paying your yearly club dues. They will be due in October.
We
had a very successful tying class Monday, July the 22nd at the
Chamber of Commerce building. It was
headed up by Bill Heugel; and two or three of us helped out with the
instructions. We tied the “Kentucky
Tree Frog”, the “Foam Spider”, the “Guadalupe Green”, Cypert’s Minnow, a
“Gurbbler” and a streamer pattern. The
PWFF provided most of the materials and I know everyone had a good time. Thanks for the leadership, Bill.
I
have said before that you can tie what you prefer. You can tie some real complicated and time consuming flies such
as some of the Deer Hair bugs Bill Heugel and some others tie, or you can tie
some simple flies as I and several others tie. I have been tying and using a lot of foam spiders and Cypert
minnows. I am now tying the Kentucky
Tree Frog. I also tie a one-feather
fly, which is similar to the Guadalupe Green as well as several other nymphs,
and some leggy flies. I use all of
them. Yes, I still own some Round
Dennys, but use it very seldom. I
think I catch as many bream as anyone else and I still fish for bass, although
not as much as I did before I started fishing with the “Bream Master” Jay Renken. The point I am making is that just because you don’t (or think
you can’t) tie a fancy fly doesn’t mean you can’t tie flies that you can enjoy
and catch fish with. And you can get the
help you’ll need from members of the club.
By
the time you get this newsletter, Royce Feaster and I will be returning from
several days fishing at Purtis Creek.
I know the weather is hot, but I hope we have some fish to tell about at
the meeting.
At
any rate, I hope to see you at the August 6th meeting and as always,
“A Bad Day Fishing Beats A Good Day Working”.
P.S.
– I can’t remember ever adding a P.S. before, but here it is:
At
the last two meetings we have had enough flies to have two drawings. The dollar for not bringing a fly goes to
buy more Door Prizes. If you will
bring two or more flies, we will divide them equal and have at least two
drawings. That way more can win. If you bring an especially nice one,
we will draw for that one by itself.
K.B.
FFF Southern
Council Cookbook
Fly Fishing for Food
is available for sale.
The cookbooks will be available at both the Southern
Council Conclave and the FFF International Fly Fishing Show. However, if you
just cannot wait, you may order one. They are $15.00 each plus $5.00 shipping
and handling.
Mail your check or money order to:
FFF Southern Council
2603 Buford Spur Road
Mountain Home, AR 72653
If you prefer to pay via credit card (MasterCard or Visa) you may again mail the information to me or send it via e-mail or telephone me at 877-664-4401. Thanks to all of you who contributed to this wonderful cookbook. It is truly a work of art.
Pat Smith
EDITOR”S
note: several recipes were submitted from PWFF so order your copy!
Past Member Dies
Ski Clark (Hugh Borski Clark) joined our club in 1998 and was killed in a motorcycle accident near Beaumont on July 24th. He was a wildlife biologist for the U.S. Forest Service and loved to fly fish but was always reluctant to ask any of us to take him fishing since he did not have a boat. He did not get time to attend many meetings, but he will be missed. He was buried in Navasota on the 27th.
By Bill Heugel
At this next meeting we will have our first fly tying competition. Remember it’s for freshwater streamer
patterns. These can include clousers,
deceivers, muddlers, mickeyfinns, etc.
Our esteemed president will determine who will be doing the judging.
Remember you can submit as many flies as you want in beginner or
intermediate category. One winner from
each category each meeting night.
One of the rules I failed to state in the last newsletter is that
regardless of how many times your name has been entered into the drawing (once
for each monthly win), if it is selected as a winner for a prize at the
workshop the remainder of your name will be removed. You cannot have your name drawn out more than once.
Next months fly pattern is to be wooly buggers all types, and all colors as appropriate.
We will get into some saltwater patterns in the following months.
Good Luck!!!!
Walter’s
note: You can find
some good ideas and patterns on our website under Bill’s “Fly of the Month”,
there are several website links to help you improve your tying. There must be a
million sites on fly tying on the Internet.
By Linda
McLendon
Brian Gambill, fly fishing guide on Lake Fork will do a slide
presentation on fishing lakes. For you who attended our 2001 Open House, Brian
did the honors of hosting for the day. Remember those great rabbit fur flies he
tied? I love the beautiful sunfish patterns we won in the auction along with
his unique foam frogs and dragonflies. Brian has a new baby daughter and is
moving into a new home so I am including his new address for you to contact him
about future trips. G & W Guide Service
6811 Oaklawn Sachee, TX
75048 972-530-7814 I look forward to a great program and
seeing you all again at the meeting.
Paul emailed to say he was sorry he had to miss the tying class but he is in the middle of colonoscopy analysis. I thought fly fishing was supposed to prevent things like that but seriously we all hope he is doing fine and will make the next class soon.
Ron Scheepstra - Once again (due to work related issues) I'm not able to come to the fly tying class. I'm up in PA but that does not mean I don't do any fishing. I'm staying in a house with a pond that is loaded with big bluegill and nice size bass up to 4-5 lbs, so am having plenty of fun. When the temperature allows, I'm in the river catching trout, but since it's been hotter here that it has been in TX and in the spring they had a lot of water here, I have not been very successful with the trout. On top of everything, the water here is "gin clear" and the fish are very VERY picky. Have to use 7X tippet and go down to hook size 22 and I still have the trout refuse my fly. Frustrating!!! On the bass front / bluegill.... No complains whatsoever. Catching so much bluegill (on poppers / nymphs) that it almost gets a bore...he he he he Every cast, and I mean every cast is a hit. Had some real fun with big poppers on Bass too.
Also had some real odd thing happened to me (twice now), catching small bluegill, then out of nowhere a BIG bass grabs my bluegill and I end up hooking a 3 lbs bass on a 4 weight rod...FUN!!!!!!!!
The big fun trip is coming up fast, August 18 we (my wife and a good buddy of mine from Holland) are going up to Alaska for 10 days....:))))) Will send some pictures once we get back.
David Womack – Just got back from Colorado. It was great and the fishing was pretty good. I now feel confident after catching quite a few trout. I caught several rainbows, a few cutthroat and even one brown that fought harder then any of the others. I used a dropper rig most of the time unless I could get them to hit the dry Royal Wolff or the Pale Morning Dun. I was a little apprehensive about trying to cast the drop down nymph below the dry fly but found that it actually made the casting easier and I could get a lot of distance. I fished so much over the week that I came back with a slightly sore shoulder, but it was still great. I am already trying to figure out a way to get some more trout fishing in somewhere soon.
I also fished a small pond in Trinity County in my Dawn Trakker to avoid tree limbs and caught a few bass using poppers. This will be my test pond for examining different flies in the future. I have been thinking about taking a trip for a day to the coast and fishing out of my kayak in the bay.
By W. McLendon
If you would like
to become a tying coach at Conclave, here is your chance. The job requires teaching people who sign
up about anything they need to know. It usually entails just tying whatever you
want and answering questions just like the featured tyers. You will be with the
featured tyers but in a special area at the front of the tying tables. You will
be only asked to tie for an hour or two so contact Bear at [email protected] if you would like to help out. You pick the
time you will be free. Heugel and I have done this for a couple of years now.
By Brian
Ellis
Hello FFF Southern Council Key Club Contacts!
I hope everyone is well and has been fishing
often. Some of you are now receiving
the Long Cast Newsletter and in that issue it states that nominations were due
June 29th. I've decided to extend the
deadline through the end of the month (July) in the hopes that I can
receive many more
nominations. I have few nominations
thus far this year. Unfortunately by
extending the nomination deadline it compresses the time allowed for clubs to
process the ballots.
During the December Officers meeting we
decided to not mail out the nomination letter packages to all the club contacts
and instead make the nomination letters available on our web site. This will save our council hundreds of
dollars.
To view the
nominations letters thus far received and to see the timetable and process for
this year's annual awards, please visit the Southern Council web site at http://southerncouncilfff.org and select the Annual Awards link.
Again please respond with nomination letters
no later than August 1st and send them to my email (preferably) or my US
address below.
Email submissions are appreciated because
they are quicker and reduce my typing efforts in posting them on our web site.
This email is
intended to be distributed to the club contacts of all Southern Council clubs
and the all Southern Council officers.
Please award this message to any other interested parties.
Thank you,
Brian Ellis [email protected]
Hello to all - Please share with your clubs.
Some of you I have already contacted and you have given some opinions. I am
trying to put together some comments for the Tightlines Flyfishers newsletter
from people that are involved or care about fishing on the White/Norfork Rivers
in light of the AGFC decision to drop the proposed regulations for a slot limit
and no bait on the Norfork River and the Cotter area. A counter proposal was
put forth to have the slot limit but use circle hooks and bait. This would have
done away with the C&R area also. I would also like any comments on the
dropping of the $5.00 black bass tournament stamp. Any comments or opinions
that you have heard are welcome. Our newsletter goes out to all FFFclubs in the
Southern Council and your opinion will help provide insight for others that may
fish on our waters. Maybe we can get a dialogue between all clubs and put our
combined voices together and get a say in regulations. We need to get the
grocery store mentality out of the trout fishing regulations.
From
Scott Branyan - I just talked with Bill Ackerman (AGFC commissioner).
He suggested the chapter (TU) start getting any demographic information
together that we can send to him regarding how our chapter members fish the
tail waters, dates, numbers in party, how much they spend, anything that will
help him in breaking this 10% fly fishers/90% bait fishers myth. Bruce
mentioned putting together a survey for our newsletter which I'd like to
include in the next Trouter, but I'm not sure I know how best to compose it.
Let me know if any one has any ideas. I plan on surveying my customer list, and
I suggest that others who have a large mailing list put out a newsletter to
canvas their customers also and send him the results of that as well later this
summer. Bill feels we can garner more support for the slot limits if we have
not only the biological data which is being worked on but also the demographic
data to show people want quality water areas. He is currently working with
staff to quickly develop some more data to be collected when people purchase a
trout stamp.
Your clubs can be very helpful in spreading the word about this situation. The slot limit is dead for this year but continued comments to the Commissioners and continued work toward a future solution will be helpful. Tightlines will be sending a petition out with their newsletter in August. Please make copies and have members and concerned people sign. It is never too late to have your voice heard. I know Scott will be contacting you about a survey and when it is finalized we will get it to your clubs. Please help us conserve a quality river for future generations. With your help along with FFF and TU hopefully we can make a difference.
Thank you so much, Ken Richards
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Remember!
Mark your calendar for our club meetings,
Every First Tuesday of each Month,
7:00 P M in the Lufkin Room in the Lufkin
Mall.
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Calendar
Outings and
Events
*********
August
6 PWFF meeting 7:00 P M
Lufkin Room of Lufkin Mall
10-11 Expo Garage Sale
September
3 PWFF meeting 7:00 P M
Lufkin Room of Lufkin Mall
21-22
Rockport reds & specs
October
1 PWFF meeting 7:00 P M
Lufkin Room of Lufkin Mall
3-6 Conclave Mt. Home, AR
19 Red
Hills Lake Breakfast bass & bream
November 1-3 Rendezvous North Toledo
Bend State Park
5 PWFF meeting 7:00 P M
Lufkin Room of Lufkin Mall
16-17
Caney Creek Park Sam
Rayburn bass
December
7 Christmas Meeting Chamber of Commerce
14 Tyler
State Park trout stocking
*********
More Club Calendar to follow as dates
confirmed
(Check your calendar, there have been
several dates that have been changed)
*************************
Outings: Walter McLendon assisted by Jimmy
Lee
Library: Jay Renken
Conservation: Gene Sullivan
Programs: Linda McLendon
Membership: Walter
McLendon
Editor: Royce Feaster