Riffle Talk. Rich Tosches. Table of Contents. Big Events Calendar! Dinner Meeting and Fundraiser. September 28th. Patty Jewett Golf Club

Transcription

1 Riffle Talk Free to Members of the Cheyenne Mountain Chapter of Trout Unlimited Volume 17, Issue 4 July 2002 Prez's Piece By Dan Snow, CMC-TU President After the Fire As you may remember, my last Prez s Piece both congratulated the chapter on last year s good work and prodded us to do better in the future. Boy do we have to do better in the future. The Hayman Fire has really done a number on our fisheries. Both small streams and the South Platte are adversely affected and there will be more than enough work for this chapter in the future. Currently the BAER (the Burn Area Emergency Restoration) team is evaluating what needs to be done. Erosion control is the current pressing need, and will continue to be a need through the monsoon season (I hope we have one!). Once erosion control is in place, in-stream recovery begins. This is a huge job. Think about all the little streams that flow into the South Platte in that area. Not only do all these streams dump ash and soil into the South Platte, but most of them had viable fisheries. continued page 2 Table of Contents Page President s Piece... 1 Projects Update... 2 Book Report... 4 September Dinner Meeting!... 1 Upcoming Programs... 4 Fly of the Month... 5 Mission Statement... 7 Remember!... 7 Big Events Calendar! Rich Tosches World Famous Humor Columnist for the Gazette will be the featured speaker at our Dinner Meeting and Fundraiser September 28th 6:00pm Cash Bar - 7:00pm Dinner Patty Jewett Golf Club Seating Limited to 100, send your check in NOW!!! This is can t miss event with a silent auction and raffle to benefit Your Local Chapter! $30 for one ticket or $55 for two. Includes a Prime Rib and Salmon dinner. Send check with names and number of guests to CMCTU, P. O. Box 458, Colo. Spgs., CO There will be an election of new Board Members. Several critical Board positions will be opening this September: Newsletter Editor This is a great, creative position. Fully automated process! Development This position is ideal for a natural fundraiser!

2 2 FISHING FOR A NEW HOME? DON T BE LURED BY UNSEASONED AGENTS. I WILL GUIDE YOU THROUGH THE BUYING AND SELLING PROCESS SO YOU WILL LAND A TROPHY HOME. LET ME TACKLE THE NEGOTIATIONS AND CATCH YOU THE BEST DEAL. President's Piece continued from page 1: And TU will play a big role in this effort. PROJECTS UPDATE TU Volunteers: No fish tales here. See Richard McCarty at McCarty4homes.com We are resuming the Cheesman Canyon Restoration project on July 28th. TU has been given permission to return to the canyon and do what we do. After the fires, one of the biggest problems is preventing erosion damage to these areas due to the coming monsoon season (or rain events like last Friday night). So our first few projects in the Canyon will probably focus on abating the fire damage with respect to erosion. When this is complete, we will start where we left off with the trail work. We are one of the few volunteer groups that has ever done this type of work. And the BAER is looking to us to supply some of the manpower needed. I look forward to working with you on the Hayman recovery effort in the future. TU is always involved in the protection and restoration of coldwater fisheries at all levels shaping legislature and regulations, etc. But the work in the field rolling rocks, moving logs and stuff like that has always been where the local chapters shine. And there should be a lot of that in our future. This is what we do the reason we exist. continued page 4 3 workdays earns you the "TU Volunteer 2002" T-shirt! JULY WORKDAYS - Sunday, July 28th Please RSVP as soon as possible. Fly tiers. Some of you have mentioned that you are not able to make it to our weekend volunteer events or that you are physically unable to do the strenuous work. We are encouraging our members to tie 3 dozen flies to donate to the chapter. This will count as 1 work day towards the t- shirt award. (6 dozen = 2 days, 9 dozen = t-shirt). (no san juan worms) Any number of donated flies would be greatly appreciated. If you are interested in participating in any projects, please call Pat Coady ( ) for further details.

3 3 Riffle Talk Published by the Cheyenne Mountain Chapter of Trout Unlimited Board of Directors 2001/2002 Home Work President: Dan Snow Treasurer: Barry Blackman Secretary: Nick Daley Membership: George Smith Development: Carl Roberts Newsletter: Scott Saunders Programs: Randy Sackewitz Projects: Pat Coady Publicity: John Pottle Special Events: Joe Szeles At Large: Bill Burd At Large: Allyn Kratz At Large: Richard Luce At Large: Ken Brown We solicit reader s contributions in the form of guest editorials, fly tier s corner, letters-to-the-editor, cartoons, jokes, etc. ALL materials are subject to editing. We prefer text submissions in any PC format on a 3.5 diskette, which will be returned. Photographs and other graphics should be of sufficient resolution and contrast that they can be printed as-is. The fastest way to contact the editor is by to rssriparian@adelphia.net. You can also send your contributions to: Riffle Talk Cheyenne Mountain Chapter, Trout Unlimited P.O. Box 458 Colorado Springs, CO Subscription Rates: Non-members of CMCTU can subscribe to "Riffle Talk" for $15.00/year. Please make your checks payable to Cheyenne Mountain Chapter, Trout Unlimited, and mail to the above address. Advertising Rates: TU Members: Advertise your used fishing equipment or other items in these pages; up to five lines, 5.00/issue ($1/additional line). Commercial Rates: Half Page $80/issue $385-6 issues Quarter Page $30/issue $150-6 issues Eighth Page $15/issue $80-6 issues Supporter Page $10/issue $50-6 issues DEADLINE for contributions and change of ads is the first of the month of the current newsletter printing. Riffle Talk is distributed in January, March, May, July, September, and November. Members receive postcards in alternate months. RIFFLE TALK is a non-profit publication of the Cheyenne Mountain Chapter of Trout Unlimited. Website:

4 4 BOOK REPORT Destination Trip Green River at Flaming Gorge The Green River below Flaming Gorge Dam is a premier tail water fishery located in the northeastern corner of Utah near the town of Dutch John. The Green, which heads in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming, is reborn as a trout fishery by the cold flows released from the Flaming Gorge Reservoir. The place, with its beautiful canyon in float section A, is aptly named and justly praised as a scenic area perhaps without compare in all of Utah. The float traffic during the summer confirms the fact that the fame of the area has spread well beyond Utah and is perhaps worldwide. The releases from the Bureau of Reclamation dam have a major impact on the fishing in the most popular float sections, A-from the dam to Little Hole and B-Little Hole to Indian Crossing. The requirement as a hydroelectric dam means that releases of water match Programs: Tuesday, July 7:00pm Retired Enlisted Association, 834 Emory Circle Dave Hulling and Jeff Douglas of Hulling's Tackle Pro Will speak about local opportunities that still exist given the drought and the fire. Dave and Jeff are real excited to get the message out that there still is good local fishing for trout and some other species despite the low water conditions. Tuesday, August 27th Fishing the Big Horn Big river tactics demand from Salt Lake City and the surrounding area. This is similar to the demand flows on other tail waters in Wyoming, Seminole and Grey Reef dams on the North Platte and Morrow Point dam in Colorado that affects the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Watching for increased flows within tight canyons should be on the mind of any fisherman who is wading in the above-mentioned waters. The fishing on the A section of the Green River is very similar to visiting an aquarium where large fish idle around in pools and the shallows tempting the float fisherman with their numbers and size. These trout are usually difficult to fish for and tend not to act in any normal trout-like manner. They see every kind of fly and lure during the summer season. These fish are more susceptible during the off-season with normal fly fishing tactics. Viewing large trout is not the same as catching large trout. The old adage about going large or very small holds true on the Green. It beggars the imagination to catch 22 plus trout on a #24 emerger, but, section A is precisely where this can and does happen. Other flies include: small >#18 Book Report continued page 5

5 Fly of the Month - Modified Emergent Sparkle Pupa 5 Let me say up front that I have Miserable luck with patterns designed by Gary LaFontaine. Most of his patterns are tied so, to put it lightly, differently, that I m never sure if I ve tied the fly correctly. I know they work (just ask Lou Martin) so it must be my tying. One of those patterns is the Emergent Sparkle Pupa, which imitates the caddis pupa in the surface film as it attempts to split its shuck. Its near universal acceptance shows its effectiveness on the stream, whereas my near universal failure with this pattern shows my ineffectiveness at the vice. Between the touch-dubbing and (in particular) the pupal shuck tied with a 360 degree overbody, I clearly wasn t doing something right. Then one day at the Angler s Covey I saw their version of this pattern. It was obviously not touchdubbed and the overbody was only over the top half of the fly. The thought here was probably that with the fish looking up, you don t need the full 3-D effect of the entire overbody. The top half is good enough. I bought a few and went to Elevenmile Canyon. There had been a lot of caddis activity and an Elk Hair Caddis was only picking up one out of every four or five rising fish. That first trip was great! Whenever I made a decent presentation I had a take. The next time I went, I tried some that I had tied (the real test for this column). They worked! Amazing. continued page 7 Book Report continued from page 4 midges and nymphs, # 20 black micro caddis, Mormon Crickets (in season), or the ubiquitous large black bugger. Section A is a place to try out new or unusual ties as their novelty may induce the odd strike. Section B is a whole different story. It gets less boat traffic due to it 35 mile one way trip to the Indian Crossing takeout. This section is primarily a large brown trout fishery. These fish are susceptible to normal fishing techniques and respond readily to PMDs, red ant patterns and large dry flies. Look for the usual brown hiding structure. A good cast here can have very satisfactory results. This section also includes the Book Report continued page 7

6 6 FRIENDS OF TROUT UNLIMITED CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN CHAPTER Support The Colorado Businesses That Support Us! 309 3rd Street AVAILABLE! YOUR CARD HERE!! Arrowhead Ranch South Park s Finest Fly Fishing! Private, Exclusive, Membership Only! Lodging, 4 Large Lakes and 7 miles of the South Fork of the South Platte River west of Hwy. 285! Scott & Lois Saunders (719) Hermosa Way Colorado Springs, CO rssriparian@adelphia.net cell: (719) AVAILABLE! YOUR CARD HERE!!

7 7 Mission Statement Cheyenne Mountain Chapter of Trout Unlimited The Cheyenne Mountain Chapter of Trout Unlimited strives to conserve, protect and restore cold-water fisheries, resources and their watersheds. THIS IS ITS SOLE MISSION. THESE GOALS ARE TROUT UNLIMITED S REASON FOR BEING! To achieve these goals, to participate in this mission, Members: 1. Support and promote fisheries and water-resource policies that further these goals. 2. Work actively on conservation projects, volunteering labor and expertise, often in cooperation with the U. S. Forest Service and Colorado Wildlife and conservation agencies. 3. Seek to influence the decisions of such agencies, as well as those of wildlife commissions, legislative committees, and elected officials in general. 4. Foster ethical and sensible conservation practices among users of the cold-water resource. 5. Attend the regular membership meetings of the Cheyenne Mountain Chapter of Trout Unlimited. 6. Elect to the Chapter s Board of Directors members who will provide direction and strong leadership. 7. Contribute financially to build and maintain the Chapter s fiscal stability. Fly of the Month - continued from page 5 Modified Emergent Sparkle Pupa Tying instructions: Overbody: Sparkle Yarn Underbody: Dubbed Antron or Haretron Wing : Deer or elk hair Head: dubbed Hare s Ear 1. tie in the sparkle yarn at the tail end of the hook 2. dub the underbody two-thirds of the shank length 3. Pull the overbody over the top loosely and tie down 4. Cut a few strands of the overbody so they form a trailing shuck 5. tie in a wing like an Elk Hair Caddis, only sparser 6. dub the head Using deer hair for the wing is more realistic, but the elk hair is easier to see. I m not saying that this style is as effective as the original (tied properly), but it does work and is easier to tie. Book Report continued from page 5 usually dangerous Red Creek Rapids as its one bad section. Red Creek, after a rain, is often responsible for discoloring the lower river with, what else, red mud. Check with the Flaming Gorge Lodge for lower river information. R. Luce <RLuce@rmeprise.com> Remember the September Dinner Meeting! Remember the Membership Meetings THE FORTH TUESDAY OF EVERY MONTH JANUARY THROUGH OCTOBER! Remember our Mission: The Cheyenne Mountain Chapter of Trout Unlimited strives to conserve, protect and restore cold-water fisheries, resources and their watersheds. Remember Each Other and that we share this planet together with the plants, animals and fishes! We are the earth s stewards!

8 Cheyenne Mountain Chapter Trout Unlimited P O Box 458 Colorado Springs, CO NON-PROFIT ORG. U. S. POSTAGE PAID Colo. Springs, CO Permit No. 202 Membership Meeting and Program Tuesday, July 23rd, The Retired Enlisted Assoc Emory Cir. - East of Murray & South of Galley - BIG BLDG. across from UPS! No Charge - Come early for a good seat, come All and bring the kids, too! Dave Hulling and Jeff Douglas of Hulling's Tackle Pro These experts will speak about local opportunities that still exist given the drought and the fire. Dave and Jeff are real excited to get the message out that there still is good local fishing for trout and other species despite the low water conditions. Tuesday, August 27th Fishing the Big Horn Big river tactics Remember to let us do your renewals for you!! Every Membership renewal that is sent in by the local Chapter results in a $5.00 rebate to the Chapter. It s that easy. Every step is the same except where you send your application and check. Send it to the Cheyenne Mtn. Chapter TU, P. O. Box 458, Colorado Springs, CO We ll send it to National TU for you and use the $5.00 rebate to make your Chapter better!!!