August Fly of the Month
HPU Willow Worm
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August President's Message
"SE Minnesota, Snoring, Kids Fishing, and Old Dogs"
My month has not been as busy as Mark and Misako's last four months, but it has been pretty busy!
The fishing trip to S.E. Minnesota was quite successful. A total of nine people participated, eight of whom were NAFF members. The "hostel" accommodations at the Old Barn Inn worked out well. There were only two glitches. The first night, after we had driven for 12 hours, we all decided to go to bed early. However they were celebrating the "full moon" in the bar upstairs. And to us it sounded like the werewolves were actually were-elephants dancing. Until midnight!
Ever since our fishing trip to Kodiak, Bob Jensen has contended that Bob Krause has a really loud snore. He was right! As one snorer in a group of snorers, Bob Krause was the winner by far!
As soon as I returned from Minnesota I was involved with helping with TU's first fly fishing day camp. The camp included fly casting, fly fishing, fly tying, stream ecology, and a multitude of other stuff. There were about 30 kids, all around 10 years old. There were 10 to 15 volunteers each day, many of whom were NAFF members wearing their TU hats. I was a fishing instructor/guide. The kids were divided into two groups, and each group got to fish in Dry Run Creek for about two hours each day. We kept the casting instruction simple, how to roll cast.
Learning to fly fish is not easy. There are a bunch of things that you need to do right in order to catch a fish. But by the end of the three days all the kids had caught fish and were actually learning stuff. I even learned something. On the last day one young man, who was already deeply into fly fishing and tied his own flys, asked if he could use one of the flys that he had tied himself; a beetle. I was really skeptical. I had never caught a trout on a beetle. I didn't think that he could drift the fly properly (and so on and so on). But I said "sure, why not?" The fish were rising to invisible somethings. The young man tied on his fly and made a cast. And had a fish on! And did it a couple of more times. So I asked him for a beetle for my other student. Which he gladly provided. I thought I should demonstrate the process to other young man, so I made a demo cast. And almost instantly had a fish on! "Oh sh*t!" I quickly handed him the rod and he landed the trout. So I learned something, on a spring creek when the fish are rising to invisible somethings, try a terrestrial! Old dogs can learn new tricks!
In November we will be electing directors (see the article). If you would like to get more involved in NAFF, please volunteer! A committee is also working on an update to the bylaws. If we have our act together the updated bylaws should be ready for a vote in November also.
On another topic, my wife and I recently flew to Boston for a wedding. This topic is almost totally irrelevant for the majority of NAFF members. Except for the fact that we flew out of the new Branson airport, which is at least an hour closer to Mountain home than the Springfield airport!
Tight lines,
Mike T.
michaeltipton@centurytel.net