| The Prez Sez | Mark Van Patten |
| Informative Official Stuff | . |
| FFF CONCLAVE NEWS, Southern Council '97, Conclave Dates Set | By Dave Barron, '97 SC Conclave Chairman |
| In the Water, On the River | by Dave Adkins, North Arkansas Fly Fishers |
| A Timid Texican's Adventures in Cajun Country | by Dee Ogden, Dallas Fly Fishers |
| The Lost Souls of the El Diablo Destination of a Lifetime | by Leonard Wilson |
| On Wounded Knee | by Steve Fritz, Long Casts Editor, Heart of America Fly Fishers |
| South Eastern Council Sets Conclave Dates, Fly Fishers to Meet at Pensacola Beach | . |
| Closing | . |
The Prez Sez |
Return to ToC
|
The bottom line is that passion can be utilized in different ways. It can make us try to achieve perfection in our casts, tie the better fly, and heaven forbid learn all of the Latin names for every macroinvertabrate were are imitating. Another way it can and should be channeled is to preserve this sport that draws from our inner selves, that passion. We have an opportunity as a council to use the force to help preserve a natural wonder.
You have heard of the Crooked Creek Coalition. Emily Whitlock has united different organizations and individuals throughout Arkansas, forming this coalition to protect Crooked Creek. Together they have fought battles in the hearing rooms, sent letters, wrote articles in the news papers, and pounded the keys on their phones and faxes.
A small but crucial battle was recently lost. This is not the end of the war, just one battle. As in any war however, those small battles can be key advantages fro the opposition. It is time to call on the reserves. The Southern Council is one of the largest council in the Federation of Fly Fishers. That fact can and should be the key element in changing the direction and thinking of the politicians in Arkansas. It will take the same aggressive commitment that each of you have for fly fishing to help the Crooked Creek Coalition overturn the decision that excludes crooked creek as an 'Extraordinary Resource Water', thus protecting it from instream gravel mining. This will set a precedent that other states can call upon in curbing the senseless destruction of fish habitat. Gravel is available without going into the stream channel. The difference is the gravel is free from the stream. It makes sense that the mining industry spends millions of dollars each year to protect their interests. The gravel is free and it produces $6.6 million dollars in profits each year for very few people. Not much revenue is put into local economies because the work force is small. Loss to farm revenue, real estate, fisheries and recreation due to the impacts of gravel mining is $7.6 million. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the facts. If Alternative sites are used for gravel supplies, instead of a loss of this lucrative $6.6 million dollars for the gravel industry, it will only be around $1/2 million. So if in -- stream gravel mining was stopped, and the $7.6 million dollar loss was eliminated, the state would be millions ahead. Don't we all wish that our political leaders could just weigh the facts without pressure from the mining industry. Time for a reality check. It just doesn't work that way.
What does work is phone calls, letters, faxes and e-mails sent to the right people in large quantities. Now, here is the plan: Each Southern Council club sends a letter to the Governor of Arkansas:
We are talking about one letter from each club to the Governor and one letter from each club to the editor of the Gazette. It doesn't sound like a lot of work, but it does sound like a lot of public input. You can make a difference if we all work together using the numbers that we have. If your club would like to send a letter from each member to the Governor, think of the impact.
Other News:
The planning of Southern Council Conclave is moving right along. Conclave Chair, Dave Barron, has promised the finest conclave yet. You can reach Dave at: 314-230-7360 or - e-mail at:
When this issue of Long Casts reaches you, many of us who have been frozen in all winter will be out flinging flies and telling lies. While you are enjoying the great out of doors keep in mind that the FFF is working for you to preserve your sport through conservation, education and restoration at the council and national level. If you are not a sustaining member of the FFF you should be. Join the FFF and help keep alive the ring of the rise.
Our Membership VP, Tracie Maler, is now the proud caretaker of the Council's first owned computer. Dr. Steve Jensen did a great job in procuring the computer and setting Tracie up with the necessary soft ware for membership data storage and manipulation. We will see better membership management in the future.
Changes of address should be mailed to the Southern Council's VP for Membership, Tracie Maler, 299 S. Walnut Bend, Suite 101, Cordova, Tn. 38018
Advertising inquiries and correspondence should be directed to the Southern Council's VP for Development, Michael Verduin, 2102 Montclair, Lewisville, Tx. 75067
Long Casts is printed and mailed by ED REED, Reed Printing and Supply Company, Inc., PO Box 605, 619 South Brindlee Mountain Parkway, Arab, Al. 35016.
The Southern Council Homepage is located at http://www.sky.net/~flyfish/ Send any home page related comments or questions to Bill Brant
Keynote Speaker will be Gary Borger. Anyone who has seen and heard Gary knows he puts on a fantastic program.
If you have any suggestions concerning the conclave, you may reach me as follows: Dave Barron - e-mail
My wife and I have had the delight to nurture four children, watching them grow to be all the things we hoped for when they were small. You remember those times, when they were little and depending on you for everything from breakfast to goodnight. Now they are grown and, seemingly, dont need us, and tell us that regularly. But, when you watch your daughter build a camp fire, or your son pitch a tent, bait a hook, use a fly rod or drive their first car, you recall the unspoken lessons.
My son Ernest, who is in the U.S. Navy, was home for a couple of days and we decided to try the rainbows on the White River in Arkansas. On that October morning, I stood in the river watching him, a touch of autumn was in the air, the river down and slow. Ernest began to cast to the rising trout and I remembered his hours of practice, casting on the lawn. This 18 year old boy-man began to form tight loops and quiet casts. I was captured in the moment, my own fishing forgotten.
His strike indicator disappeared beneath the gin-clear surface of the White River. My eyes took in the bend of the rod, the taunt green fly line disappearing into the depths, and I shared his excitement, as he engaged the first rainbow of his young fly fishing life. You know that excitement, --remember your first rainbow, --sure you do. I marveled at how effortlessly he conducted the battle. I saw the sparkle in his eyes as the fish came within his reach. Then, the happiness in his face, as gently, Ernest released his first rainbow to fight again. He looked up at me and smilled, and a sense of pride, that each of you dads have felt for your children, surged through me, as I saw that the unspoken lessons were well learned. I knew at that mement, that a new fly fisher had been born.
There will be many more trips; perhaps to more exotic places than the Arkansas Ozarks, but there will only be one first rainbow.
He stands up on the poling platform, cap bill and Polaroids cinched snug, and speaks in that fascinating rolling yet staccato accent, calmly but fast, "Strip it. Pick it up. Faughty feet, eleven o'clock!". Trying not to rush my haul, I attempt to lay the two inch foam popping bug where he says - forty feet out just left of dead ahead. After two seconds of intense concentration I see what he saw several seconds before: a wavelet moving left to right toward the fly, a tiny fraction fuller than the acres of ripples surrounding it. I strip. The bug gurgles. 1 strip. It pops.
"Went thutha way", says captain Kirk Dietrich, one of the nicest, most pleasant and capable people I've ever had the pleasure to fish with. "You'n tho it back out there 'bout then o'clock, but he prolley goan."
Of such emotional heart-stopping peaks and let-down valleys is this wonderful day constructed.
In recent time Cary Marcus and several other semi-normal fly fisher persons of my acquaintance have gone bonkers over coastal waters fish species and a glimmer of doubt has crept into the comfort zone of my years-long assurance that small mouth bass are the premier fly prey followed closely and not necessarily in order by brown trout, rainbows, black bass, bream, with stripers thrown in there somewhere depending on their unpredictable fighting characteristics.
I have fished the Texas coast a few times over some forty years, mostly in the company of meat fishermen. I have sat in the blazing sun, in stinking boats, drowning shrimp, watching a bobber the size of a baseball and wondering what some other more fortunate people might be doing that day. Like street sweepers. Or bomb disposal experts. I've never heard whether Cary is a Phi Beta Kappa, but somehow I doubt he would have been detoured from clear cold streams to the coast by mental processes remotely similar to the folk in those odiferous steamy boats. Therefore, when it happened I was to be' in New Orleans the first week of January, 1 made a few calls and wound up booked with Captain Kirk Dietrich to pursue reds. I would just check out this fast growing tumor on the body of fly fishing history.
We pulled away from the dock an hour south of New Orleans somewhere in the bowels of infamous Plaquamine Parish just as a pea soup fog began turning from slate gray to putty color, and by the time we crept through a no wake fishing camp area and turned into a wide channel it was light enough to see maybe 60 feet. It was warm but so damp I zipped up my rain jacket and snapped my hood when we got up to speed. The motors they use look like those you see in the deepest Amazon jungle on the travel channel. They lay on their sides across the boat transom and the drive shaft slants gently down so the prop is only partly submerged about six feet behind the boat. There is a skid forward of the prop that digs a little trench in the mud and a horizontal cover above the prop (a fender) so the prop doesn't sling water, mud, weeds, or alligator fragments up in the air. Kirk said we could really zip in five inches of water and "prolley could make it thu a pile of wet laundry". We fished all day in eleven to 36 inches of water. Every time we spooked fish we could see wakes and often dorsal fins and tails. What an incredible world and what a fascinating and totally different kind of sport.
You've heard the tired old rationalization for being skunked: "Well they don't call it catching, they call it fishing." Well when after redfish they don't call it fishing, they call it hunting. Careful, cunning, quiet, intelligent, concentrated skillful hunting.
Time after time we would spot a tail, a fin, or a wake, pole in the direction to intercept it and a shift in wind, a bump on the gunwhale, or a poor cast on my part would tip the balance in the chess game and the quarry would be gone.
Once there was a thunderous commotion, large splash, and widening ring of waves about four feet short of the fly and Kirk said "you lined him. Laid the line right across his back."
Up in the day my arm and shoulder began to remind me of their advanced age. One had to lay the eight weight well out there, seemingly 90% of the time into the breeze. One had to double haul every cast. Adrenaline and concentration disguised the discomfort but just as in golf, tiring muscles allow the little flaw to subtly invade the stroke. The loop opens. The line slaps the water. The back cast droops, the fly brushes the water so the forecast is lousy. Shake the arms. Relax. Now snap that back cast. Haul and let it shoot. Persevere. Keep fly in water. Blind hog syndrome.
And the moment came. A good cast laid straight out at ten o'clock and on the third or fourth strip and pop a sort of negative doughnut trench formed around the fly, then instantly a positive doughnut and then a pinkish white bucket shot out of the surface and the fly and about two quarts of water disappeared into it. Kirk had yelled "Strip!" at the same instant and I guess I did because there was that indescribable but unmistakable electric throb up the line and the rod. The fight was on. At first he just took off crossing at an angle toward about two o'clock. The rod formed a capital "C", and he was towing the boat but all seemed rather calm. I gained some line by pulling the boat closer to him. This turned him a little and I think he saw us because quicker than I could let line slide through my fingers the rod was instantly down and pointed at him. If he had leaped again right then I'm sure he would have broken me off. But I let some line slide, got the rod up, and managed to gain and release line in turn 'till I could sense he was softening a bit. In his fight he would nose up to the surface, then lunge up, turn sideways and roll under and run with terrific force, showing copper color and whitish belly in turn and sending unbelievable splashes and spray over huge areas of the surface. Every time he did this my estimate of his size and my blood pressure each ratcheted upward. When I was able to lead him back and forth a little Kirk got his net over the side and finally when that stalwart was in the boat I realized I hadn't been breathing for a while.
I love people who, even when doing what they normally do can show enthusiasm and good ol' Kirk yelled "OK! Gimme five!". And we rocked the boat high fiving it out there in the reaches of the swamp.
"That's one small step for man, but one giant step for mankind". Remember that? I won't quite claim similarity in world scope but I'll claim an emotion, a feeling, and now a memory of similar flavor.
South Louisiana reds are beautifully proportioned and the color of well burnished dark copper. I have pictures to help remember. Kirk said it might be the biggest fish ever for one of his clients. Eight pounds plus. Thirty inches plus. Later there were other fish. One 6 1/2 pounds, 25 inches. After about eight hours - around 3:30 pm - of flailing that eight weight it felt like a hoe handle and I said "Kirk let's call it a day", even though he would gladly have stayed 'till dark.
Despite the feeling of being inextricably lost in a watery Sahara there were unforgettable scenes that included old growth pine and cypress, low thick jungles of braided and tangled vines and bushes, all thickly covered and draped with Spanish moss so the woods looked like ten thousand bearded old haggard men with outstretched arms draped with tattered and rotting sleeves. We raised hundreds of pelicans and coots. Saw a muskrat. Two snakes. It was cool but the sun peeped a few times so that I pushed up my sleeves and loosened my collar. The wind was fitful but not perverse. With very few words Kirk furnished me some really helpful casting tips, one of which I had never heard or read.
In the overall scheme of things as laid out by the One upstairs perhaps it was hardly a blip on the big screen. But on my own PC the memory will lubricate some of those tougher days bound to come along during the rest of my life.
For many months, research was conducted, time lines were developed, camping equipment packed and repacked, fishing equipment sorted and resorted, and the water levels calculated and recalculated. Fishing with Kent Rush of San Antonio, Texas, and Tracie Wilson of Rest, Texas, we planned to spend two days fishing 16 miles on the Devils River, north of Del Rio, Texas. after traveling 22 mites on unpaved Dolan Creek Road, we camped near an oasis where a giant underground aquifer gushed out the side of a mountain surrounded by sycamore and pecan trees. A multitude of songbirds hidden in the canopy and undergrowth provided a song for all ears listening.
After setting up camp right next to an emerald green half-mile long pool with a desert mountain behind us, we proceeded to load our 9-font long, 8 weight, fast-action flyrods, with weight forward floating line, tapering leader and a quality 10 lb. tippet. The selection of flies and extra gear would be determined up river at the first nonpassable rocky shoals.
Our 30 Ib. stealth trolling motor pushed us at a fast waking pace against the always gusting canyon winds and cool to the touch river current. Finally, after a I5 minute boat ride, we docked the canoe for our first opportunity at the Devils' smallmouth. We felt confident on our selection of Wooley Buggers, Clouser 's Crawfish, and Dalberg's Mega Divers. I offered Kent and Tracie the opportunity to fish the nicer to wade shallow water, 50 yard long stair-step rapids to the left, while I took the boulder-hopping cane-break smaller run of water to the right. Finding a flat ledge 10 feet above the running water, I scanned patiently and looked for a rise. Within 20 minutes of scanning, I proceeded to blind cast the #8 black wooley bugger with green flasher material. No hookups, not even a small strike. Oh no, not one of those days!
I proceeded to walk down the west side of the running water back to the square stern canoe to spot Tracie and Kent upriver. The rocks and boulders, roughened from the high alkalinity in the water, were like walking on #80 grit course sandpaper. The canvas wading boots with rubber cleated sole and 1/8" stocking insert, were the smartest two purchases I'd ever made. No doubt , any other type of boot or insert would have lost its tread and backing within hours.
Eyeing Tracie and Kent upstream in the vastness of the desert terrain, I proceeded to walk toward them. After arriving, Kent explained to me that he saw only one gigantic smallmouth that hit his white Dalberg Diver in a motion that looked similar to dropping a 10 Ib. boulder 5 feet off the water's surface. In three feet of water, walking downstream, we stopped at an undercut ledge where the smallmouth made his home. Under the ledge, I could see that you could get a float through with the #1 Dalberg Mega Diver. Standing approximately 12 feet below this spot, looking upstream from the one foot wide opening under the ledge, Kent unhooked the fly from the hook saver and just merely tossed the fly out into the water for an appropriate drift. Under the ledge, the 20 inch smallmouth attempted to strip, eat, bite, and consume the fly, with vengeance, on two different occasions. But no hookup. The size of the species kindled our thoughts of monster-size bronzebacks on the next day's expedition.
Re-rigging the fly gear with slow sink tip with a sink rate of 1 1/2 ips on one #8 weight fly rod the next morning, and securing the essentials in the canoe, we proceeded down river into the vast canyons, long pools of water and cane breaks that were 100 yards to one mile in length. Due to the mix of water and terrain, this part of the river demanded strength, cool heads, and plenty of physical training.
After portaging around Dolan's Falls, a mere 10 foot drop that had the potential for canoe damaging results, Kent began casting with the sink-tip line and hooked a 36" hump-backed blue catfIsh, on a #2 hellgrammite fly. Not a brozeback, but great action and the thrill of a lifetime.
At a headwater of a Level II tier-stepping, boulder-ridden hoot of water, Kent encountered his biggest smallmouth of the trip. Using the slow sink tippet and dragging the #8 black flash bugger across the 5-foot deep rapid, the brown-colored, bug-eyed bucketmouth struck with fury and raced into the backing far upstream. In five minutes, he had jumped six times and covered at least 30 yards of water, pounding, thrashing, and tumbling through the white water surf current. Noticing the smallmouth was losing pace with the current, I headed downstream for the Level 2 rapids. Kent applied pressure by moving the rod to his right side, the tip to one inch from the surface of the water. With this angle of pressure on the fish, I was able to position myself 30 feet down current and snag the fish as it held upright in three foot of eddy water. A nice 24" deep bodied smallmouth in fast water. As I went downstream to check out the next bone-crushing white water run, Kent caught and released six smallmouth in the same water in a very short length of time, casting with an across stream presentation, hitting the feeding lanes next to the cactus-lined bank.
After recognizing the hottest fly and hitting only the water before and after the fast running rapids, we neared our final destination, just as the red sunset shone off of the desert surroundings.
Conservation and Preservation
The natural and cultural resources of the Devils River should be protected at all times. Collections of plant materials (living and dead), animals, rocks, and/or artifacts should be forbidden. Staying out of adjacent stream beds, banks, and other visible water in the canyons is vital to the preservation of this fragile aquatic ecosystem and Lipan Apache native land.
Practice Catch and Release at All Times
Location
The Devils River and its privately-owned hack country is located 43 miles north of Del Rio, Texas, close to the bordering country of Mexico. Traveling distance from San Angelo via Highway 277 south is 158 miles and from San Antonio west is 154 miles. The last source for purchasing fuel is at Loma Alta, Texas, twenty six miles from the Devils. The Loma Alta General Store is owned by a friendly and helpful couple, Jim and Joanne Gibbons (210/395-2277).
Don't try this alone!
Trip, gear, and guide information can be obtained through Wilson's Guide Service, HCR 85, Box 10, Hext, Texas, 76848, 915-396-2513
I thought about his cheerful greeting, and about the other fishermen I had passed on the stream lately, and realized that he was the only one that had been civil to me, for several days. It seemed that every fisherman I'd met on the Rio Grande had begrudged the fact that they weren't alone on the water, and had only "tolerated" my passing, instead of delighting in the sharing of the stream with another. The avocation or sport of fly fishing was changing, and the old man was obviously a holdover.
About a quarter after one, I stopped under a big shade tree to have lunch. Just as I was getting my sandwich out, the old-timer stepped into view, and asked if I minded company. "I'd be delighted," I told him, and sat for an hour with this total stranger, relishing in his stories as he evidently did in mine. We both had fished the river for many years, and had many tales of the different things that had happened to us on various trips. His stories went back a lot further in time than mine did, and it was interesting hearing about how unreliable the cars and roads were, etc. I looked at his rod - an ancient bamboo, his reel - a very old Pflueger, his line - silk, and his flies - all giant, crudely-tied nymphs, and realized how far the sport had come, technically. He had no creel, so I figured that he just practiced catch-and-release, as did I. It was a little puzzling that he had told me earlier that he was two fish from his limit, but, not wanting to offend him, I didn't ask about it.
After lunch, we parted to fish a little more. Later, as I was leaving, I saw him coming up the trail, again walking in pain. I didn't want to embarrass him, so I didn't let on that I'd seen him, and started up the steep hill, grunting and breathing hard in the thin air. I was still catching my breath when he topped the hill, and sat down on a rock near me. While we both rested, we again began talking. He'd been coming here for thirty seven years, he said. All year long, all he could think of was the river, and getting back to it. The previous summer, the doctor had replaced his right knee joint (with a prosthetic one), and this next winter he'd have to have the left one done. His son and daughter were with him on this trip, and they almost didn't let him return to this spot, since neither of them felt healthy enough to accompany him, and neither had the slightest interest in fishing. The old man didn't know if he would ever make it to this spot, his favorite on the river, again.
I asked him about the comment that he had two fish left to limit out, and he told me that his concept of catch-and-release was that if the legal state limit was eight fish, then that was all you should catch, whether you kept them or not. He said that the way you kept score was a personal thing, when you released your catch, and that it made him feel like a fish hog to catch too many fish in a single day. He said that when he was younger, and the limits were more generous, it just didn't seem right to keep a huge amount of fish just because you could catch them. The old guy figured that the same attitude ought to apply to catch-and-release fishing now. The way he figured it, the fish getting caught over and over was necessary, but one guy catching fifty fish a day, just because he could, was gluttonous, and he wanted no part of it. This was a attitude that was foreign to me, but it made sense.
I glanced down at his fly patch, saw the huge #4 and #6 home-tied flies he carried, and realized that, although he was from a time that had almost past, a lot could be learned from this man. I asked him what he thought of the introduction of hatchery fish to the river. He said that it worried him, because it was messing with the order of things, and that nature had its own ways, and interference with these ways was dangerous.
As we walked slowly back to camp, it was apparent to me that the old man was indeed likely to be on his last trip to this part of the river, and that he was probably correct in his assessment of most of the rest of the things we'd talked about, as well. We parted at the entrance to the camp, and his children fussed over him, as they loaded him safely back into the trailer they all occupied.
The old man was a unique individual,, and he reminded me of a quote I once read, by writer Hans Christian Anderson:
"Just living is not enough," said the butterfly. "One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower."
The river might have been the old man's sunshine, freedom and flower, and if they were, then his knees could have been the wings he needed to go beyond "just living." I hope he can still make it up the hill, and that his interpretation of catch-and-release isn't forgotten. It was nice to share the river, and all that went with it, with him.
The next time I'm tempted toward the so-called "gluttony" of catching scores of fish, in a single day, I'm going to try to remember the knees that got me to the river, the flowers I saw along the way, the sunshine, how lucky I am to be on the stream to begin with, and that another might want to catch a few of the fish, since the fish and the river belong to both of us.
Approximately fifty fly tyers from around the country will be demonstrating their skills for all to see. There will be open programs and workshops for all to attend.
We are looking forward to having a great time and would like to invite all of our friends in the Southern Council to join us.
Send in your registration, or if you want more information, contact Bill Rowell, 520 Phyllis Dr., Covington, LA 70433, 504/893-3225 or e-mail 73417.3705@compuserve.com.
This page updated October 21, 1997
Long Casts is published four times per year by the Southern Council of the Federation of Fly Fishers. The Southern Council's President is Mark Van Patten, 314 Belaire, Jefferson City, Mo. 65101
Please send all editorial comments and material to Long Casts Editor, STEVE FRITZ, 435 East 63rd Terrace, Kansas City, Mo. 64110
INFORMATIVE OFFICIAL STUFF
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FFF CONCLAVE NEWS, Southern Council '97, Conclave Dates Set
Return to ToC By Dave Barron, '97 SC Conclave Chairman
As is traditional, the '97 Southern Council Conclave will be held the first weekend in October. Scheduled for Friday, Oct. 3rd. through Sunday, Oct. 5th., the Council's yearly get-together will again be held at the Ramada Inn, Mountain Home, Arkansas(501-425-9191).
"In the Water, On the River"
Return to ToC by Dave Adkins, North Arkansas Fly Fishers
There is no greater satisfaction to a Dad than standing on the sideline watching your children put into practice lesson you have taught them since they were little. Lessons they dont even realize they have learned, taught without classroom or words. You son holds a door for a lady or your daughter says "yes mam"or "no sir".
A Timid Texican's Adventures in Cajun Country
Return to ToC by Dee Ogden, Dallas Fly Fishers
Please! Oh, please. Just one square yard of solid earth to stand on. For a minute. Let me slowly turn and look to the horizon, a 360 degree circle, miles distant and not worry about a misstep plunging me neck deep into the semi-liquid coal-black muck forming the bottom of this endless south Louisiana swamp. The jolly black-eyed guide in the stern of the john boat is happy as a clam out here, ...And why not? He would love nothing better than to stay out here from dawn 'till dark without ever touching anything more substantial than the occasional clump of swamp saw grass and palmetto marooned against an island of jello-like primordial ooze. Because he knows, like you know the route from your house to the 7-11, where channels, holes, ridges and runs are located under these miles of tea-colored water and, therefore, exactly where redfish half the size of railroad crossties cruise and snooze, laze and graze, feed and breed.
The Lost Souls of the El Diablo Destination of a Lifetime
Return to ToC by Leonard Wilson
Picture this: Underground aquifers pumping 22,000 gallons of water per minute providing a constant flow of pure, pristine water surrounded by the collision of the Tamaulipan brushland of Northern Mexico, Edwards Plateau of Central Texas, and the Chihuahuan Desert to the west. And on top of this, mammals, birds, and wildlife from all three ecological systems. Could the picturesque beauty match the fly fishing for smallmouth? Just ask anyone that has been on an expedition through this harsh unforgiven beauty.
On Wounded Knee
Return to ToC by Steve Fritz, Long Casts Editor, Heart of America Fly Fishers
The old man limped toward me, obviously in pain, and just as obviously enjoying the day anyway, fishing his way downstream. He greeted me with a kind hello, asked how I was doing, seemed genuinely interested in my answer (I'd done well, catching several fish that morning), and then, as he came abreast of me on the river, told me that he was only two fish from his limit. He fished past me, casting gracefully and with a minimum of effort, putting his fly in the feeding lane on each drift. He's certainly not a beginner, I thought, as he quickly past from view around the corner below me.
The South Eastern Council will hold it's 1997 conclave on May 2nd & 3rd at the Beachside Resort and Convention Center on Santa Rosa Island, one of the barrier islands along the Florida Panhandle. Attendees will be surrounded by excellent fishing either by boat or wading in the surf.
South Eastern Council Sets Conclave Dates, Fly Fishers to Meet at Pensacola Beach
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All material for the June '97 issue
of Long Casts must be in the editor's
hands by April 15th., 1997.
Closing
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