Long Casts

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Please send editorial comments and material to LongCasts Editor, STEVE FRITZ, 435 East 63rd Terrace, Kansas City, Mo. 64110. EMAIL rstydunn@sprynet.com

Changes of address should be mailed to the Southern Council's VP for Membership, LARRY NOTLEY, 7235 Syracuse Drive, Dallas, Tx. 75214.

Advertising inquiries and correspondence should be directed to the Southern Council's VP for Development, BILL STALL, PO Box 728, Gibsland, La. 71208.

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The Southern Council Homepage is located at http://www.sky.net/~flyfish/ Send any home page related comments or questions to Bill Brant

by Steve Jensen, Southern Council President

Bill Lambing was also a truly outstanding individual. He was very active both within his club and within the Southern Council, and we are all better for having known him. I hope that his club will work towards establishing a memorial in his name, either at the club level, or at the level of the Council. His efforts were certainly worthy of long term recognition that such a memorial would provide.

by Bill Brant

That last category includes potential members. We can make it easy for them to find out about their local club via the Internet. I would like to ask individual clubs to see which of your members have Internet EMAIL addresses. Select 1 or 2 who are willing to be listed on the homepage as a point of contact for your club. We will add them to the homepage. Send names and addresses to Bill Brant, 2120 Red Bridge Terrace, Kansas City, MO 64131; 816/941-9691; EMAIL: flyfish@sky.net Thanks.

by Duane Kelly, V.P. for Conservation

I was watching Jimmy Houston's fishing show on television recently, and he was enjoying himself immensely, as he always does, while fishing from a boat with Dr. Loren Hill. They were catching bass and having a great time. Then Jimmy Houston hooked a gar of about two foot or a little more.

I immediately thought of the question, what is a game fish? I agree with an author I read so long ago I can't remember, who said "any fish that fights back is a game fish." We have all seen three-inch, one ounce blue gills with more life, fire, fight and determination than many of the Homo Sapiens we are subjected to in our daily lives.

I remember, years ago, reading about Dan Gapen catching smallmouth bass on one of his ugly bugs. When one really good fish fought very well, someone in the boat said "That could be a state record smallmouth. They were all surprises when a carp was netted instead.

But why the surprise? A carp is wary, intelligent, strong, fast, with good endurance. It is a game fish. The staff at the In-Fisherman Magazine has discovered the carp. Someone wrote of the weird concept of one angler catching a 20-lb. carp on eight lb. test line, in 20 minutes being considered trash fisherman, while a bass angler in the same lake taking a three lb. bass on 20 lb. test line in 30 seconds, is considered a really fine angler.

Houston brought the fish to boatside and tried, unsuccesfully, to jiggle the spinner bait out of the gar's mouth, but the fish stayed well hooked. Houston then tried to get a secure hold behind the gar's head. Each time the gar thrashed free. Dr. Hill tried the same kanding with the same results and the gar finally got off the hook.

The fish cut them both with its razor edged gill plates and they were both mopping and blotting blood.

Houston twisted and bent the spinner bait back into fishing shape, and, as he prepared to cast again, said, "I'm going to catch something less dangerous, like a ten-pound bass."

'All fish in all waters' is a great concept and will guide us into the future.

by Duane Kelly, V.P. for Conservation

When success happens, it often looks so easy that we hear people say, "I could do that." They usually don't have a clue. Neither would they pay to watch winners practice fundamentals. Often, when run-of-the-mill people get run-of-the-mill results, it is because they underestimate or ignore fundamentals or find practicing boring. This almost guarantees poor results.

About a month from now, one of the most fundamental things in the way of life in this country of ours will occur. We will vote. We will decide, as a people, who will be president, senator, representative, governor, mayor, and a myriad of issues.

We need to be absolutely clear in our understanding that the time it takes to vote is nothing compared to the potential for damage from the votes of candidates who are aimed the wrong way for two years (representatives), four years (president/governor), or six years (senator). For issues it is a permanent vote (until it is changed). Voting is serious business. It is more than a right. It is everyone's duty! We may get tired of listening to people squall about their rights, but we have a truly difficult time recalling anyone bellowing about their own duties. It is difficult to recall the last time one heard anyone speaking about,"It is my duty..." It is almost like the word duty is dropping out of the language.

In my opinion, our pathetically low voting rate is a planetary disgrace. If people choose not to participate in the fundamental democratic process, then I don't believe they have the right to complain if society doesn't roll their way, - but complain they do. We fly fishers have some very definite desires that are fundamentally good, and unselfish, because they deal with the health and safeguarding of the foundation of life on the planet: air, soil, water. That is as fundamental as one can get. This sounds, and is, very simple, but is complicated somewhat by people who believe that money is more important than air, soil, and water. Their background and motivation, which may be ignorance, stupidity or evil, is not important in this discussion. What is important, is the tremendous harm that will come if they are not prevented from having their way. Here is a list of examples from the current U.S. Congress, of the proposals that are, in the short, money makers for a few, but not for the general welfare of 265,000,000 Americans, or the environment that supports them.

Here are some items from the agenda of the 104th Congress: open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling; gut the Endangered Species Act; redefine wetlands with the intention of destroying these areas important to clean water and wildlife; sell or give away national park and other public lands owned by all Americans; allow logging of old growth in the national forests, under the guise of saving the forests; mining "reform" that allows private mining companies to operate with a lack of environmental standards; allow continuing subsidies at tax-payer expense, for the destruction of the Tongass National Forest, - causing erosion that would jeopardize the survival or seriously damage salmon and cutthroat trout runs; provide for excessive logging and road building in the Clearwater National Forest; support the Canadian mining corporation's plan to operate the New World Mine near the Clark's Fork of the Yellowstone; open up huge areas of Utah wilderness to development; and introduce takings legislation, viewed by many conservationists as one of the greatest threats to the environment.

Some of these projects were put into effect; some were blocked. The point is, the members of Congress who were willing to sell off public lands, pollute streams, cut timber, and destroy fish and wildlife habitat will be back in 1997 unless we stop them in November by voting them out.

As a clue to the motivation of those who see money as fundamentally more important than air, soil, and water, check this list of anti-environmental organizations and consider why so many incorporate environmentally related concepts and no mention of profits. If you were in an organization whose motive was profit at the expense, even the destruction of the environment, wouldn't you try to cover it up? It would make operations so much easier. These operators understand P.T. Barnum's philosophy "There's a sucker born every minute." Those who would assume the following examples are environmental organizations have been suckered: The Abundant Wildlife Society; Alliance for Environment and Resources; California Desert Coalition; Citizens for the Environment; Environmental Conservation Organization; The Evergreen Foundation; Information Council for the Environment; National Wetlands Coalition; Sahara Club USA; The Sea Lion Defense Fund; Society for Environmental Truth; and Wilderness Impact Research Foundation.

There is some clear cut deception attempted here. Each individual has to determine why.

We don't have to be deceptive when we justify our desires for clean air, soil, and water. It hardly seems necessary to have to justify, but we do.

Let's clarify and simplify. Let's assume all the bills proposed above either pass or do not pass. The world will be profoundly different for our grandchildren if they all pass from what it will be if they all fail. A healthy environment beats money because we can't breathe money, raise foodstuffs in money, or drink it.

The last and most important point is the environment that supports us all isn't concerned about Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, conservatives, Third Parties, etc., etc., etc. The environment responds to what is done to it. Injure it and we are injured. Support and maintain it and it supports and maintains us. It is so simple that our five year old grandchildren can understand it. Try it. Those grandchildren will live most of their lives with the results of this vote. Vote intelligently.

by Chuck Tryon, Roubidoux Fly Fishers

An unusual and fascinating phenomenon, this window. What is it, and how does it behave?

From the trout's vantage point, it' s a circular area at the water surface overhead in which objects on and above the surface are clearly visible. The window's diameter, and how far away above-water objects can be seen, depend on how far the trout is beneath the surface. The deeper the trout, the larger the window, and the farther away you or anything else can be seen.

Conventional wisdom decrees that we avoid being seen through the window. Cast from as far away as possible. approach closely, only on hands and knees. Hide behind a rock, or wade deep so only a small portion of us stands above the surface.

Sound advice, all right, but--like most advice--often more easily offered than followed.

It's easy to be invisible on the big streams. Lots of backcasting room allows long deliveries, and there's often plenty of deep water to partially (sometimes totally) submerge ourselves in.

It's the little streams--the ones you can lob a wad of Red Man across with the wind in your face--that challenge our stealth to the limit. Here, casting room in all directions is often at a premium, and the only places to wade deep are not only in the trout's window, but in its living room as well. Slithering up on your hands and knees for a close approach may be a good tactic foe youngsters, but its charm fades rapidly with advancing years. How, then, can we approach trout closely on these small streams without being detected?

One of the marvelous things about the trout's window is that it goes where the trout goes. If a trout is at mid-pool or the tail, where the water surface is glassy smooth, its window is unobstructed. Light rays carrying above-water images penetrate the surface coherently and converge perfectly on the trout's eyes. It view of us is 20/20.

At the head of a pool where the surface is frothy or choppy, however, the light rays are scattered in many, constantly and rapidly changing directions. The trout can't see out of its pool at all, because it's staring at a broken window.

Two analogies demonstrated the situation. Remember the last time you sat on the biffy staring absent-mindedly at the frosted pane of your bathroom window? What could you see outside? Only the fuzziest shapes of the largest trees, probably. The lawn was just a nebulous streak of green, and your racey sports car was a shapeless blob of red or yellow. Light rays carrying the details were scattered in all directions by the finely roughened surface of the frosted window glass.

The other analogy is even more severe. Remember when a chunk of gravel flipped off the highway and shattered you car's safety-glass windshield? Incoming light rays were scattered even more wildly then, and you couldn't see the road at all without leaning far to the side.

Recognizing where the trout's windows are "broken" can be an important key to success on small, tightly enclosed, high-gradient, pool-and-riffle streams. Hiding behind these broken windows allows close, undetected approaches and short, uncomplicated presentations.

Trout with broken windows lie in two kinds of places in these small streams. One is in turbulent but shallow water where bottom structure provides slow-water holding pockets and the broken window gives the illusion of overhead cover.

It'll more likely be the pools that hold the big ones, though, and they'll often dominate the spot where the main current spills off the riffle into the deeper water. that's where drifting food is most abundant, and they'll be blind as a clam in a coal mine to anything approaching from that direction.

That doesn't mean you can blunder into position above like a long-denied ox in heat and expect to get away with it. Even the dumbest trout get suspicious when mud and rocks tumble off the riffle onto their noses, or when their broken window suddenly turns bright red from the designer windbreaker you're so proud of.

Use your head. Camo clothing and other subdued colors with a broken pattern will help you blend in with the rest of the world. Move slowly. Stay as low as you can, but don't wrack you body with pain because you think you have to --you don't. Stay out of the water if possible, or at least off to the side of the main current. Avoid kicking up rocks and mud.

How closely should you approach a broken window? Only to where you can make a clean presentation--no farther. Undetected approaches within fifteen feet are common. Even ten feet is possible if you're cautious and the window is badly shattered.

Your presentation should lay the fly in the riffle where the current will sweep it into the holding water. It matters not the slightest how you get the fly to the water; an underhand lob or overhead pitch is just as good as a conventional or bow-and-arrow cast. If it doesn't land where you intended, move it by extending your rod tip so the current swings it to the desired line of drift.

Okay. Your fly is hanging on a tight line in the riffle, ready to drift into a trout's waiting mouth when you lower your rod tip and/or feed out line. What next?

If you've tied on a dry fly, your next move is to change to something else. downstream presentations to the broken window are most effective with sunken patterns. Emergers will work, but large streamers are best.

Why? Consider the situation.

First, you not only want to present your fly within the broken window, but you want to keep it there too. Letting it drift on through to the smooth water below will present it to trout whose window is unbroken and who see you perfectly, or who did before they fled for cover. Your chances of fooling them are pretty poor.

Drifting a dry fly downstream naturally on a broken window's fast, choppy surface involves short-duration drifts and repeated pickups, and the fly is poorly visible from below in the surface's erratically changing light patterns. Holding it there on a tight line isn't apt to fool anything. Bouncing it on the surface like an egg-laying caddisfly may bring an occasional strike, but it's far from a consistently successful technique.

Drifting a heavily weighted nymph, wet fly or emerger off the riffle onto the pool, then making it rise to the surface with the Leisenring lift, simulates one kind of natural food behavior, and has some possibilities. Again, however, it involves a lot of short-duration drifts and repeated pickups for new presentations. Holding such a fly stationary in the swift current, or skittering it back up to the riffle, won't simulate any insect we've ever seen. It's not likely to fool any trout, either, and stands a good chance of putting them down.

In contrast to these marginally effective tactics, consider a minnow--perhaps sick or injured--being swept downstream. Constantly trying to stabilize its position in the swift current, it' ll retreat, then advance briefly, only to be swept downstream again, occasionally darting to the side in search of slower water where it can hold its own. From above, a large, heavily weighted streamer can be manipulated in swift water quite easily this way without repeated pickups. The heavy weight permits it to be manipulated up and down as well as back and forth and from side to side. The large size makes its ability to resist the current believable. Big attractors like the wooly bugger are believable, too, even though they may not look like minnows.

Next time you're working your favorite small stream, and the upstream, dead-drifted nymph or dry fly isn't working, or the green stuff is constantly catching your backcast, try the downstream approach to the broken windows. Unless the fishing gods are just plain down on you that day, you may be pleasantly rewarded.

by Donald Dunn, Raffle/auction Chairman

Our Conclave is the major fund raising project for the Council. Consequently, it is important to have participation from all the members, member clubs, and vendors we support, if it is to be a success.

If you've been on any streams lately, you know that fly fishing is becoming more popular than ever. It is essential that we educate our young fly fishers and protect our limited fly fishing resources and opportunities. The funds raised during the Southern Council Conclave will largely serve those purposes. Donations of any kind are needed for the raffle; boxes of flies are great! Items for the silent and live auctions are needed as well. In addition to individual donations, each member club is challenged to donate an item representative of that club.

Items can be shipped to me at 8871 Carrollwood Lane, Cordova, Tennessee 38018. Otherwise, you may bring them to the Conclave in October. I would appreciate any early notification of donations, or intent of donations to get a head start on cataloging items.

Please bring this to the attention of fellow fly fishers. See you in October. 'Hope your fishin' is great!

Jindra to Conduct

Candidates who wish to be certified as master instructors should contact Jindra regarding availability.

Basic certification requires attending the workshop and passing a written exam and a performance test.

The candidate should provide his own casting equipment, consisting of a single-handed rod no longer than 9 feet, and no heavier than a number 7 line weight. The leader must be a minimum of 7.5 feet, and include a size 14 practice fly or a piece of yarn.

The certification is limited to Federation members.

Conclave Info!!

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Important stuff to take note of...

Anyone taking the Flycasting class with Ed Jaworowski will need to bring their own fly rod, reel, and line.

Friday night, after the program and auction, be prerpared to sing along with the "Busted Fin Mud Thumpers," band by the pool at the Ramada.

Friday and Saturday's Intermediate to Advanced Fly Tying Clinics will be taught by Dave Whitlock, who will also present the banquet program on Saturday night, entitled "Fly Fishing the Ozarks." Thank you to Dave, for accepting on short notice.

An important change in programming for the Conclave is the moving of the Youth Casting Games to Friday, since the Youth Conclave is being held off-site on Saturday. The games will now be held in conjunction with the adult casting games, also being held on Friday. Children participating in the Youth Conclave must bring sunglasses and a hat with them, to the stream.

Closing

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All material for the December issueof Long Casts must be in the editors hands no later than October 15th. EMAIL to rstydunn@sprynet.com

Artwork for this issue is courtesy of Dave Whitlock, with the exception of the caricatures of Dave, which are by Ron Thomas.

Send any home page related comments or questions to Bill Brant

This page updated December 15, 1996