News & Events
2023 Musconetcong River Clean-Up
Saturday, April 15th, 2023
Once again Central Jersey Trout Unlimited (CJTU) is going to be participating in the Musky Clean-Up, on Saturday, April 15th. Our group will gather at the Point Mountain Bridge at 9:00am. So far there are 11 members who have signed up to participate.
The Musconetcong Watershed Association (MWA)will supply gloves and garbage bags. The Chapter will supply water. Please bring your personal reusable water bottles for refills.
After we complete the Clean-Up, between 11:30am and 12:00pm, we have been invited to attend a BBQ at MWA headquarters at 10 Maple Avenue, Asbury, NJ 08802.
Please join CJTU members for our annual Clean-Up of the Musky! Bring a family member and/or friend. If you plan on participating but haven't yet signed up, please let Marsha Benovengo know. You can contact her via email at casabeno@msn.com or by phone at
(908) 216-4855-cell.
Looking forward to seeing you on April 15th!"
Point Mountain Stocking
On March 20th the stocking team put fish in the Point Mountain stretch of the Musconetcong river as part of the pre-season stocking. We had a good turnout of volunteers and we were able to put over 900 rainbow trout in the river in less than three hours. We will stock the stretch three more times this spring, on April 28th-380 fish, and on May 19th and May 26th-190 fish each day. Anyone interested in helping should be a WCC volunteer. You can sign up by going to the NJ division of fish and wildlife's web site and filling out the volunteer forms.
Photos of the stocking are courtesy of Jeff Bevan.
Ed Kordyla
CJTU stocking coordinator
Fly of the Month
LaFontaine’s Deep Sparkle Pupa
Tied by Bill Ninke
Gary LaFontaine was extremely curious and took extraordinary steps to satisfy his curiosity. As a youngster he dove with a face mask in the riffles at the head of Hendrickson’s Pool on the Beaverkill to try to understand how the trout were reacting to sunken spinners. As an adult, he donned scuba gear to try to understand how trout reacted to emerging caddis. In his groundbreaking book, Caddisflies, he describes a pattern that imitates what he saw and the reactions of trout to it. That pattern is this month’s fly, his Deep Sparkle Pupa. A distinctive feature of this pattern is a bubble of fibers enclosing the abdomen..
I had the good fortune to talk with Gary at the Fly Fishing show in the early 90s about this pattern and complained to him that the tying steps for getting the fibers distributed around the hook shank and making a nice uniform bubble were difficult for me. He confessed that they were difficult for him too and that his daughter Heather tied all his flies in this pattern for him. Thus was born my desire to tie this pattern easily and uniformly.
This desire lay dormant until I read an article by Gretchen Beatty in the Autumn 2010 issue of Fly Tyer on how she ties the pattern. This was a step forward in forming a nice bubble but getting the bubble fibers distributed uniformly was still missing. Again my desire to tie this pattern quickly and well lay dormant until I solved the problem of getting a uniform bubble of surrounding fibers for the Pettis Unreal Egg as described in the December 2020 Fly of the Month. The key is the “right from the start” technique I described there. You might want to go back in the archives and reread my initial description of that technique.
You start by creating a flat ribbon of the bubble fibers and poking the hook eye through the ribbon right in the middle with the tag ends horizontal. This leaves half the fibers above the hook shank and half below. It also leaves half the fibers on each side of the hook shank. In other words the fibers uniformly surround the hook shank. X wrap the fibers to the shank at the start of the hook bend and then pull the fibers back and secure with two wraps just behind the X-ing point. The pattern continues with the dubbing of the body and the forming of the bubble per Gretchen’s technique as I describe in the tying instructions. Three problems remain: selecting the right fiber, the right amount of that fiber and the dubbing of the abdomen.
LaFontaine used the generic term sparkle yarn in his book. In later videos he revealed that he used a commercial knitting yarn Dazzle-aire which contained antron – the magic material which attracts and retains air bubbles that trail off as the pattern moves in the water. This yarn is no longer made although many older tiers still have skeins. Aunt Lydia’s Rug yarn has many similar attributes to Dazzle-aire and LaFontaine acknowledged that it is a perfectly acceptable substitute. This yarn is currently available from Wapsi as Aunt Lydia’s Sparkle Yarn and is what I now use.
For my patterns I use the full 3 stands combed out for a size 12, slightly less for a 14 and still slightly less for a 16. I used to make my own body dubbing by combining chopped up Aunt Lydia’s and natural fur but many modern dubbing blends, e.g. Wapsi Life Cycle Dubbings, are combinations of fur and anton so I now just use one of these.
My attaching technique for the bubble fibers leaves the hook shank clear. This is unique. All other published techniques start with two strands of the bubble material tied with the tags rearward in the abdomen area. LaFontaine used touch dubbing in the abdomen area which necessitates using dubbing wax. I’m not a fan of dubbing wax and seldom use it. With the bare shank a regular dubbing technique can be used and the results brushed out before pulling the bubble fibers forward. The result is almost identical to touch dubbing, is simpler, and is quicker. As for colors, I use mostly Brown/Yellow (Abdomen/Bubble) and Bright Green/Olive. To get the pattern down to where it should be fished, you can add lead on the hook shank or add a bead at the head. I prefer to add weight on my tippet. Your choice.
With the technique I describe the tying is fast, the results look beautiful, and the trout heartily approve. What’s not to like? As a variant, add a deer hair wing and you have the Emergent Sparkle Pupa which is also shown in the photo.
A number of Jack Dennis’s vintage videos of Gary explaining when, where, and how to fish his caddis patterns have recently been posted on you tube. Check them out. Just search on Gary LaFontaine.
Click here for the recipe!
|
