Kelly Creek Flycasters

  www.kellycreekflycasters.com                      P.O. Box 2131 Lewiston, Idaho 83501

***IMPORTANT NOTICE***

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE    

Zach Funkhouser - Kelly Creek Flycasters President

It’s banquet time again.  I hope all of you are planning to join us on May 11^th at the Quality Inn in Clarkston.  We have a fun evening planned with raffles, auctions, dinner and a program.  Remember to bring your spending money and take home a couple of our raffle or auction items.  This is a fundraiser after all, and the money we generate goes to pay for our activities for the year, not to mention the community and local programs that our club supports financially.  Festivities will begin at 5:30pm and go to about 10:00pm. Friends are always welcome so if you know someone that would like to attend make sure you bring them, tickets will be available at the door.   If you volunteered to provide a banquet donation and have not delivered that yet, please remember to bring it Friday evening.   I look forward to seeing everyone there.

It hasn’t been a bad spring for fishing so I hope everyone has had a chance to get out once or twice.  The local lakes are fishing fair from what I’ve heard and the Bitterroot has been in good shape this spring.  The Clark Fork was on fire this April.  I just spent a very pleasant evening on the Owyhee casting caddis to bank risers.  The first fish I landed was a 20” brown that took a #16 Hemingway Caddis about two inches from shore.  I won’t tell you how many flies I lost to the willows that evening; I’ll just say that I’ve got some tying to do.  I hope you’ve had a chance to get out and leave a few of your own flies in the bushes.  If you have, bring a couple of fish stories to the next meeting.

Here are a couple very important notes for club members to remember: the KCF won’t be holding a regular monthly club meeting in May.  Since that date is the day before the banquet, the banquet will suffice for our meeting this month.  Also, as our search for a permanent meeting location continues, in June we are going to try a meeting at the restaurant at the Hell’s Gate Marina.  It looks like a cool place, the menu is diverse and it’s on the water, which all sounds good.  There are no fees to enter Hells Gate Park to that location.  We’ll meet upstairs and give it a try with the hopes that this may become a permanent meeting place.  There will be another reminder of this in the June newsletter but make a mental note nonetheless.  We look forward to giving the new location a try during the June 14 meeting.

Take care and see you at the banquet, let's make a fun and profitable event. 

Zach 

Kelly Creek Flycasters May Program

Friday, May 11^th at 7:00PM  at the  Quality Inn,  Lewiston ID

Program:  Fly Fishing Patagonia by Terry Nab

All roads to Argentina lead to one through Buenos Aires.  With more than 11 million inhabitants, Buenos Aires is a cosmopolitan and eclectic city that will never cease to surprise you with its contrasts; from its friendly “barrios” and the melancholy of tango mix to the modernity of mirrored high rises and cell phones.

The clear, pollution-free Patagonia air gives new meaning to “Big Sky Country”.  The Patagonia fishing experience is punctuated by magnificent scenery, accented by wonderful people and food and alive with a friendly, rich and rural culture that is like a step into our own past.

The sea run brown trout in Tierra Del Fuego’s Rio Grande is some of the most sought after fishing in the world.  Success on the Rio Grande requires patience, hard work and casting skill, but the rewards are worth it!

Common Stoneflies of North America  by  John Claassen

Throughout the angling literature are eloquent passages of the delicate nature of the ephemeral mayflies or the graceful fluttering of the caddisfly. These tales usually involve a statement of how these stately insects emerge over the long glides where weary trout cautiously sip them from the placid waters. This is the elegant side of fly-fishing. Yet, as many anglers know, there is a group of insects, the stoneflies, that brings out the primordial, predatory-based behavior in trout. There is nothing subtle about a trout taking a stonefly. The explosive capture of a stonefly by a hungry trout can make your heart skip a beat.

The stoneflies are aptly classified under the order Plecoptera (Plec=stone, ptera=wing). There are six Plecopteran genera found in North America. This order is relatively small when compared to some aquatic insect groups, such as the chironomids. Of all the stonefly specie occurring worldwide, the majority are fluvial (living in rivers), yet some specie do occur in some of the colder lakes, such as Lake Tahoe. There are several reasons for this distribution. Stonefly nymphs require specific habitat parameters for their survival. Factors such as stream temperature, dissolved oxygen content, substrate size, as well as stream size and elevation will determine where stoneflies can exist. Not surprisingly, America possesses a variety of fluvial habitats, thus a diversity of habitats for different stoneflies.

For certain Plecopteran specie, if even one of the above-mentioned parameters is lacking or not met at a certain level, this specie will be prevented from colonizing an area, or will go extinct. As such, stoneflies are excellent indicators of water quality in streams. Samples of stonefly nymphs can be taken to determine which specie occur in a particular stream and which do not. If you do this over several years and some specie either appear or disappear, then the system may be experiencing a change in water quality.

Stonefly nymphs are relatively long-lived insects, with life spans ranging from one to three years, depending on the specie. To accomplish this feat, these incredible insects may go through as many as 30 instars, or molts, to reach the stage where they are ready to emerge. To the casual observer, nymphs of stoneflies can be easily confused with those of mayflies; but with a little entomological insight, the two can easily be distinguished. Stonefly nymphs have two "toes" on each leg, while mayflies have only one. Mayflies can have three tails and stoneflies always have two, and finally, stoneflies will never have gills on their abdominal segments, while mayflies commonly do.

Contrary to many specie of mayflies and caddis, stoneflies do not hatch from the water itself. Rather, the nymphs crawl along the stream bottom and climb out of the water onto streamside vegetation and rocks (and occasionally on an angler's leg). There the bugs shed their larval armor and emerge as adults. Undoubtedly, you have seen these exuviae (larval shells) on streamside rocks, logs and leaves. Due to the lack of a pupal stage, the metamorphosis for stoneflies is said to be incomplete.

The adult stage of stoneflies usually lasts from one to four weeks. The majority of this time is spent in the pursuit of "fitness enhancement." They search for potential mates, looking for the opportunity to pass on their genes to the next generation. To help attract a mate, male stoneflies have developed a behavior called "drumming", where the males tap the tip of their abdomen on a rock or stick, creating a sound pattern that attracts only unmated females. This particular behavior is similar to bird songs, and amazingly, specie specific dialects have been recorded.

Once impregnated, fertilized females lay their eggs directly into the water, an act called ovipositing. This is a communal affair where hundreds of females swarm together. Not surprisingly, these ovipositioning events provide the best opportunities to fish big, highly visible, not to mention buoyant or flamboyant, dry flies.

The golden stonefly (family Perlidae) and its bigger cousin the salmonfly (family Pteronarcidae) take to the skies around early summer. During oviposition, good results can be obtained by moving a pattern such as an orange stimulator, a sofa pillow, or a Turck’s Tarantula (sizes #6-10) across pocket water. Presentation is not always a real concern in pocket water. Here, the fish need to react quickly; so, look for splashy and energetic strikes. In slower moving water, skating the pattern across the water may not always be effective. A fluttering stonefly pattern may save the day, when conventional methods of drifting and skating the fly fail.

Another common stonefly is the yellow sallie (family Perlodidae). This hatch lasts most of the summer and seems to be more common in slower current. With such a long emergence period, it is a good bet that these yellow sallies are a complex of several closely related specie. These sulfur colored flies are much smaller than the golden or salmon stoneflies, hook sizes from #12 to #16. Small yellow stimulators, such as the yellow seducer, are suitable patterns for this family of stoneflies.

Because there is always a generation or two of nymphs in the streambed, stonefly nymphs are always a good bet for the sub-surface angler. These nymphs provide season-long action, both before and after the adult emergence. Popular patterns include the epoxy-back stone, the Montana stone, the bitch creek, and the Yuk bug. Getting these artificial insects to the stream bottom is crucial for success. Weighted flies and split-shot placed a short ways up the leader from the fly will certainly help keep the fly at a proper working depth. A good rule of thumb is that if your rig hits you on the head on the backcast, then you probably have enough weight on the line. Once you re-gain consciousness, keep in mind that it was once written "the stonefly is to trout what filet mignon is to anglers." Would you say that is “food for thought?”

.

John Claassen

Board Member

KELLY CREEK FLYCASTERS TREASURER’S REPORT

Account Balances through April, 2007

                                 Checking Account Balance:                                     $1,104.65

                                 Savings CD:                                                            $9,897.27

                                                                                                            ----------------

                                 Total Funds:                                                             $11,001.92

Kelly Creek Flycasters     2007  EVENT  SCHEDULE

Kelly Creek Flycasters Board of Directors

TYING CORNER – Bead Thorax Diving Caddis

Article by Eric Schubert - North Idaho Fly Casters Club

Illustrations by Adrian Jund - North Idaho Fly Casters Club

If you are an avid fly fisher, one of the best fishing conditions that you can encounter, is when an insect hatch is in progress. Sometimes the air is so thick with hatching insects that they cover your clothes and it is almost impossible to breathe without inhaling some of these small flying critters.

Fish respond with reckless abandon when major hatches are in progress. Insect hatches mean lots of available food for fish, both as the insects emerge and when they hatch into adults. One of the major hatches that can be observed on almost any river in the West is that of the caddisflies. When the "hatch is on" trout gorge themselves on the emerging caddis as well as the adult caddisflies.

After adult male caddisflies emerge, they quickly try to attempt to locate a mate. Within a short period of time after mating some female caddisflies return to the water to lay their eggs. Prominent among the caddisflies that lay their eggs on rocks and debris under the water is the Hydropsyche species. After depositing their eggs on the stream bottom, they swim to the surface in order to mate again, or die and drift downstream. Trout feed on these insects descending to the stream bottom and ascending to the surface.

This month's Fly of the Month, the Bead Thorax Diving Caddis' accurately imitates a diving egg-laying

caddisfly. One of the outstanding features of this fly is the translucent wing which accurately depicts the wing shape and composition of the natural insect.

When tying this fly, use a standard wet fly hook style, such as Mustad 3906B or similar, in sizes 10-18.

Begin this pattern by sliding a gold bead onto the hook shank and securing it at the one-third point by wrapping a small ramp of thread both in front of and behind the bead. This will secure the bead into place and keep it from moving on your hook shank. Next, dub a very small amount of green dubbing onto the end of the hook shank; this will represent the insect's egg sack. Dub the remaining area behind the bead with natural hare's ear dubbing.

Now, move your thread to the area directly in front of the bead and add only two wraps of tan rabbit dubbing in front of the bead. Tie on several fibers of brown partridge on the bottom portion of the fly to represent the legs of the diving caddisfly.

Continue tying the fly by adding an underwing of several tufts of natural CDC, followed by the overwing of tan raffia or other synthetic material. Finish the pattern by adding a few wraps of tan rabbit dubbing in the space between the wing-tie-down-point and the hook eye. The last step is to cut the wing material into a tent shape. Do this by pinching the wing material together and making one 30 degree downward cut with your scissors. Although this fly pattern has a few more materials that you may be used to working with, it is worth your time to tie a dozen or more to keep in your fly box.

When fishing the Bead Thorax Diving Caddisfly, make sure that you present your fly upstream of the fish, and ensure that you get a drag-free drift. Rises to this fly are not as subtle as when fish rise to mayflies; rises are often powerful and intense.

With river fishing opportunities around the corner, take the time to tie some of these very useful flies.

Riffles, Runs & Lies is edited by Diane Lillibridge on behalf of the Kelly Creek Flycasters.

All club members are welcome to submit articles for inclusion into the club newsletter by contacting

Diane at KCFNewsletter@cableone.net or by phone at (208) 743-8970.