WEATHER

Well our weather is really in a change, it was in the low 30’s last night and now it will be going up to the middle 60’s. I understand that the water in Oatka Creek is in pretty good shape, not too colored from the falling leaves, maybe will get out early next week.

USGS Real-Time Water Data for FLINT CREEK AT PHELPS NY

Real-Time Water Data for  FLINT CREEK AT PHELPS NY.

ELECTION DAY

Well today we vote, make sure you get out and VOTE !!!

Weather here is crazy, yesterday we had a real hard frost and today it started raining. The leaves are stilling blowing all over, the Creeks are full of floating leaves.

I bought a Hip Pack and am not sure how to use it. Do you buckle it in front and when you want something in it you just pull it around so that stuff is now in front and the buckle is in the rear????

Mettawee River no-kill section

Mettawee River no-kill section

A group of anglers has asked the state Department of Environmental Conservation to create a no-kill section on the Mettawee River in Granville.

The hope would be that the DEC could extend the trout season on the section of the river with a special regulation. The season closed on the Mettawee on Oct. 15.

The proposal was made by angler Phil Kellogg, who said he asked the DEC to consider a stretch of river between Middle Granville (near the angler parking area on Route 22A) and Truthville.

“It’d be interesting to take a section of river that fly fishermen really like and extend the season,” he said.

He said this stretch of the river has a large amount of public access, is heavily stocked and also gets a lot of pressure from bait fishermen, who sometimes overfish it.

“It’s a shame to have such great holes and have bait fishermen wipe them out,” he said.

It could also serve to draw more anglers to the river in the fall and survive as an economic catalyst for the area, Kellogg said.

DEC senior aquatic biologist Emily Zollweg said the request was under review, but she needed to hear more angler support for the measure than she’s heard so far.

“I need to have discussion with more folks who fish that area to see if there is broad support for that,” Zollweg said. “It has to be widely supported.”

The DEC also likes to gauge the interest of the county Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs before making rules changes.

Kellogg said he believes there is sufficient support for such a change.

“If she (Zollweg) wants more of that (public comments), I can get more of that,” he said.

The DEC established a no-kill section on the Batten Kill several years ago. The four-mile no-kill section of the Batten Kill in New York is open to anglers year-round.

Anyone wishing to comment on the issue can call Zollweg at 518-623-1200.

PA State Fly Tying Championship

PA State Fly Tying Championship

The Cumberland Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited is once again sponsoring the Pennsylvania State Fly Tying Championship. It will be held at the Eastern Sports and Outdoors Show Farm Show Complex, Cameron Street, Harrisburg on February 13, 2010, starting at 10 am.

There are 3 Categories:

• Youth – Youngsters under sixteen years of age (must have been born on or after March 1, 1994)
• Amateur – Any fly tyer who has never tied for money or other substantial remuneration
• Open – Any fly tyer, professional or otherwise

Requires a $20 non-refundable entry fee to be submitted with the flies for pre-judging

Application forms rules and fly patterns can be found at the Cumberland Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited’s website at http://cvtu.homestead.com/ or at the Eastern Sports and Outdoors Show at http://www.easternsportsshow.com

Fly tyers must submit flies to be pre-judged in order to make it to the final competition. The top five (5) tyers from each category will be selected to participate in the finals. The top tyer in the open category will receive a cash prize based on the number Of entrants with $100 minimum guaranteed. Trophies will be awarded for Youth and Amateur categories.

All flies for entries must be mailed to:
CVTU Fly Tying Contest
PO Box 520
Carlisle, PA 17013

Prizes are supplied by the Eastern Sports
and Outdoors Show and Bass Pro Shops

Action Alert from Trout Unlimited

   October 23, 2009

Dear Supporter,

Take action online now and voice your support for extending the comment period on New York’s draft supplemental generic environmental impact statement (SGEIS) for gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale.

It is imperative that Trout Unlimited members and other sportsmen and women in New York are provided both the time and opportunity to adequately review and provide comments on the Draft SGEIS.

Why We Care
We need your support today because New York is currently only allowing the public 60 days to provide comments on the 800 page draft SGEIS that the state released on September 30th. Additionally, the state is only providing the opportunity for public hearings in four locations, we need your help to request additional hearings and locations to comment on this important document that will provide the framework for how the industry is allowed to drill for gas in and around our favorite hunting and fishing spots.
Drilling for gas in the Marcellus Shale has the potential to significantly impact New York’s treasured trout streams—one of our greatest public assets. These streams, and the lands surrounding them, provide fishing, hunting, and other recreational opportunities, support tourism, and provide an economic base for many rural communities.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

1. Please visit our online action center today to express your support for extending the public comment period from 60 to 120 days and for providing additional public hearings on the report.
2. Call Governor Paterson and Commissioner Grannis to tell them that you strongly support increasing the comment period on the draft SGEIS from 60 days to 120 days to allow the citizens of New York adequate time to analyze the 800 page document as well as adding additional public hearings on the draft SGEIS. Phone calls and personal letters are the most effective methods to voice your opinion in support of these requests.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions or for more information.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Maclin 
VP Eastern Conservation
Trout Unlimited
Ph. 703-284-9437
emaclin@tu.org

Ron Urban
Council Chair
New York State Council of Trout Unlimited

Central New York Fly Tying Symposium for kids

Saturday March 6th Central New York Fly Tying Symposium for kids We have decided on the date for the 2010 fly tying Symposium.  It will be March 6th Saturday, at the Radisson Convention Center Genesee Street in Utica NY. We will have exhibitors and seminars and just like last year, we will have free fly tying classes all day with the kids.  Currently we have a few fly tiers signed up for this coming years event, but we need more.  If you are interested, please email JP Ross to sign up.  Also email JP Ross if you are interested in having a booth.  Donations will be required to have a booth, no minimums.  Anyone tying flies will go home with free hooks and fly tying materials from two of our sponsors.  Mad River and Togen Enterprises.  Please consider supporting this event and attending.  Please pass the word.

‘Tying Catskill-Style Dry Flies’

With each year that goes by, the men and women who more or less invented American fly-fishing in the Catskill Mountains in the early 20th century fade a little further into the past.

Some of the rivers they fished and wrote about have been buried by reservoirs for half a century. And they flies they invented and perfected — like the phones they used and the cars they drove — have been supplanted by sleeker, more effective models.

But for those of us who love fly-fishing and fly-tying, the stories of the Dettes and the Darbees, the Hendrickson and the Quill Gordon still resonate. We see the black-and-white photos of them at their tying benches or on the stream with their rods, and the connection between what we do and what they did is a tight, straight line. Much has changed from then to now, but the game is the same.

A new book brings the era of the Catskills fly-tiers vividly to life. “Tying Catskill-Style Dry Flies” is a fresh look at the rivers, the fishing, the personalities and the history by Mike Valla of Stony Creek, N.Y.

“I think people that don’t pay attention to this history are missing out on a lot of the enjoyment of the sport,” said Valla, who enjoyed extraordinary access to the figures at the heart of Catskill fly-tying and fishing  through his close relationship with Walt and Winnie Dette. “I think it makes the sport more interesting to know the roots of it.”

In 1969, the 15-year-old Valla took a bus from his hometown of Binghamton to fish the Beaverkill. Winnie Dette, who had sold Valla flies earlier that day, sent Walt – by now already famous – to track Valla down on the river and make sure he didn’t miss the bus home.

“From that time forward,” Valla writes, “I stayed with the Dettes on many occasions, particularly during teenage and college summers. I fondly remember Winnie tucked in her fly-tying cubbie on the right side while Walt tied in his domain to her left. I usually squeezed in between them, intently watching Walt while persistently tugging at Winnie to talk about the famous Catskill fly-tiers.” Valla soaked up the banter in the Dettes’ fly shop, hanging out with luminaries like Art Flick. By the time he finished high school, he knew the Beaverkill  so well he was a little sick of it.

Valla’s book includes a fine survey of the Catskills streams – the Beaverkill River, Willowemoc Creek, Esopus Creek, Neversink River and Schoharie and West Kill creeks. Naturally, there is plenty of ink on Theodore Gordon, Flick, the Dettes and Harry and Elsie Darbee, but there are also entries on less-publicized but important fly-tiers, such as “tall, lean and coppery-skinned” Ray Smith, dean of the Esopus, and Louis Rhead, with his imaginative flies, suspect entomology and bizarre death.

“Tying Catskill-Style Dry Flies” is above all a fly-tying book, and tiers will love learning the details of how the masters plied their craft. Precisely what vises they used, what surgical instruments they used as hackle pliers, what color thread they used (you might be surprised), what they discovered when they dissected Rube Cross’s flies – this stuff is priceless. There are also a number of fascinating, rarely seen photos and documents from the American Museum of Fly Fishing and the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum.

“Tying Catskill-Style Dry Flies” also includes chapters on modern Catskill fly-tiers, whose flies sometimes seem unorthodox to the old-timers – but not to Valla. He loves making the traditional flies, but when he’s out for trout, he uses what works.

“If I’m on the flats on the East Branch of the Delaware, I’m not going to stick a Quill Gordon out there in June or July on a slick, gin-clear flat,” he said. “There’s plenty of times I’ll be on the river just fishing parachutes or Comparaduns.”

“When someone hands me a fly, and I see they’re taking fish and I’m not, I’ll take it,” he said with a laugh. “I’m not stupid.”

 
 

 

COLD WEATHER

Talk about cold early, it sure is cold outside now. I just heard that it snowed in Rochester, NY (just down the road from here) this AM and it was the earliest it had ever done that.

I would say it is a very good time to stay inside and tie flies,cause as they say “ the more you tie the better your flies” or at least I say that

VERMONT TRIP

I and my wife drove up to Manchester VT. for the long weekend, we did the tourist thing and looked at stores etc.

I figured I’d cast a few flies on the Battenkill on the NY State side on our way home, well low and behold when we got up Monday I had to spend about a half hour or so scraping the ice off the SUV. At that point I said no way am I going to stand in that cold water. On the way home we looked at the River and saw one guy FF and he had on a heavy wool cap and heavy wool gloves. I had no winter gear with me so home we came.

I did buy a new hip pack at a fly shop up in Middlebury its a Fishpond, I think I will like it when I get to try it