Talking about fishing trips and our Seventh Annual Fly Fishing Fair

 


This evening President Tom called our meeting to order at 7:15. 




We had 14 members and guest in attendance. 

Our main topic of discussion this evening was the upcoming 2015 - Seventh Annual Fly Fishing Fair again being held at the Waterbrook Winery (and fishing ponds) located at 10518 Hwy 12 west of Walla Walla. 
 

our 6th Annual 2014 Fly Fishing Fair flyer

The date of our 2015 Fly Fishing Fair is set for Saturday June 6th.
It was announced that Teagh Gustin with Waterbrook Winery had been invited to address our group this evening, but he had another obligation to attend to. We hope Teagh might address our May meeting, and Secretary Dale will address an email to invite him to do so. We are again inviting Jim Gallagher - WA Yakima River guide and Grant Richie - OR Wallowa River guide to join us this year. 

Again this year we plan to offer FREE - 

fly rod casting instruction and waterfront coaching, fly tying demonstrations with tying table instruction and coaching, to go along with fly fishing the Waterbrook Winery ponds for trout, coy, carp - accompanied by fly fishing Catch and Release techniques.
We hope to begin developing promotional items for this year's Fly Fishing Fair in the next week or two with Waterbrook's Teagh Gustin, and therefore have most plans in place to discuss with the club membership at our next regularly scheduled club meeting on May 13th. The projected activities schedule for this year's event will again be 10am - 3pm.
Please mark your calendars to share this day with us. Again this year we plan to conduct a silent auction to raise funds for our Walla² Fly Fishers' -Project Healing Water Fly Fishing, Inc- (PHWFF) activities. 

Again this year the chef and kitchen of Waterbrook Winery will make food, drinks, and wines available for our midday refreshment. Their food and wine has always been quite delicious and very reasonably priced.

PHWFF coordinator Jerry was asked about the  steelhead fishing trip made 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. He told us 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 reported that they also motored down to the Wenaha River, coming off Wildcat grade (an experience in itself) and hiked upriver out of Troy, OR where they hooked into quite a few wild steelhead and Dolly Varden "Bull trout".




We also had reports of fishing the Tucannon River ponds and that Bennington Lake has been stocked with 500 trophy size Triploid/ Rainbow trout. It was suggested that when fishing Big 4 Lake if you have a touch of green in your fly, one might expect many more hookups of the trophy size trout swimming there.

Tom shared with us more photos of his February trip to New Zealand with a photo album he had put together, as well as a photo album he has made of his fly fishing in the WA and OR home waters. In the WA-OR fishing photo album we saw pictures of President Tom, and Treasurer's Dr. Doug with his first steelie in hand, and big smiles on both of their faces. Steelhead catching does that to most people's faces.

Tom - Sean in NZ

Tom - Doug with steelies in hand

    

Tom also announced that we still have on hand a couple more club logo caps available at $20 each. Also discussed was the very large selection of apparel available at Graphic Apparel  in College Place, all of which can have our club's logo embroidered into for FREE.  Club members can buy apparel off their shelf or clothing racks, and /or buy from elsewhere and have our club logo embroidered on any clothing article for only a $5 setup charge if clothing bought elsewhere.

Many articles of apparel are available at Graphic Apparel

Treasurer Dr. Doug reported that after settling all accounts payable created by our 2014 Fly Fishing Banquet, we now have $1000 in our club's bank account. He also reported that we now have 23 members with 2015 paid accounts. Doug is still accepting 2015 membership payments in the amounts of $15-Individual / $20-Family.

This evening our meeting was adjourned at 8:02p.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Dale McKain

Club Secretary

Tight lines and Good Fishing

Contact Us

Tom Craig – President
Dave Stemmer – Vice President
Doug Coe – Treasurer
Dale McKain – Secretary - Blogmaster Gerald Newell - PROJECT HEALING WATERS Coordinator


Past Presidents
Tyson Kopfer
Bob Long
Scott Peters 

Fishing in New Zealand with Tom

This evening President Tom called our business meeting to order at 7:15 with 16 members and guest in attendance.

President Tom and VP Dave addressed that they had both tried to make contact with Waterbrook Winery concerning our proposed 2015 Fly Fish Fair. They both reported that their previous discussion with Waterbrook Winery this year was that the new winery management was only discussing trying to create a banquet affair instead of a venue similar to our past 6 years of sharing the art and science of fly fishing with the interested general public.

 We always have a morning of casting instructions

 

  


Fly tying demonstrations

Some trout to be caught in the Waterbrook Winery casting / catching ponds

Tom and Dave both said that they would continue to work for the development of an event as we have had in the past, with hope that we could do so at the Waterbrook Winery.
Club Treasurer Dr. Doug tells us that we currently have over $1100 in the bank, with a few first of the year checks yet to clear the account. Doug reminded us that after all was said and done that our 2014 Banquet cost the club about $70+ with the yet to be reimbursed 2015 Oregon fishing license fee for Jerry - door prize winner.
VP Dave gave us a brief summery of results from the questionnaire passed out during our February meeting concerning 2014 Banquet thoughts and opinions and suggestions for a 2015 Banquet.
Steelheaders fishing reports - Dave said he had been fishing the Tucannon River with no results, Jerry said he had been on the Wallowa River making a survey for a fishing trip for Project Healing Waters vets, and had seen a lot of very large steelhead. He says he is working on a fishing trip for all Project Healing Waters participants to take place the weekend of 20-22 March on the Wallowa River with a base camp set at Minam Motel. Jerry told us that this past week the Wallowa had a waterflow that looked like July's - scary flow conditions for this time of year.
Dr. Mike, Dr. Doug, Jim and Robert reported that they had been fishing the Imnaha River with no steelie keepers to tell about.
This evening our door prize fly box was won by Harold S.

Tonight President Tom presented our meeting's program, of his most recent "summer" fishing trip to New Zealand. 

The trip started Feb.11^th and it took Tom over 24 hours to get to Mataura where his long time friend and fishing buddy Sean, and wife Lisia lives. 

 

Sean and Lisia Barron

Tom tells us he "fished 19 of the 23 days I was gone. Fished 11 different rivers, streams, and lakes….mostly for brown trout. Largest brown was about 6 lbs. Average fish caught was 3 to 4 lbs mostly on dries. Sean told me that there is over 50 different 

streams, rivers and or lakes and ponds that can be fished within 2 hours of his home in New Zealand. Many with fish over 10 lbs to be caught."

One of Tom's NZ rainbow hook-ups

Tom reported... "It was late summer in New Zealand so weather was pretty good. Only had one rain that effected the fishing for about a day.

Most of the fishing in New Zealand is 'sight fishing' finding fish to cast to without them seeing you, can be challenging and most casts are into wind which is also very challenging for someone like me not used to having to cast into the wind. I usually use the wind to help me make long casts."

  

A couple of the brown trout Tom hooked along the way.

While in NZ Tom went to the Wyndam Angling Club which is the oldest fishing club in New Zealand established in 1895. He went to one of their meetings and said they were very gracious and interested in our club and what we do for our members etc.

Tom comes back sharing the feeling... "If at all possible New Zealand should be on any fly fishers “Bucket List” just so many varied and wonderful places to fish and the scenery is magnificent much like Alaska where I lived and fished for 38 years."

For Tom this evening's presentation was a very bitter - sweet story of a wonderful fly fisher's winter vacation in NZ. As he began his presentation it was with great sadness that Tom announced that his friend and long time NZ and AK fishing buddy had just passed away, a couple of day before this evening's meeting. Sean RIP, and may your leader never again be tangled by a chilling wind.

Tom, we Thank You for sharing with us this story of a fly fisherman's dream come true.

Melanie Owens,  4-H Program Coordinator
for Walla Walla County

After Tom's presentation we had Melanie Owens visiting with us this evening, asking for some fly tyers support for the upcoming 4-H Super Saturday 21 March. She currently has the help of club member Stu Farnham as lead fly tying instructor, but would like to see a few more helping hands around the table. Anyone else that can help Melanie and Stu on the 21st, please contact them for details of that day's activities.

 After Melanie's request for help, Dale reminded everyone of our next fly tying round table event at Stu's house to be held on Sunday 22 March, and then looking at another gathering of fly tyers on Saturday 4 April. Dale will email details of these events as these tying times draw near. These fly tying gatherings are open to all club members that wish to learn more about the art, simplicity of fly tying, and wish to have a good excuse to sit together and fill their fly box for the upcoming salmon and trout seasons.

Gail's Chartreuse Springer Hook

Our next regularly scheduled club meeting will be 8 April at Smith's Family Restaurant in Walla Walla.
6:00 pm dinner and social hour ~ 7:00 business meeting
Our meeting was adjourned at 8:10.   

Respectfully submitted,

Dale McKain

Club Secretary

Tight lines and Good Fishing

Contact Us

Tom Craig – President
Dave Stemmer – Vice President
Doug Coe – Treasurer
Dale McKain – Secretary - Blogmaster Gerald Newell - PROJECT HEALING WATERS Coordinator


Past Presidents
Tyson Kopfer
Bob Long
Scott Peters