Trout Lines Banquet A lert!! P resident s Corner James Belden Speakers Forum Jerry Rekart Page

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1 f Trout Lines Banquet Alert!! President s Corner James Belden This cold weather keeps us from wetting a line and only dreams of a tight line, and fanciful stories where last year's fish grow bigger every time, are what keep us going. Perhaps the lucky few are good enough to tie recognizable flies in preparation for a new season, but as TU members we all share a responsibility this time of year. This time is critical for raising the funds needed to continue our projects and activities for the rest of the year. Members have worked feverishly to apply for grants over the winter for specific projects and now we have our single most important chapter fundraising event, the Annual Banquet. The good news is that we make it fun. For a small price you, and others, can enjoy an evening of cocktails and dinner among friends. Of course there are also the prizes, silent auction and live auction items. There are a variety of items and this way you donate to the chapter while getting something valuable in return. We will have many fishing related items in addition to everything from event tickets and gift certificates to artwork. March 23 is the date, time is running out, so please buy tickets, sell tickets and/or donate something as soon as possible. All tickets must be sold in advance. Our chapter embarked on a new program in 2006 installing five Trout in the Classroom (TIC) systems in area schools. With continued fundraising, such as the banquet, we plan on doubling that to ten or more in This program is impact full and helps convey to children the value and beauty of live trout and their need for clean cold water. I encourage everyone to learn more about it, volunteer if possible and to search out teachers in local schools who may be interested in participating. Our TIC coordinator, Jerry Rekart, is doing a great job, but could really use more people to help out and get these systems up and running. If you have a school-age child ask their teachers, or the PTA, if they could add this to their curriculum. More info on TIC can be obtained on the site or through Jerry. March 13th Meeting We will meet at the Miry Brook Firehouse south of the airport in Danbury at 7:00 PM. We should have a fly-tying session, coffee and snacks at 6:30 PM with the meeting starting at 7:30 PM. Speakers Forum Jerry Rekart In February, we had a visit from Rick Jacobson, the Assistant Director of the Inland Fisheries Division of the CT DEP. He briefed us on the proposed Fishing License requirements presently before the Legislature. In February, our guest speaker will be Bill Hyatt, the Director of the Inland Fisheries division of the CT DEP. For the past several years, we have been fortunate to have Bill address one of our meetings. It is an excellent opportunity to have him bring us up to date on the recent happenings at the DEP and in CT conservation that directly affect us. It also gives us an opportunity to be briefed on the upcoming programs and issues that the DEP will be concerned with as the year progresses. Bill always has an interesting and informative presentation. Make sure you attend to be informed on DEP happenings and take advantage of the Q & A to follow. Page 1

2 CANDLEWOOD VALLEY CHAPTER TROUT UNLIMITED ANNUAL BANQUET AUCTIONS, RAFFLE PRIZES FOOD, DRINK AND FUN FOR ALL! FRIDAY, MARCH 23, :30pm THE STONY HILL INN Route 6, Bethel, CT COST: $35.00 PER PERSON TICKETS AVAILABLE AT CHAPTER MEETINGS OR THE VALLEY ANGLER OR CALL James Belden at (203) ( (TICKETS IN ADVANCE ONLY, WILL NOT BE SOLD AT THE DOOR) Page 2

3 SS Trout Lines TROUT IN THE CLASSROOM Jerry Rekart & Gary Whipple We will take some time at the Annual Banquet on March 23 rd to inform our members about the Trout in the Classroom program. We have invited teachers, students and parents to the banquet and hopefully we can get some further insight from them. The staff at Whisconier Middle School in Brookfield has developed two Power-Point presentations. One will be used to introduce the program to the public (Lions, Rotary, PTA, Chamber of Commerce, etc) and request funding. The other presentation will introduce teachers to the program and give them an idea of what is expected of them as program participants. The staff at Anna Rockwell is preparing a video showing the interaction of the students with the project. We are presently searching for DEP approved streams in the vicinity of the school to release the fingerlings. This will be done after ice-out and when there is readily available food in the streams, probably April. The hunt for funding is also in progress, so if any of you know of any corporate or private fund available please let us know. Also, any one associated with a Lion, Rotary, PTA, Chamber of Commerce or other club or organization that funds programs like Trout in the Classroom please talk to Jerry Rekart. ( ). Deep Brook/Pootatuck Conservation Projects James Belden Our plans are coming together for some significant projects on Deep Brook. We currently have several grants submitted for restoration work and water quality sampling work. Our chances are looking good that we will be successful and our projects will go ahead this year in continuation of our overall watershed improvement strategy for Deep Brook and the Pootatuck River. A focal point will be a very large and visible project in Newtown's Dickinson Park where we will restore nearly 2,000 feet of stream, riparian buffer and associated wetlands on upper Deep Brook. Another will be a storm water quality sampling, additional thermal monitoring and extended macro invertebrate sampling program in the Wild Trout Management Area and upper Deep Brook. Page 3

4 Trout Lines 2006/2007 EVENT CALENDER DATE DAY TIME EVENT LOCALE INFORMATION Sept. 09 Sat 8:30-3:00 Microinvertibrate sampling Newtown Water Treatment Hovious Sept.12 Tues 7:00 PM CVTU Monthly Meeting Miry Brook Fire House Capt. Bob Turley, Speaker Sep18-21 M-T 3-Sep E.Aspetuck Stream Restoration Pratt Ctr. New Milford Peterson Sep F-S-S Ausable Trip Whipple Oct.10 Tues 7:00 PM CVTU Monthly Meeting Miry Brook Fire House Mike Goodwin, Speaker Oct.24 Tues Newtown P & R Comm. Belden Oct. 25 Wed CT TU State Council Meeteng Hovious Oct. 25 Wed. NW Conservation Dist. Annual Mtg. Belden Nov. 2 Thurs all day Connequot State Park, LI NY Trip Whipple Nov. 15 Tues PWA Board Meeting Hovious Nov. 14 Tues 7:00 PM CVTU Monthly Meeting Miry Brook Fire House Mike Tougias, Speaker Nov. 23 Thurs. Happy Thanksgiving Nov. 28 Tues Newtown Rams Pasture Mtg. Belden Nov. 30 Thurs NRCS WHIP Submitted Belden Dec. 1 Fri. Natives Grant subm. to F&W Found. Dec. 1 Fri. Pratt Center Banquet & Auction Candlewoo Lake Inn Peterson Dec. 12 Tues 7:00 PM PWA Board Meeting Hovious Dec. 12 Tues 7:00 PM CVTU Monthly Meeting Miry Brook Fire House Frank Plona, Speaker Dec.18 Mon EAS Grant Deadline Belden Dec.25 Merry Christmas Jan. 9 Tues. 7:00 PM CVTU Monthly Meeting Miry Brook Fire House Jerry Bannock Feb. 13 Tues. 7:00 PM CVTU Monthly Meeting Miry Brook Fire House Dr. Marc Taylor Feb. 17 Sat 9AM-3PM All CT TU Day Yale School of Forestry Rekart Mar. 13 Tues. 7:00 PM CVTU Monthly Meeting Miry Brook Fire House Bill Hyatt - CT DEP Mar. 23 Fri. 6:30 PM CVTU Annual Banquet Stonyhill Inn - Bethel Belden Apr.10 Tues. 7:00 PM CVTU Monthly Meeting Miry Brook Fire House Hoagy Carmichael Jr. May. 8 Tues. 7:00 PM CVTU Monthly Meeting Miry Brook Fire House Casting & tying clinic - PIZZA May17-20 T-S PA Rocco Rosamilia Lodge Whipple Jun. 4-8 TBA TBA PA - Green Drake hatch Rocco Rosamilia Lodge Whipple Jun F-S Cape Cod - Stripers Whipple July TBA TBA CT River headwaters Lopstick Lodge, NH Whipple Sept TBA TBA Ausable river Hungry Trout Whipple Nov TBA TBA Connecquot River Long Island, NY Whipple Fishing trips are dependent on membership participation. Contact Whipple as soon as you can commit!!!! Contact Jerry Rekart with any additions or corrctions to the calendar. Rekart Page 4

5 CVTU Sponsored Trips Gary Whipple A near final trip calendar for 2007 is posted on the forum, and reproduced below for those of you who do not use the internet. (Also, see the Event Calendar on the previous page ed.) May Trip to central PA to fish with Keystone Anglers. Weekend of May 19. Max of 9 people. Guides available. June 1,2,3 Trip to Fish Westfield River with FVTU. No Massachusetts license required. $35 fee to FVTU. Camping overnight. June Trip to central PA to fish Green Drake hatch with Rocco Rosamilia weekdays between Jun 2/3 and 9/10 ; max of 9 roomers and 6 guided fishermen. June Striper Fishing on Cape Cod weekend of June 16 (Note: there is an Elks Convention on Cape Cod the weekend prior, when we would normally have gone). Make your own reservations by the end of March against a block of 8 rooms at the Green Harbor. Rooms are $142 per night for two people on the weekend; extra weeknights are $94 per room for two people. July (weekend to be determined) fishing on Connecticut River headwaters in northern NH; make your own reservation against a block of rooms at Lopstick Lodge in the name of CVTU. September 29 Ausable River Trip. Make your own reservations by (deadline to be determined) against a block of rooms at the Hungry Trout in the name of CVTU. November Connetquot State Park Outing first Thursday in November. There are two remaining trips still to be defined. First, Nutmeg chapter will be sponsoring a trip to the Catskills in late May or early June, and our members will be invited; details will be announced when I find out what is happening. Second, I am arranging a July trip to fish the headwaters of the Connecticut River, but I do not yet have a date to announce. We will continue signing people up for trips at the March chapter meeting. Deposits of $40 will be required to hold your spot on either of the central Pennsylvania trips because the number of attendees on each trip is limited to 9. When you register, please be prepared to tell me if you wish a guide on Friday, Saturday, and/ or Sunday on the May and June Pennsylvania trips. Rocco is currently doing some guide scheduling for the week of June 4-8 (the green drake hatch trip), and we will set the exact fishing dates that week shortly. If you wish to sign up for a trip, and will not be at the February meeting, please mail your deposit check and reservation note (include your name, telephone number, an address, which trip you are signing up for, and guide desires) to Gary Whipple at 121 Route 37, New Fairfield, CT Check the forum periodically for updates, and if you have any questions, private message or Gary Whipple. Page 5

6 Bitten by the fly bug By Stephen Zakur Last year at the annual TU banquet, many items beckoned to me from the silent auction tables. Perhaps the most alluring of the sparkly morsels was a box of flies tied by Bob Wysocki. In a clear Mill Stream box were a collection of beautifully tied and arranged nymphs, dries and streamers. They re still sitting in the fly box in which I bought them. That box sits on my desk and I admire them during long, boring conference calls. They connect me to the river when I cannot be there. I hope Bob doesn t mind too much that they re not out catching fish. I ve always admired a well-tied fly even though I often bought cheap imported ones online. These flies were often less than satisfying aesthetically but the fish didn t seem to mind. I caught my share of trout on these demented flies and was happy. Cheap flies populated my fly box. I occasionally would pick up local variants at streamside shops. These beauties have a special charm. Not only where they strangely familiar yet subtly foreign the Angry Jake comes to mind as an example but they usually had a special craftsmanship to them that you wouldn t find on cheaper, standard flies. I remember a particular fly, a Prince Nymph, which I picked up at a fly shop in Coburn, PA on my way to fish Penn s Creek. The tail was tied with a much yellower biot than those of the standard recipe. Clearly it was a local variant tied with great skill. It caught fish that day and caught fish in Connecticut as well until it ended up in a tree. The past fall I began to get antsy. I wasn t able to spend as much time on the water as I had in the past. The demands of family and work filled the daylight hours and night fishing just isn t for me. My lovely wife provided a welcome respite from the fishing blues by purchasing a fly tying kit for my birthday. The kit had all the basic elements one would want and a very good book had me wading through the lessons at a blazing speed. My first fly was an Olive Wooly Bugger that was a reasonable facsimile of the real thing. It was good enough to trick a Brown Trout over on the Pootatuck River. I followed that up by tying some Pheasant Tail and Hare s Ear nymphs. While my first Hare s Ear resembled one of those lint balls that seem to accumulate in the pockets of my blue jeans, it too caught a small trout (perhaps because larger ones saw it for what it was) serving its purpose well. I stopped by a local shop after experimenting with the various materials in the kit to see what other items might be available. This shop had a no materials stocked, but they did have about twenty boxes of material they had picked up from an estate sale. I was stunned to see so much fly tying material. Who could possibly need so much of so many different varieties? But then again, it s not really about need, is it? I ve since found all manner of recipes that intrigue me. Of course, each new recipe requires the purchase of new materials. I ve discovered soft hackles more partridge if you please except that I just read about Starling so maybe I should pick-up some of that too. I also discovered Chartreuse thread. Great stuff! And that clear midge tubing. And flashabou. And rubber legs. And 8/0 thread. And all sorts of wire. So now I have a tying bench set-up semi-permanently next to where I work in the evening. I also have a steady stream of boxes arriving from around the country with various and sundry new materials to attach to fine hooks for the purpose of tricking fish. My visits to Upcountry are more often to the walls of materials than to the bins of flies. Another madness begins. I ll be tying my own from now on. Sure I ll buy a few when I need to copy a pattern or haven t had time to spend at the vise, but my goal is to attain at least half of the skill that guys like Bob have achieved. Perhaps in a number of years, and I m hoping that number is great, another younger man will walk into a fly shop and wonder with amazement how anyone could possibly require all the boxes of materials that are passed from my estate. Page 6

7 BIG SKY Montana Chuck Rich Last July 30th my brother and I departed LGA La Guardia airport at 6:20AM, changed planes in Minneapolis, and landed in Bozeman, MT before 10:30AM MDT. After stopping for lunch, checking in with the East Slope Angler fly shop with whom we had booked our guides, checking into our hotel and changing, we were fishing by 2:00PM Located in the Southwest area of Montana, Bozeman sits on the banks of the East Gallatin River, only 80 miles from the entrance to Yellowstone National Park. Bozeman a college town, home to Montana State University with its 12,000 students, has many and varied stores and eating establishments, everything from McDonald s to the Montana Ale Works. A short ride up I-90 in Manhattan, MT is Sir Scott s Oasis, well worth the trip for excellent Prime Rib at a reasonable price. Big Sky, a developing upscale ski resort, is located about 40 mile south of Gallatin Airport off of RT-191 half way between Bozeman and Yellowstone Park. The area has numerous condo units for rent with full kitchens and grocery stores if you want to save on eating out. There are also campgrounds in the Gallatin National Forest along with the usual motels. Heading south out of the Bozeman Area RT-191 parallels the Gallatin River providing very easy fishing access through numerous, well marked turnouts. This gorgeous river, more like a big creek, has conditions varying from lush meadow in Yellowstone Park to white water rapids in the canyon, to pasture land as you come out into the valley. In between, there are plenty or runs, glides, pools, and pocket water to keep any fly fisherman happy. The only drawback, the trout average only 10 to 12 inches but the setting and easy access more than compensate. In general fish this river before 10:00 AM and after 6:00PM. If the salmon fly hatch is on, the trout go wild for anything large and white between 8 and 9 PM as darkness falls. The Gallatin by the way was the river where much of the film A River Runs Through It was filmed. We took two guided trips the week we were out there. Not having fished the area before we let our guides choose the water and both days they suggested the Madison. The Madison is what comes to my mind when I think of a western river, wide and scenic. The first day we waded above Lyons Bridge in the area where fishing from a boat is not permitted. The river here has a reasonably steep gradient and caution should be exercised when wading. We managed to catch nice rainbows and browns in the 18 to 20 inch range. I recommend a guide at least your first time. The next day we floated father down the river, casting hoppers to the bank and nymphing from stern of the boat. The Madison is about an hour and fifteen-minute drive from Big Sky over good roads with plenty of access once you reach the river. On the forth day of our trip, we drove through Yellowstone N.P. to Slough Creek (pronounced Sloo), a tributary of the Lamar which is itself a tributary of the Yellowstone. Halfway from the main road to the campground is a parking lot and the start of the trail up to the meadows. First Meadow is about a 45-minute hike the first part of which is fairly steep although the trail is well groomed. Our destination was the Second Meadow another 2 hours further. The terrain between First and Second Meadow is relatively flat and while long, the walk is easy and pleasant, keeping in mind that the elevation is well over 5,000 feet. For footwear, I recommend something suitable for wet wading and comfortable for walking. I had no trouble with my wading boots and neoprene booties. Waders are unnecessary. The Second Meadow is a beautiful alpine meadow with the stream meandering through it. A number of people had set up wilderness campsites, which looked idyllic, although I might be concerned with the bears. Finding a run with some nice pockets I started casting a Madame X which the trout started attacking immediately. Nice, fat, Yellowstone, cutthroats with bright orange slashes under the jaw. In fairly short order I had caught 7 fish in the 16-inch class. A word of caution if you re planning to fish Slough Creek, at least the walk-in section, I strongly recommend you check with a local fly shop, such as Blue Ribbon Flies in West Yellowstone, MT. Note also that fishing inside Yellowstone N.P. requires a special permit, which ran $15.00 for three days. There are many other fishing opportunities in the Big Sky area including the Yellowstone River within an hour and a half to two hours. Page 7

8 Items for Sale: Bamboo Rod: 8 1/2', Jay Harvey-Jackson #7 1/4 D by Heddon, 3pc/2tips, 5wt. moderate action, green wraps with gold trim, bright nickel silver ferrules, Heddon nickel/silver/bakelite reel seat. Comes with replacement bag and original paper covered aluminum rod tube. Rod is the same quality level as a Heddon #20. Has one agate tip top, and agate stripping guide. Very good condition $250 Call Doug at or cdflyfish@att.net Send me an (tony.mortimer@cvtu.org) or see me at a meeting for any items you want to sell or swap and I ll list them in the newsletter. Advertisements Salty Flies Charters (an Orvis endorsed fly fishing guide with 25 years experience fishing Long Island Sound) has a Custom 23 boat out of Rowayton, CT ( captkoop@saltyflies.com) North Coast Charters an Orvis endorsed fly fishing guide Fishing CT, NY a& Southern RI Capt. Bob Turley Old Saybrook, CT English Angling Trappings at Angler s Den 11 MEast Main S. Pawling, NY Page 8

9 Our chapter meetings are held September through May on the second Tuesday of each month starting around 6:30 PM for snacks and coffee (and usually some fly tying) with the meeting starting at 7:30. The meetings are open to all members and nonmembers. Come over and see what we re about, we d like to meet you. A Spawning Brown in our local stream Visit our web site for copies of newsletters, interactive member forum, trout fishing links and much more: This newsletter is for you, our members. Let me know how we can improve it or make it more useful to you. And think about dropping me a note with some content, items for sale, stories, etc. It makes it more interesting to all of us! Tony Mortimer Tony.Mortimer@cvtu.org Candlewood Valley Chapter Trout Unimited Board of Directors James Belden President Tony Mortimer Newsletter Editor James.Belden@cvtu.org Tony.Mortimer@cvtu.org Jerry Rekart Vice President & Programs Joe Hovious Conservation Jerry.Rekart@cvtu.org Joe.Hovious@cvtu.org Chuck Rich Treasurer & Membership Gary Whipple Trips Chuck.Rich@cvtu.org Gary.Whipple@cvtu.org Steve Zakur Webmaster Doug Peterson Grants & Gov't Affairs Steve.Zakur@cvtu.org Doug.Peterson@cvtu.org Joe McGowan Facilities/Setup Jonathan Atherton Secretary joseph_mc_gowan@sbcglobal.net Jonathan.Atherton@cvtu.org Page 9

10 Candlewood Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited P.O. Box 3795 Danbury, Ct First Class Postage Stamp Address Label Page 10