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
March 2002
SCATTERSHOTS
The PWFF had
a very good program at the February meeting.
Be sure and read Bill’s article on the meeting.
The presentation by Dan Edwards was one of the best we have had,
and Linda has produced some really good programs.
Dan presented the club with a fly that will be in the club auction at the
workshop in April.
A
personal note: I bought a fly selection at the Open House a couple of years ago
that had been tied by Dan and presented to our club for the auction.
I showed them at the meeting and will be glad to show them again, but
they are not for sale.
The
rod building class got off to a good start Feb. 19th at St
Cyprian’s Church. Several members are building rods under the teaching
eyes of Bill Heugel & Jay Renken.
It will last several weeks on Tuesday nights, excluding March 5th,
which is our regular club meeting. Even
if you are not building a rod, it is fun to watch.
The
PWFF is once again participating in the Forest Awareness Days presented by the
Texas Forest Service. It will
be held behind the Hudson School and for our part, we will be giving casting
demonstrations as well as fly tying demonstrations for many school students for
three days, March 20, 21 & 22. If
you can spare some time either
contact myself or Walter McLendon, or just show up.
Fly
Fishing 2002 will be held on March 23rd at the Texas Freshwaters
Fishery Center in Athens. There will be many fly tyers present including several
from the PWFF club. There
will also be casting demonstrations and instructions once again.
Several of our members will be helping the public fish for the stocked
trout. There will also be
several seminars and other activities as well as many vendors present.
Bring the family. It is always a very fun filled as well as informative day.
I know you and your family will enjoy it if you can attend.
Our
club Pineywoods Fly Fishers workshop will be April the 20th at the
Chamber of Commerce building. Our
guest will be Tom Nixon, a noted author and fly tyer as well as a super
nice guy. He will be presenting fly tying demonstrations during
the day and a slide presentation that evening at our covered dish supper and
auction. I hope you will
avail yourself of the chance to meet and hear Tom.
Also,
we will be having some of our members tying flies.
This will all be under the watchful eye of our fly tying coordinator,
Bill Heugel.
We
will have a casting contest in the afternoon with Casting Guru, Jay Renken, in
charge. I know the contest will be demanding, but lots of fun,
as usual.
I
once again urge you to tie a selection of your favorite flies to be used in both
our raffles during the day as well as the auction that night.
REMEMBER, instead of raffling a club rod this year, we are raffling a
“Guided Fishing Trip” on Lake Fork.
The guide will be Brian Gambill who was our guest at our Open House last
year. Tickets will be on sale
at the March 5th meeting as well as the workshop and supper.
The tickets are $5 each. This
is a $200 fishing trip. I
urge you to participate as it will be a fun trip for the winner and her/his
partner.
There
will be more information later for this workshop, but I urge you to mark and
reserve April 20th and join us for a good day.
There
are many items coming up and once again I urge you to participate in as many
club functions as you can. I
know you have other interests and functions to take part in, but I hope you can
be a part with some of our outings and events.
Several of our members are fishing again and I look forward to hearing their fishing reports because “A Bad Day Fishing Beats A Good Day Working” and some of the stories are so good.
Saturday, February 23rd at Backcountry in Tyler, Ray Sims gave a fly tying demonstration from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm. He was tying flies to match the bass, redfish and speckled trout lures in his tackle box. It was extremely interesting. I only got to stay from 10:30 to 12:00 noon, but I saw him tie a beautiful “sluggo”, a great looking and sounding “rattle trap” and a fishy looking “crawfish”. He admitted that they do take a little longer than other flies to tie, but they work so well that they are worth every minute it takes. He enjoyed talking and answering questions and sharing ideas.
The main materials that he used were the new “polar air” (artificial polar bear hair), and angora ram’s wool. And he made good use of a waterproof magic marker. Jim Green hosted the event. There were about 6 people there when I arrived, but by the time I left, there were at least a dozen watching the tying demonstration.
Anyone who likes to fish for bass with the fly rod should think about learning to tie these and the others that I am sure he produced after I had to leave. We need to talk to Jim again about Ray’s recipes.
Beavers
Bend Olympics
By B. Heugel & W. McLendon
Walter McLendon, Buddy
Price, Hugh Bell, Jay Renken and Bill Heugel were the PWFF team in the BB
Olympics. Jack Holder was an
alternate. The trout won!!!
Arriving early Thursday afternoon the initial team members took on the first round. There were a few fish caught, but not like we hoped. Looking back at that initial activity,. it was the high point of the outing from a fishing standpoint. We all caught a few and thought things would be better the next day. WRONG. We found the weather to be quite cold and very windy. Walter forgot his gloves so he suffered the most. It was the second week after stocking trout so the fishing was slow to say the least. We had our favorite fishing hole to ourselves most of the time and even on Saturday, indicating how slow the fishing was. Buddy Price did find some of the small browns and would head to them in order to get his head right again after flaying the water and getting no rainbows. We can’t figure why they ever stocked these since there is a 20 inch minimum length on browns.
Our accommodations were great and once again we took too much food, but with the nice kitchen, we cooked some great meals. After breakfast, we deliberately waited for the day to warm up before torturing ourselves in the cold wind, which blew about twice the normal. We had been told that the fish perked up around 2 PM but I am not sure that we ever proved that. Rises were usually rare and at times frantic for a short spell, making catching a little easier. Walter caught some of the smallest rainbow we have ever seen in the park, too small to worry with eating. He was the outstanding fisherman catching some each day and actually landing them. Bill Heugel managed to get a few bumps but only landed two fish in the outing.
There was
some concern about collusion on the trip. Seems the weekend before some of the
PWFF members had a field day. It’s
possible that they gave away all of our secrets!!!
I think an Olympic level investigation is in order now.
We did manage to tie a few flies in the evening. In spite of the fishing we had a great time and traded many stories and techniques.
We decided to watch the stocking schedule in the future and go to the Little MO this late in the stocking cycle. That only takes about 30 minutes more driving and opens up more options we hope. We drove around and tried other fishing holes but without any luck. We watched a fantastic hatch of caddis flies and two species of may flies but no trout were there to take advantage. Maybe next trip.
PWFF meeting February 5, 2002.
By Bill Heugel
The feature
event for the evening was Dan Edwards from the Montgomery County Fly Rodders. Dan is a muskie guide in Wisconsin in the summer and winters
in Texas for the salt water and fresh water fishing.
Dan’s presentation was outstanding. He discussed muskie fishing and showed us many of the flies he uses. He told us of all the efforts he went through to develop a realistic muskie fly fishing business. Many of his flies and techniques are directly applicable to Saltwater and Bass fishing. Some of his flies were about 1 ft long. He also had some flies which were flyrod versions of Zara Spooks. He stressed the need for proper knots when fishing for big fish and also the techniques for setting the hook.
Dan is not only an outstanding presenter, he also left us with many bits of information we can apply in the future. In parting he left us with some websites where we can order some of the materials and hooks he uses for his flies.
One of the interesting items he uses is a leader which stretches and then returns to original size when the load is removed. This makes it ideal for a shock tippet. The leader material is also camouflaged and becomes almost invisible in the water.
Jimmy Lee won the flies and Jay Renken got the door prize.
Rod Building Class
By Walter
McLendon
About
15 people showed up to build rods last night. Bill Heugel and Jay Renken did a
great job of instructing and helping. Everyone seemed to be having a good time
and success constructing the handle and reel seat. We first splined the blanks
using two different methods. This opened my eyes to the inability to fine-tune
the exact spine location. I estimate you are off as much as 10 degrees when you
think you have it. When combining a 2 piece blank in Jay’s new vertical stand
method, I found my butt section to be off 90 degrees. I don’t think anyone
will ever be able to explain that to me but something was definitely going on
with new dynamics changing everything. I chose to stand by the old method of
splining. I wish we had thought to try the new method I found in Cabela’s
catalog of suspending a 4 oz or 6 oz weight in the center of the horizontal
section of blank to automatically determine the spline location. Jay did not
have a favorable comment to say about this method.
We reamed out our cork grips to fit our blanks and filled the void under our reel seats with masking tape and doused everything with epoxy to ensure a permanent rod handle.
On the second Tuesday night, we began locating and attaching rod guides, fly keeper and tip-top. Here we learned the proper technique of wrapping thread to secure the guide feet. It was a good session, Linda and I will both end up with new saltwater rods to land those feisty reds on. Next class is March 12th. I have an Annual Water System meeting to attend.
By Walter
McLendon
Saturday, March 23rd is the date in Athens, Texas at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center from 8 AM until 5 PM. Visit http://flyfishtexas.org for details, classes and seminars. Our club has 21 volunteers for this show. That has to break all records! All the scheduled speakers will conduct their programs in the Dive Theater in the main building. Brian Camp, president of the Southern Council will kick off his program on Fly Fishing the Yellowstone at 8 AM and since he is concerned about his attendance people not being yet oriented, I wanted to extend an invitation for you to catch his presentation. You will find the complete schedule of speakers in the website under “Seminars”. You can read the biography of each, see a layout of the facilities, read about casting classes, fishing at the show, etc by selecting one of the many buttons to special pages.
We will have 7 Federation of Fly Fishers certified casting instructors available to teach you any level of casting at no cost. We have 13 outstanding speakers scheduled during the day to cover about everything possible from freshwater to saltwater fly fishing. Everything is free but visitors will be required to pay the nominal state required gate fees. Our volunteers will receive special passes to get them in. Volunteers will have some time off from their duties to take advantage of some of the activities. We have had about 1000 attendees in both our 2000 and 2001 shows and if we have nice weather, we expect many more this year.
Please add this event to
your calendar and plan to join us. Hope to see you all there
Forest Awareness Week
By Walter
McLendon
Our
club supports the Texas Forestry Association each year by volunteering to man a
booth along with the many Texas Forest Service booths setup to educate area
Junior High students about this very important local industry. On March 20-22,
Wednesday-Friday, in the TFS facility behind Hudson ISD, we will setup under our
usual building with a couple of fly tying tables to demonstrate tying, as well
as, teach fly rod casting to individual students as they come through our
station. We have 30 minutes to do our thing with each group of about 15 to 25
students and their teachers. We divide the groups in half and rotate them at
15-minute intervals.
Mostly our retired members can do this since it spans from 9 AM to 2 PM each day. It gives us a chance to tie our favorite flies and keep our teaching skills in tow. We setup displays of our East Texas aquatic insects with their typical life cycles, terrestrials and other fish foods and samples of the flies we tie to imitate them.
We usually find some experienced students in casting and tying but most have no idea about fly fishing. This gives us the opportunity to introduce our sport.
If you would like to take part please email me at [email protected] or call me at 875-3726. Please bring a sack lunch, drinks will be supplied by the TFA. After we clean up at 2 PM, as the student board school busses to return to school, you are welcome to stay and fish in either of the two lakes on the facility.
I want to thank the volunteers in advance for their time and efforts.
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Remember!
Mark
your calendar for our club meetings, Every First Tuesday of each Month, :00 P M
in the Lufkin Room in the Lufkin Mall.
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Calendar
Outings
and Events
*********
March
5 PWFF meeting
7:00 P M Lufkin Room of Lufkin Mall
15-16 Sowbug Roundup
Mt. Home, AR
16-17 Shallow
Water Expo Houston Texas
20-22 Forest Awareness
Week
23
Fly Fish 2002 Athens,
Texas
April
2 PWFF meeting
7:00 P M Lufkin Room of Lufkin Mall
4-7
SE Conclave Gulf Shores
State Park, AL
13-14 Spring
Rendezvous Lake Bistineau, LA bass & bream
20 PWFF Annual Workshop,
Chamber of Commerce
May
4 Willow Oak
Park/Heugel Haus Lunch Toledo Bend
bass & bream
7 PWFF meting 7:00 P M Lufkin Room of Lufkin Mall
June
1 Tag Team Event
place to be determined
4
PWFF meeting 7:00 P M
Lufkin Room of Lufkin Mall
July 2
PWFF meeting 7:00 P M
Lufkin Room of Lufkin Mall
August
6 PWFF meeting
7:00 P M Lufkin Room
of Lufkin Mall
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
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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