Don’t jerk on the steelhead.

This evening we had 10 members and our guest speaker to turnout for this first scheduled autumn meeting of the Walla² Fly Fishers.

After dinner without introduction our guest speaker Dave Karl, fishery biologist with WDFW, told us of his lastest fishing adventure in Montana, which got everyone casting arm ready for his evening's presentation. This evening Dave told us a little of the fishery recovery plans for Mill Creek which runs through the city center of Walla Walla. You may have read about this project in the Sunday 18 September Union-Bulletin. Dave is very involved with this program and told us of the WDFW and CTUIR hopes of seeing steelhead and salmon again running through Walla Walla's City Center in harvestable numbers.

Not only is Dave a fishery biologist, but he is also an avid steelhead chaser with flies and rod in hand. His knowledge of the small mouth bass, salmon and steelhead fishery of eastern Washington, western Idaho, and northeast Oregon makes him a most valued info source for all anglers of our area.

This evening the jest of Dave’s discussion was detailing steelhead fishing in the above mentioned areas. He discussed the timing, places and flies of his choice for fishing Idaho’s Clearwater, Lochsa, Selway, rivers; Washington’s Grande Ronde, Columbia, Klickitat, Touchet, Tucannon, Walla Walla rivers; and Oregon’s Grande Ronde, John Day, Deschutes rivers. Dave discussion gave us about 2 hours of his many years of steelhead fishing experience, which is more than can be reported here. Below is a table of highlights of this evening’s discussion…

River	Timing	Flies – size #2 hook	Gen. Location
Clearwater	Sept – Nov	Kaufmann / other's fly patterns	Nez Perce Indian Reservation
Columbia	Oct – Nov	Egg Sucking Leech	Ringold area
Klickatat	Sept - Oct	Kaufmann / other's fly patterns	through The Canyon
Grande Ronde (WA)	Oct – Nov Dec - Jan	Green Butt Skunk, Muddler Minnow, Leeches (in winter)	Boggan’s to Shumaker and Stateline / Big Bend area
Lower Walla Walla ------------ Upper Walla Walla	Sept – Dec ---------- Dec - March	Kaufmann / other's fly patterns – Leeches – egg patterns	below Stateline Rd ---------- above Stateline Rd
Lower Touchet ------------- Upper Touchet	mid-November --------------- Jan - March	Leeches – red and orange egg pattern w/skein – shrimp	Lamar to Lukenbill Rd ------------------- Upstream of Lewis and Clark Park
Grande Ronde (OR)	late Oct – Nov - Jan	Dry flies - Leeches	OR-WA stateline to Troy

Since steelhead are anadromous, the above dates are traditional, and it is best to have a fishing contact/source of info to determine the best time to be on the water in your quest for steelies.

These are some quick reference links that might help with your steelhead chasing…

http://www.flyfishusa.com/flies/stl-wet-other-f-o.html

http://www.fun4u2do.com/Fishing-ClearwaterRiver.html

http://www.flyfishusa.com/adventure-trips/klickitat/klickitat-river.htm

http://www.gofishn.com/content/columbia-river-vantage-to-tri-cities-benton-county-washington

http://www.fun4u2do.com/Fishing-GrandeRonde.html

http://www.theflyfishingplace.com/Grande_Ronde_River.html

Another very helpful information source is the US Army Corp of Engineers / DART website for adult fish passage through the Columbia River drainage / dam(s) system. If steelies are not in the stretch of water you wish to fish, you might as well keep tying flies.

http://www.cbr.washington.edu/dart/adult_species_sum.html

Also discussed this evening was tactics and techniques for finding, and hooking steelhead. Since steelhead are anadromous, one technique does not fit all. From the time these fish leave salt water, until the end of steelhead fishing season -April 15th- in most reaches of our area, the angler has to adapt to all fishing conditions along the way. Weather and light conditions can change the "playing field" rules on a daily or hourly basis. One major trick to hooking and landing a steelhead is don't jerk on the steelie. This is easier said, than done... stay calm, let the fish take the fly, do not raise your rod tip to the sky to set the hook; wait until your reel is screaming "fish on" before setting your hook.

We wish to again thank Dave for his most informative presentation of this evening. Dave is truly a most valuable individual / WDFW asset for all the fishing public of our area. Our meeting was adjourned at 8:50 pm, with several individuals reaping a few more bits of fishing details from Dave thereafter.

The next scheduled meeting of the Walla² Fly Fishers will be Wednesday, 12 October please mark your calendars.

Respectfully submitted,
Dale McKain
Secretary

Tight lines and good fishing.

Walla² Fly Fishers

Contact Us

Tight lines and good fishing.

Tyson Kopfer - President

Dr. Doug Coe - Treasurer

Dale McKain - Secretary

Past Presidents
Bob Long
Scott Peters

2011 Fly Fishing Fair at Waterbrook

Reported from notes taken, this year we had a beautiful day and a lot of fun at Waterbrook Winery and the 2011 Fly Fishing Fair. Again our group of Walla² Fly Fishers, found plenty of sunshine, fresh air, fly casting instruction, fly tying demonstrations / instructions and some really great foods.

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.

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.

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

Again this year we were privileged to have John Spain as our chef of the day with some more of his wonderful Dutch Oven cooking to please all that joined us for lunch.

After the days major activities and lunch, there was time to sit around and compare note and tell tales of tails for the balance of the afternoon.

With all said and done we wish to say Thank You Waterbrook Winery for again allowing the Walla² Fly Fishers to share your facilities, casting pond, patio, and tasting room to have a great day sharing fly fishing with the Walla Walla Valley.

As a final note of interest, we held our club raffle for an overnight guided fishing trip for two with Joe Rotter of Red's Fly Shop and the winner was Kirk Upton. Congratulations Kirk, and we hope you found lots of Tight Lines and good fishing in the Yakima River with Joe and his crew. Just over $450 was netted for the club from this raffle.

Respectfully submitted,
Dale McKain
Secretary

Tight lines and good fishing.

Walla² Fly Fishers

Contact Us

Tight lines and good fishing.

Tyson Kopfer - President

Dr. Doug Coe - Treasurer

Dale McKain - Secretary

Past Presidents
Bob Long
Scott Peters

Working with WDFW programs

This evening we had 18 members and our guest speaker to turnout for this last scheduled spring meeting of the Walla² Fly Fishers. President Tyson lead the discussion after dinner to address our 2011 Fly Fishing Fair being held on 11 June, the raffle tickets being sold between now and 11 June for an overnight fishing outing with Red's Fly Shop/Guide Service, on the Yakima River with lodging provided at Canyon River Ranch Lodge. Most members present at this meeting came away with some raffle tickets and they will be available at our 2011 Fly Fishing Fair.

In looking for activities for the club to become involved with once again Casting for Recovery was discussed. We are now looking for interested individuals that might wish to get involved with a local program.

Casting for Recovery was founded in 1996 in Manchester, Vermont, the unique brainchild of a breast cancer reconstructive surgeon and a professional fly fisher. It began as a local grassroots group with a big heart and an original national vision, and quickly received endorsements from medical and psycho-social experts for its innovative healing program model while at the same time provoking intense interest by national media.

Casting for Recovery was founded on the principles that the natural world is a healing force and that cancer survivors deserve one weekend — free of charge and free of the stresses from medical treatment, home, or workplace — to experience something new and challenging while enjoying beautiful surroundings within an intimate, safe, and nurturing structure. Anyone here wish to join this cause with your fly rod in hand?

Following our business discussions we had Glen Mende from WDFW as our guest speaker for the evening. Glen's presentation this evening was a discussion of the fishery habitat and the fish stocking programs across eastern Washington and particularly that of southeast WA. He discussed the need of some volunteer help with some of the WDFW programs for enhancement and recovery of some area fisheries.

Glen discussed Infectious Haematopoietic Necrosis (IHN) that has become a real problem in the southeast WA hatchery programs. This disease has caused a lot of trouble in the Tucannon River system and hatchery program there.

He also discussed the invasive aquatic species that have invaded our area waters and are currently damaging our native fish populations and causing havoc with different water and irrigation systems of the area.

Glen also talked about the possible steelhead run of 2011 saying that it is thought that this year's run will be larger than the 2010 run. He says that the propose steelhead harvest of SE Washington for 2011 will be 25,000.

Discussing some fishery and habitat project that our club could consider becoming involve with Glen suggested joining forces with the Tri-State Steelheaders, Walla Walla Conservation District, WDFW Bull trout spawning surveys, USFWS / ODFW / CTUIR brook trout projects.

Glen we wish to Thank You again for joining us this evening and giving us some ideas of how the Walla² Fly Fishers might have an impact on the fishery and habitat improvement of our area.

Our next gathering which is also open to the interested fly fishing public will be our third annual 2011 Fly Fishing Fair at Waterbrook Winery. Please mark your calendars for Saturday 11 June for this fly fishing event and a free dutch oven luncheon. Activities began at 11:00 a.m and include fly casting instructions (fly rod are provided), fly tying demonstrations, a fly fishing trip raffle, guided fishing trips opportunities, etc.

Respectfully submitted,
Dale McKain
Secretary

Tight lines and good fishing.

Walla² Fly Fishers

Contact Us

Tight lines and good fishing.

Tyson Kopfer - President

Dr. Doug Coe - Treasurer

Dale McKain - Secretary

Fishing the Wallowa Country with Mac Huff

April 13th the Walla² Fly Fishers once again came together at Jacobi's Cafe in Walla Walla. This evening we had 20 members and guest in attendance. Our business meeting began at 7:00 pm with the following orders of business being discussed:

1) Reminder that the Walla² Fly Fishers 3rd Annual Fly Fishing Fair will be held this year at Waterbrook Winery off Old Hwy 12 west of Walla Walla on June 11th.

2) We’re still selling raffle tickets for the Red’s Fly Shop giveaway of a night at the lodge in the Yakima River canyon and a guided float for two down the river.

3) 2011 club membership dues are due $15/single ~~ $20/family and payable to the Walla² Fly Fishers. Please mail to our Treasurer Dr. Doug Coe at 1341 Lowell Drive Walla Walla, WA 99362
If you’re not a member of the Walla² Fly Fishers, please contact Doug Coe and he can assist you with membership and dues.

4) Dan Grinstead then gave a brief talk with a handout about the growing opposition to the construction of a permanent industrial corridor for over-sized loads headed to Alberta, Canada. The proposed route is Highway 12 through WA, OR, ID, and MT. The organization is All Against the Haul, and you can learn more at their website allagainstthehaul.org.

5) President Bob Long announced his pending re-location out of the Walla Walla area. Vice President Tyson Kopfer will now step into the position club President.
Hear, Hear, now is the time for all good Walla² Fly Fishers club members to consider stepping forward and throwing their hat into the ring for the position of club Vice President. Thank you.

After our business affairs were discussed, our guest speaker Mac Huff from Joseph, OR gave his presentation about the fishing opportunities in Wallowa County.

Mac discussed fishing from the highest fish-bearing lake in the state - Legore Lake - at 9,000 feet to the Snake River at 900 feet. Included in his presentation were the Minam, Grande Ronde, Wallowa, Lostine, Bear Cr. Sheep Cr. and Imnaha rivers and Wallowa Lake, with good trout fishing and the World Record Kokanee salmon.
He talked about talked about the fish distribution of the Wallowa, Imnaha, and Grande Ronde river drainages. The lower Grande Ronde has rainbows, small mouth bass, bull trout and steelhead, moving to higher elevation the bass disappear and bull trout become more prevalent.

Roughly above 6,000 feet bull trout are the most common species, unless they are in a water shed with brook trout, then there can be interbreeding (bad.) The Eagle Cap Wilderness lakes are "brook trout" lakes or "rainbow trout" lakes, depending on whether brook trout were planted there. If brooks were planted, then they dominate the lake.

Mac gave us an overview reminder of common invertebrates in our rivers and had pictures of stoneflies, caddis, October caddis nymphs, midges and 'hoppers.

Some of Mac's favorite ties for trout

and steelhead

He also talked about the season and confirmed that fish will bite in the rain, snow and ice - winter comes early to the Wallowa country and spring runoff is usually later in June. In you are interested in learning more about the fishing opportunities available in the Wallowa Country, please contact Mac at Eagle Cap Fishing Guides - http://www.eaglecapfishing.com/
Mac, Thank You once again for joining our group and refreshing our knowledge of the spectacular fly fishing opportunity available in your area.

NOTE: The Federation of Fly Fishers (FFF) was conceived along the banks of the Grande Ronde River just north of Troy, OR when a group of fly fishers from Eugene, OR felt the sport of fly fishing should be maintained and enhanced for as long as man can fish these rivers of NE Oregon and SE Washington.

Respectfully submitted,
Dale McKain
Secretary

Tight lines and good fishing.

Walla² Fly Fishers

Contact Us

Tight lines and good fishing.

Tyson Kopfer - President

Dr. Doug Coe - Treasurer

Dale McKain - Secretary