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www.cjtu.org |
December 2020 |
General MeetingVirtual Meeting
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President’s LetterGreetings Fellow CJTU Members! I hope that you are all well and safe! We have all been living through and continue to live through a uniquely challenging time. It has forced us to change how we meet and communicate. But through it all we have continued to focus on doing our best for CJTU members. . We have learned to innovate, we’ve held Board meetings via Zoom and we’ve had really engaging Speakers and Presentations via Zoom. And while we have had to change we have found a renewed resourcefulness. This year CJTU played a major role in the Weis Mill Dam removal environmental study project. With our support and partnership with the other NJ TU Chapters, over a mile of great fishing water will be improved in the area of Califon, giving each of us more fishing opportunities. Our own John Wester was a fantastic competitor at the One Fly Competition. We are so thankful and proud of him. In April I was elected the first female Chair of the NJ State Council of TU, one of four women Council Chairs in the country. We want to use this time to find out what interests you and give you a chance to share your expertise and adventures! While we are operating at a distance we are considering activities that would bring us together, possibly an online auction. Does that peek your interest? As we move forward and conditions improve, we continue to need your help, support and participation. We are in need of a permanent President to lead CJTU. We need members to become involved and volunteer to work as part of a team, to live out our conservation mission and reach out into our community. Stream cleanups, stockings and TIC will eventually be back and we will need all hands on deck. Don’t worry about not having done a task before, there is a place for everyone. And, we want you to share your talents and expertise to help grow CJTU. Finally, we are so grateful to our Immediate Past President, Bart Lombardo, for his many years of dedicated service to CJTU! We are very fortunate to have benefited from his leadership! We are pleased to have his continued wise counsel. As we move into the Holiday season, we wish you wellness, safety and a joyous Holiday season!
Marsha Benovengo, |
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News & EventsHelp CJTU when you shop at Amazon!
https://smile.amazon.com/ch/23-7355313 Use the link above to access amazon.com and help support CJTUCJTU is now part of the Amazon Smile program. By clicking through to Amazon with the above link, CJTU will receive a small percentage based on your purchase. Fly of the MonthPettis’ Unreal EggTied by Bill Ninke With stream temperatures dropping the trout are holding deep. But they are still eating what are the most prevalent items of biomass now available to them, eggs and midges. This month’s pattern has been my favorite egg pattern for many years. It was designed in the early 1990s by Jim Pettis, a guide on the upper Sacramento River in California. The Sac has runs of King Salmon and Steelhead in addition to resident Rainbows. So there can be lots of natural eggs in the water at certain times of the year and getting fish to eat an egg fly pattern instead of a real one drifting by was the challenge that Jim faced. He solved the puzzle by incorporating a glass bead inside a thin ball-shaped veil of egg yarn. His fly thus had both translucency and an internal sparkly yoke center just like a real egg. And equally important, the glass bead added enough weight to keep the egg rolling right on the bottom of the current troughs where the spawners were holding on their redds and the egg eaters below them were gulping any eggs not captured by the redd gravel. I did several guide trips with Jim in the mid-90s. I asked him to bring his tying stuff along on one of the trips and show me how he tied his egg. This he did during a lunch break. The fly was pretty easy and straightforward to tie but Jim did struggle a bit to get the yarn uniformly distributed and into the ball shape so the flies looked beautiful. Nevertheless, I tied Jim’s pattern as he showed me with similar struggles to get a nice yarn veil up until 2013 when Tim Flagler posted a video of his “Eggs over Easy” fly. In this video Tim showed a nice technique to easily get the ball-shaped veil of egg yarn. So I tied the Unreal Egg with Tim’s technique for a few years. Then it occurred to me that Tim also was struggling to get the yarn uniformly distributed around the fly center and that there must be a better way. I then came up with what I call the “right from the start” technique to get a uniform veil. So what I’m presenting this month is my variant of Flaglers’ technique applied to Pettis’ pattern. This egg can be tied in a wide range of sizes and colors. It original was tied on a size 12 scud hook with Peachy King egg yarn and a 6/0 red glass bead to match salmon eggs. This is the version shown in the photo and described in the detailed instructions. I’ve dipped the example fly in water before taking the photo to show you the translucency of this pattern. But glass beads in 8/0 and 10/0 in many colors are easily available in fly shops and craft stores and egg yarn also comes in many colors. So you can tie Unreal Eggs matching the size and color of spawn from many fish. A small (16 hook) version with a green bead (10/0) and cream yarn works well for sucker spawn now in our waters. Before plunging into the complete tying instruction, I first detail the “right from the start” technique for creating a uniform veil of yarn fibers around another feature on the hook. In this pattern, the other feature is the glass bead. But the technique can also be used on LaFontaines Sparkle Caddis Pupa or similar patterns.where the other feature is dubbing. In the tying Jim showed me he started by dividing a 1inch long stand of egg yarn into 4 equal pieces. Then he tied one of the pieces on each side of the hook right at the front with the tag ends facing forward. Through experience he was able to get the total of ½ strand of yarn uniformly distributed around the hook shank. He pulled this back over the glass bead to form the veil around the bead. In my technique I start with dividing a two inch long piece of egg yarn into 4 equal pieces. I then flatten one of these pieces into a vertical ribbon and slip this ribbon over the hook eye centered side to side and top to bottom to the waiting thread. X wraps around the ribbon/shank junction leave you with a total of 1/4 strand of yarn fibers on each side and ¼ strand of yarn fibers both above and below the hook shank. Now pull all the tag ends forward and overwrap to the hook eye and you have ½ strand of yarn fibers distributed absolutely uniformly around the hook shank, no superb tying technique needed. You pull this back over the bead to form the veil. Bet you have to read this over several times to understand but the light will dawn after a few readings and a trial tying. With these instruction and practice the pattern takes no more than two minutes to tie. As a warm up to tying the fly yourself, I recommend you view Tim Flagler’s video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD4F0oHjV94&t=9s . Here you’ll see how he and I now produce the ball-shaped veil and will make the written instructions easier to understand. Click here for the recipe! |
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