www.cjtu.org

May 2020

General Meeting

Due to COVID-19, all group activities have been cancelled through June!

American Legion Hall
137 New Market Road
Dunellen, NJ

Meeting starts at 7:30 PM - Non Members are always welcome!

President’s Letter

I hope that everyone is navigating a safe course through these challenging times we now find ourselves in. As we suspected, it would be the case; Central Jersey Trout Unlimited has suspended all operations until further notice. This includes our general meetings, events, and on-stream conservation work. The Board of Directors is conducting regular virtual meetings to ensure the chapter continues to function and meet our financial obligations.

Since our regularly scheduled general meeting can not take place, we are looking to plan a “virtual meeting” sometime during the month of May. It will NOT be taking place on our traditional meeting date of the second Tuesday of the month. We will be using the ZOOM platform for the meeting, and invitations will be sent out in advance of the meeting to everyone on our mailing list. So if you are reading this, you will receive an invite to the meeting. You are encouraged to share that invite with anyone you like.

Trout Unlimited has extended a free one-year membership to the Military, First Responders, and all essential workers. You can find information about the program here:

https://www.tu.org/blog/tus-chris-wood-to-essential-workers-free-tu-memberships-to-all/

Central Jersey Trout Unlimited and other TU chapters within the state have made a financial contribution to a dam removal project on the South Branch of the Raritan River. There is currently an effort underway to remove the Weis Mill Dam in Califon NJ. We look forward to sharing more information in the future about this exciting project.

We are still planning to draw the winner of our Orvis Euro Nymphing Outfit next month! We will announce the winner in June once we work out the logistics.

Look for more information on our virtual meeting to hit your inbox soon. Please try and attend! We hope that everyone remains safe for the remainder of this crisis. In the meantime, to relieve some of the stress, you may be feeling. Get out on the water and enjoy a few hours of fishing! That is “social distancing” at it’s finest.

Stay Safe,
Bart Lombardo
CJTU President

News & Events

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Fly of the Month

All Peacock Beetle

Tied by Bill Ninke

Since Chapter Meetings are still on hold as the pandemic plays out, I’ve chosen for this month’s fly another simple pattern that needs no pre-meeting tying demo to explain. All you need is a hook, thread, peacock herl and peacock sword. You can probably tie this fly after just looking at the two different views in the above photo.

I first learned of this fly in the early 1980s. I had just started in fly fishing and fly tying and read a number of magazine articles on the wonderful trout fishing on the southern island of New Zealand. In hopes of experiencing the fishing there myself someday, I wrote letters to several of the guides who had ads in the magazines where the articles appeared asking for fly and equipment recommendations. No email in those days, actual postal letters. All those I wrote responded with very personal letters containing extensive information. This convinced me that the Kiwis were very friendly and helpful and that a trip to New Zealand would indeed be fun. So, a trip there was put on my bucket list. Unfortunately, it’s still there to this day. But, I remain hopeful.

One common fly recommendation from all the guides was a small beetle. One of the guides even sent me a sample fly which I present here. Of course back then I just had to tie up many copies of the beetle for a possible trip. And, having many on hand, I just had to try them on local waters. And, as you’ve probably guessed, they worked very well on both slow moving and still water, particularly well for the native Browns on the Little Lehigh and Little Bushkill. After all feathers from a peacock add magic to many famous patterns so a pattern with two different peacock materials must be double magic.

In the midst of several household moves and cleanups, I’ve lost all documentation so I don’t have a record of the name of the guide nor the pattern name given by the guide. So, in honor of the fly’s New Zealand origin and the famous New Zealand rugby team, the All Blacks, I’m calling the pattern the All Peacock Beetle.

In fishing, the fly sits deep in the film, just like a real beetle. If your eyes are good and the lighting is right, you can follow the sparkle from the peacock sword topping. Trout sip it very gently so remain focused. I fished in originally as a solo but now occasionally add the beetle as a dropper behind a small parachute. Some grease is needed to keep the beetle floating. But trout like it as a slightly sunken pattern also, maybe even better on some days. Experiment.

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