There is certainly something in angling that tends to produce a gentleness of spirit and pure serenity of mind.
~ Washington Irving

This evening President Dave called our monthly meeting to order at 7:21.
We had 18 members and guest in attendance.

Dave had been working to schedule an area educator / entomologist to discuss area aquatic insect life, with us this evening. This did not come together for this month.
If you would like to learn more about our area / Blue Mountain entomology, you can start by following this blog link to --->

http://wallawallaflyfishers.blogspot.com/search?q=Blue+Mountain+Hatch+chart

Again it was brought up that this year we are NOT having our club's 9th Annual Fly Fishing Fair at the Waterbrook Winery facility.

Pres Dave is still looking for a location, and several were suggested this evening. He said he would follow up on these suggestions and try to secure a location for this annual club activity ASAP. If you have any suggestions please contact Dave with them ASAP. You can email Dave by clicking on this link ---> stemmerdr@hotmail.com Thank You.
Time is getting short, so please watch your email for an announcement from Dave of this upcoming annual event.

Pres Dave briefly told us of a WDFW meeting he had attend on Tuesday evening concerning the upper Tucannon River fishery, and changes being made there in the physical water/lake layout and fishing regulations.
He announced that he had been approached by the same WDFW coordinator of the Tuesday evening's program to make a similar presentation for our May 17^th meeting. It was agreed that this was of interest to the club membership and we would like to hear more about this WDFW Tucannon River program at our May meeting.

Dave then brought to the club’s attention that the club officers have been approached by Len Zickler, president of Fly Fishers International (FFI), formerly and aka. The Federation of Fly Fishers. It was noted that originally -in 2009-, past President Scott Peters, and Secretary Dale McKain organized our club as a Charter Club by signing on with the Federation of Fly Fishers, now the FFI.

http://wallawallaflyfishers.blogspot.com/2009/06/walla-fly-fishers.html

Would like to make note here, FYI- the Federation of Fly Fishers was conceived by a group of fly fishers from Eugene, OR while fishing for steelhead on the Grand Ronde River at Troy OR in 1964. Some of us are still chasing steelhead in the same river (home waters) to this day. A beautiful and easy river to fish, between spring's runoff and winter's ice jams.

Dave is going to look again at the overall benefits offered by the IFFF. The meeting attendees tonight were inclined to proceed with rejoining the IFFF – depending on club’s costs for doing so.

Dave reported that our Thursday evening fly tying Project Healing Waters group at the Walla Walla Vet Center is holding steady numbers.

1104 West Popular Walla Walla - near the railroad crossing

It is a good group, making enjoyable evenings, commencing fly tying at 5 o'clock.

Most evenings we have 5-7 regular attendees, with some occasional drop-in from the Vet Hospital that may be in town for 4 to 8 weeks. If you know a Vet that you think would like to join into this group of fly tyers / fly fishers; direct them to Dave, Herb, Dale ~ or Dave Beebe at the Vet Center ~ to discuss their involvement with our Walla Walla Chapter of Project Healing Waters. This group will be working their flies on area streams and lakes soon.

Dave then brought into the meeting discussion that club officers had received from the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin newspaper a proposal to place an ad in their spring hunt/fish special edition advertiser. It was discussed and decided that this would be an unnecessary expense to the club.

Then came up the idea of “Let’s Go Fishing” with some club outings, to involve the club membership in more that the Fly Fishing Fair and monthly meetings. Dale addressed the meeting with the possibility of a fishing outing on May 6^th with the Pendleton fly fishing group. Their proposed planned fishing trip for that day is to Bull Prairie Reservoir a 28- acre lake just south of Heppner, OR.

Dale mentioned that he had fished this reservoir many times with the Blue Mountain Flycasters when he lived in Pendleton. He mentioned that it fished well for trout (triploids) and blue gill, with red San Juan Worm fly pattern after spring ice-off and turn-over. Usually the lake is prime for spring fishing in late April.

Dale also mentioned that he and Barbara Suzui had spent quite a few weekends last fall fishing streams, rivers, stillwaters and had invited ALL paid club members to join them.

Barbara and Dale hope to continue that same pace of weekend fishing this spring, summer, fall and hope more paid club members will join these splashy action outings. Most of these outings leave Walla Walla around 9:00 a.m. Dale stated, we have a restaurant brunch along the way, getting to the lake, or river around noon, and fish until sunset. He suggest bringing a snack along to have on the way home. Jubilee Lake one of their favorite "fishin holes" is only 49 miles / an hour+ drive from Walla Walla.
Pictures of a Jubilee Lake outing with Tyson, Barbara, Robin, Harold, and Dale...

Barbara took a few of this day's catch home, to put a smile on her Mom's face.

Part of our two creel catch of the day from Jubilee Lake

Jerry brought up that this was a prime time of year for fishing Washington’s Rocky Ford Reservoir. He mentioned that the reservoir was fishing from the bank only; that scuds were a good fly pattern to use, and the lake was full of large, well educated, triploid rainbows.