www.cjtu.org

April 2022

General Meeting

Due to the present Covid conditions, this months chapter meetings will be held virtualy on the Zoom platform

We will be having a virtual meeting on Tuesday, April 12th at 8:00 pm. We will be using the platform ZOOM to conduct this meeting.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86184198571?​pwd=ZnNQTkVzMkRiR3d​jQm1xRUYrWm8vdz09

Meeting ID: 861 8419 8571
Passcode: 205012

General Meeting

Tuesday, April 12th, 2022

Brian Wimmer
Fishing the Provo River

I spent 35 good years in the film industry before calling it quits and deciding to turn my passion for fly fishing into an occupation. I have been lucky to have fished all over the world with ESPN on the Fly Fishing America and Fly Fishing the World shows.

The Redford family asked me 10 years ago to start a fly fishing program for the Sundance Resort. Robert Redford is a very active and vocal advocate for the environment and because of that, one of the first things I did was to start a local TU chapter in Utah County to address some of the issues facing us regarding the magnificent Blue Ribbon fishery of the Provo River. We have worked very closely with the department of natural resources and the local water regulation agencies in the state of Utah.

I am also a big advocate of the 50/50 on the water program started by Orvis. I believe the future of our sport is in getting more involvement from women and children. A lot of our chapter’s energy is devoted to programming that involves women and kids.

Tuesday, May 10th, 2022

Wendell "Ozzie" Ozefovich
Fishing the Salt

Spin Fishing for Stripers on the Jersey Coast and Montauk - Fly Fishing the Bahamas. Xtra: A short subject --Death of a Trout Stream. How ATVs and Dirt Bikes destroyed my favorite brook trout stream.

Tuesday, June 14th, 2022

The Annual CJTU Picnic
5:00 - 8:00 pm

Join us at CJTU's Annual Bar-B-Que and Picnic, Tuesday June 14th, 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 $15.00. In case of rain we will move inside the hall to our regular meeting space.

Due to the present Covid conditions, this months chapter meetings will be held virtualy on the Zoom platform

American Legion Hall
137 New Market Road
Dunellen, NJ

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

President’s Letter

Hello CJTU Members and Friends!

Spring is here Trout season is opening, on April 9th, and the fun is beginning!

I imagine that we are all looking forward to getting outdoors more often and doing some fishing. Some of our Board members are intent on setting up fishing trips so that our members can get together, appropriately distanced, and renew relationships.

We are excited about some upcoming activities and hope than you will join and support the efforts of CJTU.

April 12th - General Meeting We will be having Brian Wimmer as our speaker with an interesting presentation on "Fishing the Provo River" in Utah. This is going to be a beautiful and interesting presentation.

April 16th - Annual Musconetcong River Clean-up On Saturday, April 16th, at 9:00am, CJTU will be gathering at Point Mountain for the Annual Musconetcong River Clean-up. Our Board member Dan Calligaro will be leading this effort. Please meet up with other CJTU members for the fun and worthwhile activity. We need Volunteers! Dan can be reached via email at dc8043@bmail.com.

April 23rd - NJ DEP's 52nd Anniversary and Earth Day Celebration CJTU has been invited to participate in the 52nd NJDEP Anniversary Celebration at Liberty Stae Park, from 10am to 3pm. We need Volunteers to staff our booth and do some light fly casting instruction, part of the day or the whole day. NJDEP is supplying the table and chairs. I will provide copies of the Council's Newsletter "Trout Watch', Council stickers and pens for giveaways. Please come volunteer and support CJTU and NJDEP.

50+2: 52nd Anniversary and Earth Day Celebration
Saturday, April 23, 2022
10a.m. to 3p.m., rain or shine
Liberty State Park
1 Audrey Zapp Drive, Jersey City, NJ

Reach out to Marsha Benovengo if you are willing to help out. She can be reached via email at casabeno@msn.com or (908) 216-4855-cell.

April 30th - Rutgers' Day CJTU will again be part of the Rutgers' Day! We will again be introducing the community to fly casting with some instruction. We will be set up across from the Environmental Sciences building, in our usual spot. We will also have our plush Trout ready to go home with a child or family for our Adopt A Trout program. The cost is nominal. Kids will also go home with a coloring book and crayons.

This activity needs some volunteers! So reach out to John Wester and sign-up to help out at johnnwester@gmail.com.

June 2022 - Annual CJTU Picnic Plans are underway for the Annual CJTU Picnic. There will lots of yummy food and beverages. Please keep your eyes out for more details and plan to join with other members, socially distant, for this fun activity!

June 4th and October 22nd - Free Fishing Days in New Jersey

Testified before NJ Senate Environmental Committee

On March 14th I had the honor of testifying before the Senate Environmental Committee in Trenton, in favor of Bill S438. This bill would give long term management of the New Jersey School of Conservation to the organization Friends of the NJ School of Conservation. This 501(c)3 organization has for many years provided programs of environmental education, conservation and recreation in a setting of 250 beautiful acres in Sussex county, in Stokes State Forest. After MSU relinguished themselves of the responsibility for the facility the responsibility went back to NJDEP.

The NJ Legislature gave the Friends organization, through the NJDEP, 1 million dollars that will be used for restoration and upkeep, programing and administrative tasks. Since the property had been neglected, with the Friends organization unable to get into the property, there has been some deterioration. And although the funds sound like alot of money, with the need to restore and sustain the SOC to its former glory the funds could go fast.

The NJ School of Conservation is like no other facility in the country with an amazing history and purpose in serving and educating the communities of the State. and must be preserved for future generations!

The NJ State Council has been in support of the School of Conservation, hence my testimony. Six of us from various organizations testified. I am pleased to say that the Senate Environmental Committee voted unanimously bipartisan, to pass Bill S438. It will now go to the Floor of the Senate.

This was a rare and amazing experience, to be more than a resident, to be an active citizen!

Awarded the George P Howard Conservation Award from by NJ State Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs

I have recently been informed that I am the winner of the George P. Howard Conservation Award from the NJ State Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs. This is an honor and a surprise! This is being given in recognition of my work with Trout Unlimited, Casting for Recovery and the NJ School of Conservation. "The George P. Howard Conservation Award is given to and individual who has shown by example, ways in which one has helped conserve the natural resources of New Jersey by promoting the wise use of those resources". I do this work because I believe in it and feel responsible for it. I am grateful for my involvement and honored by the recognition! Thank you to all who have made this possible!

Marsha Benovengo,
President,
CJTU

News & Events

Saturday, April 16th, 2022

30th Annual Musconetcong River Clean-up

Once again, CJTU will be participating in a river clean up along the Musconetcong River on April 16 from 9AM - 12 PM. As in the past, we will scour the stretch of the Point Mountain TCA, our home waters, for trash, debris removal, etc. Meet at the Point Mountain bridge near the intersection of Point Mountain Rd and Musconetcong Rd. by 9 AM. The Musconetcong Watershed Association will supply trash bags and gloves, or you can bring your own gloves. Participants will receive a token of appreciation from the MWA. Hope to see you there!

Dan Calligaro
CJTU Conservation Chairman
Email: dc8043@gmail.com
Cell: (908)938-1740

Rutger's Day

Saturday, April 30th, 2022

Rutgers day is back and CJTU is planning on being there!

This is probably our biggest event of the year with thousands of people attending, giving us an opportunity to present TU's message to an audience we usually don't come in contact with. We need few more volunteers are to help with fly and spin casting and interacting with the public by explaining TU's mission, what CJTU has done for cold water resources in NJ and answering a lot of questions such as "Were can we go fishing?".

If you are interested in joining us on April 30th, contact John Wester at johnnwester@gmail.com

It's time for a new NJ Fishing License and Trout Stamp! You can get it here:

https://nj.aspirafocus.com/internetsales

If you fish in saltwater you will need to register here:

https://www.nj.gov/dep/saltwaterregistry/index.html

Sign Up for a Free Membership!

Help CJTU when you shop at Amazon!

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Fly of the Month

Bump Nose CDC Comparadun

Tied by Bill Ninke

The Comparadun pattern was revealed by Caucci and Nastase in 1975 in their classic book Hatches. It has a split tail, dubbed body and deer hair wing. It has been extremely productive over the years.

The pattern is typically tied with the tips of the deer hair pointed forward over the hook eye. The tie in for the hair is one third of the hook shank back from the hook eye. The hair is then pulled back, flared and stabilized in a vertical fan shape with dubbing on both sides of the hair tie in point. A problem with the pattern is that it difficult to tie in small sizes. This problem has been eased by material suppliers picking patches of deer hair with very short tips (marketed as Comparadun hair) that flares easily in short lengths. But it’s still tough to tie in sizes 18 and smaller.

With the introduction of soft flexible CDC as a tying material, creative tiers soon learned that small versions of the pattern can be made with a CDC wing. The tying of the CDC versions parallels the tying of the deer hair version in that two or more CDC feathers are tied in tips forward with dubbing then holding them in a vertical fan. These are easier to tie in small sizes and perform as well as deer hair patterns if not better. As an added bonus, CDC comes in fluorescent colors so a bright feather can be mixed with two or more natural colored feathers to make the fly easy to see with old eyes. And they float without added paste. Once you have caught a fish with this pattern, be sure to swish it in the water to remove any fish mucous, blot it dry with a Kleenex, and blow on it. It’s then good to go again.

For small patterns, both deer hair and CDC winged, wrapped biots are now generally used instead of dubbing to give a thin segmented body. I find the larger turkey wing biots are easier for me to manipulate but goose biots will work.

Patterns, even though effective, evolve. In my April 2019 writeup (“Right Way" Hendrickson Comparadun) , I described an evolution of the original Comparadun pattern where the hair is tied in tips rearward resulting in a more natural silhouette. Further the angle of the wing doesn’t drift forward with use. This month I describe an evolution of the CDC version to get a better thorax and wing silhouette and also keep the wing angle from drifting forward with use. It’s basically the folding technique described in last month writeup. I first saw this technique in a 2015 blog post by a Scottish tier, Jim Lees. I’ve continued to use the prefix Bump Nose since I find it quite descriptive.

The specific tying instructions are for a PMD imitation. But, by varying the color of the biot and CDC feathers, patterns for other small mayflies like Sulfurs and Paraleps are easily made.

As a retiree with few outside imposed tasks, I spent many hours a few years ago reading blogs and watching videos of flies with CDC wings. If you have the time and desire, you can do the same thing. You’ll learn a lot. But if you have other things to do, just tie and fish various sizes and color variations of this pattern. It works! And change the tail to sparkly yarn if you want a Sparkle Dun variant.

If you don’t like CDC, use EP Trigger Point fibers with the same tying steps. These fibers come in several fluorescent colors too.

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