Kelly Creek Flycasters

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

***IMPORTANT NOTICE***

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE    

Saker Medevarapu - Kelly Creek Flycasters President

Greetings all!

Presents have been opened, food consumed, families have all departed, and with a bang (or snore in my household) the New Year has begun!  Did you know that the average American  gains 4 to 7 pounds from Thanksgiving to New Years?  However, I think I was not a statistic this season as we spent some time with Lucinda’s folks’ this Christmas.  Although I love my mother-in-law dearly, I cannot say the same for her cooking…Olivia has also figured out that Santa Claus is really Mom and Dad, I think she knew last year but did not acknowledge it out loud.  Soon she will be dating….

I have pretty much put away all my steelhead gear and I am enjoying some winter sports for a change.  We did some skiing at Big White in British Columbia last week, and I have every Wednesday off in January to ski with Olivia’s class at Blue Wood.  But next month I have a winter fishing trip planned to Hamilton and perhaps some skiing there as well.  I know John Claausen and Zach have separate tropical saltwater trips planned this winter as well.  Perhaps one day I’ll make my way down there but until then I will have to live vicariously through their pictures! 

Our spring fundraiser is also fast approaching!  Tickets for the banquet will be available at the next club meeting, and anytime afterwards from any Banquet Committee member, Board Member, or at the Traditional Sportsman.  Mark February 23rd on your calendars and do not forget to invite a guest!  Your banquet committee has been working diligently to make this event flow smoothly so please thank Renee, Linda, Zach, Will, John, Bill, Fred, Judy, Jeanie and Laura for their efforts.  You will also find, included in this newsletter, the breakdown for ticket prices and packages.  The general admission ticket price has gone up slightly, but please take note that all the other packages offer discounts, particularly the Gold Packages.  The Gold Packages include a certain number of blue and red raffle tickets plus the exclusive Gold Ticket Raffle.  Remember folks that the only way to get raffle tickets for the Gold Draw is though the purchase of the Gold Package.  The Gold Ticket draw will be for a group of select items that will be well worth the package price. 

The structure of the other raffles will also be slightly different.  The first level of raffle draw will be the Blue Draw.   The tickets for these items will be sold finger tip to finger tip (length of tickets) for $20. The next level is the Red Draw which represents a group of nicer items.  These tickets will be sold 25 tickets for $20.  There will price breaks similar to what we have done in the past ie. 12 tickets for $10, etc.  The silent and oral auction formats will remain unchanged. 

Also please remember to bring any items, that you have signed up to donate, to the next club meeting, and bring something of value for the monthly raffle.  Flies, baked goods, and quality fly tying materials make great raffle items!

See you at the meeting!

Tight Lines,

Saker

Kelly Creek Flycasters JANUARY Program

Thursday, January 10^th at 7:00PM

China Inn, Lewiston ID

Program:  Four Seasons on the Bighorn by Bob Krumm

Bob Krumm was born in Michigan.  He caught his first fish, a carp, when he was five years old and the fishing bug has not let up since then.  He attended Albion College and graduated with a degree in biology.  He obtained a masters degree in zoology with wildlife management emphasis from the University of Wyoming.

His first guide seasons were in northwest Wyoming: Jackson Hole and the Snake River as well as Pinedale with the Green and New Fork Rivers. Bob worked for the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality from 1979 to 1985.  After he resigned from DEQ he went back to guiding, this time on the Bighorn River in Montana.  Bob has guided on the Bighorn River ever since, though he did spend the first half of the 1987 guide season in Freeport, Maine as a fly fishing instructor in the L.L. Bean Fly Fishing School.

Bob has been fortunate to have worked as a fisheries biologist for the Quemquemtreu Ranch, near San Martin de los Andes in Argentina.  He has traveled to New Zealand to fish for trout and to Abaco Island and Andros Island in the Bahamas to fish for bonefish. 

Bob believes that some of the best fishing in the world is on the Bighorn River in Montana. His presentation on January 10 is entitled "Four Seasons on the Bighorn" and shows the various seasons, insect hatches, --basically it is designed to let individual anglers determine when is the best time to fish the Bighorn.

Check out Bob’s website http://www.bluequillflycompany.com/index.htm and please be sure to come to the meeting on January 10th to meet Bob! 

Fly Fishing the Shoshone

It was the 6^th of July 2000, the day I retired from Sandia Laboratories. I had just cleaned up some remnants on my desk top and placed them in my briefcase. On the way out of the building, I stopped and shared my goodbyes and best wishes with my co-workers. My supervisor was on travel, so the best I could do was to leave a note on his desk. I began my walk across the secure campus to the far gate. The lack of human activity on the campus that day made for a lonesome walk. As I approached the gate, it was apparent that there was no one at the gate to shake my hand and to say “Goodbye! Thanks for a job well done”. There wasn’t even a security guard nearby to wave at.  It was a sad and lonely moment. This was undoubtedly a very sterile moment that only a government facility can produce or is it the culture we live in today or perhaps both. I quietly dropped my security badge into a secure mailbox and exited the one way turnstile for the last time.

However, on the other side of the turnstile my pace and spirit picked up as I reflected on the days ahead. Since springtime I had been planning a late summer and early fall fishing trip. My old Toyota pickup had been replaced with a new F-250 and I had purchased a pop-up camper to mount on the bed of the pickup. This combination was to be my home for more than 2 months. I spent almost the rest of July finishing my preparation. My initial destination was White Lake, Wisconsin where my cousin (he was the brother that I never had) lived and my final destination would be Rocklin, CA where my daughter lived. In between those two points I had planned to stop often as I could to fish for trout.

After a prolonged stay and re-union with my cousin and his wife, I headed west for Cody, Wyoming. There I fished several branches of the Shoshone River for several days. On the first day, I was guided out of a shop at Cody. We spent a good day fishing on the South Fork. The only incident of note during the outing was the fact the guide and I were summarily asked to leave private ranch land on a short stretch of river that could not be fished from the other side which, of course, was public. Property rights in Wyoming are of importance to landowners; as a consequence, this state is not known to be fisherman friendly. During the day the guide told me to be observant for grizzlies as we got closer to the National Forest. That evening on returning to the fly shop the shop owner further warned me not to fish the Shoshone alone because of the grizzly threat.

The acuteness of the grizzly threat became apparent to me the next day when all the camp sites along the highway paralleling the river posted signs that restricted camping to hard sided campers. Since I was traveling alone, I decided to find myself a fisherman who would allow me to join him for the day. I found one fishing the lower river, peculiarly alone. I approached him and explained how I felt about the grizzly threat and asked if I could join him. Fortunately, the first one I found allowed me to join him for the day. He was a young local school teacher who during the summer guided fly fishermen whenever he could. I thought to myself, “Boy, I know how to pick a fishing partner.”

As I prepared to fish, I not only put on my fishing gear and prepared my rod, I also laced a jingle bell in each boot and mounted a can of pepper spray on my belt. As I fished the lower Shoshone just above or below him, it was clear that he was catching many more than I. So I spent a while just watching him and checked to see what fly was working for him. He told me he was fishing with a weighted halfback and it was clear that he was high sticking them at depth through large running pools. Fortunately, I had bought some halfbacks at the shop the day before. So I mounted one on the end of my leader and soon was catching Yellowstone cutthroats too. In the afternoon he took me up river where we fished rapid pocket water as it tumbled down the mountain side. Frequently runs occurred between the pockets. I switched to a dry fly, probably a humpy, but I can’t remember (a senior moment at work). Almost every pocket had a cutthroat hanging out in it. Some of the pockets were very deep plunge pools. These deep ones were the most fun to fish, because the cutthroat would come up from depth to hit your fly with all the authority he had; after all, he only had a short window of time before the meal left his window of opportunity. One of the fish that I caught out of a deep pocket is shown below (The aerosol can is obviously sticking out from under the vest). The runs also fished well because you could fish individuals by sight.

At the end of the day, we reflected on the good day we had together and I thanked him for allowing me to join him. He also sized me up and noted that I was prepared to defend myself from grizzlies. Then he leaned toward me and asked if knew how to distinguish bear scat from grizzly scat. I reflected a moment won-dering whether he was serious or joking with me. Then, I said, “No.” He respon-ded, “Grizzle scat has aerosol cans and jingle bells in it and bear scat doesn’t.”  We had a big laugh together and ended the day on a light moment.

Well, I know that the east Yellow-stone area has a significant grizzly dan-ger. Runners, hikers, hunters and I sup-pose fishermen that happen upon a grizzly are sometimes charged and sometimes mauled. But, I couldn’t help but wonder whether the shop at Cody was trying to get me to buy into another day of guided fishing in view of all the emphasis on grizzlies. After all, I would then have a companion to protect me on the river for the day.  What led me to conjecture this is that the shop at the end of the day charged me for every fly that the guide had mounted on my leader; even after having paid the fee and given the guide a generous tip. Was I a target or what?

John Claassen

Board Member

What:          Fly Fishing Fair (9:00 am - 4:00 pm) and Banquet  (5:30 - 9:30 pm)

Hosted by:   Kelly Creek Flycasters

When:          Saturday, February 23, 2008

Where:         Quality Inn, 700 Port Drive, Clarkston WA 99403

Extra Blue and Red tickets will be available at the Banquet for purchase.  So if you see something special that you want you can buy extra tickets beyond what you would have gotten with a Gold package if you had purchased your banquet ticket that way.

Blue Draw Tickets will be sold for $1 per ticket, or finger tip to finger tip (length of tickets) for $20.

Red Draw Tickets will be sold for $1 per ticket, or 10 tickets for $12, or 25 tickets for $20.

The silent and oral auction formats will remain unchanged. 

Kelly Creek Flycasters

2008  EVENT  SCHEDULE

KELLY CREEK FLYCASTERS TREASURER’S REPORT

Account Balances through DECEMBER, 2007

                          Savings CD:                                                $10,088.22

                          Checking Account Balance:                           $3,615.04

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

                          Total Funds:                                               $13,703.26

Kelly Creek Flycasters Board of Directors

TYING CORNER – PMD Emerger

Article by Bob Bates, FFF Clubwire

In the Western part of the USA the PMD is considered by many anglers as the most important mayfly hatch. Katie Kluchko from Bozeman, Montana tied this pattern at the 2007 FFF Fly Fishing Show and Conclave in Livingston, MT. She said that this is a great fly to use during the hatch or maybe just before it. Many fly anglers will stop and listen when somebody says “This emerger catches fish.” What attracts their attention is first “emerger” and second “catches fish.” This style of fly pattern is becoming more important to many of us because they are great fish catchers. Also they are a bit easier to use than high floating patterns that require re-dressing to keep them effective.

Ephemerella intermi, E. infrequens and a couple other species are called PMDs (Pale Morning Duns) by anglers. Depending on elevation, latitude, weather, etc., PMDs hatch from May to October and from 9am to noon. So you need to be ready to fish by 8am to get in on the pre-emergence activity when the nymphs become more active and are moving along the bottom. If you are not familiar with the stream and its hatches, it is a good idea to cultivate a friendship with a knowledgeable person. You can also check with a good fly shop or take the time (years) to learn what is going on. Usually the early season hatches are larger (size 14) than the later ones (size 18).

When the hatch starts switch to this pattern and start having fun. Since this is an emerger pattern use a floating line and don’t grease the fly or the leader. You want the fly to drift just below the surface. Cast across stream and down a little.  You can let the fly drift drag free to simulate a helpless insect, but it is sometimes more effective to jiggle it a little bit to simulate the struggling nymph. Moving the fly a bit can be as simple as wiggling the rod a little or giving the line short strips. On drizzly cool days a hatch will often last longer so don’t give up when you see the first rain drop.

Materials & Equipment:

Hook: Mustad 9671 or similar hook, sizes 14 – 18
Thread: Uni 8/0, rusty dun
Tail: Wood duck
Body: Turkey biot, rusty spinner
Wing case: Turkey or goose biot, medium brown
Thorax: Dubbing, soft yellow
Legs: Wood duck

 

Step 1: Start thread about one eye width behind the eye and wind to bend. Put a few extra thread winds at bend to help the tail point up a little. Cover body smoothly.

Step 2: Take a few (6) fibers of wood duck, and tie them on in front of the thread bump. Make the tail about 1-1/2 gap widths long. Trim excess wood duck. Wind back to the bump to make the tail raise and separate slightly. Wind forward smoothly then back to bend.

Step 3: Let the thread hang at the rearmost thread wind for the tail. Trim off the narrowest part of a biot, leaving at least 1.5 inches of the biot for wrapping. Tie it in with the curved side a little on the side of the hook facing the tier. Let the thread torque bring the fiber to the top of the hook. Secure and move the thread forward to a point about 2/3 to 3/4 of the shank length in front of the bend.

 

Step 4: Carefully spiral wrap the biot forward. Put one wrap in front of the previous one without overlapping. Use hackle pliers from start to make wrapping easier. Secure it well before releasing the hackle pliers. Don’t get discouraged the first time the biot gets away (maybe several times). It happens to everyone. To secure the biot take a loose thread wind to prevent the biot from folding then put on tighter winds.

 

Step 5:  Trim a little of the butt part of the wing case biot. Moisten biot before tying it onto the hook. Tie it at a point about one third shank length back from the eye with the curved side up and tip to rear. Put some of the soft yellow dubbing on the thread and wrap the thorax. Make the thorax fairly large by doing a figure eight wrap over previous layers. End wrapping with the thread at front of thorax. Make sure there is about an eye width of bare shank between the eye and front of thorax.

 

Step 6:  Carefully cut 5 or 6 wood duck fibers for legs on each side of hook. Handle them so the tips remain even, and tie them onto the bare hook in front of thorax. Legs almost extend to the point of the hook. The thickness of the thorax ball holds them in a proper outward position.

 

Step 7:  Bring biot forward and secure it. Use a loose wind first and then tighter thread winds. Trim excess, and then whip finish.

Closing comments:   This pattern was designed for PMDs, but it can be changed to be successful during hatches of Blue Winged Olives, Callibaetis, Flavs, Green Drakes and Gray Drakes. For Callibaetis and the drakes use larger hooks, BWOs smaller hooks and Flavs about this size. Also change the color to match the hatch. It is a great pattern, so be sure to keep an ample supply with you. 

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.