Fishing with Bob Wolfe and Chironomids

March 9th the Walla² Fly Fishers came together at Jacobi's Cafee in Walla Walla. This evening we had 10 members seated for dinner. Our business meeting began at 7:00 pm with 18 members and guest in attendance. Discussed this evening was a number of upcoming events for all members to be aware of:
1) the Walla² Fly Fishers 3rd Annual Fly Fishing Fair will be again held at Waterbrook winery on June 11th.
2) the Washington FFF Council will hold its annual Fly Fishing Fair in Ellenboro, WA April 29-30.3) 2011 club membership dues are due ($15) and payable to the Walla² Fly Fishers. Mail to Treasurer Doug Coe @ 1341 Lowell Drive Walla Walla, WA 99362
4) also there were passed out the raffle tickets for a guided fishing trip on the Yakima River with Joe Rotter of Red's Fly Shop, for a club fund raiser. The lucky raffle winner of this club fund raiser will receive accommodations for 4 at the lodge of Red's Fly Shop, and guided fishing trip for 2. This raffle drawing will be held during our June 11th Fly Fishing Fair. Please contact President Bob Long or Scott Peters for more details and tickets.

Following our business meeting we once again were glad to have Bob Wolfe from Pendleton, OR and the Blue Mountain Flycasters to join us and discuss fishing stillwaters with tiny flies called chironomids -- "midges". Bob's, PowerPoint presentation included a number of prime fishing spots in eastern Washington, with plenty of discussion of fishing Lake Lenice. Bob passed around a number of bottles of chironomids specimens taken from fish caught. He discussed some of his favorite flies tied to imitate the chironomids he has found around the area, including passing around his working boxes of chironomids flies. We hope Bob got back home with most of his handsomely tied flies. Also discussed was the technique for fishing chironomid flies, lines, leaders, strike indicators, depths for fishing these flies. Bob also discussed the action of lake "turnover" that occurs in the spring and fall as water temperatures change from top to bottom, pointing out that chironomids are churned in the water column during these "turnovers". The favorite flies fished that Bob discussed were his Black Magic and Red & Green Magic. Each of these he ties using .5 mm Stretch Magic beading cord and creates segmented bodies using 7 wraps of each color. As Bob closed his presentation, he invited the club to join the Blue Mountain Flycasters for a couple of their stillwater fishing outing on Bull Prairie Saturday 30th April and Saturday 21 May to Penland Lake east of Heppener, OR. Our meeting was adjourned at 8:30 p.m.

Next meeting will be held Wednesday 13 April, and President Bob ask that everyone bring a couple of flies to help fill the boxes for raffle - one is a FREE door prize. Thanks

Respectfully submitted,Dale McKain
Secretary

Walla² Fly Fishers

Contact Us

Tight lines and good fishing.

Bob Long - President

Tyson Kopfer - Vice President

Dr. Doug Coe - Treasurer

Dale McKain - Secretary

Fishing British Columbia with Will Godfrey

Due to a slight mix up in scheduling for our February meeting, the Walla² Fly Fishers had our dinner served in the dining car at Jacobi's Cafe. This month we had 13 members and guest in attendance.

Business discussed was the purchase of a guided fishing trip on the Yakima River with Joe Rotter of Red's Fly Shop, for a club fund raiser. The lucky raffle winner of this club fund raiser will receive accommodations for 4 at the lodge of Red's Fly Shop, and guided fishing trip for 2. Our cost for this raffle will be $405. We hope to sell 100-150 tickets at $10 apiece. Scott and Bob will be the leaders of this campaign and the drawing will be held at the end of our 2011 Fly Fishing Fair at Waterbrook Winery on Saturday 11 June.
Details are to follow.
After this topic discussion, Treasurer Doug Coe gave a report of annual membership dues collected at our January meeting. Collected at that time was $270 which brings our club treasury to over $850 in the black. More membership dues were also collected this evening.

Also discussed were club plans to continue with our winter fly tying workshop of 2011, and it is planned to be held again at Country Estates Mobile Home Park in College Place Wednesday 23 February, 7-9 p.m. Please find direction to Country Estates in the right hand column of this blog posting.
Following these topics of club business, we were privileged to have Will Godfrey as our speaker for the evening discussing his past 50 years of fly fishing the Pacific Northwest, including British Columbia.

Will Godfrey is a Life Member of the FFF and has a long history of giving back to the fly fishing sport, in the 1970s he owned a fly shop in the fabled area of the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River in Island Park Idaho and he has been neck deep in the sport and the art of Fly Fishing ever since. Will has volunteered his time and his talent for decades to promote the sport and support both conservation and education, especially youth education about the sport. He is an accomplished Auctioneer who this year alone will be raising money for the Henry’s Fork Foundation, Federation of Fly Fishers at the annual Conclave, Snake River Cutthroats, Washington Council of the FFF and of course his home club the Kelly Creek Fly Casters where he serves on the Board and is the past president. He has for many years had a special place in his heart for Steelhead fishing and the art of tying flies for that endeavor. He is an accomplished author with 2 books published and a 3^rdin the works.
Will's presentation this night was on the Babine River steelheading and the fishing opportunities there and about the fishing in the Lewiston / Clarkston area. His presentation was based on slides of his adventures of the 1960's and 70's which had a rich flavor of the way fishing used to be.

We wish to thank Will for his time and travel to make such a generous presentation to our club this evening.

Will's presentation was over shortly before 9:00 p.m. and the meeting was adjourned shortly thereafter.
Respectfully submitted,
Dale McKain
Secretary

Walla² Fly Fishers

Contact Us

Tight lines and good fishing.

Bob Long - President
Tyson Kopfer - Vice President
Dr. Doug Coe - Treasurer
Dale McKain - Secretary

Fly Fishing Central WA with Joe Rotter

This month we had a good turnout of 30 members and guest for our January meeting. Promptly following dinner we had the election of new club officers led by President Scott Peters. As was nominated at our December 2010 meeting the following slate was so elected by unanimous vote.

Bob Long - President

Tyson Kopfer - Vice President

Dr. Doug Coe - Treasurer

Dale McKain - Secretary

Following the election of officers, our outgoing Treasurer Barry Gould gave his last treasurer's report and told us that ending club funds for 2010 was just over $700 in Baker Boyer Bank. It was a good year for the club, with plenty of good speakers, outdoor activities, and a fall banquet with Brian O'Keefe.

Joe Rotter of Red's Fly Shop of Yakima give the program of the evening. His Power Point Presentation was titled Fly Fishing All Seasons on the Yakima River. This was a very well done presentation which detailed hatches and bug matching strategies, hydrology, when to wade, when to float, trip planning, the Yakima River. Joe also discussed other nearby rivers which, included information on fishing the Naches, Klickitat, Methow, and Wenatchee Rivers for Steelhead – along with Carp fishing the Columbia River, Smallmouth Bass fishing on the Lower Yakima River, and many of the lesser known mountainous tributary streams in Eastern Washington.

We wish to thank Joe for again making a great presentation, and joining our meeting for this evening.

After the meeting Joe made the club a special offer for a guided fishing trip on the Yakima River to help us create a club fund raiser. This offer will be presented at February's meeting after being discussed by the new club officers.

The meeting was adjourned shortly thereafter, with individuals socializing one-on-one.

Our next meeting will be held 9 February 2011.


Tight lines and good fishing.

Old Officers ~~~~~~~ New Officers
Scott Peters - President - Bob Long
Skip Pritchard - Vice President - Tyson Kopfer
Barry Gould - Treasurer - Doug Coe
Dale McKain - Secretary /Blog Master - Dale McKain

Club officers' meeting 1/4/2011

Greeting Fellow Fly Fishers,

I wish to report that Tuesday, January 4 the outgoing officers and the officers elect of the Walla² Fly Fishers held a club business meeting at Jacobi's Cafe. Present for this meeting was Scott, Barry, Dale and the new officers elect - Bob Long - Pres., Tyson Kopfer - VP, Doug Coe - Treasurer, Dale McKain - Secretary.


During this meeting the points of concern that were discussed:

1. Current Baker Boyer Bank account balance
2. Liability insurance needs
3. Membership, old and new
4. Membership dues
5. Meeting location
6. Fly Tying workshops
   
7. Fly Fishing workshop
8. Meeting programs
9. Fly Fishing Fair at Waterbrook Winery
10. Club Fishing Outings
11. Club Banquet
12. Club $$$$ funding
13. Reaching out for more club membership participation
14. Club participation in the Tri-Cities 2011 Sportsman Show
    

So as you can see we had a pretty thick agenda list to discuss. All of these matter will be brought before the full club membership at our next meeting on Wednesday January 12, 2011.

Briefly going down this list of discussion...

• Baker Boyer Bank account currently has over $700 in funds

• It was agreed that the club should maintain the FFF liability insurance policy to cover our need of
  --- annual insurance cost around $180

• We need a current roster of club members --- "old" and new --- Dale has a listing of monthly meeting attendance,
  --- FFF National has a computer roster of FFF due paying members

• It was decided that we would continue to meet at Jacobi's Cafe and hope that club members would not be reluctant to attend because of higher food and beverage prices at this location. Scott will check with cafe ownership and see if they could offer a $10 fly fishers' meal deal for our hungry club membership.

• A winter fly tying workshop will again try to be started, hopefully at Country Estates Mobile Home Park in College Place as was last winter.

• We have the opportunity to work with the Walla Walla YMCA to conduct fly fishing classes. We need a few novice fly fishers to help share their knowledge with any wannabe fly fishers in our area. We would hope this should also generate new club membership.
  

• It was discussed the range of meeting programs we had during 2010, and how we might compliment that with fly fishing subjects of interest in 2011.

• Fly Fishing Fair 2011, again Scott will be our Point Guy with this project. He has already been discussing the date and event with Waterbrook Winery and John Spain our chef of the day. Again we hope we can have Skip Prichard to join us as our FFF certified casting instructor.

• Club fishing outings were discussed concerning the available to fly fish a 100-150 mile radius of Walla Walla for trout, carp, shad, bass (large and smallmouth), steelhead, salmon, etc. Everyone agreed they wanted to learn more of area fishing opportunities and get involved with more club fishing outings.

• A 2011 Walla² Fly Fishers Banquet was discussed. Scott said he felt that he might be able to get John Shewy to come as our guest speaker. Date of banquet will be dependent on John's and all others 2011 schedule.

• Club funding was discussed and agreed that with membership dues ($15/year-individual and $20/year-family) along with the monthly fly box raffles, and earned banquet revenues, we should be able to make it through 2011 with money in the bank.

• We hope to get more of the club membership involved with club activities in 2011. Now that our club has gotten "off the ground" we hope to create more fly fishing opportunities and membership events around our area, than just the monthly club meetings.

• 2011 Tri-Cities Sportsman Show in Pasco this month. FFF is looking for members that would like to enter the show for FREE and spend up to three (3) hours greeting and talking fly fishing to passer-bys at the show. More to be discussed at January 12th meeting.

With all of the above in mind, we hope to have a good turn out for our first meeting of this New Year and let's discuss. Hope everyone saw the $9.00 WinterFeast Dinner Deals available at Jacobi's Cafe right now. Please leave your wet waders and studded wading boots at the door, Thank you.

Respectfully submitted,
Dale McKain
Secretary

Tight lines and good fishing.

Walla² Fly Fishers

Contact Us

Scott Peters - President
Skip Pritchard - Co-President
Barry Gould - Treasurer
Dale McKain - Secretary /Blog Master

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Walla2-Fly-Fishers/356939534505

New Club Officers Nominated

This evening the Walla² Fly Fishers held our November meeting to discuss some hardcore club business and directions. Prior to the business of the evening there were 8 members that came together for dinner and social hour at Jacobi's Cafe.

We had 16 members and guest in attendance for this meeting. Because the clock on the wall kept reading 6:55 we did not start the meeting until about 7:20 p.m. Club Treasurer Barry, headed the business directions discussion for the evening in the absence of President Scott, who had a prior banquet commitment to attend.

Prior to the meeting President Scott and Treasurer Barry had submitted their resignations for their officers' positions. So this evening we had before us the task of nominating individuals to fill those post. Secretary Dale said he would be glad to continue to serve the club in his position.

This evening those nominated to fill the officers' positions becoming vacant were:

Bob Long - President
Tyson Kopfer - Vice President
Dr. Doug Coe - Treasurer
Dale McKain - Secretary

The floor still remains open for the nominations of any others that might wish to be considered for helping in a club leadership role. We do have a slight hangup in the above nominees. Bob Long may be moving from the area in the near future, but he is more than willing to provide his expertise in FFF directions between now and the time that he may make a move. A valuable asset for our club.

Bob brought forth the idea, that it is the club's President's job to lead the organization and not to create projects and ventures, and try to accomplish the task on his own. Therefore we will be looking for across-the-board membership help to set up some committees to help get the fun work done.

Projects discussed:

• Boy Scout Fly Fishing merit badge helpers
• Walla² YMCA fly fishing seminar
• 2011 Fly Fishing Fair at Waterbrook
• Winter 2011 fly fishing workshops
• Membership fly fishing outings
• A 2011 Club Banquet
• Stream side/pond side fishing habitat improvements working with WDFW
• etc.

With that said, it was discussed the current annual projects the club has been working on and the need of Project Chairpersons to help direct the responsibility of making things happen. At this point Kris said he would like to be involved with the Boy Scouts project of helping scouts earn their fly fishing merit badge, it was suggested that we ask Scott to continue to help co-ordinate the Fly Fishing Fair at Waterbrook Winery, and we will look into creating a committee to co-ordinate a fly fishing class with the Walla Walla YMCA, and re-establishing some winter 2011 fly tying classes with Pat and Lee Ainley at their College Place facility.

It was also asked to pass around the FFF Charter Clubs / Walla² Fly Fishers' By-Laws so that everyone would have a better understanding of the job description of club officers.

FFF Charter Club By-Laws in MS Word - for all to see review.

Bob Long also pointed out the idea that most folks tend to want to join a fly fishing club to become associated with fly fishers, to learn to fly fish, to learn more about fishing opportunities.
All of these things our club should consider in mapping our club activities for the future, in order to draw new club members from our community. With this point of reference, it was brought up that the club members would like to see more weekend fishing trips planned that they might attend. Our last two planned trips to the John Day River were mid-week holidays.

With that proposal... the idea of trying to form a steelhead fishing trip to the Grande Ronde River the Friday 11/26 or the Saturday 11/27 following Thanksgiving was suggested. This should be a very prime time for fishing the GR for steelies before the river's ice flow begins.
Who wants to go steelhead fishing on the Grande Ronde River???

A motion was made---> NOT to have a December club meeting (due to all other activities taking place between Thanksgivings and the New Year), that motion was seconded and carried. We will NOT have a meeting in December and will resume regular monthly meetings on 12 January 2011 to hold our club officers' election and start the New Year talking about fly fishing.
All those in favor... indicate by saying "AYE".
Those opposed, please email all by posting "NAY".

HEADS UP, look for possibly a fly tying meeting announcement coming forthwith for fly tying the evening of Wednesday 29 December.

The meeting was adjourned shortly thereafter, with individuals socializing one-on-one.

Tight lines and good fishing.

Walla² Fly Fishers

Contact Us

Scott Peters - President
Skip Pritchard - Co-President
Barry Gould - Treasurer
Dale McKain - Secretary /Blog Master

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Walla2-Fly-Fishers/356939534505

Fishing the John Day River

It was about 5:40 a.m. yesterday when we rolled out of the parking lot at Grove Elem. School in Milton-Freewater heading for the John Day River. Before leaving home Dale checked the real-time water flow at McDonald Ferry, the river was flowing at 464 cfs which is a very good fly swinging flow. When we got to the turnaround above the Boy Scouts’ Camp at Rock Creek and parked, with only one other vehicle with a pontoon boat trailer attached. Tom and Mike with great haste suited up and headed for the river. Having crossed the river above the first riffle they moved up and took their position in the lower end of the first pool. Tyson and Dale were in hot pursuit and went just above Mike and Tom and started their casting practice for the day.
After about a ½ hour of working the head of the first pool Dale move up to the second steelie hole.

This stretch of water had in the past offered many steelhead, and once Dale had two buddies land two steelies at once while fishing here. It wasn't too many cast into this pool when Dale got the slightest peck, peck, peck at his fly. On the next cast he got a hookup, which very quickly did not resemble the jerk or run of a steelhead.

He had caught a red-eyed small mouth bass, of which the John Day River is also famous for as a warm weather/water fishery. It wasn't too much later after this catch that Mike came walking across the hill and Dale motioned for him to come join him in fishing this #2 pool. Shortly thereafter Dale moved up to the #3 pool. Having fished this pool for awhile with no success and no one from below showing up, Dale moved upriver into the Power Line Hole.


While fishing the Power Line Hole, a fly fishing stranger walked up on Dale. His name was Grant and in their conversation, it was said that Grant is from Milton-Freewater, and has been hoping to get involved with the Walla² Fly Fishers.

Dale invited him to join the club at our next meeting of Wednesday 10 November. Also learned that Grant's favorite past-time is fishing and hiking and bloging his experiences in our Walla² Fly Fishers back country. You can find Grant's back country adventures posted at fishingandhiking.com which this writer found very interesting to read through.

None of the other Walla² Fly Fishers made it up to the Power Line Hole to fish it this day. Going back down river Dale caught up with Tyson in the second pool coming from the parking lot and for an instance it appeared that Tyson had a fish-on.

Maybe the hookup/jerk that Tyson had was another smallmouth bass, as he did catch one earlier in the day.
This day with the river flow at 464 cfs wading the river was very easy. In most places the water was rarely more that navel deep and gin clear so that standing in deep water you could see your feet much like standing in a bathtub full of water.

Real Time river flow at McDonald Ferry--> http://waterdata.usgs.gov/or/nwis/uv/?site_no=14048000&PARAmeter_cd=00065,00060
Best fly fishing/ wading flow is >450 and <1000 .="" id="hotword" span="" style="color: black;">

While on the river this day we had a pontoon boat of fishers go by us that had put in at Cottonwood Bridge, and they told us that with their full day of fishing and floating that they had only spotted 5-6 steelhead on the river and hooked none.

Where are the steelies???

To finish off this great day of fishing, as Dale and Grant were coming across the riffle before getting back to the parking area they found a nice about 24" steelhead resting above the run above the Boy Scout camp, first steelhead sighting of the day for this Walla² Fly Fishers' outing. Grant did say that he hooked a couple of steelies quite a ways upriver from where the rest of us got to.

So all-in-all it was another great day of fishing and exploring the John Day River. It was not a great day of catching steelies on JD River.

Tight lines and good fishing.

Walla² Fly Fishers

Contact Us

Scott Peters - President
Skip Pritchard - Co-President
Barry Gould - Treasurer
Dale McKain - Secretary /Blog Master

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Walla2-Fly-Fishers/356939534505

Looking at new directions

This evening we held our meet at our new location – Jacobi's Cafe. We had 11 members in attendance. At this meeting we were planning to hold an election for a new club President, and Treasurer but with the light turnout of the evening it was decided to postpone such election until our next meeting of November 10th, hopefully while everyone is still in tune with voting in the national/our respective state elections.

For those of us that were in attendance of this meeting we found this new location to be very adequate in size and privacy. Maybe a bit fancy with linen table cloths for folk just getting out of their waders (please leave studded boots at the door) but the food, wine, beer and company is good. What more can we ask for?

This evening Treasurer Barry Gould made a monies report for our Banquet of September 18th.
The club’s treasury went into September with about $1100. Brian’s O’Keefe’s speaker’s fee / travel and board was $750, the cost of dinner came to $990. With the intake of funds from dinner reservations, raffle, and silent auction, the club now has a remaining balance in the bank of over $700. WE are in the black and still looking forward to having fun talking and practicing fly-fishing, among ourselves and other interested parties.

Other business discussed during the meeting was looking at the future and things to do.

1. Conducting a program with the Walla Walla Boy Scouts to help those kids earn their fly fishing merit badge. Scott has discussed this opportunity with the local Boy Scouts leaders.
2. Work with the Walla Walla YMCA to conduct fly fishing/ tying classes through their organization. Dale has discussed this opportunity with the Director at the YMCA.
3. Finding the opportunity to work with WDFW, on some of the projects brought up in September’s meeting with Glen Mendel and Dave Karl.
4. Do we want to restart a late fall / winter fly tying class on the forth Wednesday of the month as we had going last late winter?
5. More “in-house” fly fishing education for our club members who would like to learn more from the older “salty dogs” sitting around the table… e.i. rod works and terminology, rod / line systems, line and tippet knots, flies to use where and when, etc. There are a lot of things that some folks take for granted as to “how to, why do” that folks just getting their feet wet would like to have shared to diminish their learning curve of fly fishing.

Fishing reports from Diane and Tom revealed:

Diane had been fishing on the Grande Ronde on Sept. 18 and she is still looking for the first steelhead to land in her hands. She also did a fishing trip below McNary Dam, landed 11 of 13 sturgeon hookups and had picture to proof it. Nice.
Tom reported that he and Doug had spent a day on the Columbia Reach outside of the Hanford area, and they limited out their creel with fall Chinook. He also reported on a fishing trip he and his son had made lately to the Yakima River with great success. Tom also had picture of both outing to backup his tale of tails.

Thanks folks for sharing.

After these fishing reports there was some discussion of organizing more club trips to fish the John Day, Grande Ronde, Walla Walla and Wallowa rivers for steelhead as the 2010-11 season progresses. Hopefully before ice flows happen and then after the late winter thaw.

Future meeting program suggestions were to have Jim Galliger -fishing guide from Ellensburg- to come and make presentation on fishing the Yakima and Klickitat rivers, and asking our local professional bamboo rod builder –Chuck Irvine– to come and discuss the mechanics of fly rods, their construction, and the beauty of his bamboo rods.

There were no fly box raffles held this evening.

Tight lines and good fishing.

Walla² Fly Fishers

Contact Us

Scott Peters - President
Skip Pritchard - Co-President
Barry Gould - Treasurer
Dale McKain - Secretary /Blog Master

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Walla2-Fly-Fishers/356939534505