Mike Maris President, LSFF Newsletter Articles On Page 1 Letter from the President January 17th. 2006 Meeting New Location! Tie One On At Six LSFF Fly Tiers Round Table Guests and New Members Club Fly Fishing Days The Early Emerger’s? Tying The Clyde Style Happy Ending To A Wolverine Story On Page 2 KT Diaries New Schedule What’s New With Rob? Sand Bass Time Again Native Waters On Outdoor Life Network Cyber Flyfishing: Part IV - Do you IM? On Page 3 Beavers Bend Fly Shop Fishing Report Alaska Making Memories Creekside Inn Alaska Trip Planning Club Fly Out & Steelhead Packages Creekside Inn Alaska Fly List LSFF Fly Fishing Forum! *Note: You will have to register in order to chat. *Chat Tip: Use a junk e-Mail address for bulletin boards, this will cut down on spam.

A Note From the Editor: As you’ve no doubt noticed, the January issue of our newsletter didn’t get online early in the month as we normally plan. This is entirely the fault of your editor, so fire me if you will, ride me out of town on a rail, or stuff my leader box with rotten cat gut. Whatever sets your hook.

This month’s edition will be rather limited, but I’ve saved some articles for the February issue and I’m sure you’ll find them of interest.

I hope all of you had a great holiday season, and now we’re all back into the swing of the new year. This will be our first meeting of the new year, in a new meeting setting, and our hopes are that it will generate a new enthusiasm for our club.

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Unfortunately, we’ve had last minute scheduling problems with our program for the January 17 meeting, and the speaker has been delayed until our February meeting. On the positive side, this gives us an opportunity to have some open discussion on what everyone expects from our club, changes to the meeting format, suggestions for better meetings and better fishing, and in general offer your ideas. After all, it is your club and those of us who have been entrusted with the management of the club value your input.

As you’ll see, a few members are going to туры в Минеральные воды meet earlier for fellowship and fly tying. We’d like to encourage all members to bring a couple of your favorite bass or bream flies (trout is okay also), discuss how you fish them, how you tie them, and so on. We’ll have a demonstration tank, okay, it may only be an aquarium tank, so that we can see the action of the fly as the fish sees it.

We’re going to be discussing upcoming programs, outings, and special events such as the Texas Fly Fishing Show that will be held at the Texas Freshwater Fishery Center in Athens in March. Please come with an open mind and lots of ideas. See you Tuesday night.

Thanks,
Gordon Bryson, Newsletter Chairman

February 21st. 2006 Meeting – New Location

The February meeting of Lone Star Fly Fishers Club will be held at Tyler Junior College West Campus, on Loop 323. The meeting will be in Room 104 and will begin at 7:00 P.M. Fly tying and fellowship (Lyin and Tyin) will begin at 6:00 P.M. for those who want to participate in this.

Tie One On At Six
By Gordon Bryson

Since we will not be eating as a group prior to the beginning of the Tuesday night meeting, some of us have planned to be at TJC West by about 6 P.M. and do a little fly tying. This is not to replace the Thursday night Fly Tyers Roundtable, but some folks may not be able to make the trip in twice during the same week, so we’re going to add this on. It will be a great time for informal fellowship, share some of your favorite patterns, kibitz, maybe learn a new technique or pattern, and generally have a good time. If you’re interested, please join us. We’ll meet in the same room, and adjourn the tying and lying at 7 P.M.

Also, we’ll be dipping some of these in the fish tank during the regular meeting to see how they look to the fish.

LSFF Fly Tiers Round Table

The LSFF Fly Tiers Round Table will meet the third Thursday of each month. The meetings will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 at the Tyler Junior College West Campus (RTDC). Everyone is welcome to become a part of the round table. This is a great opportunity for club tiers to get together to tie flies, share techniques and simply enjoy the fellowship of other tiers. Beginning tiers will have the benefit of learning from among the best fly tiers in East Texas. Round table attendees should bring their own tools and material. Tiers will have the opportunity to show the group how to tie their favorite flies.

T. R. Rafferty has returned to Tyler from his summer and fall guiding in Michigan. He is anxious to help new and experienced tiers and brings a professional perspective to this great hobby. Come join us for an evening of learning and fellowship.

Guests and New Members
By Gordon Bryson

The January meeting at the new TJC location was attended by some 20 members and two guests. We were happy to have Peter Cooke, a student at TJC, visit with us and look forward to getting to know him better. Unfortunately, Pete had to leave before the meeting ended and we didn’t get to visit.

We also welcomed Atlihan Binoz for another visit with us. I met Atlihan last year at Faulkner Park Pond fishing for trout and he visited with us before we moved down town. Atlihan teaches math in the Chapel Hill School system and enjoys trout fishing.

We look forward to both visiting with us and considering becoming members. For our members, please try to invite a guest to our next meeting.

Club Fishing Days
by Mike Maris

The designated club fishing days for February on the Lower Mountain Fork River are Tuesday February 14th through Sunday February 19th. This is President's Day holiday so you may get in an extra day of fishing. The plan is to meet at Sid Ingram's fly shop around 9:00 am each morning. Sid's shop is on the river inside Beavers Bend State Park. Leave word at Sid's where you will be fishing in case someone gets there late and would like to contact you. Decide that morning where and what time to meet for dinner that afternoon to discuss your day on the river. If you have a LSFF cap, wear it so other members can identify you. If you do not have a LSFF cap, buy one at the next meeting! Two members fished the Lower Mountain Fork in January.

T. R. Rafferty caught the longest fish. Be sure to measure your longest fish. We had a few members sign up at the January meeting to fish specific days in February. This gives members a chance to share rides or rooms and cut down on the cost. If you are interested in fishing the Lower Mountain Fork between February 14th and 19th, call me during the day at 903-561-7373. We have a list and can connect you with someone going fishing the day you want to go. This phone number is an animal clinic, so just tell the receptionist that you are calling about fly fishing. They understand the importance of fly fishing.

Don't forget the February meeting. Will Maloney will be giving us a presentation on King Salmon fishing in Alaska. A trip with Will has been booked for the second week in June. There are four places left for this trip.

If you have not renewed your membership for 2006, you can click on "Join Us" and print a membership application. Mail it to the address on the application. we look forward to seeing you at the meeting and to fishing with you on the river.

THE EARLY EMERGER’S?

Who really knows how the fly tiers of the past related what it was they saw the fish feed on and then by that knowledge converted that in some way to a metal fishing hook.

For certain there was very much a logical train of thought that in many cases went on to that. The known fly patterns of the past can justify that. Soft hackle and spider fly patterns almost certainly were tied to resemble in some way the invertebrate life forms that existed on those river and stream systems that those flies evolved from.

Typically the freestone streams of that part of the UK were fast shallow waters and fish that resided in such habitat would have little time to make the decision to intercept a food source or one that resembled one, the artificial fly. That is not to say that soft hackles will not work in any other water system, they do and they can be far more effective at times than fly patterns that have evolved in the past 50 years.

For certain, one very big lesson that l learned many years ago was to keep a very open mind to ward the flies that l used and that relationship to how the fish saw that fly. The fact that l can see fish gulping down PMD, caddis of any other food source would not automatically cause me to fish a artificial that in my eyes looked like that food source. I do not know how a fish sees what it does and neither do you. You will from experience make a decision so far as what fly you may choose to use, but one should never keep a closed mind on that way of thought. You will be caught out very many times if you do.

Accept that fact, that whatever it is we cast on to the water is a means of deception to catch the fish. Regardless of what ever you train of thought is, if you are a dry fly purist, ok with me, but you are still using a lure that is constructed of materials that are totally alien to the fishes natural food source, period.

Accepting that fact, l personally believe that soft hackles and many other winged wet flies do in many ways resemble natural food sources in far better ways than many of the flies used commonly to day.

Old catalogue’s of the 1800s that l own show in color plates the most exquisite looking trout flies, they emulate life to my eyes, let alone the trouts. They are fine in symmetrical appearance and exhibit colors of the natural that to day you do not find easily. Many of the dyes used then were obtained from organic sources, coupled with the mordants that they used, produced shades and hues that the more modern dyes will not. And l firmly believe that this is one of the reasons that many of these fly patterns worked so well. You can to day duplicate the same colors by the same process as was used in days gone past. If of course you have the time to do so.

By the same token many of the materials that were used back then are not obtainable to day. Feathers from song birds and waders to name a few, Each and every one of those materials did something within the watery world it was subjected too. It gave the appearance of life and representation of the natural, by way of the humans perception, but of course the trout thought likewise also. That is why many of those flies are still used to day. They work, providing you understand the prevailing conditions when, and how to fish them.

Do l believe that there has been very significant advances from those days, not entirely, l believe that in many cases it has been at the expense of losing sight of what existed then. Many fly fishers to day do take the easy way out, bead heads and indicators will not teach you the subtle ways required to fish flies of this nature . I may appear to you as being single minded, no l am far from that train of thought. It is for me a question of evaluation, and my life time of experience fly fishing for trout all over the world. More to the point it is how l feel inside to ward fly fishing and catching fish.

In the UK many styles of fly evolved and many of those localized to a specific water system. What took place in the northen zones of England and Scotland was very different to that in Wales, and Ireland, The flies themselves were very different. Different species of insect were in abundance, be it rivers, streams or lakes, and in consequence of that the fly tiers in those regions adapted to that way of thought of what they needed by way of a artificial fly to catch those fish.

There is one particular region that brought into being a style of fly known as the Clyde style. In some cases these flies and the variations that are classified as Clyde style do resemble very closely flies that have originations from other sources. Aside from that there is one particular style of Clyde fly that l am not able to find historically another source.

They are wet flies that are tied in a manner that is unusual in as much as they sport a up right wing. But they are also flies that are tied very sparse manner and in consequence of this they will sink just below the surface, to all intense and purposes representing a emerger, a still born dun or a drowned dun. Either way they are very effective fish catching flies, believe me l know.

They may appear to require no feat of fly tying skill, but that is not the case. If you do not replicate them in the way in which these flies should be tied then they will not perform for you as you would like for them to do so.

Those flies were tied using Pearsalls threads, either Gossamer or Naples silk . Some of those shades are no longer available and some that are, are a different shade to the original. That is not to say that modern day threads are of no use because they are. You need only to work with how the fly is constructed and the proportionate values of the style.

Some of these flies contain wings procured from species of songbird found in the UK, in this case you will not be able to reproduce the original tying, no problem, there are other alternatives and of course you are able to adapt the style of fly the species of insect that are found on your local water or those that you intend to fish. This past year l used Clyde style flies on the San Juan, and caught a good number of trophy bows with them. I use them a great deal here on my own White river, during midge hatches and others such as the BWO. They are some of my favorite flies to use for up stream dead drift techniques and when trout are seen to show a interest to ward the surface for a food source.

TYING THE CLYDE STYLE

If it is your intention to use Pearsalls thread then you must wax this thread with a pure beeswax. This serves two purposes, It will lesson the thread from rotting and will also aid the process of thing the fly. Thread turns must be kept to the absolute minimum, there is no margin for excess and bulk with this type of fly.

1. Place the hook in the vice.
2. Take the tying thread from a position a little way back from the hook eye to a position above the point of the hook in close butted touching turns.
3. Select the few fibre’s 3 to 5 of the tail whisks, They may be either soft rooster or hen. I use Chinese necks.
4. Continue with the thread in close butted touching turns to the position just before the bend of the hook.
5. Tie in below the hook shank the fine gold or silver wire.
6. Wind the wire in evenly spaced turns to ward the hook eye, but not right to it. You will have to allow for the wing and hackle to be tied in.
7. Wind now the thread in between the turns of wound wire.
8. Secure the wire, and cut off excess wire.
9. Prepare the wing slip.
10. Tie in the wing slip
11. Cut off wing slip excess.
12. Prepare and tie in the hackle.
13. Make one turn of the hackles behind the wing and one in front.
14. Take the thread and wind one turn behind the hackle and in front.
15. Complete the whip finish process, cut off thread.
16. Varnish the head of the fly.

These are the stages to tying the fly. The preparation and tying in of the wing will take some practice as feathers such as starling a very delicate and will not tolerate being messed around with.

You are of course at liberty to alternate thread and hackle color to suit the species you wish to imitate. Other materials from wildfowl and other legal birds may be used for the wings. Light shade wing quill may also be dyed to shades of olives and yellows. You may also use permanent marker pens such as Prismacolor. They work fine. Bodies may also be dubbed using fine material such as Wapsi mink dubbing blends, and superfine.

Happy Ending To A Wolverine Story
By Al Elliott

Hi guys, Two or three years ago, I bought a pair of Wolverine leather boots at the Waterloo Outlet Mall. About the only time I wore them was to and from the mountain when skiing. In mid December, the internal portion of the leather in the toe cap of the right boot began to bulge inward and contacted my toes. I couldn't wear them anymore.

I sent Wolverine an email telling them about my problem. Alberta (neat name, huh?) called me and gave me a return shipment authorization number. I sent them back via Fed Ex with an explanation of my problem. Today, I received a letter from Wolverine stating that they were shipping me a replacement pair. Isn't it nice to see a company, in this day and age, stand behind their product like this? If any of you guys are in the market for a new pair of boots, guess which brand I would recommend?
- Al Elliott