2010 Fly Fishing Fair

Today we had a beautiful day and a lot of fun at Waterbrook Winery and the 2010 Fly Fishing Fair. The nice group of folks that came out with a threat of rain, found plenty of sunshine, fresh air, fly casting instruction, fly tying demonstrations / instructions and some really great foods, wines and no rain on this day. It appeared from our seat, that a good time was had by all.
Below is a recap of this day's events in still pictures (worth a thousand words) and a couple of live videos. Hope you will enjoy this review of our day at Waterbrook Winery. This writer thinks the only thing missing from this posting is the sweet aroma of the outdoor fireplace's wood smoke that occasionally circled our playing area most of the day. The same fire and smoke made a nice atmosphere enhancer for this day in our mild Pacific Northwest outdoors.

Now... Let's go fishing!




































The jest of this day's activities was to help bring our local Walla Walla Valley neighbors and families into the realm of having fun with a fly and a fly rod. The price of admission for this day of fun in the sun with a gourmet dutch oven cooked meal was FREE. The heart of our day's activity of course was helping people learn the very easy task and fine art of casting a fly to fish with a different kind of rod than most were used to.

One of our founding club members
- Skip Prictchard -
FFF Certified Casting Instructor
made casting easy for one and all interested parties.
Learning to cast a fly.
(a video link)~you can view at 480p and full screen~

This day we had two fly casting classes, which took Skip
and coaches right up to and past the lunch hour.

Now, while all of this outdoor activity was going on... on the inside we had wine tasting, and fly tying demos taking place.

Then there came the time for breaking cornbread together.

A gathering to break bread.
(a video link)~you can view at 480p and full screen~

The luncheon prepared by John was delicious... stewed beef, BBQ pork, stewed veggies, (all cooked in a variety of Waterbrook wines), and cornbread. For dessert a dutch oven baked pear crisp, and peach cobbler.

Along with our day of activities we had the folks from
Headwaters Bamboo Rods
and Red's Fly Shop and Guide Services join us.

Right after lunch we had a door prize drawing for two fly boxes in which we gave away the flies tied during this day. We are also happy to announce that FFF club member Tom Craig won our club's FFF National rod-of- choice raffle. With this winning Tom will be able to pick from a 2 wt. through a 12 wt. rod for his fly fishing fun and pleasure via the Federation of Fly Fishers. We wish to thank all FFF club members for their support of this club fund raiser and the help it will make in bringing about our 2010 Walla² Fly Fishers' Banquet on September 18th. Information and tickets for that event with world renown fly fisher and photography - Brian O'Keefe - will be forthcoming shortly.

So with all said and done, we wish to say Thank You, Waterbrook Winery for again allowing the Walla² Fly Fishers to share your facilities and having a great day on your pond, patio. The vino as usually was very delicious.

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

April's Fly Fishers' meeting = A full house

A view of the south end of tonight's meeting room.

Once again it was a good evening for the Walla² Fly Fishers and guest to come together for dinner with our meeting's guest speaker Dennis Dauble. At dinner we had 12 fly fishers at the table, discussing their comings and goings to finish the 2009-2010 steelhead season in the Pacific Northwest. Matthew who joined the club this evening, brought his new iPad to dinner and shared some great pictures of he and his brother's steelhead excursions during the past week on the Wallowa and Imnaha rivers. Nice steelie photos, thanks Matthew for sharing those with us. Would you like to post some of those steelie photos to our club's Facebook page?.

Again this evening we had a nice collection of flies donated to give a good start to the winners of the two fly boxes to be distributed this evening.

After putting together the fly box for the evening's door prize and raffle President Scott went about passing out the door prize tickets as Secretary Dale gave a summery of updates on the club's Facebook page and Blogspot site, before introducing our guest speaker for this evening.

If you were not present for this meeting we would like to bring to your attention and have you mark your calendars for:

1. Saturday, May 22 for our 2010 Fly Fishing Fair at Waterbrook Winery located on Hwy 12 West of Walla Walla. Fly Fishing Fair hours will be 11 am - 4 pm. Admission is FREE
   
2. Saturday, September 18 for our 2010 Walla² Fly Fishers Banquet with Brian O'Keefe at Crossroads Restaurant in Walla Walla. Dinner and seat for this banquet will be $25 single - $40 couples. Details to be announced ASAP, we have booked Brian and Crossroads at this time.
   
3. Saturdays and Sundays, -TBA- through the Summer 2010 club fishing outings

Treasurer Barry ask to give his Treasurer's report after the evenings program/presentation.






A first time visitor Ben won the evening's door prize - fly box. He was quite pleased with the situation.





This evening our guest speaker was Dennis Dauble. Dennis retired after 35+ years as a fisheries researcher and manager at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wa. He is also an avid fly fisherman. His home in his youth was Athena-Weston, OR area, and his favorite fishing holes were along the Walla Walla River, particularly the So. Fork of the Walla Walla. He has just published a book entitled Fishes of the Columbia Basin. This evening Dennis had a presentation on the history of fish and fishing in the Columbia Basin from tribal times through the last two centuries which was most interesting, and this writer thinks everyone learned something new about our home waters / the Columbia Basin. Thank you Dennis for your most informative presentation this evening. Hope you enjoyed our little group, and you will come back and fish our favorite Walla Walla River with us in the near future.

After Dennis' presentation Treasurer Barry gave his updated report, which is not being published to this Blogspot posting.

In wrapping up our evening we held the drawing for the second -fly box- raffle prize and the winner of that box was Loren, another first time visitor to our club's meeting. We would also like to express our appreciation to Tyson who is now a member of the Walla² Fly Fishers, but since his first meeting attended he has won an Orvis fly rod & reel combo, a couple of fly boxes and was the first draw of tonight's door prize -fly box- but offered to let that winning pass on to another. Thank you Tyson for offering the door prize for a second round.

Tonight there were 31 (members & guest) in attendance of our meeting. With this number we just about had a full house. If we had had the 4-5 other members that are regular attender of our meeting, we would have needed to find additional space. It is to this writer's regret to point this out; but maybe the time has come that the Walla² Fly Fishers needs to look for a new location for regular monthly meetings to accommodate our growth.
Any suggestions???

A view of the north end of tonight's meeting room.

After all was said and done, the meeting was adjourned around 8:30 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Dale McKain
Club Secretary

PS. Our May meeting will NOT be held at the China Buffet. May's meeting will be included in the activities of our

2010 Fly Fishing Fair

Saturday, May 22 11am - 4pm

at Waterbrook Winery on Hwy 12 West of Walla Walla, WA.
Hope to see everyone then - lunch & activities are FREE.

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

Five weeks of Steelhead fishing left...

It has now been just over a year that the core of the Walla² Fly Fishers came together and talked about forming a fly fishing club in the Walla Walla, WA / Milton-Freewater, OR area. That first "club" meeting was instigated by our club's Co-President Skip Pritchard and held on March 4, 2009. At that meeting we had 11 interested individuals to show up, mostly by word-of-mouth. It is good to see regular faces/new faces each month, let's keep up the good work, the good times coming. Thank you everyone for making this happen.

Again this evening we had about 11 club members and guest come together for our pre-meeting dinner. This evening's mealtime gathering was a great time for sharing our recent and long past fishing experiences, friendships.
By the time our 7:00 p.m. meeting started we had 30 interested fly fishers / club members in attendance. President Scott just prior to the evening's business discussion, passed out the door prize tickets to everyone for this evening's fly box give-away. Robert Sallee, won the door prize fly box.
Club business discussed this evening was:

• FFF fly rod raffle – we are waiting to hear from FFF National concerning the option of having a greater choice of fly rods for this raffle (we are asking for a choice of a 2wt. thru 12wt. rod, since so many club members own 5 & 8wt. rods)

• Fall Banquet – have not yet heard back from Brian O’Keefe to confirm a date for this event (he has been fishing in Chile)

• Fly Fishing Fair – it has been confirmed that May 22, 2010 will be the date we plan to hold our 2nd Annual Fly Fishing Fair at Waterbrook Winery. Please mark your calendar for this event of fly fishing, fly tying, free Dutch Oven cooked luncheon, and vino tasting. Come one, come all and enjoy.

After these discussions, our guest speaker - Mac Huff of the Eagle Cap Fishing Guides service out of Joseph, OR gave us the evening's presentation on Steelhead Fly Fishing Techniques .
His PowerPoint presentation showed how to read the water for steelhead holding lies, how to make a fly presentation to steelhead via the

• Wet fly swing
• Dead drifting a fly using a strike indicator
• Greased line presentation

with some discussion on using a Spey rod and about skating flies for steelhead surface takes. Mac also told us of his version for tying a Turle knot for an under water broadside fly presentation. You will need to contact Mac for more details on his line-to-fly riffle hitch knot to make the fly stay on the surface.

Mac pointed out that the above methods of steelhead fishing, are much the same as those used for trout fishing, but the steelhead take is usually much lighter/softer, with a hardy hard strip-your-line off the reel run following the take and set of the fly in their hard mouth/ jaw.
With Mac's 25+ years of steelhead fishing northeast Oregon's Wallowa Country, he gave us quite a few tips for going after and catching the BIG ones. With this evening's presentation Mac did handle allot of Q&A's concerning steelhead fishing. Thanks Mac.

If you would like to reach Mac concerning some fly fishing guide service on the Grande Ronde, Wallowa, Imnaha rivers -or- general how-to fly fishing instructions while on the river, you can click on his website link above, give him a call or email from this card info...
This writer, can say from his experience of fishing with Mac that there is allot of knowledge to reap by spending a day on the water in the Wallowa Country with Mac.

Thank YOU Mac for traveling the distance and giving us a most informative program on smoothing out some possible rough edges around the science and art of fly fishing for steelhead.

After our evening's program, Scott and Barry went to selling raffle tickets for the second fly box of the evening of which Candace and Bob Pekich won that box.

This evening's meeting was adjourned shortly before 9:00 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Dale McKain
Club 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

Fly Fishing Northeast Oregon

Before our evening's presentation and business meeting began, this writer counted 16 Walla² Fly Fishers and guest breaking bread together. Most of us were sharing our far flung "tails" and current memories of fish that had swam away having given up on a nice fight. Tom brought with him some fishy pictures of a recent fishing trip he had made across snow covered river banks in Sun Valley, ID. The food and beverages this evening at the China Buffet seemed exceptionally good. We do not eat fancy here, but we do eat well, and it is all-you-can- eat, which is what a water frothing fly fisherman needs after a good day on the river.

While eating dinner, this area's long time, and very avid fly fisherman Gale House brought out some beautiful antique Atlantic Salmon flies, that were tyed just over 100 years ago (1909) in the UK.

Gale tells us… “It was sometime around 1985 while attending the NW Flyfishing Show held in the Kingdome in Seattle, I purchased a flybox holding about 65 of these Salmon Flies. The vendor was a cheerful little fellow, Jamie Maxton Graham from Peebles, Scotland whom we visited a few years later at his home in Peebles. He had interesting tales about the flies which mostly have been forgotten, maybe somewhat made up, but at any rate it made the ownership more prideful. The flies were tied by fly tiers either at Hardy's or Farlow's and it is noted that most of the Farlow tied flies were tied in 1909 whereas those by Hardy were mostly tied in 1918. I think these large 2/0 and 3/0 flies were mostly designed to be used on those annual trips to the rivers around Trondheim, Norway holding Atlantic Salmon up to 50 plus pounds.”
Thank you Gale for sharing these beautiful antiques with us.

This evening we had a bit of technical difficulties getting the computer with program presentation to make a connection with the digital projector. President Scott had to make two trips out to retrieve some hardware and computer cables, but in the end we got it together and had a great PP Presentation from angler Bob Wolfe on the many fly fishing opportunities available in NE Oregon.

Club Secretary Dale called the meeting to order at 7:20 p.m. There were 26 FFF members and guest in attendance.

 Dale, conducted the fly boxes -door prize giveaway and raffle fund raiser- during our wait for the computer hardware to arrive. This evening Jan won the door prize fly box, Tom and Mike won the two (2) raffle fly boxes, and we almost slipped in one of Bob Wolfe's chironomid fly boxes for a bonus prize, but he caught us.
 Club Treasurer Barry gave his report of the club’s bank account, telling us we now have a very nice nest egg of funds in the bank, but by no means are we rich. It was mentioned that in the very near future we will have to expend funds from this account for FFF liability insurance for club protection, when we begin our seasonal outdoor activities.
 Thereafter Dale brought up the idea once again of having a club banquet and trying to secure a date with the notable world traveler/fly fisherman/photographer Brian O’Keefe to be our keynote speaker with presentation. Dale expressed that he would make contact with Brian and FFF to put the gears in motion for a banquet, but we would need a lot of help from this Walla² club citizenry to make this happening in Walla Walla. It was discussed that we would project this banquet for September or October 2010, depending on Brian’s availability.
 Since the evening was being pressed for time by our technical difficulties it was decided to wait until next month to conduct the FFF rod-raffle for a Lefty Kreh’s TiCR X Rod. From FFF we have available a TFO 5904TX (9’ 4 pc 5 wt) -or- a TFO 08904TX (9’ 4 pc 8 wt) --- please see survey forthcoming concerning this rod raffle.

Bob Wolfe, past president of Blue Mtn. Flycasters (FFF), now retired from the USFS – Umatilla National Forest, showed us around some northeast Oregon fishing spots from his pivot point/ home in Pendleton and his former forest service bases of Ukiah, OR and Walla Walla, WA. Bob's presentation was in detail of fishing Oregon -- that part of the NE Zone as listed in the Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife fishing regulations and that governed by SE Zone regulations. Bob pointed out that part of NE Oregon is listed in the SE Zone regulations, because it is located on the Snake River drainage, and does not carry steelhead and salmon runs in those waters. In both of these zones Bob pointed out the very numerous opportunities to stillwater fish for nice rainbow and brook trout in well stocked ponds of little exposure and very little fishing pressure. In Bob’s presentation he also showed us some of the nice, steelhead, salmon, trout, and Dolly Varden we have biting fly hooks in this part of Oregon. After the presentation, Bob invited everyone of interest to join him and make plans to go fishing in the Blue Mountains of northeast Oregon. As Bob often does… he had a small group form around him after the meeting to discuss the flies he tyes and catches fish with. They work.
This writer having fished many days in northeast Oregon with Bob knows.... on most day, Bob is one of those guys in the 10% club of fishermen that can hook 90% of the day's catch. Bob and this writer both learned together, that in northeast Oregon a 100 -200 and sometimes 300 fish hookup day is not unusual, when you are fishing the Oregon Territory with no one else in sight.

Thank you Bob for an excellent evening's fly fishing presentation.

It was 9:00 p.m. as this evening’s meeting came to adjorn, with a number of folks discussing fly fishing until 9:20 and later.

Respectfully submitted,
Dale McKain
Club 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

A winter's gathering of the Walla² Fly Fishers

This evening the Walla² Fly Fishers came together with Carl Johnson, Washington State FFF Council President. Carl calls the west side of WA home, but also has a second home in Montana, so he has plenty of fly fishing experiences to talk about as he travels/fishes across the Pacific Northwest.

Prior to this month's meeting, we once again had a pleasant dinner together with about 15 fly fishers breaking bread, fish, chicken, Chinese noodles, stir fried rice, etc. together. Carl was at the China Buffet when most of us got there, so we had the entire evening to enjoy our visit with him. Our dinner socialization hour includes the sharing of fish tales, past and current, as well as just visiting with new found fly fishing/club friends.

After we move from the dining room into the banquet room of China Buffet, we proceeded to pull out the flies to decorate the evening's fly boxes to be given/raffled away.

This evening we had 25 people present for this January meeting, and as a couple of guys went around the room with a roll of raffle tickets in their hands giving away door prize tickets and peddling tickets to raffle off the other fly boxes and a FFF -gifted- fly rod.

~~~~~~~~~

Our club is to receive from the Federation a fly rod from the Lefty Kreh’s TiCR X Rod Series ---
a TFO 5904TX
(9’ 4 pc 5 wt)
-or-
a TFO 08904TX
(9’ 4 pc 8 wt)
for bringing on board 18 new FFF members. Club President Scott pointed out that since the Walla² Fly Fishers is a FFF Charter Club, (meaning all Walla² Fly Fishers members are also Federation of Fly Fishers members) that this rod raffle would be opened to card carrying FFF members only. Next month we will be drawing the ticket of the winner of the rod, and the winner of that raffle would have her/his option of picking the rod of their choice for their individual fly fishing needs.
This rod opportunity will be drawn for during our February 10th meeting, if we can sell 100 tickets by that time.

~~~~~~~~~

After all the ticket business settled down, we held the drawing for the fly box door prize and Scott Peters won that.

President Scott Peters called the meeting to order at 7:15 p.m. The club's business of the evening that were discussed was, thoughts for future meeting programs, the attempt to have Brian O'Keefe to come to our April meeting/ banquet, and the slight discussion of seeking new club officers. Our first year/one year of functionality with officers -- President Scott, Co-President Skip, and Secretary Dale will be wrapping up in a few months. These guys took their respective club positions with the understanding that they would work on getting the club up and running, with anticipation that in a year of so, other helping hands would step forward and offer new leadership. It was good to have Carl present at this meeting to bring out some point to help us in the continuing development of our club, its membership, and it's association with the Washington Council.
It was also discussed the survey that Dale had passed around concerning the establishing of a club membership fly tying workshop for the winter of 2010. There was 10-12 individuals that expressed interest in creating such a workshop and by a membership vote it was decided to choose the 4th Wednesday of the month for January, February, March and maybe April to conduct such a "come as you are" workshop. Our first fly tying workshop will be Wednesday, 27 January from 7 to 9 p.m., watch your email connection for details.

Thereafter Carl gave us his presentation concerning the creation, formation, and organization of the Federation of Fly Fishers. Due to technical difficulties Carl's show & tell PowerPoint program would not project, so his presentation from was from his mastery of memory of the FFF. In a nutshell, the FFF was started by the Mackenzie Fly Fishers of Eugene, OR in association with the Evergreen club of the Seattle, WA area. There first "organizational" meet was a steelhead fishing trip on the Grande Ronde River near Troy, OR. As it was first set up, the FFF was a loose knit organization of a group of fly fishing clubs around the Pacific Northwest. Over the past fifty years it has become a solid organization of international scope in developing the art and science of fly fishing and fly tying. Unlike many other fishing organizations, the FFF is an organization that embraces all fishing, in all waters, this the practice of catch and release in mind at all times.
"Game fish are too valuable to be caught only once." - Lee Wulff (a founder of the FFF)

Following Carl's presentation we had one more pass around the room with the raffle tickets for the next two fly boxes to be raffled and the Lefty Kreh’s TiCR X Fly Rods. Barry Gould and Doug Coe won the fly boxes, and the rod winner will be drawn at our February 10th meeting.

This meeting was adjourned shortly after 8:30 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Dale McKain
Club 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

Tyson WINS-- Walla² Fly Fishers’ rod and reel

Wednesday 12/9/09 we held the sixth meeting of the Walla² Fly Fishers. This meeting was preceded by the camaraderie of our Dutch Treat buffet dinner with a dozen fellow fly casters sharing the meal, and their fishing stories. There is something special about sharing this time of feasting and relaxation with those of a common bond… the fly, the rod, the waters, and fishing.
... tis not all of fishing to fish - Izaak Walton (1653)

Will you join us?

As the seven o’clock hour approached, we had more and more fellow fly fishers joining us in the banquet room of the China Buffet. When President Scott Peters called the meeting to order we had 24 members and guests present. Scott made several announcements concerning the club and our progress of organization and the pending “reward” of a fly rod from the FFF for our growth in membership. In Scott’s presentation he pointed out that we had to choose between two (2) rods from the Federation at this point in time. These rods are from the Lefty Kreh’s TiCR X Rod Series – a TFO 5904TX (9’ 4 pc 5 wt) -or- a
TFO 08904TX (9’ 4 pc 8 wt). It was discussed that instead of ordering either rod from the Federation, that we would hold another rod raffle (details to be announced) for one of these rods and the winner of that raffle would have her/his option of picking the rod of their choice for their individual fly fishing needs. Scott pointed out that since the Walla² Fly Fishers is a FFF Charter Club, (meaning all Walla² Fly Fishers members are also Federation of Fly Fishers members) that this rod raffle would be opened to card carrying FFF members only. We will be selling raffle tickets for this FFF rod at our January 13th and our February meetings. The drawing will be held at our February 10th meeting.

The fly donation boxes were passed around, door prize tickets were passed out, and more raffle tickets were sold for the Orvis rod and reel combo - to be drawn for this same evening.

Before the meeting’s program of several fly tying round-tables were setup we held the door prize drawing and Diane Briggs won the fly box of her choice.

Thereafter the 24 fly fishers present sit with Diane, Max, and Scott, their fly tying vises, and went about tying flies for the evening.

We hope from that evening of hands-on fly tying and demonstrations, to organize a group of fly fishers that will be interested in forming a 2010 fly tying winter workshop. In the formation of a club's fly tying group we hope to share in the camaraderie, and learning process of our fly fishing sport, together and with interested others.

After our fly tying session the final call was made for the Orvis rod/reel raffle and all 100 tickets were sold. Thank You, everyone for your ticket(s) purchase and support of our club.


And the winner is…


Tyson Kopfer, a new Walla² Fly Fishers member with this being his first meeting attended. This made Tyson quite a happy winner.

Congratulations Tyson, you will have quite a few envious club members to sit with at our next meeting.

A very big Thank YOU goes out to our club's Co-President Skip Pritchard for his donation of this Orvis rod and reel combo. This will certainly give our club a great financial foundation to operate with.

After the evening's fly tying demo and practice, the Orvis rod/reel raffle winning; the meeting was adjourned to everyone's individual fly tying bench. In that process of moving things along, we did not have the second evening's fly box raffle. That box of flies will be raffled at our Wednesday January 13th meeting.

Respectfully submitted,
Dale McKain
Club 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

November's meeting of the Walla² Fly Fishers

This evening the Walla² Fly Fishers came together for our fifth club meeting. Prior to our business meeting we had 12 members and guest share their Dutch Treat evening meal together at the China Buffet. During this time we had the opportunity to share fishing experiences and a further chance to get to know one another. These pre-meeting dinners are a great time of coming together to just talk fly fishing without a business agenda to deal with.

It was about
7 o'clock that President Scott Peters, showed up to greet everyone, put the evening fly boxes together, and call our meeting to order. The fly box door prize tickets were passed out to everyone, Co-Pres. Skip Pritchard put together the Orvis Clearwater II 8 1/2' 5wt. (Mid-flex) rod, and the reel to go with it is an Orvis Battenkill Barstock III spooled with 5wt line + backing, This combo is begin raffled off during our November and December club meetings. The raffle is limited to 100 tickets to be sold at $5 apiece.

Scott, started the club business proceedings by announcing that we were looking for a club Treasurer, and no one at that point in time had stepped forward to seek that position, even after a few email nominations had been made. After some discussion and consideration Barry Gould, quietly mentioned to Dan Grinstead that he might consider the job, this mention was overheard... he was then nominated, it was seconded and Barry was elected to the position of club Treasurer. Thank you Barry.

Next point that Scott addressed was the email survey that Secretary Dale McKain had sent to all members' email concerning club organizations, functions, and activities. From this survey there were some concerns about our membership dues requirement, local and Federation of Fly Fishers (FFF). Scott went on to explain that the club needed funding for local concerns/activities and we as a public organization needed the umbrella of the FFF for organizational guidance, the opportunity for our membership to participate in the fly fishing functions of the big FFF picture (state - Washington/Oregon and national/international), and legal liability protection.
A SIDEBAR NOTE: So this is why there are dues to pay... In the past few days Dale has received from the FFF a letter of concern dealing with club liability insurance. The quote for this group insurance coverage through the FFF is $197/ year, this is an example why we need membership dues, meeting fly raffle ticket sales, and by Skip's generosity the new Orvis rod and reel combo that he donated to the club. We will also be getting into some fun stuff with the money raised, but for right now we are trying to get the club heading in the right direction, and taking care of organizational needs, and expenses. After all $15 annual local club membership dues is less than some people will spend in a week for a well brewed cup of coffee each day.
Our club members might also consider, that if you win just one of our evenings’ fly box raffle or receive one of the door prizes, you will recover much more in the value of one of the fly boxes w/flies, than the annual $15 membership dues. There are some nice flies going into each of the boxes.

After the short business discussion, we had the drawing for the door prize – fly box w/flies – this was won by Barry Gould.
Thank you everyone for your fly donation.

Our meeting this evening had 24 club members and guest in attendance.

After the fly box give away, and the Orvis rod and reel was passed around, the evening's program was a Round Table discussion with Q&A concerning how to catch a steelhead. Our planned evening speaker was unable to attend this meeting, so we brought forth the question that Diane raised by email this past week...

How do I catch a steelhead?

This evening we had a number of steelheaders present, so there was a good volley of points made as most of the successful steelheaders spilled their guts on how they went about finding, hooking, catching, sea run steelhead, in the local waters of southeast WA and northeast OR.
There was pointed out some steelheader's how to's:
read steelhead holding waters, make different types of rod, line, fly presentations, realize the strike, set the hook, play the fish. Some of the winter steelhead flies patterns mentioned were Purple and Black Egg Sucking Leech, Bitch Creek, Rubber leg Copper John. The general Rule of Thumb for steelhead flies is -- cloudy days use a dark fly, sunny days use a colorful/flashy fly. This writer thinks that Diane had most of her questions answered, hopefully we did not overload her with too much info to help her catch her first steelhead, on the fly. Thank you everyone that made comments and offered tips concerning their experience with steelhead fishing.

The above steelhead pictures furnished by club members
Tom and Doug
from their Thursday 11/12 morning outing.

As this discussion came to an end, Scott made a final call for ticket sales for the fly box w/flies that was being raffled off for the evening, and Skip made a final call for the Orvis rod / reel combo being raffled. Ed Chesnut won the fly box raffle this evening, and Skip announced that 55 tickets of the only 100 tickets available for the rod / reel combo had been sold this evening.

A little before 9 o'clock p.m. this meeting was adjourned, and we are talking steelheading for the rest of the year, as we went out the door.

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