Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, Inc and the Walla² Fly Fishers' program

Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, Inc. is for all United States of America veterans, who wish to find a way to relax and share, by way of fly fishing; with those who have also walked many of miles in those GI boots.
We hope you will take a few minutes, sit back, relax, and share with us the following video of what Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, Inc. is all about. 

video -  Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, Inc.  - video

NOTICE:

Our Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, Inc. chapter currently meets at:
Walla Walla Vet Center
1104 West Popular Street
contact
509-526-8387
-or-
Dave Stemmer - Group leader
509-525-6676

Our group meets most Thursdays at 5:00 pm

at the Walla Walla Vet Center

  Gerald Berton Newell, 75
May 4, 1940 —  Feb. 1, 2016
Rest in Peace dear friend

It was in 2014 that Jerry Newell approached the Walla² Fly Fishers  asking if we would be interested in taking on an ongoing project helping vets of our area through the PROJECT HEALING WATERS - Fly Fishing, Inc. program.
"Bringing wounded vets fly-fishing to heal their mind and soul."

You can learn more about PROJECT HEALING WATERS (PHW) by following this link to the home of this national organization. http://www.projecthealingwaters.org/

Dave Stemmer

 With the loss of our chapter's organizer -Jerry Newell- we had club member and retired Navy veteran Dave Stemmer to step forward and fill the shoes of Jerry, in the ongoing mission of our PROJECT HEALING WATERS chapter. Thank you Dave.


Our Walla Walla chapter is a part of the Northwest Region
Northwest - AK, ID, OR, WA - Chuck Tye, Regional Coordinator northwest@projecthealingwaters.org 

The Walla Walla Chapter of Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, Inc. is FULLY FUNDED by the national organization for all PHW-fly fishing activities participated in by any and all US veterans of our area. This group have regular fly tying sessions, annually they build their own fly rods, and several times a year they initiate their own fly fishing trip and have occasion to join other chapters from across Washington and Oregon for fishing tournaments - all lodging, travel and food is paid for - at the expense / courtesy of Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, Inc.

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With the loss of Jerry our meeting location moved from the VA Hospital. We still have our connections there, and following is an overview of where we started, and the things we continue to do today. Will you join us?

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This evening (4/24/2014) we had our first Thursday evening session with the Vets at Walla Walla Veterans' Hospital and those Walla² Fly Fishers interested in helping area veterans work past their military service wounds via fly fishing.

Along with our club coordinator Jerry, we have a local Walla Walla VA Hospital coordinator - Derek Reser - Recreation Director, and he may be reached at richard.reser2@va.gov


To date our activities have been fly tying lesson at the VA Hospital, but the organization also funds and co-ordinates fly fishing excursions, for all those that participate in the Project. 



Since a picture is worth a thousand words, this writer shall share these pictures of a couple of our fly tying session. Our weekly Thursday sessions begin at 5:00 pm and last until 6:00 - 6:30 pm, sometimes later if we are having too much fun ~ camaraderie to stop tying on schedule.

Jerry passing out tying materials

Now, how does all of this go together?

 

Herb, showing the finer points of tying this fly

Herb Clark is our #1 tying instructor - he is good, and know the waters / flies of the Walla² valley.

Updated - 28 August 2014 - as we move along on the quest to catch fish on the fly.

During the heat of summer we got a break in the weather and went outdoors to practice casting fly line and yarn flies.

One of our founding club members and Master Casting Instructor - Skip Pritchard often come to our aid, when we ask for his expertise.

Skip showing Dave some of the finer points of casting

 

Herb and Jerry getting in some casting practice / warming up - hitting the target ring with a yarn fly.

  Derek is really learning to get into the swing of casting
Good job Derek

 

Derek, is getting better at shooting the fly line, and hitting the ring target with his single haul casting.

In Walla Walla, we have a lot of room in our Project Healing Waters fly fishing classes, and if you are a vet, would like to learn to catch a fish on the fly; please feel FREE to join us.

Our VA Hospital Contact is Derek Reser - Recreation Director, and he may be reached at richard.reser2@va.gov

The club members which have helped with our PROJECT HEALING WATERS activities are: Jerry Newell, Herb Clark, Dave Stemmer, Skip Pritchard, Diane Biggs, and Dale McKain. This is an open group, FREE to all veterans, even though a Code of Conduct form must be signed, and any and all club members are invited to participate. Please coordinate your comings and goings with Jerry as you will be compensated for your time and mileage spent. 

Update - Time to go fishing - as we move along on the quest to catch fish on the fly.

The River Just Knows
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p1z2eOk9xw

In August Dave and Brandon went to work on the Walla Walla and Tucannon rivers. 

Brandon with a few bass

Caught Dave playing with trout

One of Brandon's bass

One of Dave's trout

In September the Project Healing Waters - Northwest Region sponsored a 2-Fly Fishing Tournament on the Yakima River.

  

This was a full weekend event starting with the gathering of veterans on Friday afternoon - fishing all day Saturday - having a farewell breakfast together on Sunday.

Richard staying busy

Derek at work

The River Just Knows
Drift boats, pontoon boats, fishing rafts, all joined the action for the day

Jerry reported to the club... there was 120 people in attendance for that function of which 66 were veterans. This function came together on Friday evening at an area KOA campground and lasted through Sunday morning breakfast. Jerry reported that he was very impressed with the organization of the tournament and the food was great. There were fishing crews for 23 boats with veterans fly fishing the river. Our Walla Walla group had two boats and 4 vets participating.

In October the Walla² Fly Fishers and Project Healing Waters veterans made a full day's run for the Deschutes River to test some steelhead flies tied earlier.
 

Brandon and Tom fishing at the Outhouse Hole

This day's hookup were few and far between, tis the nature of steelhead fishing. Erik reported catching two suckers and one nice native steelhead this day.

Erik with his Deschutes River catch

We must keep in mind when steelhead fishing, that the catch rate is measured in angling hours per fish, not fish per angling hours.

The November 2014 issue of Walla Walla Lifestyles did a feature article on our Walla Walla program for Project Healing Water Fly Fishing.
We hope you will have the opportunity to find a copy and read our story.

Coordinator Jerry tells us the Project Healing Waters guys made a steelhead fishing trip to the Wallowa River on March 21-22. He reported that the trip was very successful and their stay at Minam Motel with fishing guide Grant Richie was a very pleasant experience. Most of their time on the Wallowa River was spent in the stretch 5 miles above the Minam River confluence. Evidence produced of the success of this trip was pictures of Derek and Brandon with steelies in hand.

Jerry tells  us that they also motored down to the Wenaha River, coming off Wildcat grade (a rather wild experience in itself) and hiked upriver out of Troy, OR where they hooked into quite a few wild steelhead and Dolly Varden "Bull trout".



Are you veteran? would you like to share or learn fly fishing experiences with fellow vets of our Walla Walla ~ NE Oregon area? Please contact our Walla² Fly Fishers' chapter of Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, Inc via email - wallawalla.flyfishing@gmail.com - and let's go fishing.

 

video -- Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, Inc -- video

Respectively submitted,

Dale McKain

Club Secretary

Tight lines and good fishing.

Walla² Fly Fishers

Contact Us

Dave Stemmer – PresidentTom Craig – Vice President
Doug Coe – Treasurer
Dale McKain – Secretary ~ Blogmaster
Dave Stemmer - PROJECT HEALING WATERS Coordinator
Jerry Newell -RIP- PROJECT HEALING WATERS Coordinator

Still at work on things to do in 2014

This evening at Smith's Family Restaurant in Walla Walla, President Tom called our meeting to order at 7:07.

We had 17 club members and guest in attendance.

We only had one fly box to offer the group, so this fly box of trout and steelhead flies was our evening’s FREE door prize.

Judy won the fly box this evening.

This evening’s meeting was very much a club business meeting of things happening, and things to come.

Our first order of business was shared with Kristi Bailes of Waterbrook Winery with a discussion of setting up this year’s Fly Fishing Fair. 

Kristi is currently the catering and merchandise manager for the Waterbrook Winery, and her past experience has been the manager of Red’s Fly Shop of Ellensburg, WA. We determined with Kristi that our best date for this annual event would be Saturday 14 June. Our timing for this event will be from 10:00 am until 2:00 pm. For this event, again we will have fly line casting instructions, fly tying demonstrations, and fly fishing in the Waterbrook –trout– ponds.

 It was understood that the trout stocked in these ponds last year have held over and should be larger and catchable – C&R – this year. Please mark your calendar for 14 June 2014, and join us for this Fly Fishing Fair and fly fishing opportunity.

Kristi - Robin - VP Dave

Project Healing Waters Chairman Jerry, gave us an update on the development of our project with the Walla Walla VA Hospital. Even though things are moving a bit slowly with the VA, we are now a recognized affiliate with Project Healing Waters, and it looks like our first fly tying meeting with the vets at the Walla Walla VA Hospital is set for May 1^st.  

With this affiliation our club has been given access to $2000 of Project Healing Waters – National, funds to develop our program in Walla Walla. To help us get started with this project asap Co-Chairperson Diane tells us that she has access to 16 fly tying kits that she has used in the past for teaching children to tye flies. Co-Chairperson Dale reports that he has several large boxes of fly tying materials to share-donate to this cause.

Fly Fishing Banquet Chairman Dale confirmed that we are now scheduled and programing our 2014 Fly Fishing Banquet with guest speaker, author, editor, fellow fly fisher- John Shewey.

Our Fly Fishing Banquet will be held on 18 October at the Walla Walla Country Club between 5:00 and 9:00 pm. Please mark your calendars for this event and a chance to meet John. If you have one or some of the dozen fly fishing/ fly tying books he has authored, bring them with you to have signed. This banquet will be currently open to 75 guests, but may open to more as it is being considered inviting the fly fishers of Pendleton and Tri-Cities to join us; feeling that the more, the merrier.

Market's Co-Manager Robin, of the Walla Walla Farmers’ Market addressed our meeting with concern and interest in having the Walla² Fly Fishers maintaining an exposure booth for our club at the fairgrounds Farmers’ Market. 

This events begins Saturday 3 May and continues through 13 September. All those interested in being involved with this event and giving our club some public exposure please contact President Tom for more details.

Secretary Dale gave the little bit of info he had gathered from his contact with Creating Memories for Disabled Children. This organization works out of a lakeside / outdoor camp at Wallow Lake near Joseph, OR. The only communication that Dale has received to date is that the camp is closed for the season, and the owner/manager will be back in touch once an assessment has been made of lake work that might need to be done, once the weather breaks and work can be done.

One more reminder from Treasurer Doug, that everyone's annual club membership dues are due. We are no longer an affiliate of the Federation of Fly Fishers (FFF), so we do not ask that our membership pay individual dues to that organization. Our Walla² Fly Fishers' annual dues are $15 for individuals and $20 for family. If you are with us, please hand Doug your $$$$ in May. Thank You

Our meeting was adjourned shortly after 8:15.

Our next regularly scheduled meeting will be Wednesday, 14 May.

Respectively submitted,

Dale McKain

Club Secretary

Tight lines and good fishing.

Walla² Fly Fishers

Contact Us

Tom Craig – President
Dave Stemmer – Vice President
Doug Coe – Treasurer
Dale McKain – Secretary

Past Presidents

Tyson Kopfer
Bob Long
Scott Peters