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www.cjtu.org |
September 2020 |
General MeetingVirtual Meeting
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President’s Letter
We are excited to get back to work here at Central Jersey Trout Unlimited after our summer break. Things will be a little different, but strangely familiar as we move into the second half of the year. We will be continuing with virtual meetings until January 2021, when we will re-evaluate the situation. The good news is we are planning to have virtual presentations as a part of these meetings. The meetings will be conducted using the ZOOM platform. Invitations to the sessions will be distributed via email and will be listed on our social media platforms. If you are not receiving our monthly newsletter, MainStream, you are not on our mailing list. To join, head over to www.cjtu.org and add your name to our mailing list. We promise not to fill your mailbox with junk, and we DO NOT SHARE your email with anyone! We are looking for members who want to take a more active role in our chapter. I will be stepping down as President in November after completing my umpteenth term. This will create a vacancy on the Board of Directors that needs to be filled, and we have several other vacancies that have not been filled to date. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about serving as a director of the chapter. Please consider joining our team of dedicated volunteers and help steer your chapter into the future. We need your help now more than ever! CJTU is not the only organization looking for help these days. Our State Council is undergoing some leadership changes as well. Our very own Marsha Benovengo has been elected as the new State Council Chairperson. She advised me that the State Council needs a Treasurer and Financial Overseer. This month's presentation at our virtual meeting is entitled Fall Tactics For New Jersey Trout. The weather is starting to cool down, and many of us will be turning our attention back to trout. I will cover some tips and tricks to help you land some of the year's biggest trout. As an added incentive to bring you out to our virtual meeting, we will be giving away two $25.00 gift certificates to area fly shops. We will select two attendees at random at the end of the meeting to receive these prizes. We will also be redrawing a winner for our annual rod raffle. We drew a name in June, but after several months of trying, we have not been able to contact the winner, so we will be pulling another winner next week. I just received word that the 2020 Fly Tying Symposium scheduled for this November has been canceled this year. This show has survived catastrophes from hurricanes, record warm temperatures, striper and bluefish blitzes, and snowstorms, but the COVID-19 pandemic finally did it in. The show's founder, Chuck Furimsky, vowed to bring the show back next year. Here is a bit of good news for a change! The Army Corps of Engineers has denied the Pebble Mine wetlands permit in Alaska's Bristol Bay. Bristol Bay is home to one of the world's largest wild salmon populations. The proposed large scale industrial Pebble Mine would negatively affect this important salmon production area's headwaters, possibly destroying it forever. The permit's denial is a significant, hard-won victory, but the fight is far from over. With 10,780,000,000 tons of gold, copper, and molybdenum ore at stake, the mine's developers will not go down without a fight! In light of current conditions nationwide, Trout Unlimited has canceled its annual in-person meeting. The meeting will now take place virtually on October 25th. I think that about wraps it up! Please join us for our virtual meeting on Tuesday, September 8th. I'll see you there!
Stay Safe, |
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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 MonthHale Bopp LeechTied by Bill Ninke I’ve previously reported that when questioned in classes and at tying demos that my two highest producing patterns are the Parachute Adams and the Carlson’s Copper Cripple (September 2019 Fly of the Month). But I’ve never had anyone ask on which pattern I have caught most of my big trout. Well, if anyone ever does ask, my answer will be this month’s pattern, the Black BH Hale Bopp Leech. It’s a still water fly and, as experienced fly fishers know, still waters hold the biggest fish. There is little current to fight in such water to sap energy. Trout just cruise slowly around, eat all the goodies present, and grow fat. And those goodies are mostly Mayfly, Dragon Fly and Damselfly nymphs, small fish and leeches. This pattern was created by Derek Fergus, a California tier and guide, around 1996-7 when the Hale Bopp comet was visible from earth. If you look at the above photo you notice that with the bright bead head and long wispy tail the pattern resembles a comet. The construction is quite simple – a bead head, marabou tail, and mohair (African goat) body. Mohair, a seal substitute, is quite translucent. A thread finishing band behind the bead gives a little hot spot. You might say it’s just a mohair leech. But there are some subtle but important differences. First, the bead is one size smaller than traditionally used for the hook size. This gives the fly a gliding action like a real leech, not the heavy up and down jigging action of a Clouser minnow. The tail is extra-long and thin for lots of sinewy motion. And the body is very aggressively picked out so that the fly is almost translucent with the body fibers able to move freely as the fly is slowly stripped. I was introduced to this fly around 2000 by Gary Fritz, one of the premier guides on the Missouri River. Gary died a few years ago but the important properties of the fly that he taught me will remain forever in my memory. The pattern is tied commercially by Solitude Flies. If you look at their version you’ll see a black bead. But Gary had them specially tied for him with a silver bead since he thought it fished slightly better. It’s Gary’s version I present here. Gary liked fishing the fly on a floating line with slow stripping and an occasionally pause. Certainly has worked for me. When I first tied the pattern for myself I used mohair dubbing for the body. If you’ve ever tried dubbing mohair you’ve probably done a lot of swearing. It’s very slippery and hard to control. In recent years I’ve gone to using Mohair Yarn from J Fair. Other mohair yarns will probably work but I haven’t tried them. The yarn is simply tied in and wrapped under high tension with the yarn fibers pulled back with each wrap. No bad words come from my mouth when using the yarn. Then the body is picked out. The key is to use a strongly hook, like that on the tip of a Materelli style whip finisher, to pull fibers out and create a halo like body. I typically spend more time picking out the body than I spend tying the fly. Although I mostly tie and fish a black version, I also occasionally use an olive one. A copper bead is used on this version. I’ve included an olive one in the photo. I also tie versions without a bead on size 10 hooks in both colors. Water temperatures are starting to decrease. Trout will be packing in calories to maintain themselves for the Winter. So from now through October is prime time to use this pattern. You’re sure to get lots of “pops” in still water on your Bopps. Click here for the recipe! |
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Central Jersey Trout Unlimited’s Supporters
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I hope all of you were able to make the most out of this unusual summer. With travel restricted, no indoor dining, quarantines, and all the rest of it, the summer of 2020 is one for the record books, but it is a record I hope we never break!
