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December
Meeting --
Sorry ... there is no TU meeting in
December.
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Advanced Fly Tying Set
The
annual advanced fly tying class will be Saturday, February
18th. Rick Kustich will be the guest instructor and introduce participants
to the new tube flies. Hot new flies for the past few years have been tube
flies, so if you would like to learn more, sign up for this morning session with
Rick. Cost of the session is $45, which includes breakfast with Rick at
8am at the Canandaigua Inn on the Lake, the hands-on instruction
session following breakfast, and a coffee break. Also included is a
Starter Tube Tying kit that is required to hold the tube in your vice. All
materials to tie the patterns of the day will be provided, you will need to
bring your vise and basic tying equipment (thread, scissors, whip finisher,
lamp, etc.). The session should be over around 1230pm.
Please note that the class size
is limited to the first 12 who send a check to the class coordinator, Dick
Steinheider at 36 Wandering Trail, Pittsford, NY 14534-4158. Checks
should be for $45 and made payable to Canandaigua Lake TU. Only a
check will insure your spot. Send payment now, don't be left out.
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Notes
from November 2005 Meeting
Steve Coleman (Program Coordinator) brought the meeting to
order and welcomed everyone. He then invited visitors to introduce themselves.
Several visitors stood up to say hello. Steve pointed out that the Chapter
meets the third Monday of each month except for December, June, July, and
August.
Any visitors wanting to join the Chapter, get our free
newsletter, and participate in our events should see Jim Striegel or contact him
at
openloop@rochester.rr.com. Further information on the Chapter can be found
at
www.canandaigua.com/tu. Steve reported that the Chapter now has over 120
members.
Steve asked if there are any fishing “hot spots”. There were
several very favorable reports for lots of fish being seen and caught in
Cattaraugus Creek, Sandy
Creek, Genesee River, and Salmon River. The flies that have been particularly
successful are single egg and black stonefly patterns.
Al Kraus mentioned that he had brought some chapter Patches
to the meeting so if anybody wanted one they should see him after the guest
speaker presentation.
Mark Donahue gave an overview of the up-coming Fly Tying
Course. The eight week Course, which costs $50, will start on 18 January and be
held at the Wood Library in Canandaigua. All members where asked to help spread
the word about the course and be ready to help to conduct the classes. Anyone
wanting more information regarding the Fly Tying Course should contact Mike at
394-9385.
The regular
raffle, which is held each meeting, was conducted by Mark Weider. Several
members won various prizes: cash, flies, and donated fly-fishing goodies.
Steve gave
an overview of next meeting, which would be held on 16 January 2006. The guest
speaker will be Jean Chaintreuil (Chapter President), he will give a photo show
of his trip to Kamchatka, Russia. Steve also reminded everyone that no meeting
will be held in December and he wished everyone a great Holiday Season.
Steve
adjourned the business meeting and introduced the guest speaker for the
evening. The presenter was Craig Dennison, an ardent and expert fly fisherman.
Craig gave a presentation on fall/winter tributary fishing, with special
emphasis on the Genesee River,
and showed the members how to tie one of his favorite stonefly patterns.
~~ Al Kraus
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TU now has 150,000 members!
Trout Unlimited’s mission is to
conserve, protect and restore North America’s trout and salmon fisheries and
their watersheds.
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Evolution of the Two-Dollar Fly
In the
beginning we just think it would be cool to catch a fish on a fly that we tied
ourselves.
We want to catch a fish on something we have created, actually fooling a wise
old trout with our creation. But how did we come to our current state in the art
of tying flies? There are as many reasons as there are fly tiers and everyone
has their own combination of motives. It's not always clear, when someone asks
us why we "roll our own", exactly what brought us to the hobby; a hobby that
generally evolves dramatically over time because we usually get better at it and
our needs and fishing styles change over time just like everything else in life.
We often first realize it's a matter of economics. A young person just getting
started in life will quickly do the math on two-dollar flies and snag infested
rivers and quickly determine that if they're going to play this fly-fishing game
then they need to cut out the high overhead costs. Those of us who are well
established, at a time in life when we could, if we chose, afford to throw away
two-dollar flies, remember when we could gas up the car for two dollars and we
quickly do the math on two dollar flies and snag infested rivers and quickly
determine that no matter what the rate of inflation is we are not going to throw
a two-dollar fly into any place that has even a remote chance of hitting us for
two bucks a pop. Two dollars is a still lot of money for those of us old enough
to remember five-cent candy bars. At this stage of development, we are simply
seeking to survive the cost of our new hobby. While money is not the only
reason we take the plunge, it is often a primary motivator and while it is
reason enough it often does not remain our chief motivation.
As we become more proficient in our sport we tend to get particular about the
flies we toss. We are no longer content to throw generic flies during the
hatch. We want our patterns to have the exact color, shade, and hue of the
naturals on the particular water we're fishing. So now our hobby has evolved to
one of tactical precision. We are no longer content with the basics and this is
when the mass stores of fly tying materials inevitably begin to accumulate. At
first it’s harmless enough; a few more appropriate feathers or colors of dubbing
begin to take up the soon-to-be-lost-forever space on our tying desk. But this
quickly evolves into the quest for the perfect material. And since our fishing
skills have matured and diversified so it follows that we now need an
exponential stock of every fur and feather known to science. And even once we
have accumulated examples of the taxonomy of every mammal and bird on the
planet, we discover the never-ending wealth of synthetics.
The synthetic obsession hits most of us at some point and we find ourselves
rummaging through trash bins like the homeless in our quest for the perfect
material. We frequent craft stores seeking new hitherto undiscovered space-age
materials that even NASA is not privy to, all the while the material horde is
growing like the 50's science fiction flick “The Blob”. This usually is
accompanied by in increase in the number of tools we need and it is also about
this time that we realize we really need a new high-priced vice. If our spouse
does the math on what we've been spending they will conclude that we already
have a high-priced vice - fly-fishing! And as we start to add up the cost of this
obsession with materials we realize that unless we tie 2000 dozen flies a year,
the cost per fly is likely to be around two dollars. Obviously we have been
looking at this all wrong, cost savings is not our objective here; it's supply
and demand. We need to evolve again.
We now realize the cost of a fly is immaterial and as long as we don't actually
have pay two dollars for one individual fly we're OK. Averages don't count.
What does count is having lots of the flies we need. Since we now have this
warehouse of materials we can forget the cost of the material since the amount
of material we pull from our stores for each fly equates closely to zero percent
of the total cost of our inventory. All we need now is hooks and we can
consider the materials to be free and since we only have to buy hooks, we can
afford the best ones. No ten-cent hooks for us! We can use the crème-dela-crème
hooks and now our cost per fly is down to around twenty-five cents. Of course
we can also ignore the cost of something as inconsequential as thread. Now we
begin stockpiling flies. Two dozen of this fly, five dozen of that fly, and
gross of these. We can now toss every conceivable incarnation of fly with
reckless abandon at every snag infested pocket we can find. Our fly rod is a
like an Uzi that never runs out bullets. We can wear a river out with an
incessant barrage of flies. This phase of our evolution also necessitates a
spending spree on fly boxes. We have to have somewhere to put these all these
flies and we can rationalize that since the box is not actually part of the fly
it does not count in the cost of producing our munitions horde.
Eventually the accumulated production of flies has filled cabinets and drawers
and we start finding boxes of flies that we don't remember tying. While part of
it may be old age even young tiers with enough years behind them reach the
epiphany that producing copious quantities of flies is not what it's all about
either. We consider the small fortune we have invested in tools and materials
and since we already dismissed the cost of those then there is no sense in
counting our labor either. After all this is a labor of love and we gladly give
the time for free. Even if we add labor to the pricey designer hooks and divide
by the thousands of flies we've tied we should still squeak under the two
dollars per fly. We came out ahead on this game after all. But if we don't do
it for cost or quantity then why do we do it?
The final metamorphoses must be to become a creator of quality flies. Yes we
have now reached artesian status. We no longer need to pad our fly boxes since
we could fish for a couple of hundred years in any watershed in the world and
not run out of usable flies. Now we seek to create perfect flies perfectly
proportioned with exactly the right materials. This often necessitates buying
more materials. Yes we have several jungle cock capes but we don't have any
dyed to a dark claret color. But hey it's only materials and we've long since
become immune to their cost. There are about a million feathers on good cape
and the cost averages out to about zero per fly. Yea, that's about right. And
these perfect works of art of course need some fancy new boxes but as we have
already rationalized, they are not part of the fly and do not add to the cost.
We also start to realize that we might not have enough time left in life to use
all the flies we have tied over the years so we might find ourselves giving
flies away or donating them to charitable auctions. After all, we produce
artwork now and we really couldn't be seen fishing these flies created during
our misguided youth. We ignore the fact that these old flies seem to have
caught just as many fish as our Picasso masterpieces do, but we can assume that
the fishing is not as good today as it was in the old days. If we would have
had these babies we are producing today back then, man that would have been
something!
Yes, we tie flies for a lot a reasons and it becomes as much a part of our sport
as the fishing itself but mostly we just enjoy doing it. And we are secure in
the fact that we never paid two dollars for a fly. We emerge from our chrysalis
fully formed fly tiers.
In the end we just think it's cool to catch a fish on a fly that we tied
ourselves.
~~ Daryl
Crowley – member of FFF West Michigan Hacklers
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Fly
Fishing Show Schedule
College Park, MD: January 14 and 15.
Marlborough, MA: January 20, 21
and 22.
Somerset, NJ: January 27, 28 and
29.
For more information call
800/420-7582.
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Polarized Sunglasses Explained
Outdoors, light,
the radiant energy from the sun, stimulates the retinas of our eyes. Our brains
translate the visual sensations of light brought to it by the optical nerve. Two
kinds of light, ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR), can't be detected by the
human eye but are present in large quantities in the light spectrum. Both can
damage our retinas (eyes) unless a proper filtering lens is used. Also, there is
a shorter-wave blue light which the human eye focuses imperfectly. It causes "blueblur"
which in time can damage the retina. The effects of blue light are intensified
by haze, fog, rain and snow.
Proper sunglasses should improve vision in a wide variety of light conditions,
as well as protect from UV and IR rays, glare, and blue light. Polarized lenses
block glare and help us follow a tiny dry fly down a riffle through hundreds of
wavelets reflecting sunlight back at us. A good polarizing screen in our
sunglasses help us see that tiny fly.
What is a polarizing screen? The polarizing screen is a special film encased
(sandwiched) between layers of optical glass or plastic lenses. Before
sandwiching, this film is stretched and dipped in an iodine solution. As the
film stretches, microscopic ridges within the film elongate, allowing them to
absorb iodine in a series of very closely spaced ridges, making them
"polarized." The lines are something like the very narrow banded and closely
spaced Venetian blinds.
Trouble occurs when cheap plastic lenses have open spots where the ridges didn't
hang together during stretching and sandwiching. The better, harder, plastics
and optical glass don't. Glass, with the sandwiched film, is the best and most
durable, but hard plastics now dominate the market. Much of it is a carbonate.
CR-39 provides lenses with up to 99% effectiveness in blocking UV and IR rays;
they're often advertised as 100% effective. Cheap plastics offer only slightly
more than 50%. The good stuff can cost to $100-plus, but you can pay a lot more
for fishing gear, and even more for travel and lodging. Your trip could be all
but ruined if you
couldn't see fish or fly due to cheapies.
Polarized sun glasses that you might use for fly fishing come in a variety of
tints. Tints filter out light wavelengths that may be undesirable or generally
reduce the intensity of light in very bright settings. It should be apparent
from the following discussion of tints that no single pair of sunglasses are
adequate for all your fishing needs. Available tints include:
YELLOW/AMBER is a very high contrast tint with considerable color shift. As such
it changes the colors your eyes see by a considerable degree. It filters the
most blue light and increases contrast and is thus an excellent choice for
sight-fishing in overcast, flat or low-light situations in fresh water.
MEDIUM/DARK GRAY reduces the maximum amount of visible light and is the best
choice for
sensitive eyes and extremely bright fishing settings. Gray allows for full and
true color transmission and therefore all colors are reduced to the same degree.
Saltwater fishing offshore might be such a situation.
LIGHT BROWN offers the greatest amount of visible light transmission, allowing
for the glare-reduction and protection of polarization in very low light and
making it an ideal tint for early morning, late evening or any low light
condition. This is a favorite among anglers who fish evening hatches and in the
winter. Light brown is also very effective on saltwater flats at sunset.
MEDIUM BROWN is a good choice for an all-around tint for fresh and salt water
fly fishing. Medium brown improves contrast while retaining most colors, except
unwanted blue light.
VERMILLION OR COPPER tints heighten visual acuity, increase contrast, enhance
colors, and are extremely soothing to the eye and comfortable to wear over long
periods of time. Ideal, all around, average light tints for both fresh and salt
water.
In high-quality glass lenses, the tint is. contained in the film and doesn't
change during prescription grinding. Plastic lenses are dipped into a hot dye
and the pigment is then absorbed into the plastic. In time, UV rays can bleach
and fade tints. In the case of prescription plastic lenses, the prescription
adjustments are done first, then the lens is dipped in the dye, to eliminate any
variation in the tint. Happy choosing to you.
~~Bob
Wisner From the San Diego Flyfishers Newsletter
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Handbook of Hatches, 2nd Edition
by Dave Hughes
Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA, 2005
276 pages, softbound, illustrated, color
Suggested price $21.95
The first edition of this great
book was first published in 1987 and became one of the finest fly fisherman’s
hatch matching guides available. Now the author has taken the time and effort to
revise completely this wonderful book to bring it up to date and provide a
larger number of photographs of aquatic insects and fly patterns all of which
are now in color. This is a very readable book for the fly fisherman and/or
amateur entomologist. With an opening chapter entitled “Trout Don’t Speak Latin”
the reader knows that he will find useable information that will help him catch
more and better fish as well as enjoy his time on the water more without the
need of a PhD in bugs. The main portion of the book is broken down into chapters
on Mayflies; Caddis Flies; Stoneflies; Midges, Crane Flies and Mosquitoes;
Dragonflies and Damselflies; Water Boatmen and Backswimmers; and Alderflies and
Hellgrammites. So as you see, both running and still water environments of the
trout fisherman are covered.
Each bug chapter opens with a
short historical opening, a description of the life cycle of the bugs being
discussed, followed by a breakdown of each stage of the life cycle illustrated
by great color photographs of both the natural insects and the appropriate fly
patterns to imitate or represent them. Each chapter ends with a short discussion
of how to present the flies in the most effective manner. The book concludes
with a very good glossary and bibliography, as well as an adequate index. If
there is any shortcoming to the book it is that the index does not specifically
index the fly patterns. Otherwise this is an exceptionally well-written, edited,
and designed book. If you fly-fish for trout you need this book.
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Remember to support our advertisers and sponsors.
Tell them you saw their ad in "Tight Lines".
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Remember to support our advertisers and sponsors.
Tell them you saw their ad in "Tight Lines".
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Prez Sez . . .
Thanks to Craig Dennison for stepping
in to tell us the most up-to-date and current steelhead conditions in western
New York AND how to fish them! Thanks Craig. I kinda think that his
meeting touched off the nice article that included just about all of us in the
Canandaigua Lake TU Chapter that Gary Fallesen wrote in the Democrat &
Chronicle.
Fly Tie School is next. Please
contact Mark Donahue is you would like to help. Assistance is always
welcome. You actually learn a little to ... no matter how much experience
you have. And, we usually get a pretty good bunch of guys to want to learn
to tie, so you do meet a few more nice fishing buddies. Join them.
Merry Christmas to everyone, and Happy
New Year too!
Call me if you want to take me
someplace (fishing)! For now ... I'm ... goin' fishin'!
~~ C
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