Downey Fly Fishers. John Van Derhoof. Downey Fly Fishers Welcomes: February February 14

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1 February 2012 Downey Fly Fishers Downey Fly Fishers Welcomes: John Van Derhoof February 14 General meeting at Apollo Park at 7pm featuring John Van Derhoof. John will be tying flies starting at 6pm. February 21 Board Meeting at 7pm at Carl Laski s house John Van Derhoof from Long Beach, California is nationally known fly caster, fly casting instructor and internationally know fly tier. He is particularly well known for his classic feather-wing Atlantic salmon flies. He is also a Life Member and Past President of the Long Beach Casting Club. Some of his accomplishments are as follows: John started his fly fishing career by first learning how tie flies at the age of 11. Casting and fishing came a little later. He has now has been tying flies for 49 years. As an innovative and extraordinary fly tier, for the last 30 years John has demonstrated, taught and written about tying all over the United States, Canada and Europe. For the same 30 years, he has distinguished himself as a master fly casting instructor, and has served on several FFF national boards and committees. He is in demand as a tier, caster, rod builder, artist and personable walking encyclopedia of everything related to fly fishing. Continued on p. 2

2 Vanderhoof continued John started working with Les Eichhorn of Sage in 1981 and taught Sage Casting Schools all over Southern California, Arizona and Nevada. He continued to teach these classes with Les, Lani Waller or by himself until He also taught Sage Fly Fishing Schools in Alaska and Mexico with Lani Waller. John was named to the FFF Casting Instructor Certification Advisory Committee at its inception in 1992, and received his Master Casting Instructor Certification in He was elected to the FFF Casting Instructor Certification Board of Governors in 1999, a position he held until He currently is a Board of Governor-Emeritus. He was one of sixteen American tiers of salmon flies featured in Judith Dunham s book, The Atlantic Salmon Fly, published in 1991; his flies were exhibited at the Museum of Art of the University of California at Northridge in 1992 as a result of this book. John and his flies have been mentioned in books by Gary LaFontaine, Lefty Kreh, John Randolph and several others, as well as in Fly Fisherman and American Fly Tier magazines. Every month since September, 1997, John has illustrated and written the popular Fly of the Month articles for the Long Beach Casting Club s newsletter Target Talk and has been its Editor since 1999.

3 continued Van Derhoof John was invited to give fly tying and fly casting demonstrations and instruction at the biennial Fly Fair in Zwolle, Netherlands, in At the same time became a member of Phrozen Phantom Phlytiers, a who s who in fly tying and fishing, the membership of which includes Lefty Kreh, René Harrop, Gary LaFontaine, Darwin Atkin and Craig Matthews to name a few. This group of individuals donated their flies to be framed together and auctioned for considerable sums of money one was sold for in excess of $ All of the proceeds went to FFF or into a fund that helped worthy fly tiers with limited means attend national fly fishing conclaves and shows to demonstrate their skills. John was honored with the FFF Buz Buzsek Fly Tying Award in Only three individuals have received this award and have served as FFF Casting Certification Board of Governors or Emeritus (Gary Borger and Bob Jacklin) and John is the only Board of Governors or Emeritus to have earned this honor with all levels of Certified Instructor. John started to learn Two-Handed Casting in March of 2009 and passed his Two-Handed Certification in October the same year. He actively teaches all levels of single-hand and twohanded casting resulting in an average of 3 to 5 lessons per week. John is also very active serving as an examiner of all levels of the FFF Casting Certification Program. The Fly Fishing Show - Pasadena Submitted by Carl Laski The Fly Fishing Show will be at the Pasadena Convention Center on March 3rd & 4th, 2012 (Sat & Sun). There will be over 30 programs per day on how-to-fish and where-to-go, continuous instructional fly tying and featured tier presentations, casting demonstrations and 100-plus exhibitor booths. LOCATION: Pasadena Convention Center 300 East Green St Pasadena, CA WEBSITE: DATE: March 3 & 4, 2012 Saturday 9:00am 5:30pm Sunday 9:00am 4:30pm ADMISSION PRICE: Cash only at the gate Adults: $15.00 one day; $25 two-day pass Children (under 5): Free Children (under 12): $2.00 Scouts in uniform (under 16): Free Active Military: $10

4 JuJu Bee Midge Laguna Niguel Lake Style By Adam Perez If you tie saltwater patterns, most likely you have used a product called Super Hair. This product comes in a variety of colors and overall the best way to describe it is kinky small diameter fairly stiff translucent fibers. With the advent of new tying materials Super Hair has lost its popularity and some people maybe asking how best to get rid of their Super Hair stockpiles; well I think I have a good solution. How about tying up some JuJu Bee midges? What is a JuJu Bee midge? Well I had the same question when I saw this pattern some years ago in Fly Fisherman Magazine. A JuJu Bee Midge is a pattern designed by Charlie Craven, a well known fly tyer and fly shop owner in Colorado, for fishing their local waters. He designed this fly after a day of tying saltwater patterns using Super Hair. He looked down saw the color and segments of the Super Hair and decided to try wrapping these materials on a scud hook. The rest is history. The name for the pattern came from the nickname that he uses for his daughter.

5 As a pattern, the JuJu Bee midge has become one of my go to patterns for the Lower and Upper Owens Rivers especially when the trout are keying in on small micro size midges. The beauty of Super Hair, because it is such a small diameter, you can tie flies down to #22 and 24s relatively easily. That is of course if your eyes can manage it. The other beauty of the Super Hair material is that it is translucent and so when tied with a white thread under-base just shines and gives off some great light. The original JuJu Bee midge has a fluoro-fiber thorax wing case and wing buds. Recently I decided to alter the original JuJu Bee midge in order to catch fish at Laguna Niguel Lake (LNL), aka Crowley West. I am stillwater nymphing (midging) at LNL and hanging this pattern below an indicator approximately 4 to 8 inches off the lake mud bottom. I altered the JuJu Bee midge by changing the hook from a normal scud hook to a special wide gape super sharp hook made by Tiemco, the 2499 SP-BL. I felt that this hook with the wide gape would provide better hook penetration during the indicator dunk or take. I also decided to dress down the fly for LNL and remove the fluoro-fiber thorax wing case and wing buds and simply use a metal bead. I felt that the benefit of having a metal bead to sink the pattern out weighed the benefits of having the extra dressing. Just for the record though, when I am using this pattern in a river situation I normally tie and use the pattern as developed by Charlie Craven. The color combinations are endless based on the available colors of Super Hair but some of my favorites are chartreuse and black (as shown), black and red, black and white, olive and black, and chartreuse and dark blue. The key to tying a good JuJu Bee midge is using the right thread. I personally use Gudebrod 10/0 in the color white, but overall a UTC 70 in white should be fine as well. The key is to use fine thread so that you will not have thread build up. Also, the white thread color is essential because it allows the translucency of the Super Hair to shine on the hook. For a demonstration of how I tie my JuJu Bee, LNL Style Midge go to this link: or to my YouTube Channel and you will find the pattern. Have fun tying one of these small midges. Good luck and happy fishing to ya. Adam

6 JuJu Bee Midge Materials List: Hook: Scud Hook, TMC 2499 SP-BL Thread: Smallest white thread you can find, I use Gudebrod 10/0 but UTC 70 will also work Body: 2 strands of chartreuse Super Hair, and one strand of black or dark blue Super Hair Bead: Bead sized for the hook (5/64 #18 and 3/32 for #16) How to Tie a JuJu Bee Midge: Figure 1: Place a bead on the hook and place in vise. Figure 2: Attach the small diameter thread just behind the bead.

7 Figure 3: Attach the 2 strands of chartreuse and 1 strand of black Super Hair behind the eye of the hook. Figure 4: Wind the thread down to the middle of the bend and then advance you thread back to the bead. Keep the bottom end of the fly thin, but try and create a nice taper towards the eye/bead of the hook.

8 Figure 5: You will probably want to start winding the Supehair materials perpendicular to the hook shank as shown but this is will lead to a couple of nonvertical black wraps. So try and avoid this. Figure 6: The better way is to wind all three strands of Super Hair vertically and advance the materials to the bead. Overall this will create nice vertical black segmentation throughout the body of the fly.

9 Figure 7: This figure clearly shows the advancing of all three Super Hair strands and also shows the nice vertical segmentation in the fly. Figure 8: Advance the Super Hair to the bead of the hook. Tie off the Super Hair and clip.

10 Figure 9: Coat the Super Hair with some Zap-A-Gap using your bodkin. The key is to use just a bit to cover the fly. If you apply too much the fly may get a dull white finish. You want a clear, hard finish. Other layer of protection is to wait until the Zap-A-Gap has dried and then following that up with some Sally Hansens Hard as Nails. This will create an almost varnished appearance. Show room finish!!! Figure 10: The finished fly. Now let s go fishing!!!

11 Downey Fly Fishers SWCFFF Fly Fishing Faire Mammoth Lakes, CA Submitted by Carl Laski South West Council Federation of Fly Fishers (SWCFFF) has committed to a four day fair in Mammoth, September 13-16, It will be called The Fly Fishing Faire and with the help of the clubs, we hope this event will introduce more people to our sport and drive even more toward a club near them. We will be offering workshops on casting, tying and on-stream techniques. We also want to have non-fishing workshops like photography and Dutch oven cooking along with golf, spa and tour packages to make this of interest to a wider spectrum of people. More details will be coming and we want to hear any ideas that you might have. With all of our participation, this could be the biggest fly fishing event California has ever seen! Please mark your calendars.

12 Downey Fly Fishers Board Meeting There is a board meeting on February 21st at Carl Laski s house. The meeting will start at 7:00 pm and all club members are welcome. Please come and share your ideas about the club policies and practices. We are always looking for new ideas and helpful volunteers to keep the club going strong. Club Officers President: Brian Matthews V. President: Alan Grosdidier Secretary: Brian Matthews Treasurer: Mike Jedlick Past President: Phil "Doc" Solomon Board of Directors For information about DFF Treasury Accounting please contact our Treasurer Mike Jedlick for figures and standing of Club. Jerry Ferin Don Mulder Zino Nakasuji Bill Steward Marissa Laski Jerry Phan Eric Rasmussen Alan Reising Newsletter Please consider submitting something that interests you. The more people that contribute articles, the better this newsletter will represent the Downey Fly Fishers. Please reference the October 2010 archive newsletter for some ideas. News and Noteworthy Remember to check out the DFF website for upcoming events and important information regarding the club and our members. Conservation & FFF representative Education Fly bank Membership Newsletter Outings Potlucks Programs Publicity Chairpersons Raffles Refreshments Trout in the Classroom Video Library Website Carl Laski John Barnett Bob Stuart Don Mulder Jerry Ferrin Brian Matthews Tod Suttle Carl Laski Brian Matthews Zino Nakasuji Ray Sugiyama Brian Matthews John Barnett Carl Laski Mike Jedlick Randy Teeple Richard Dekker Fred Roberts Jerry Phan /

13 Downey Fly Fishers DFF Supports: Cal Trout -The Barbara J. Riley Community Senior Center is located on the corner of Rives Avenue and Quill Drive just west of Paramount Boulevard and just north of Imperial Highway. This month s meeting: February 14, 2012 Barbara J. Riley Community Senior Center 7810 Quill Drive Downey, CA PO Box 516 Downey, CA 90241