Acadiana - Louisiana Fly Fishing

Acadiana
Acadiana Fly Rodders
October 2007 Newsletter
Calendar of Events
November 2 - 4
Southern Flyfishing Rendevous
Toledo Bend
Fellow Fly Flingers (FFF)
Last weekend, Cindy and I attended the Southern
Council Conclave in Mountain Home, Arkansas. We
had a great time even though it was unseasonably hot.
Keith and Jay were also there and seemed to be enjoying themselves. It is always good to see old friends
and make new ones. Speaking of new friends, I met
the owner of ADG Titanium Fly Rods, Mr. David Ahn.
David has asked to come to our conclave in February.
He will bring his rods for us to cast and make a presentation about his rods. Believe me they are excellent rods.
I bought one last year and it even makes me look like a
good caster. Best of all, he will donate a rod for us to
raffle, what a great guy. He also likes Cajun cooking.
It is time to nominate new officers for next year.
If you would like to hold an office or know of someone that is interested, please let me know. If no
one steps up, as president I will reinstate the draft.
Remember, we will have our regular December
meeting on the 4th. Our Christmas party will be
held on December 18th at Bob Boese’s home. He
and his gracious wife have offered to host the party this year. The dress is fly fishing casual. If you
would like to join the gift swap we have raised the
limit to $20. You don’t have to spend that much but
now you have a greater selection of gifts available.
Our seminar is set for February 9th get the word
out and start making plans. I am going to invite some new tiers this year. Word has gotten out
how good our seminar is and how well we treat
our guests. They are asking to come to our event.
November 6
AFR Meeting
6:00pm
Grace Presbyterian Church
500 Roselawn Blvd., Lafayettte, LA
December 4
AFR Meeting
6:00pm
Grace Presbyterian Church
500 Roselawn Blvd., Lafayettte, LA
December 18
Christmas Party
103 Riviera Court, LeTriomphe
February 9
AFR Conclave
February 16-17
Little Mo Festival
Murfreesboro, Arkansas
FFF -- 2008 Gulf Coast Conclave
May 16-17 in Lake Charles
CCA -- No other events planned
November Presentation
John Hill
Adventures on the Selway
SELWAY RIVER
The Selway River is located in North Central Idaho in the northwestern United States
within the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.
It is a tributary of the Middle Fork of the
Clearwater River in the Clearwater National
Forest. The Selway was one of the rivers
included by the United States Congress in
1968 as part of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
The main stem of the Selway is more than
120 miles (193 km) in length from the headwaters in the Bitterroots to the confluence
with the Lochsa near Lowell to form the
Middle Fork of the Clearwater River. The
drainage basin for the river system comprises 106,977 acres (1910 square miles)
in Idaho County, Idaho. The river is fed by
melting snow out of the mountains of Idaho.
COOL EQUIPMENT
Neat Stuff to Make FlyFishing Better
FLIP UP MAGNIFIERS
These are fold-away magnifying glasses that clip onto the
bill of your hat. Equipped with a pin to keep them in place,
they are made of virtually unbreakable polycarbonate and
provide 2.0 - 3.0 magnification power lenses. They are
perfect (for some of us mandatory) for threading tippet
into flies on the water. They are reasonably scratch-resistant and the hinged lens flips them up against the underside
of the hat brim to keep them out of sight when not in use.
FLIP FOLD BRAND
http://store.theflyshop.com/catalog/index.php
http://www.ezflyfish.com/flipfocal.html
$16.95
GENERIC AND FLIP FOLD
www.bass-pro.com
$9.99 - 17.99
WITH AND WITHOUT LED LIGHT
www.llbean.com
$17.95 - 33.95
DOGS AND CATS
by Bob Boese
Louisiana is currently in the midst of its every afternoon thundershowers routine and, between
lightning strikes, my quite large dogs are shivering,
while attempting to possess the exact space I happen to be occupying. Meanwhile, the cat, Yogi,
is sitting under the carport on the truck hood daring anything to flee from the wet within his range
of view. Fly fishermen can learn a lot from dogs
and cats. The lessons they teach aren’t the same,
but they are related, in a perverse sort of way.
Dogs eat practically anything – dog food, leftovers, garbage, road kill and the oyster poorboy you
put on the back of the stovetop
thinking it was safe. Anything.
Don’t believe for a minute dogs
and chocolate are antithetical.
My sled dog will gnaw on a cereal box, but that’s about it, yet
he will hunt through the cupboard for Oreos and leave nothing but mangled cellophane.
Halloween’s leftover York peppermint patties went down and
out foil and all. He opened a new jar of peanut butter
and lapped out half. Yep, dogs are voraciously omnivorous. They consume whatever is available with
gusto and enthusiasm, grateful for any opportunity to
snack. Dog psyche says “eat it fast or someone else
will”... even if there is no someone competing for
the food. There is serious doubt that dogs taste half
of what they take in, unless it is that heartworm pill
you have to hide in a pat of butter to get swallowed.
Cats are basically carnivorous and eat only
what they want only when they want, even if the offering is the finest of canned feline gourmet fare. And
even a hungry cat will ignore the most expensive cat
food if it thinks someone is trying to get it to eat.
[Interestingly enough, a cat can’t survive solely on
dry dog food because dog food lacks the necessary
percentage of meat protein for the feline constitution.] Cats like killing things and frequently like eating their kill, but mostly they like killing things. Of
course, leave a grilled chicken breast alone for a while
with a house cat and you’ll know they are related to
tigers – as the spirits of birds and lizards and mice
and squirrels will confirm. Dogs are simply vacuums
for what’s easily available, unless the cat killed it, in
which case they are suspicious the cat left it as bait.
Largemouth bass and big bluegill don’t usually eat each other, so they don’t mess much with
each other. Bluegill are laterally compressed (plate
shaped), and, contrary to general belief, large bluegill are harder for bass to swallow than much bigger
torpedo shaped fish (like other bass or shad) and are
harder to get down than most bass are willing to deal
with, thus are not usually on the entree list. Tolerance
doesn’t mean they like each other – au contraire –
and they frequently compete for the same food. But,
bass are the dogs of the pond. Other than vegetation,
if it’s alive and in or on the water, it’s on their menu.
Bass fry change their diet from
zooplankton to fish as soon as
possible and turn into deadly
hunters in only a few weeks.
Bass can digest most anything
in their environment and have
the ability to swallow prey
nearly their own size. Tasting
is not part of the pre-feast protocol and if it might be edible
it’s worth a try. Hence the success of the resembles-nothing
buzz bait. Bass eating insects is like your dog taking
in pizza crumbs – not very filling but tasty. Fingerling bass eat a lot of insects and remember how swell
a nymph tasted as they grow. Given the choice between a shad, a crawfish and an ant, the ant comes in
a poor third. But...if the ant happens to be hanging
around as a bass hunts for shad or crawfish, it’s snackage. For this reason, a fly doesn’t have to look too
much like an insect to get eaten, just sort of food-ish.
In comparison, while their diet is varied, a
large bluegill’s mouth is only wide enough to accommodate relatively small items and their preference is
easy-to-catch delicacies, like insects. Bluegill spend
most of their young lives not wanting to get eaten, so
they develop an educated palate for the various types
of vegetation they hide among. Because they are familiar with water plants, they learn to be selective in
both their vegetarian diet and live entrees. In cat-ish
fashion, they sort of play with their food, tasting before eating, sometimes tasting several times first. Big
bluegill generally ignore dead fare and, given a choice
of main course, will select dinner by either mood or
memory. If the bluegill feels like eating and your fly
looks like food and something resembling your fly tasted like food before, bluegill think it’s probably food.
Yogi is an indoor-outdoor cat who rules his
domain with fang and claw. Even when sleeping he
is hunting and his very sharp claws will extend and
retract with dreams of prey. He will occasionally venture to the neighbor’s yard, but only to show off for
the neighbor’s calico. Dogs like exploring...because it
might take them near food. Let Ozzie, my daughter’s
sled dog, loose and you will find him miles away,
head cocked to the side, wondering why it too you so
long to catch up. Cats like marking territory and staying nearby. Dogs are smell oriented and, while running past things, they barely notice whether they are
black or white or grey-ish and darker grey-ish. Cats
practically count the leaves on every bush in their territory and, unless it saves a cat the trouble by moving,
a feline can distinguish a chamaeleon based on leaf
count. Dogs will chase prey for long distances. Cats,
unlike their larger cousins in the wild, like waiting for
prey to enter the danger zone then attack in short quick
movements. In the lake, bass don’t explore so much
as they prowl a water body, hunting for any mightbe-food that moves, like fish and ducks and frogs.
Their sense of smell is sharp but primarily they hunt
with their lateral line nerve system, which can detect
the slightest vibrations. Since they are usually the
top of the food chain, anything they detect moving
is a potential meal. Just because they haven’t eaten
a chartreuse popping bug before doesn’t mean they
aren’t going to test it’s edibility. Meanwhile, bluegill
stalk quietly around vegetative cover and prefer food
that won’t move fast, such as insects floating in the
water. In most instances, a fly has to come much
closer to a bluegill to entice it than it would for a bass.
Yogi visits the lake shore occasionally, presumably to kill something, but I think he is discussing
strategy with the bass. Both the cat and the bass are
night hunters. Cat night vision is excellent and, after
dark, bass use a combination of vision and lateral line
to find prey. In June a full sized mocking bird was
careless and, as darkness fell, it soon became a clump
of red streaked feathers that was deposited by the
backdoor next to a too slow field mouse. About that
same time we had been concerned with lake damage
from new nutria offspring. It was an unwarranted concern as the bass had only to decide whether to choose
from Column A with duckling puffs, Column B with
bullfrog sushimi, or Column C with the nutria tartar.
There is a tenuous peace in our house I have
yet to fully understand. She-Ra, my smaller dog (50
pounds small), used to come unglued at the thought
of a cat, and then Yogi and Ozzie moved in. Things
were very tense until a while back when a bad ginger cat backed my good ginger into a corner and
was actually winning, which tells you something
about the badness of that other cat. The dogs heard
the cat fight and Ozzie bolted from his leash to get
a mouthful of bad cat. She-Ra was standing with
her hackles straight up, just waiting to play tag team
and eventually got her own taste of the evil feline
– who has never been seen since in our vicinity.
Duh. Now the cat sleeps in the dogs’ beds and the
dogs share the cat’s food, and they all climb in bed,
together, with my daughter. Strange bedfellows for
sure. Bass and bluegill....naw, it’ll never happen.
Bubba’s son, T’Bub, on tour with his Army
Reserve division in Afghanistan, had just gotten a
furlough from several weeks of intense action on the
front lines. Finally granted R&R, he was exhausted
and boarded a train bound for Cairo with a platoon
of British troops. The train was very crowded and
T’Bub walked the length of the train, looking for an
empty seat. The only unoccupied seat was directly
adjacent to an expensively dressed French woman
and was being used by her poodle. The nasty tempered little dog growled and snapped at T’Bub as
he asked, “Please, ma’am, may I sit in that seat?”
The French woman looked down her nose at
T’Bub, his chest filled with campaign and award rib-
l bons. She huffed and said, l“You Americans. You are l
such a rude class of people. Can’t you see my Little
Fife is using that seat? Look you have upset her.”
T’Bub walked away, looking to find any
place to rest, but after another trip down to the end of
the train, found himself once more facing the woman with the dog. The dog snarled as again he asked,
“Please, lady. May I sit there? I’m really very tired.”
The woman wrinkled her nose and
snorted, “Sacre Bleu! Americans! Not only
are you rude, you are also arrogant. Connard!”
Now, T’Bub didn’t speak much French, but
the Cajun boys in his platoon had taught him some of
the more notable insults, and this was near the top of
the list. Without saying anything else; he leaned over,
picked up the unpleasant little dog, tossed it out the
window of the train and sat down in the empty seat.
The woman shrieked, hit him with her purse, then
stormed off looking for someone to deal with T’Bub.
An English officer sitting across the aisle
spoke up, “You know, sir, you Americans do
seem to have a penchant for doing the wrong
thing. You butcher the language. You eat holding
the fork in the wrong hand. You drive your autos on the wrong side of the road. And now, sir,
you’ve thrown the wrong bitch out the window.”
The new Louisiana outdoor sports
logo. You see it all over.
Love it? Hate it?
Buy it? louisianasportsman.com
News Bites
Cabela’s opened on I-10 in Gonzales on 5 October 2007-- with a
fly fishing department.
Outdoor Channel has announced
six new fishing shows that will
launch in 2007 and 2008.: Ultimate Match Fishing, Ultimate
Match Fishing - College Edition,
Western Sportfishing with Lee
Horsley, Offshore Adventures,
Outfitters Almanac, and Ultimate
Outdoors..
Rocky Mountain News reports
there are 15 million fly fishers of
which 20% are women.
FLYFISHING INTERNET
SITES
RECIPE OF THE MONTH
FISHING KNOTS
http://www.landbigfish.com/knots/default.cfm
http://www.trout-salmon-fishing.com/flyfishingknots.htm
http://www.marinews.com/
http://www.fishingworks.com/fishing-knots
http://www.flyanglersonline.com/
http://www.animatedknots.com/
http://www.folsoms.net/knots/
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/knotlink.
htm#fishing
http://www.realknots.com/index.htm
http://www.netknots.com/
http://www.fish4fun.com/knots.htm
http://www.flymartonline.com/article215.html
http://www.thejump.net/fishing-knots/fishingknots.htm
http://www.tnoutdoorsmen.com/knots.htm
http://www.killroys.com/knots/knots.htm
(Animated)
http://www.troutlet.com/scripts/openExtra.
asp?extra=13
http://www.orvis.com/orvis_assets/files/index.html
http://www.wigglefin.com/knots/fishing_knots.
html
http://www.animatedknots.com/
a really useful ONE TO TRY
THE PITZEN
http://www.saltwatersportsman.
com/saltwater/fishing/
article/0,12746,1049019,00.html
http://www.pechetruite.com/
Noeuds/Pitzen-knot.htm
http://www.rockymtnfly.com/
features/pitzen_knot.aspx
Borski’s Fur Shrimp
Hook: Mustad 34007 or 34011 #4 - #6
Thread: Flat waxed nylon
Tail: craft fur or super hair + krystal flash striped
with Sharpie marker
Hackle: Grizzly saddle hackle
Eyes: Lead or bead chain
1) Tie on thread near hook eye and wrap 3/4 the
length of the hook shank for an underlayer to protect
against other materials spinning on the shank.
2) Tie on super hair or craft fur and cover hair and
shank with a smooth body back to hook bend.
3) Tie on 4-6 strands of pearl crystal flash.
4) Tie in grizzly hackle at the base of the thread
body.
5) Tie on eyes immediately behind the hook eye.
6) Wrap the hackle over the thread body using a
minimum of 6 wraps.
7) Whip finish a smooth head around the eyes.
8) The fly will normally ride hook point up so clip
the hackle opposite the hook point short.
9) Draw several stripes on the super hair with black
Sharpie marker.
This pattern was developed in the Florida Keys and
is best used retrieved slowly with short strips along
the bottom. It is very effective for redfish, flounder,
permit, bonefish, jacks and speckled trout.
PLACES TO FISH
VETERAN’S PARK
Lafayette, LA
Veteran’s park is a small (6 acre) park located
on Fue Follet in Lafayette. The park contains
a playground, a memorial to citizens of Lafayette who died in Viet Nam, a restroom, a picnic
area and (most importantly) a one acre lake.
The lake is stocked with bass, bluegill, catfish
and golden shad. The lake is surrounded on the
northwest by a fence and pine trees, on the southwest by oak trees, and on the northeast by trees and
the picnic pavillion. On the southeast is a small
deck (10’ above the water) and scattered trees.
About 3/4 of the area is roll casting only. Water
color changes with precipitation from light tan
to opaque olive and fallen branches are scattered
across the shallows. The lake is shallow -- two feet
or less out to 5 feet from the banks, then 6-8 feet
at the center of the lake. There is a resident flock
of large white ducks that can cause you to curse
and, in the summer, fly-clinging algae grows on
the branches in the shallows. Unfortunately, trash
from thoughtless park goers occasionally accumulates on the southwest end of the lake, making that
area virtually unfishable. The park is usually empty
during weekdays and most visitors are there for the
playground (not near the lake). Children will occasionallydrop a line with worms and crickets from
the deck, but there is no other pressure on the fish.
On the day these pictures were taken a very respectable bass took an olive woven fly (which was spit
out on the first jump) and a small catfish was landed
in only 10 minutes of fishing. The key in this lake
is patience. Fish slowly because the resident
population is nervous in the shallows and hard
to entice in the deeper waters.
FLIES TO USE
Rigged alone or with a popper-dropper rig, all
fish I have caught were on olive soft hackles,
olive or yellow woven Bully-type flies or a
Black Boudreaux. Takes are gentle and setting the hook when you only think it’s a bite is
not always a false assumption. My suggestion:
take lunch to the lake and try your luck.
Friends of AFR
Gulf Coast Outfitters
Southern Comfort Marina
Dulac, LA
[email protected]
225-926-3597
President: Barry Dauphin
1st VP: Doug Blair
2nd VP: Rusty Dunn
Secretary: Ray Boudreaux Treasurer: Rick Latiolais
Sgt. at Arms: Max McLeod Editor: Bob Boese
To e-mail AFR Newsletter: [email protected]
RED TIDE
by Bob Boese
You may recall that on previous occasions I have made mention of the remarkable bad fortune
with which my fishing adventures are afflicted. From good fishing guides (“everybody just loves him”)
gone bad to fishing guides just gone (to another continent no less), to weather’s vile humor with -20○
blizzards and flats churning hurricanes, to a myriad of unfortunate circumstances that stagger the imagination. Such is my luck that when I have finally located the perfect wadeable north Florida fishing spot
for reds and specks, the area is the only Atlantic coast region afflicted with a high level of red tide.
Red tide? Red tides are harmful algal blooms, or HABs for short, the name given to discolored
ocean waters that are exposed to the rapid reproduction of microscopic algae. These single cell organisms reproduce by cell division so one creature becomes millions in very little time. The problem is that
some of these little critters, like Pfiesteria, produce deadly toxins. A few other toxic dinoflagellate species with characteristics similar to Pfiesteria have been identified but not yet named. These are referred
to as “Pfiesteria-like organisms,” or Pfiesteria Complex Organisms (PCOs for short) and they occur from
New York to the Gulf of Mexico. Environmenalists call it “The Cell from Hell.” Fish exposed to Pfiesteria develop irritations of the skin surface, a sort of rash, that has a localized loss of the epidermis which
leads to osmotic shock and death. It’s an ugly way for fish to die. Sometimes there will be an ulcerous
lesion that has penetrated the skin and eroded underlying muscle.
Algal blooms can be pretty, if you don’t know what they are. They come in a variety of colors
from vibrant red to dark blues. The pfiesteria complex of organisms is a relatively new discovery, and we
really don’t know all that much about its biology, but we know that their growth is associated with nutrient levels in the water and that there are over two dozen varieties and several are toxic. The bad ones
all impact fish and shellfish, human health and, obviously, water quality. There are numerous cases of
fishermen and swimmers exposed to diseased fish who got very sick. Pfiesteria seems to particularly like
people. When you get it you develop open sores that can’t heal. When it gets in a body it causes severe
headaches and memory loss, and very possibly much more unpleasant and possibly fatal effects. In one
experiment, pfiesteria cells were put into human blood where they immediately attacked and swallowed
all the blood cells. Scary, right? But the worst part is that so little is know about red tides. The Solutions
To Avoid Red Tide site (http://www.start1.com/redtide/default.aspx) notes that there are several unanswered but critical questions:
The precise location of initiation zones
The cause of bloom initiation
What transports a bloom into shallow waters
What causes a bloom to end or die
When are toxins produced, what amounts, and at what stage in its life cycle
When are toxins released [In January the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) described a newly identified ephemeral toxin produced by Pfiesteria. The key to its
elusiveness over the past decade, they say, is that the toxin is produced rapidly and then vanishes
quickly upon exposure to sunlight and other environmental cues.]
The human body has numerous apertures that a single cell organism can use to invade. Yuck!
Moreover, few fishermen I know don’t have a few nicks, cuts and scratches on their hands. Wading in
tropical waters affected with red tide invites disaster. Even if you don’t get deathly ill, common symptoms are skin irritation, nausea and, most commonly, memory loss – so you don’t remember why you are
sick.
At this point in my life I am having regular senior moments and brain cramps, which don’t need
any help from red tide.
Bob also invites you to explore
the FFF site.
There is currently a membership
promotion through December 31,
2007
AFR members may join the Federation at the special discounted
price of $15.00 for a regular one
year individual membership. On
the FFF membership application
you need to cross off the regular
35.00 rate and write in $15.00
next to it. Add your club name
or FFF club number on the form.
Have Barry sign it.
If you can afford it, individual life
memberships are normally $500
(couples $750) but through the
end of the year for a price of $750
Bob Tabbert sends along this quiz.
it will include a FFF individual
Go to www.fedflyfishers.com and
study the cover picture on the home Life membership, choice of a Sage
page. Bob’s contest is to identify 5 590-4 Z-axis Series Rod (5 weight)
OR a Sage 890-4 Xi2 Series Rod
items (including the locale) shown
in the photo. Bob’s e-mail is rtab@ (8 weight). The member gets a
msn.com. The first person to iden- package valued at approximately
tify all 5 correctly will win a guided $1150.00 for a $750.00 investtrip to Fould’s Pond which is some- ment. BUT...if you are well-heeled
where in the vicinity of Bob’s sum- enough to do it, here’s the real
mer yankeeland get-a-way near Lac deal: A couple life membership
du Flambeau, Wisconsin. You have special is also available - you get
to make your way to Wisconsin, but membership and a choice of two
the pond is apparently spring fed and rods for the price of $1,250.00.
fill of native brook trout.