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December 2016 |
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News & EventsGeneral Meeting - Tuesday, December 13, 20167th Annual Fly Tying Night
Our December 13th meeting will be our 7th Annual Fly Tying Night. We are asking all our members who tie flies to grab your vise and some materials and come out and tie one on. Some of the chapter's best tiers will be on hand showing off their favorite patterns. This is a great opportunity to get some hands on instruction if you are a veteran or a novice tier. Our more experienced members would be happy to work with you and provide with some one on one instruction. This evening is also a great way to introduce some of the magic that happens during our Fly Tiers Course, which begins again in February. It's not too early or too late to register! See Bart Lombardo or Lou DiGena for details on the classes at the meeting. We will be gearing up a little early with most of the tiers setting up for an official start of 7:30pm. Our business portion of the meeting will be very short and our tiers will be there all night. Even if you are not a fly fisherman or fly tier this is a great evening out to socialize as this meeting has proven to be one of our most popular yearly events. Break that cabin fever and come on out and tie some flies with us. 
Tuesday, January 10, 2016Andrew Dang
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Garden State Outdoor Sports ShowJanuary 12 - 15, 2017New Jersey Convention & Expo Center
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Central Jersey Chapter of Trout Unlimited
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2016/17 Fundraising Campaign
This year we are offering a 4wt Orvis Superfine Glass Outfit. The prize will include a Brand new 7'6" 4wt Orvis Superfine Glass fly rod, and a Battenkill II fly reel loaded with a WF4F Hydros line. This package retails for $613.00. Tickets will be available for $5.00 a piece, starting with our December meeting and will also be available at our upcoming shows and general meetings. The final drawing will held at the Pequest Open House on April 2, 2017. All proceeds from your donations will be used to support our upcoming conservation projects. Our thanks go out to Orvis of Princeton who graciously donated the reel and line in this outfit. Pequest Open House Fundraing EventIf your like me, you have probably accumulated a lot of fishing, hunting and camping gear over the years. While many of these items are prized possessions, you probably also have some gear lying around that has fallen out of regular use and is just collecting dust. If your married like me, these items are taking up valuable space that your significant other feels could be better served storing something else. Chances are you can't bring yourself to throw the stuff away. What if I told you you could clean out that garage, basement or spare room and help out Central Jersey Trout Unlimited at the same time? We are now accepting donations of any type of outdoor sporting gear. Every year, Central Jersey Trout Unlimited attends the Pequest Open House/Sportsman's Flea Market at the Pequest Hatchery. This year the event will be taking place on April 1st and 2nd, 2017. Your unused gear could be used to support our 2017 fundraising efforts. In past years we have raised several hundred to over a thousand dollars selling CJTU members old, unwanted gear. This money goes directly to our conservation efforts. We are currently looking to raise funds to support another restoration project on public water, on the Musconetcong River. Please consider making a donation of your unwanted gear to CJTU. You can bring the gear to any monthly meeting December thru March. If that is not possible, we can make arrangements to pick the items up at your convienance. If you want arrange for a pick-up please send an email to bartlombardo@optonline.net. Thank you in advance for your support. Bart Lombardo CJTU Conservation FundMany of you have seen as well as had the opportunity to enjoy the newly improved Point Mountain TCA area. I would like to thank those TU chapter members that have responded to our solicitation and contributed to the CJTU Conservation Fund earlier this year. We are currently exploring a number of new ideas and opportunities to improve water conditions and stream ecology on our “Home Waters” the Muscontecong River. For those of you who have not as yet made a contribution we would encourage you to consider donating this year, so that our chapter can continue our commitment to cold water conservation. As 2016 comes to a close this is a reminder that all donations are Tax deductible. Thanks in advance for your support and being a CJTU Member! Please send all contributions to: CJTU, P.O. Box 55 Pluckemin, NJ 07987 Point Mountain Fall StockingOur NJFW/CJTU team was at Point Mountain on October 12 to stock an estimated 150 to 200 fish. Whenever possible we attempt to distribute the fish throughout the TCA water. On this date, however, a downed tree blocked the upper trail so we were forced to divert all fish to the middle and lower sections. Some of us tried to move fish filled buckets up river by hand but we found the time and effort involved caused considerable stress to both us and the fish. More than half of these fish were of the large 20'' plus size and they have considerable difficulty surviving in a crowded bucket for a very long time. Although these conditions were not ideal, our team completed the task successfully without any loss of fish. Any members who would be interested in joining our team please see me at a general meeting. Spring stocking will start in April. I want to thank all members that helped with the 5 stockings this year. A job well done! 
Team members in the attached photo from left to right: Al Galante, Rich Post, Gary Benke, Bob Horton, Keith our Hunterdon County Parks 4x4 driver and his daughter, Kim Ott, and Dan Rodriguez. Fred Simonson was in attendance but absent from the photo.
Rich Post |
President’s LetterDecember 2016
Our drought continues, but we did have two days of significant rain Thanksgiving week. Both the Musky and South Branch rose above their average height for that week based on 97 years of collected data. The water dropped the last several days but more rain/snow is expected this week. Will this mark the end of the drought here in New Jersey? I pray to God it will! When a trout fisherman can't fish because of extremely low water, he can't get the opportunity to tell recent fish stories. Also, one can only tie so many flies. I did manage to fish one day this past month and caught and released a 14" rainbow. That fish will have to sustain me for some time to come as winter is at our doorstep! As I mentioned last month the Chapter is looking into a few different areas to start another stream restoration project. That will take funding, and we're starting our Conservation Raffle this year beginning with our December 13 meeting. We purchased an Orvis 71/2' 4 wgt. fiberglass rod at the Efinger's store closing sale. We then approached the Orvis Princeton store. We asked if they would sell us a reel and line at a reduced cost. They responded as Orvis often does and donated the matching reel and line to make the complete Orvis outfit. We can all thank them by visiting Orvis Princeton to do some shopping. I extend my sincere thanks to Orvis. It's that time of year when the outdoor show season starts. That is our medicine to fight cabin fever! To obtain your dose, there is the Outdoor Sportsmen's Show in Edison on January 12th to 15th and the annual Fly Fishing Show in Somerset on January 27th to 29th. I hope to see you at either or both of these shows. Please stop by our booth and say hello! It is always a pleasure to meet members at these events. One of our new Director's is fifteen year old, Andrew Dang. I nominated him to our Board in an effort to reach out to younger perspective members of TU. We're also hoping he can give us some fresh ideas for the Chapter. Andrew is very active with National TU's Youth Leadership Council. You can get to know Andrew's work with National TU by attending our January 10th meeting. He will be presenting the program, and I'm sure you'll enjoy it. Don't forget, at this month's meeting we'll gather around to do some fly tying. It's a great time to share tying ideas and learn some new patterns from gifted tiers. “Trout is the Classroom” is progressing at all of the 18 schools which we manage. There have been some bumps in the road at certain schools, but for the most part, most of the juvenile trout are growing. ‘Ozzie’ Ozefovich, who leads the project, will give you an update at December meeting. The Board of Directors have created “The Leon Cheeka Award”. This award is for the general membership. Directors and Officers of CJTU are not eligible for this award. Leon, who passed away a few years ago, was a prolific fly tier. His favorite pattern was the Muddler Minnow. If you ever purchased or won a Muddler Minnow from the Chapter, its likely Leon tied it. As he grew older and lost his stability to wade a stream, he focused his activity to tying flies for CJTU. He was a special fellow! Those of us who knew him really miss him. He may not be with us now but he'll live on in CJTU with this award. Another award created is "The Dick Turse Award". This award is for a person who has done extensive work and given countless hours for CJTU. Like Leon, Dick will live on with CJTU with this award. Dick's recent passing left a huge void in CJTU. Dick served many terms as President and countless years as Treasurer. He was a charter member of CJTU. He was still concerned about the state of the Chapter to his last week with us. On a personal note, in September of 1982, I was given Dick's telephone number when I wanted to join TU. I told him I was a bait fisherman. He told me TU welcomed all fisherman concerned with conservation and invited me to attend a meeting. The rest is history. Rest in peace Buddy!
Tight Lines |
