www.cjtu.org

May 2021

General Meeting

Virtual Meeting
Tuesday, May 11, 2021
8:00 pm

We are having a virtual meeting for Tuesday, May 11. We will be using the platform ZOOM to conduct this meeting. Look for an action alert in your inbox with instructions on how to log into the meeting.

Join Zoom Meeting on Tuesday, May 11th, at 8:00 pm

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83512111698?pwd=eE9qZkVPR09BcitTSFVPdnNoUkh5Zz09

Meeting ID: 835 1211 1698
Passcode: 327169

Jay "Fishy" Fullum

“Seventy Years Of Tying, Catching And Sharing The Experience With Others”

I will share my experiences with many of those who are no longer with us. They may be gone, but memories of them and the lessons they taught will not be forgotten. Many of those who have passed often return to mind while I’m on the water. They are still great fishing partners

I will also present a Cicada pattern. There will be trillions of them out there starting in May. Having a couple of Cicada imitations in your fly box might be a good idea. If they are on the water our smaller flies will be rejected. A presentation on fishing small streams, Carol’s favorite fly and a gallery of my more recent paintings will also be featured.

Starting in the early seventies I wrote an outdoor column for both of the newspapers in the Albany area. First with the Troy Record then the Albany Times Union, and then back to the Troy paper before retiring from my column on hunting, fishing and the shooting sports. After well over 2 thousand of my columns were published, I decided that I wanted to focus my writing on fly tying and fly fishing.

Shortly after leaving the newspapers I wrote and illustrated five columns on fly tying and walked into the office of Abenaki Publishing. Art Scheck took them all. Months later I started my Creative Column in Fly Tier Magazine. After just over a hundred of the columns were published I once again retired.

This time I decided to spend more time dabbing acrylic paints on stretched canvas. During the forty years that I worked as an artist, I was a designer/illustrator. My first paintings were illustrations. I would complete a detailed drawing on the canvas and then fill in the color like a kid with a coloring book. Slowly I reached a point where I imagined the image and put paint on canvas. After forty years I finally understood the difference between an illustration and fine art and my paintings slowly improved.

I am now writing about a totally different subject, fishing with Carol, tying flies and teaching our grandson how to tie. I have enough materials to keep Tim supplied for at least the next forty years.

Tuesday, June 8th, 2021

CJTU Annual Picnic

Join us for the return of CJTU's Annual Bar-B-Que and Picnic, Tuesday June 8th starting at 5 pm in the park right behind the American Legion Hall, 137 New Market Road in Dunellen, NJ 08812. Plenty of food and soft drinks (plus the inexpensive bar is open right inside the hall as always).

Come relax, meet new and old friends, and share some fish stories. The cost of the picnic is only $10.00. To plan for the right amount of food we need to have an idea of how many people are going to attend the picnic. If you plan on attending, email Sal Lauro at slauro10@gmail.com and let us know by June 5th. When you arrive that evening, please give your $10.00 to Sal. We'll see you June 8th at the picnic! In case of rain we will move inside the hall to our regular meeting space.

American Legion Hall
137 New Market Road
Dunellen, NJ

Meeting starts at 8:00 PM - Non Members are always welcome!

President’s Letter

Greetings CJTU Members and Friends!

We hope that you are enjoying the season, getting outdoors and doing some fishing!

The CJTU Board has been busy working on our behalf. They are considering bringing back some of back some popular outdoor activities, such as the Annual June Picnic. Once the details are finalized you will receive them. We hope that you will attend and help to bring back all of the camaraderie that the event is known for!

And, we are hoping to bring back fishing trips, a past time that many members enjoyed. We’ll start with small groups led by a Chapter member. So, if you have a favorite spot that you would like to share with other CJTU members, please let us know. Pick a river or stream, give advice on the setup and a favorite fly and we’re off fishing. Of course, we will be observing social distancing and whatever guidelines are in place. Keep an eye out for further details.

The CJTU Board will be working on the Chapter Strategic Plan to help give us direction for the future.

If any member has volunteer hours spent on Chapter business, from April 1 2020 to May 15 2021, please get that information to the Chapter Treasury, Rob Paull, by May 15th. You may email the information to him at robertmpaull@gmail.com.

Speaking of fishing, don’t forget that the New Jersey Free Fishing Days are June 5th and October 23rd! These days are a perfect opportunity to introduce someone new to fishing. And, the discounted “Buddy Licenses” are still available and offers both a current and new angler (or two new anglers) reduced price fishing licenses. A “new angler” is considered a resident or non-resident who has never purchased a fishing license or has not had an annual fishing license since 2010”. More details can be found at www.njfishandwildlife.com.

Final details for the TU Temperature Monitoring Project on the Musconetcong River in the Point Mountain area are forthcoming. Our Conservation Committee Chair, Gordon Vickers, will be heading that effort along with Keith Fritsche, our TU Staff person for the region. We hope that CJTU members will consider volunteering to support this conservation project.

Our own Bart Lombardo will be doing a presentation for the Ernest Schweibert TU Chapter on Monday, May 10th on “Warm Water Fly Fishing” at 7:15pm. Please check the Chapter’s website for further details, www.esctu.org.

The NJ State Council hosted a successful “Virtual Women’s Gathering” on April 27th. There were women from throughout the region, with various levels of experience discussing learning and perfecting their skills, and belonging to TU. There will be further conversations and outings.

This month’s well-known speaker, Jay “Fishy” Fullum is sure to bring back many memories of fishing and lessons learned.

TU is planning a national annual (virtual) meeting to be held on September 30th. As details are confirmed we will get them to you.

CJTU continues to urgently need a permanent President. Please consider stepping up to serve the Chapter, with the support of a great Board.

Thank you for all that you do for CJTU!

Marsha Benovengo,
Interim President,
CJTU

News & Events

Annual Musconetcong River Clean-up

Saturday, April 17, 2021

Central Jersey Trout Unlimited (CJTU) members met on Saturday morning, April 17, for the annual Spring Cleanup of the Musconetcong River. This event is coordinated by the Musconetcong Watershed Association (MWA). Several MWA volunteers joined us in cleaning up the Point Mountain TCA section of the River.

There was a strong turnout by CJTU members despite the grey skies. Our team removed a significant amount of debris, including three tires. We’re all still guessing where in the world the tires came from!

Thanks to all of our volunteers for a job well done!

Unfortunately, Dan Calligaro, the newest member of the CJTU Conservation Committee, found lots of “fresh” trash when he returned to Pont Mountain two days later. That included the remains of an inflatable boat. We’re exploring options with the MWA to promote more responsible behavior by all who utilize this special place. In the meantime, we encourage you to bring a trash bag with you when fishing to collect litter you may find. Please remember to “…leave nothing but your footprints”.

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Fly of the Month

Borcher Parachute

Tied by Bill Ninke

I’m sure most members of CJTU are familiar with the fly tying traditions and patterns of the Catskill region. Theodore Gordon started things off there followed by a plethora of now famous continuers including the Darbees, the Dettes, Lee Wulff, and Poul Jorgenson. But other regions of the country have their own contributors who generally are known more locally than worldwide.

This month’s fly comes from the Great Lakes region, specifically Michigan. It is an evolution of the Borcher Special Dry Fly first tied in the 1940s by Ernie Borcher of Grayling Michigan. No synthetic materials were available then, only natural ones as the by-products of hunting and farming. He thus used these natural materials to imitate the many large bodied mayflies prevalent in Michigan streams and ponds. The original has dun colored hackle tip wings and a collar hackle of mixed grizzly and brown. You can think of it as a dark bodied Adams, another pattern of Michigan origin. The Adams evolved from grizzly hackle tip wings to a parachute version with a white hair post. The Borcher Parachute has had a similar evolution.

Michigan has a large population of deer and, in the Upper Peninsula, moose. Wild turkeys are found throughout the state. So it’s not a surprise that the Borcher parachute uses moose body hair for a tail, white deer belly hair for a wing, and wrapped turkey tail fibers for a body. You can, of course, use calf body hair for the post (I do) if you only fish this pattern locally. But don’t take your flies to Michigan. Trout there love deer and hate cows and will reject your fly automatically.

In local streams fish the pattern when large spinners are out. Vary the size to cover Hendricksons, Grey Fox, March Browns and Isonychias. In your fly box, a row of various sizes of this pattern looks particularly nice next to a row of various sizes of Parachute Adams and is equally useful.

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