SOFF News€¦ · Teaching Credential and a Master’s degree from Chico State where he worked as an Instructor, Administrator and Counselor before following his passion to guide

SOFF News

SPECIAL MENTION

Rich Hosley: MembershipJohn Graves: Fly Tying ChairDale Heath: Fly Tying InstructorRay McClenathan: ProgramsSonja Nisson: Auction ChairDavid Haight: Outings ChairSue Keeling: SOFF WearRich Steed: HistorianEd Michalski: Raffles

Dinner Reservations: E-mail - [email protected] or call the Club at (541) 955-4718

Vol.22 No.1 The Monthly Newsletter of The Southern Oregon Fly Fishers, Inc. January, 2015

SOFF NEWS A publication of

Southern Oregon Fly Fishers P.O. Box 1144 Grants Pass, Oregon 97528 Web Site: www.soff.org

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

John Storfold President/Fly Tying Chair Jerry Keeling Vice President/SOFF Wear

Rich Steed Treasurer Jan Knapik Secretary

Board Members Jim Simpson Immediate Past President Dave Grosjacques Habitat Chair

Ron Cremo Joe Knapik Dave Archambault Members at Large Duane Chebul Newsletter Editor/Web Master E-Mail. [email protected]

The sea continues to becken to mem-bers of the So Oregon Fly Fishers to try their hand at fly fishing for fish other than the fresh water variety.

Could this be a reprise of Hemingway’s ‘The Old Man and the Sea’? I think not, rather it is Russ Leavitt proudly holding a fiesty bonefish that he caught on his most recent trip to Belize.

SOFF NEWS January, 2015 Page 2

FROM THE BOARD

ATTENTION! Board Meeting

The Board of Directors meet in the conference room of the Taprock Restaurant The next meeting is scheduled: January 6th, 6:00pm or usually the first Tuesday of the month All members welcome

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE by John Storfold

the great friends that I have made being a member of this club. I don’t want this to sound like a good-by because I am not going anywhere. I am just stepping down as the President after two years. I willbehere.Iamjustreflectingontheseason and what has to take priority.

All though I thoroughly enjoy hook-ing the big ones, this year I found work-ing with the Veterans at White City and Project Healing Waters was far more rewarding. To see the smiles on these guys’ faces and listen to them at the end of an outing talking about the great day they had. Even those that weren’t lucky enough tocatchafishstillhadagreattime. This is what it is all about and made all the efforts worthwhile.

Project Healing Waters is dedicated to the physical and emotional rehabilita-tion of disabled active military service personnel and veterans using the me-diumofflyfishing,flytyingeducationand outings. Our local program cur-rently is just aboutflyfishing,but thisdoes not mean we won’t expand the pro-gram rather this is where we are right now. If you are interested in helping out, please contact me for details. The more help we have the more one-on-one at-tention we can give the vets to enhance their experience. If you want to know more about the national program, please visit their website at www.projectheal-ingwaters.org.

As I look back on 2014, I asked my-self what have I enjoyed and what have I learned. Yes even at my age I findmyself learning. When I helped with theflytyingclass,Ilearnedbetterwaysto handle material and tie better flies.When I worked with the Vets and Proj-ect Healing Waters, I improved my cast-ing and found myself refocusing on the basics because I had to teach them how tocast.Ilearnedhowtotiebetterfliesgoing to SOFT meetings, and attend-ing the Albany Fly Tying and Fishing Expo. In the process it became clear to me that just when you think you know a lot, you realize how much you have to learn and that it is never too late. I guess

Continued on Pg. 3

I am sharing this with you to encour-age volunteering to help with many of the projects that the club supports. You may surprise yourself as to how much you’llbenefitfromgivingandhowre-warding it can be and self-satisfying. .

HELP WANTED: We are still in need of a CASTING CHAIR. Any-one interested please contact anyone on the board. We are still looking for anyone that would be willing to be a point of contact to mentor for our new members. We have a MENTORSHIP CHAIR, Joe Knapik, but we cannot expect Joe to mentor all the new mem-bers. Please raise a hand and lend a hand.

I am sure when you joined the club someone befriended you and showed you the ropes. That is all we are doing with the mentor program, just formal-izing something we have been doing for years. We are not asking you to take on multiple members, rather that you mentor a newbie on a one to one basis. So please give this some thought.

It had been my pleasure to sit at the helm of the best club I have been as-sociated with. I feel that with any po-sition, especially one that your friends have entrusted you with, comes a re-sponsibility. I hope I have represented the club well. I have always grown from my association with clubs but this club the most. I hope I have given back as much as I have received.

I pray that this year is a great year

As I sit here writing this ar-ticle, 2015 is upon us and thetimehasjustflown.It

seems like it was months ago when I was at the 2014 New Year’s chili feed at the holy water yet here it is 2015. Wow! Unfortunately as we all have grown older, the time seems shorter. Now a days, a month seems like last week.

As we move forward this will be my last President’s article. I have a few things I would like to address and hope that this article does not get too disjointed.

I hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. My wife, Lora, was in New York with my middle daughter so I was baching it. I did get to go to California for Christ-mas and spent time with my brother in-law and my eldest daughter. As I am sure we all did, I ate too much but had a great time other than remembering why I did not want to retire in Califor-niawithallthetraffic.Ialsohadsomefriends call me out of the blue as they were driving through Grants Pass and we were able to share a meal and catch up before they had to go on down the road.

When we get together with family and old friends it put things in focus and reminds us what is really impor-tant in life. Yes it is great to have those fishingtripsandphotosofthebigonesthat did not escape, but what is truly important is our family and lifelong friends that we have made along the way. Part of what is important to me is


PROGRAMS Future Programs Feb 19 Jon CovichMar 19 John ShermanApr 16 Fly Tyers Mtg. May 21 Phil RowleyJun 19 TBAJuly 16 No MeetingAug 20 No MeetingSep 17 TBA

WHEN: TIMES: WHERE:Taprock Event Center955 S.E. 7th St. G.P.

5:30 PM Social Hour and Fly Tying Demo. 6:30 PM Meeting 7:00 PMDinner and Program

Craig Neilson - Seasons on the Klamath

Jan. 15, 2015

President’s Message Cont. From Pg. 2for you all. May the New Year bring you all joy and the catches of a life time, or maybe the just the joy of the tug.

Craig Nielsen is the owner and operator of Shasta Trout. A Northern Cali-fornianative,hehasbeenchasingtroutwithaflyrodforover50yearsandhasguidedprofessionallysince1992.Havingfishedallacrossthewesternstates,B.C.and Alaska he especially appreciates the angling diversity Mt. Shasta offers. From presenting tiny dries to selective Fall River Rainbows, swinging streamers with switchrodsfortheKlamath’sfabledsteelhead,dryflyfishingontheMcCloud,ornymphing the Upper and Lower Sac for trophy ‘bows, Craig enjoys it all. Every-oneappreciateshispatience,anglingversatilityandlocalknowledge.Acertifiedcastinginstructor,hehastaughtatMelKrieger’sschoolandwasoneofthefirstauthors on switchrods. Craig has been a featured guide for Flywater Travel, The Ashland Flyshop, Leland, Ted Fay, Fish First, The Clearwater House and The Flyshop. He has presented to dozens of Fly Fishing clubs in California and Or-egon and as a celebrity in the west coast ISE and Fly Fishing Shows. He holds a Teaching Credential and a Master’s degree from Chico State where he worked as an Instructor, Administrator and Counselor before following his passion to guide full time.

Nautilus #5 Reel CFR limited edition $200.00

3.5” Dia, 4.2 oz, for 4 to 6-wt line with 5-wt floating line andbacking ($350.00 value).

Guideline AWM Fly Rod $100.00

5 wt. 9’ 3 piece with sock and tube.

Custom made CFR Fly Rod 5 wt. 8’ 4 piece with sock$90.00

Wooden Trout Net $50.00

　

All items are brand new. If inter-ested, contact Tanya Haight at 541-855-9043 or [email protected].

　

All proceeds go directly to: Casting For Recovery

For Sale


CASTING ABOUT

Belize Adventureby Russ Leavitt

Continued on Pg. 7

making sure thefly landswithin sightof the fishwithout spooking them, al-low thefly to sink to theproperdepthwithout snagging the bottom grass, use the correct fly and retrieve, the Sons

of B…………um……the wily creatures may still refuse your offering. But if you hook-up, hardly any fishcan match the initial run of a bonefish. Thesecrafty, delightful fish are a joy topursue.

Dave G. and I fished togetherone afternoon as the yellow light of evening fil-tered through the cumulous clouds. The evening was cool with only light to moder-ate winds. We

fishedthroughaflatwith littlesuccessbut noticed fish were working behindus. We were unable to get close enough for a cast directly into the wind without spookingthebonefish.Afterexitingtheflat and re-entering well upwind withthe breeze behind us, we could reach theworkingfishwithoutscaringthem.Theirdorsalandtailfinscouldbeseenfairly easily against the orange setting sun. Together we caught several bon-efish. Itwasoneof thosenearmagicaleveningsthatkeepsfly-fishershanker-ing for more.

Weuseda9 foot–9weightfloat-ing line with a 9 foot leader. The tippet sectionwas1x.Ourbestflywasa“Bon-efish Bitter” size 8 in green or brownavailable from The Fly Shop, Redding, Ca.

Fly-fishingthesaltwaterflatsof Belize is, for many, a buck-et list item. It was for Dave

Grosjacques, Kevin O’Malley, Lucky and myself. In the last half of July 2014 we boarded a live aboard boat named the Meca owned by guide and Captain Dean. His wife and niece formed the galley crew whoproducedfirstclass dining three times daily. There wasasecondfish-ing guide in the mix which would bring the ratio of two anglers per guide. The Meca was our home for 7 days and 6 nights. It consists of two private cabins and sleeps four. It sails out of Belize City and plies the extensive flatsinsidethebarrierreefthatextendsfrom Mexico to well south of Hondu-ras.Wetowedtwofishingskiffsoutofwhich all the fishing would be done.We could travel to a selected location, anchor, and search the surrounding ar-easforour targets–bonefish, tarpon,and permit. English, sort of, is spoken in Belize, previously known as British Honduras. Flats fishing incorporatesmany skills all of which must be mas-teredforsuccess.Huntingandfishingare blended in some of Central Amer-ica’s most beautiful Caribbean waters. One must prepare for humidity, heat, wind, and lots of sun. But if you learn to search past the glare of the sun and spot your prey - no small task, carefully maneuver into casting position, make a verydifficultcastinwindyconditions

Dave Grosjacques out at first light trying for an early morning bite.

Permit are considered by many to betheultimatesaltwaterfly-fishingtar-get. Lucky was the only one to land a permit. A fact of which I am still often reminded. Those who land their firstpermitonaflywhileaboard theMecaorthe“MotherShip”arerewardedwitha very nice book by Don Muelrath. Don manages“FlyFishingAdventures”andcoordinated our trip.

Tarpon? Perhaps next time. I’m sure we will return. For complete informa-tiontype“FlyFishingAdventures”intoyoursearchengine.Thenclickon“Be-lize”. Complete information concerning costs, best times of the year, available species, etc. can be found on this web-site.

The 2015 Northwest Fly Tyer & Fly Fishing Expo, held March 13 and 14 at the Linn County Expo Center in Albany, Oregon, celebrates its 27th year and is one of the nation’s largest fly-fishingevents.Asusual,thisexpansiveevent features vendors, classes, and demonstrations, but the cornerstone of the Expo is the amazing collection of more than200demonstrationfly tiersdressing everything from the tiniest troutfliestotheshowieststeelheadandAtlantic salmon patterns.

Classesarebeingfinalizedandwill

2015 Northwest Fly Tyer & Fly Fishing Expo


OUTINGS AND WORKSHOPS

Jan 1 Chili Feed on the Holy WaterJan 17-18 Lower Rogue Winter Steelhead Feb 20 - 21 Cow CreekMar 21 Applegate SteelheadApr 18 Galesville ReservoirMay 2 Copeland PondMay 16-18 Pronghorn Lake

January Outing - Winter Steelhead on the Lower Rogue

2015 Outings

The Beginning Fly Tying Class starts January 7, 2015, and contin-ues every Wednesday evening, for 10 weeks, from 7 PM to 9 PM, through March 11. The course is open to the public through the Grants Pass Depart-ment of Parks and Recreation, but we would urge SOFF members who are interested to sign up early. Grants Pass High School provides a room for the class with large TV monitors so the student will see an enlarged picture of theflywhiletheteacheristyingtheflyand the student will be able to compare it to the one they are actually tying.

If you have ever said to yourself, “Iwouldliketolearnhowtotieflies”,now is the time to take action. We have a great staff of helpers who will help youlearnwhileyoupracticetheflyty-ing processes: Kevin Daniels, Cathy Hamilton, Rich Redding, John Stor-fold, Dave Grosjacques, Craig Ingram, and others. We could use another help-er or two, so if you are interested see Dale Heath.

There are 20 spaces available, and inthepastthesehavefilledupquickly.So,ifyouwanttolearntotieflies,don’thesitate, see the Parks and Recreation at the Welcome Center on the corner of 6th and G St. to sign up. Then let your friends, relatives, and co-workers know abouttheclass.Wehaverotaryflyty-ing vises available to loan, but you’ll need to bring your own tools. The cost for the class is only $25, which covers the cost of materials. The GP Parks & Recreation number to call for informa-tion is: 541-471-6435. The address of GP Parks and Recreation to sign up and pay is: 198 SW 6th St., Grants Pass.

Any questions? Call or email Dale Heath 541-973-3490 [email protected]

The Beginning Fly Ty-ing Class

by Dale HeathSince January is one of the slower times for fishing inour area, we typically head to

the coast where fishingforwin-ter steelhead is in full swing. This year, we will head to a river where I don’t think we have fished forwinter steel-head as a club b e f o r e - - t h e lower Rogue River near Gold Beach. The lower Rogue is a big river with large gravel bars and long runs well suitedtoswingingflieswithlongrods.If you don’t have a Spey or switch rod, don’t worry, the steelhead usually travel close to shore within easy range of sin-gle-handed rods.

On January 17, we will meet for breakfast at 8:00 AM at the Indian Creek Cafe located a short distance up-stream of Hwy 101 on the south side of the Rogue (94682 Jerry’s Flat Road). If you don’t want to eat breakfast, join us there by 9:00 AM.

The lower Rogue River offers plenty of opportunities for both bank and boat anglers. Many of the large gravel bars are publicly owned and easy to get to,

giving bank anglers plenty of places to fish.Driftboats,pontoonboats,jetboats,and even prop boats, if you are careful,

can be used to access oth-er good loca-tions.

F o r equ ipment , seven to eight-weight Spey or switch rods paired with Skagit heads and an assortment of tips would be ideal. Similar weight single-handed rods

with sink-tip lines or sinking shooting heads will also work well. Bring 10 to 15-lb tippet material and an assortment offlies--from traditionalsteelheadpat-terns, to egg-sucking leeches, to intrud-ers.Black or purple flieswith a bit ofbright color mixed in often work well. If you prefer to dead-drift egg patterns or nymphs, you can do that too. Pack your waders and rain gear as well.

Gold Beach has a good variety of lodging and dining options, and there are several RV parks and campgrounds alongtheriver.Youcanfindmoreinfor-mation at www.goldbeach.org.

Thereareavarietyofotherfishingoptions in the area. If you want to try a smaller stream, Hunter Creek and Pistol River have good runs of winter steel-head. Due to the uncertainty of river conditions during the winter, be sure to check the club’s website before you leave for the outing to see if we had to make any last-minute changes.

David Haight, Outings Chair

If the stars align perfectly and you’re anyways lucky, this could be a picture of a fish you just caught on the Lower Rogue Outing.


FLY TYING CORNER

Name(s):Address:City: State: Zip:Phone: Home ( ) Work: ( )Email: Personal interests: Renewal:_____New:______

Please make checks payable to: SOFF and mail to: PO Box 1144, Grants Pass, Oregon 97528

Regular..........................................$35.00 Family............................................$45.00 Youth..............................................$10.00 Contributing..................................$50.00 Lifetime (Individual)...................$350.00 Lifetime (Couple).........................$450.00

Membership Form

John Storfold Fly Tying Chair Ph. 660-6584 E-mail: [email protected]

Tying Instructions:

Freight Train

Hook: #2-8 Steelhead Hook.Thread: Black 3/0 or 6/0. Tail: Purple Hackle Fibers.Rib: Oval Tinsel.Butt: Orange and Red Floss.Body: Black Medium Chenille.Hackle: Purple Saddle.Wing: White Calf Tail.

Pinch the barb and put the hook in the vice. Tiein8-10hacklefibersforthetail.Tieinyourovaltinselandorangefloss.Movethethreadforwardandwraptheorangeflossuptheshankapproximately

1/8 inch. Tieintheredflossandrepeat,securetheflossandtrimexcess.Tie in Black Chenille and wrap forward, leaving room for the wing and hackle and head. Wrap the tinsel forward, four

tofivewrapsandtieoffandtrim.Tieinthehackleandwrap2-3wrapsandsecure.Foldthetopfibersdownandsecure.(Istriponesideofthefibersoff

beforeItieitin.Youcanjuststripthefibersoffandtietheminthebottomofthehook.Justanothermethodtoachievethesame appearance)

Tie in the Calf or Buck tail. Wing should extend just beyond the bend of the hook. Create a nice tapered head and whip finish.Applyheadcementandletdry.

IhookedsomenicesilversandsteelheadinCanadawiththisfly.Iamsureitwillandhasworkedforothersonourlocalrivers. Tight lines.

Fly Tied By: John Storfold


CHANGING LINES COMING EVENTS1-6 Board Meeting.1-13 SOFT Fly Tyers, Madrone Mobile Home Park in Gold Hill.1-15 Club Meeting with Craig Neilson.1-17-18 Club Outing - Lower Rogue Steelhead.2-3 Board Meeting2-10 SOFT Fly Tyers, Madrone Mobile Home Park in Gold Hill.2-19 Dinner Meeting with Jon Covich.2-20-21 Club Outing - Cow Creek with Dave Grosjacques.3-3 Board Meeting

Editor’s Notebook Cont. From Pg. 8ing? Not only that, but some of the extra money you pay for having that license plate each time you renew the it goes to aid salmon and indirectly the other salmonoids.

Now fast forward to last Decem-ber and stories in the Oregonian and Daily Courier. These stories dealt with the extra monies that the state col-lected at each renewal for those with the ‘salmon plate’. Instead of going to aidsalmonandotherfisheries,itpaidthe salary of some bureaucrat in Salem whohadnothing todowithfisheriesand in fact in addition to the salary paid this individual the funds raised would be going to a new computer system which also had nothing to do with salmon.

I guess that we shouldn’t be sur-prised that government does what gov-ernment does best – ‘takes from Peter and gives to Paul’ supposedly.

It just galls me to think that I have two cars that have ‘salmon plates’ on them and that I just renewed both plates in November and now I’m stuck for two years before I can do anything about it. Let me assure you that when the time comes for renewing, I’ll be changing them to the regular Oregon

Expo Cont. From Pg. 4

license plate. Now let the state steal the money from somewhere else to support that Salem bureaucrat!

Momentum behind the SOFF Bucket List project is building with several

members recently seen scratching their headsandwhispering,“SowherewouldIreallyliketogoflyfishingsomeday?”We have received some interesting con-tributionsincludingflyfishinginSpain… New Brunswick … Belize … B.C. and Wyoming.

We hope to compile a list of some great places where our members HAVE fished orWANT to fish someday as aresource for those members who would liketoputapersonalflyfishingbucketlist together.

If you have been somewhere that you feel is exceptional and would like to add it to our bucket list, just send me the location in an e-mail or note. You can include a little description along with a couple photos if you like.

If you have somewhere that is still onyourflyfishingbucket list thatyouwould like to share, please send that along also. The Greybull River in Wyo-ming is on my bucket list and I hope to get there soon. Belize was on Russ & Lucky Leavitt’s bucket list and when they make their trip recently, they shared a nice description with pictures, which should show up in the newsletter soon.

Thinking about going to Belize? Well now you know someone who has the inside scoop. New Zealand was on my bucket list and I was able to travel there, and since have shared informa-tion with a couple of members who were planning their trips to New Zealand. The SOFF Bucket List … it’s all about sharing.

Don’t feel that these locations need to be exotic or far away, there are some great spots in Oregon. The idea is to

The SOFF Bucket List By John Iding

be posted to the website (www.nwexpo.com) in January 2015. In addition, ban-quet tickets and merchandise can be purchased on the website as well.

The Expo serves as a fundraiser for the Oregon Council International Federation of Fly Fishers. Proceeds are usedforfisheriesscholarships,conser-vation grants and grants to member clubs.

For more information, contact John Kreft, 2015 Expo Chair at [email protected].

have some fun thinking about wonder-fulplacestoflyfish,sowecandreamaboutwettingaflyinabeautifulnewplace we have not experienced before. Oh yes, this is not a conspiracy to get memberstodisclosetheirsecretfishingspots, please keep those secret!

As this project will take some time to fully develop, we will not have a deadline until sometime next spring. So … where do you want to go???

Club Meeting Times Are Changing

Recently, several club members have complained to SOFF Board Mem-bers that the monthly dinner meetings are ending too late for them and if there could be something done to resolved this problem.

The board took this under ad-visement and for a trial period of two months have decided to change the meeting times.

Beginning with the January meet-ing and continuing on through the Fe-buary meeting, the meetings times will change as follows:

5:30 pm Social Hour and Fly Ty-ing Demo.

6:30 pm Meeting7:00 Dinner and Program.


Editor’s Notebook

NON PROFIT ORG

U.S POSTAGE

PAID PERMIT NO. 420 Medford, OR

P.O. Box 1144Grants Pass, Oregon 97528E-Mail: www.soff.org

Continued on Pg. 7

trying to accomplish these tasks, I use excuses to further my inactivity. Some of the more popular ones are: I’m get-ting too old to go out fishing or thetemperature is too cold or I don’t have anyonetofishwith,butoneofmyalltime favorites is that I can’t do any of these tasks because my sock drawer needs rearranging. Excuses all for not doing something I enjoy. Why is it nec-essary to resolve to do something that you enjoy? I don’t know why I make these excuses; maybe I allow demands on my life to outweigh the pleasures of life. Granted if I was still working and had family obligations I might not be able to do all things that I wanted to do, but when you’re retired you should have ample time to partake in these pursuits.

Writing this piece has been cathar-tic for me. I noticed that many of my excuses border on ‘old’ and ‘lack of time’. Old is something that I can’t do

anything about, but accept it as a fact of life; whereas lack of time is some-thing that can be resolved. Granted that ‘old’ and ‘lack of time’ seem to overlap as one sometimes dictates as to availability of the other, but maybe this is where a ‘New Year’s Resolu-tion’ would be warranted? Resolve not to let ‘old’ and ‘lack of time’ in-termingle, but to make them separate entities and live your life according-ly.

Thereitis–I’mresolvingtofishmore,totiemorefliesandtotakepartin more club activities and ‘old’ be damned!

On another matter – how many of you have the salmon license plate on yourcars?WhenIfirstmovedtoOr-egon, I was impressed by this plate. Afishonmylicenseplate,whatbet-ter way to let people know that you’re someone interested in fish and fish-

With the approach of the New Year, I generally review the past year

and give some thought to what I want to improve on in the coming year. I guess this is a common scenario most everyone goes through as they make their ‘New Year’ resolutions.

After much thought on the mat-ter, I’ve decided not to waste my time on ‘New Year’ resolutions as I never accomplish or keep them. Every year particularly in respect to fly fishingit’s the same old thing – more time on the water, tie more flies, participatein more club outing and generalities suchasthat.Inretrospect,IfindthatIdon’tfishanymoreoftenortiemoreflies or for that matter attend moreclub outings. This is not to say that I don’t have the desire to do these things, but somehow I lack the gump-tion to get it done.

I have found that now instead of

SOFF News

SPECIAL MENTION

Rich Hosley: MembershipJohn Graves: Fly Tying ChairDale Heath: Fly Tying InstructorRay McClenathan: ProgramsSonja Nisson: Auction ChairDavid Haight: Outings ChairSue Keeling: SOFF WearRich Steed: HistorianEd Michalski: Raffles


Vol.22 No.2 The Monthly Newsletter of The Southern Oregon Fly Fishers, Inc. February, 2015



BOARD OF DIRECTORS Dave Grosjacques President/Habitat Chair Jerry Keeling Vice President/SOFF Wear


Board Members John Storfold Immediate Past President Ron Cremo Joe Knapik Mentor Chair Brady Keister Casting Chair Duane Chebul Newsletter Editor/Web Master E-Mail. [email protected]

SOFF’s can no longer can be assured of lakes to fish in So. Oregon in these current drought conditions without a substanial increase in the snowpack.

Nick Merrill proudly displays a fine chunky rainbow taken from Hyatt Lake. Note the abundance of water still in the lake when the photo was taken. It has since with the drought become a former shadow of itself.

SOFF NEWS February, 2015 Page 2

FROM THE BOARD


The Board of Directors meet in the conference room of the Taprock Restaurant The next meeting is scheduled: February 3rd, 6:00pm or usually the first Tuesday of the month All members welcome

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE by Dave Grosjacques

was required to make an annual report to the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Com-mission. My message to them included lotsoffactsandfiguresaboutthevolun-teers who make up the STEP program in the state, but it also included the “Get InvolvedandMakeaDifference”state-ment.Ibelievethismottoisthekeytosuccessful programs like STEP and suc-cessful organizations like the SOFF.

For you, the members of SOFF, that mottomeansseveralthings.Youcangetinvolved andmake a difference in ourclub by coming to meetings, attending the club outings and projects, and by

volunteering your time and resourcesto help with our annual auction. If you becomemoreinvolvedinSOFFinanyorallofthesewaystheclubwillbenefitand so will you.

Another reason I was willing to step upwasthetypeofpeoplewehaveontheSOFF Board of Directors. I consider all of them good friends and respect their abilities and opinions. When the club president has a board like this to work with, along with the great people we have as chairs, the job becomesmucheasier to handle. An example is our club treasurer, Rich Steed. Rich works for a bank, so what better person could we get to be our treasurer? He does an out-

standingjobkeepingtheclubfinancesin order, and paying the bills. I don’t think I would want to be president of a non-profitorganizationwhosefinanceswere confusing and unorganized.

The third reason I was willing to become president of SOFF was be-cause of the type of people we havein the club. I am proud to introduce myself to someone as SOFF presi-dent, not because of any personal ego thing (those of you who know me well enough can attest to that!) but because of the fact that I represent all of you at that moment. It’s like a football team

thatalwaysusestheterm“we”insteadof“me”.Tomanyofus,the SOFF is a closely-knit group of friends who encourage each other and help each other to achieve the goals stated in ourclub By-Laws. It is an honor to be associated with so many ded-icated people who gladly giveup their time to help the club.

Get Involved and Make aDifference!

Itisnotamisprint!DaveGros-jacques is president of the Southern Oregon Fly Fishers

again! I was honored to act as SOFF president in 2009, 2010 and 2011. The club was going through some changes back then,beingforcedtomoveoutoftheTaprockEventCentertotheWildRiverPubforayear.We were very happy whenTaprock took over the EventCenter and invited us back.The Event Center is a greatplacetohaveourmeetingsandthe staff treats us well.

On behalf of the entire membership of SOFF I want to thank John Storfold for two years as our club president. Johnwasalreadyourflytyingchair and auction chair, and to take on the president’s job on top ofthesedutieswasaboveandbeyondthe call of duty! John handled the three jobsverywellandwithhisusualatten-tion to detail and good humor. Anyone who has been club president knows how much work it can be at times. So what in the world possessed me to do it again?

There are several reasons I evenconsidered being SOFF president again. The first is a kind of personalmotto I have that is to “Get Involvedand Make a Difference”. I was amember of a state Salmon and Trout Enhancement Program (STEP) Com-mittee severalyearsagoandactedascommittee chair for 2 years. The chair

President Dave who is always up to a challenge, showed his ‘true grit’ when he dunked his head in the waterfall in background and was rewarded with the cash in hand.


PROGRAMS Future Programs Mar 19 John ShermanApr 16 Fly Tyers Mtg. May 21 Phil RowleyJun 19 TBAJuly 16 No MeetingAug 20 No MeetingSep 17 TBAOct 15 TBA



Jon Covich - Destinations

Feb. 19, 2015

JonCovichhasspent thelast25years immersedintheflyfishingindustryandhasbeenonethePacificNorthwest’stacklerepsforthepast20years.HecurrentlyrepresentsFlyWaterTravel,Cortland,Outcast,Fish-pond,SpiritRiver,BuffandGalvanReels.Inadditiontohisbusinessasatackle rep.

Jon has traveled tomany of theworld’s best fly fishing destinations,as both an angler and a professional photographer. Jon has made multiple trips to Chile and Argentina, New Zealand, much of the Bahamas, Belize, Mexico, Christmas Island, British Columbia and Alaska.

Photosofhis adventureshaveappeared inOutsideMagazine,Grey’sSporting Journal, Fly Fisherman, Fly Rod & Reel, and Catch Magazine.

JonlivesinSeattleWashingtonwithhiswifeandtwosons.

Nautilus #5 Reel CFR limited

edition $200.003.5”Dia,4.2oz, for4 to6-wt

line with 5-wt floating line andbacking($350.00value).

Guideline AWM Fly Rod $100.00

5 wt. 9’ 3 piece with sock and tube.

Custom made CFR Fly Rod 5 wt. 8’ 4 piece with sock$90.00

Wooden Trout Net $50.00

　All items are brand new. If interested, contact Tanya Haight at 541-855-9043 or [email protected].

　All proceeds go directly to: Casting For Recovery

For Sale

For those of you who haveyet to pay your membership dues, they are past due.

January1istheduedatespecifiedin the club’s By-Laws. I know most of you are well-intentioned, but intentions don’t get your check written or mailed. Please renew your dues right away and spare me the necessity of contacting eachofyouindividually.Thankyou.

Rich Hosley, Membership Chairman

2015 Dues Are Due


CASTING ABOUT



Feb 20 - 21 Cow CreekMar 21 Applegate SteelheadApr 18 Galesville ReservoirMay 2 Copeland PondMay 16-18 Pronghorn LakeMay 29-30 Lemolo LakeJun 25-28 Cascade Lakes/ Upper DeschutesJul 11 Upper Sacramento River

Cow Creek Outing - February 20-21 By Dave Grosjacques

2015 Outings

The SOFF February outing will be held on Friday and Sat-

urday, Febru-ary 20th and 21st. This will be the 6th time the club out-ing has been to Cow Creek in February. There was a sign-up sheet at the January meeting and it will be there again at our February 19th meeting, so you can still sign up if you want to go. I need email ad-dresses in case of a rain-out. Cow Creek will rise quickly if we get a day or two of hard rain, which happened in 2010.Wefishedin a drivingrainstorm on Friday, and by Saturday morning the creek had come uptwofeetandwasunfishable. If that

happens I can contact you and let you know the trip is off.

We will meet at Glen-dale High School’s back parking lot at 9 AM both days. I will givethegroupa short talk on where we are going and we will talk about safety, gear and flyselection. We can then car-

pool to the West Fork Bridge, where we will take our group photo andstartfish-ing. It is about a 35 minute drive fromGrants Pass to Glendale (freeway exit 80), and it will take us anoth-er 25 minutes to get to West Fork.

We will be fishing forlarge, South

Umpqua winter steelhead. The run is all wild, with catch and release regulations in force. Cow Creek is open for steel-head from December until the end of April,withthemajorityofthefishcom-ing through in February and March. The stream is close to the size of the Applegate, with enough gradient and rapids to make it pretty much a bank fishingshow. Iwillhandoutamapofthefishingaccessspots,withratingsonthedifficultyofaccess.Therearesome

President Dave gives the outing members a little pep talk before they hit the water

steep banks to negotiate at some of the access spots, so we urge members to be careful.

A life jacket, wading staff, wad-ers and good wading boots are a must. Seven and eight-weight single handedor spey rods will be best, with either a floatinglineandheavilyweightedfliesor a short sink tip needed to get down tothefish.Wewillhavesomeofourfa-voritefliesavailabletoshowandloantoSOFFers. The outing has always been a two-dayevent,andmemberscanattendone or both days. So come on out and letshavesomefunandcatchsomefish!

John Storfold listened to what President Dave had to say and was rewarded with a nice steel-head.

Club Meeting Times Are Changing

Recently, several club membershavecomplainedtoSOFFBoardMem-bers that the monthly dinner meetings are ending too late for them and if there could be something done to resolvedthis problem.

The board took this under ad-visementandforatrialperiodoftwomonths have decided to change themeeting times.

Beginning with the January meet-ing and continuing on through the Fe-buary meeting, the meetings times will change as follows:

5:30 pm Social Hour and Fly Ty-ing Demo.

6:30 pm Meeting7:00 Dinner and Program.


FLY TYING CORNER




Membership Form

John Graves Fly Tying Chair 541-778-6000 [email protected]

Tying Instructions:

Popsicle

Hook: Mustad Steelhead Hook Size 4-8.Thread: Color to Match Fly. Tail: Fl. Fuchsia Spey Blood Quill Marabou.Body: Fl. Fuchsia Chenille.Flash: SilverFlashabouandRedFlashbou.Hackle: Hot Red Spey Blood Quill Marabou

Back half of Body: 3 to 4 turns of Fl. Fuchsia chenille. Middle Hackle : 3 or 4 turns Spey blood Quill marabou Fl. Fuchsia, Add 4 strands of silver Flashabou. Front half of body: 3 to 4 turns of Fl. Fuchsia chenille. Front hackle: 3 to 4 turns of Hot Red Spey blood Quill marabou, add 4 strands of red flashabou. Now whip finish head. This fly can be done in many different color combo’s and you can add weight if you like.

Fly Tied By: John Graves


CHANGING LINES COMING EVENTS2-3 Board Meeting2-10 SOFT Fly Tyers, Madrone Mobile Home Park in Gold Hill.2-19 Dinner Meeting with Jon Covich.2-20-21 Club Outing - Cow Creek withDaveGrosjacques.3-3 Board Meeting3-10 SOFT Fly Tyers, Madrone Mobile Home Park in Gold Hill.3-13-14 Fly Tying Expo.3-19 Dinner Meeting with John Sherman.3-21 Club Outing - Applegate Steelhead.

Editor’s Notebook Cont. From Pg. 8photos has reached the bottom of the barrel. No more smiling faces holding thecatchofalifetimeorevenacatchof less spectacular proportions. I know youallgofishingandmaybeI’mgoingoutonalimb,butIsuspectthatevenafewofyouevencatchafish.NowI’mnot asking much – just take a picture of thefishandmaybeevenofyouholdingthe rascal and send it to me to be im-mortalizedforeveryonetoseeonthefront page of the Club’s newsletter.

Long time club member and for-mer club President Jay Prouty recent underwent a triple bypass and is doing well. He’ll be doing a couple of weeks convalescenceatRoyaleGardensandI’m sure he would appreciate calls and visits during his stay there. Jay,whoisoneofmyfishingpartners, isnowforcing me to catch two steelhead this season, one for him and one for me. Hopefully, I’m up to the challenge, but my recent luck for the lack of a bet-ter word – sucks! Undaunted, I will go forth and see if the steelhead gods will smile on me twice!

Lastly, the Oregon chapter of the ICCCwillbeholdingitsannualflyty-ing fair and expo in Albany on March 13and14.Ifyouhaveneverbeenthere

before, you’ll have the opportunity tosee some 200 plus tyers demonstrating allfacetsoftheflytyersart.Anditthenot enough for you there are numerous classes that you can sign up for – from casting,toflytyingaspecificflytodes-tinations, there is definitely somethingof interest for everyone.Added to thatwillbeahostofvendorssellingflyfish-ing or fly tying items of interest.Andfinallyifyoushowupyou’llbeabletoattend the spectacular after party host-ed by yours truly and my wife – and is worth the price of admission alone.

Most of us do our bucket list dreaming during the cold ofwinter, visioning

distant,warmplacesfilledwithstreamsholding large, wary trout. In Harry Mid-dleton’s memoir The Earth is Enough : Growing Up in a World of Trout and Old Men, hot August days working a hard scrabble farm in the Ozarks pro-vided the context for dreaming.Harryspent his teen years there with aging grandfather Emerson, and granduncle Albert, a place of refuge and learning where he developed a reverence fortrout, the natural world, and his place init.Neitheroldmanhadtraveledmorethan 500 miles from their Ozark home. Norwouldtheyever.

On those hot days, during lunch and overcoldrootbeer,Emersonwouldopena large atlas, seeking “some place cool. Achillylatitudelacedwithswiftriversandornerytrout.”Theythendescribedtheir imaginary fishing adventures ateachplaceasifrelivingthem.Albert’schoice never varied from the rivers ofMontana, imagining a tiny dry fly onthe water, and “sleeping near them at night, under skies as immense as a sea, andtheaircoldagainsttheskin.”

Eachdaytheatlasprovidedadiffer-entriver,butonthelastdayofAugust,Emersonalwaysdecidedthefinaldesti-

Hot August Bucket Lists By Redge Heth

nation, and it was always New Zealand. He described fishing the magnificentstreams, seeking rainbows and browns ontinydryflies,andhiscatcheswerealways memorable, if imaginary.

The mountainous hardscrabble farm had not changed for a century, so Starlight Creek, which ran through it had a richly undisturbed habitat, and heldathrivingpopulationofrainbows.To that creek the men would repair in the evenings, and there young Harrylearned to fly fish, an avocation thatstayed with him until his death at age 43.

So Starlight Creek is on my bucket list,fishingitwiththeghostsofHarry,Emerson and Albert. Though I may never fish it in real life, I’ll fish it asEmersonandAlbertfishedtheirdreamplaces, and that places no limit on the number times I will go there.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued

support of Southern Oregon Casting forRecovery!Wecouldn’tprovidethisprogram without the your help. Some of you have been river helpers, someof you have experienced it first handasretreatparticipants,somehavetiedflies, some have donated time andmoney to help our program continue to be the success that it’s been for the past 11 years. Thank you for your gen-erous donation in December. If you would like more information about our program please go to www.castingfor-recovery.org.

Sincerely,

Kim DeVries and Carol LaBranche Southern Oregon CfR Program Co-ordinators

Thanks Southern Or-egon Fly Fishers


Editor’s Notebook

NON PROFIT ORG

U.S POSTAGE



Continued on Pg. 7

possible altogether. Worst of all is what it does to

thefish that reside in these lakesandstreams. Before the drought, these wa-terways could be counted on to pro-duceavarietyofspeciestosatisfyallanglers, but now with drought and the lackofwater, survivalconditionsnotto mention reproduction abilities be-come of paramount importance.

So what is really needed? Ore-gon’smountain snowpack is vital forthecontinuesurvivalofourlakesandstreams. Unfortunately, we continue to be in a reoccurring drought which continues to get worse and preclude any appreciable snow forecast for the future. The mid-west and the east coast seem to be getting more than their fair share while we here in the west go for naught.Thesnowpackinimperativeasit slowly releases its moisture thereby feedingstreamsand lakesandavoidsdisaster for another year.

The sad story is that climatolo-gists do not expect this drying trend to change anytime soon. For that mat-ter the most strident of these prognos-ticators see the situation as only get-ting worse before it gets any better.

Is this a product of climate change formerly called global warm-ing which is attributed to be too many people on the planet using too much fossil fuel or is it a natural cycli-cal phenomenon that the world goes through periodically – remember the ice age, followed by a period warm-ing before the onset of another ice age. Regardless of any position one may take, our fisheries are facing areal uncertain future if the weather doesn’t change and doesn’t change for the better. What can you do – think snow!

Now on to other matters; I hate to admit this, butmy supply of fish

As I write this piece, I see another day of gloomy fog; a fog so damp that

it gives the impression that we justhad a brief shower. Unfortunately, in an hour or so the moisture will dry up leaving theKelly greenmold onthe driveway aswell as onmy roofto await nightfall and a repeat perfor-mance of the same thing.

Besides being depressing, this weather condition has little to do with keepingourriversandlakesfullandflowing.

I don’t know if you have seensome of the photos published in the papers and on the internet, but it shows some of the lakes in Northern California and Southern Oregon al-most empty. Last year at one point, HyattLake that a lot of us fishwasdown to 14% of capacity. With that amount of water in the lake, access tofishisextremelylimited,ifnotim-

SOFF News

SPECIAL MENTION

Rich Hosley: MembershipJohn Graves: Fly Tying ChairDale Heath: Fly Tying InstructorRay McClenathan: ProgramsSonja Nisson: Auction ChairDavid Haight: Outings ChairSue Keeling: SOFF WearRich Steed: HistorianEd Michalski: RafflesJohn Storfold Project Healing Waters Chair


Vol.22 No.3 The Monthly Newsletter of The Southern Oregon Fly Fishers, Inc. March, 2015






SOFF’s are giving back to some in-jured Veterans by taking part in Project Healing Waters. This project helps the Vets. through fly fishing to overcome battle field trauma.

This unidentified vet, who took part in the recent ‘Project Healing Waters’ fly fishing excursion, proudly displays a nice summer run steelhead taken while drifting the Rogue in early fall.

SOFF NEWS March, 2015 Page 2

FROM THE BOARD


The Board of Directors meet in the conference room of the Taprock Restaurant The next meeting is scheduled: March 3rd, 6:00pm or usually the first Tuesday of the month All members welcome


to theslightestbumpbyafishand themotion of the casting hand, wrist and armof theflycaster.Afly that comesreasonably close to imitating the par-ticularinsectthatthefisharefeedingonisavictoryfortheflyfisherwhotiedit,chose tofishwith it, or caught severalfishwithit.Theflytierisanartist,us-ing fur, feathers and other materials on a hooktofoolfish.Aproperlytiedflycanbe a beautiful thing to behold. Some are so pretty that we put them into a frame and never use them for actual fishing!How do you explain that practice to the personwhodoesnot chasefishwith aflyrod?

Maybe it is the places we go to pur-

sueour sport.Everyflyfishermanhaspleasant memories of spending a clear mountain morning when the stream or lake looked like a postcard or a calendar photo. The lake was like a mirror and the trout were rising, making those cir-cles on the water that tell us that they are hungry. The stream was gurgling and gliding, and the holding water was beg-gingforaflytobecastintoit.Aphotodoes not come close to doing these spe-cial places justice. You have to be there to appreciate them. If you are there with aflyrodinyourhanditbecomesmemo-rable and sometimes magical.

Maybe it is the company we keep. AlloftheflyfishermenIknowareenthu-siastic about our sport and hobby. They

are more than willing to pass along any expertisetheyhaveaboutflyfishingtothose who are taking up the sport for the first time.Who cares if they tellsome tall tales of big fish caught andevenbiggerfishthatgotaway?Whenyou become a fly fisherman you joina group of people who speak a certain language and share common feelings about the value of our lakes, streams and rivers. That is perhaps the reason many of us try fly fishing and stickwith it. We had mentors who helped us get started, and others who encouraged us along the way.

The help and encouragement of members of SOFF started me on a path

toflyfishingasawayoflife.Ihave Tony Brauner, Bob Rob-erts, Redge Heth, Loren Black and other friends in our club to thank. These mentors were willing to share their passion for our sport with me. We all have had similar experiences with people who went out of their way to get us connected with the sport. What we need to do is to pass our enthusiasm and passion along to others. Again,whatisitaboutflyfish-ing?Itiscertainlyacombina-tion of the things I have men-tioned, but there is also some

mystery to it that we cannot explain. Maybe that is the real answer.

This is the time of year when the Southern Oregon Fly Fishers are looking for the

rivers to drop into shape for some latewinter steelhead fishing.We hada major series of rainstorms in February that put the Rogue and other rivers in Southern Oregon wayupintofloodstage.AstheRogue and Applegate drop and clear, thesteelheadfishingwillbe something we won’t want to miss.

For those who chase trout, it will be another month or two untilanyserioustroutfishinginour local lakes and streams will happen.Forthetroutfishermen,this is a time to find a warmplacebythefiretotiefliesandget all of that gear ready for those highly anticipated spring andsummerfishingtrips.

Justwhatisitaboutflyfishingthatgets us to the point where we plan our livesaroundit?CertainlyIknowmanypeople in our club who are passionate about our sport, our hobby and our obsession. Why are we so dedicated to fly fishing? Why do we spend somuch of our time and money chasing the perfect imitation, presentation and locationthatwillmakeourflyfishingdreamscometrue?

Maybe it is the equipment. The feel ofanewflyrodthefirsttimeyougetit into your hands and try a cast with it is impossible to describe to someone whodoesnotflyfish.Agoodfly rodis a beautiful thing, totally responsive

President Dave with his spey rod in hand and waiting for a ‘tug’ from a steelhead.


PROGRAMS Future Programs Apr 16 Fly Tyers Mtg. May 21 Phil RowleyJun 19 Dennis LeeJuly 16 No MeetingAug 20 No MeetingSep 17 TBAOct 15 TBANov 14 Annual Auction



John Sherman -Fly Fishing for Delta Stripers

Mar. 19, 2015

Continued on Pg. 7

For those of you who have still not paid your 2015 membership dues, they are

now 60 days past due. This is the stage of the renewal process where I need to track you down with emails, phonecalls,homeandofficevisits,etc.I tend to run out of time and energy and have been known to get cranky. Won’t you please help me out by mail-ingyourchecktotheclubpostofficeboxtoday?

Southern Oregon Fly Fishers PO Box 1144 Grants Pass, OR 97528

The 2015 edition of the club mem-bership directory will be going to print on Monday, March 20. If you are plan-ning on being included with your cur-rent contact information, I need to hear from you before then.

Thank you. Rich Hosley, Membership Chair

2015 Dues Are Due

John is the West Coast Sales Representative for Simms Fishing Products & Hatch Outdoors covering CA, AZ, NV and HI. John is also one of the mostpublishedflyfishingphotographerswhohashadhisworkpublished

in Fly Fisherman, Fly Fish Journal, Saltwater Fly Fishing, The Drake, Cal Fly Fisher, North West and South West Fly Fishing to name a few.

John lives on the banks of the Ca. Delta in Discovery Bay with his wife Natih, and daughter Kalum and son Kasix. John teamed up with Captain Mike Costello to producethefirstandonlyFlyFishingbookdedicatedtotheCaliforniaDelta,“FlyFishing the CA Delta.”

Hewillbepresentinghisslideshow“FlyFishingforDeltaStripers”whichwillvisuallytakeyouthroughthisamazingfishery.John’spassionforDeltafish-ingbeganattheageof18in1993onhisfirsttriptoCaliforniaDeltaanditnowhasbeenhis“home”watersince2002.

Triple Haul By John MacDiarmid

We have all heard of the double haul and a few are familiar with a sin-

gle haul, but very few have heard of a triple haul and fewer yet have cast it.

The single haul is hauling on either the forward cast or the back cast but not both. Casters learning to haul of-ten just learn the forward haul and add the back haul later. The double haul is


CASTING ABOUT



Mar 6 Cow CreekMar 21 Applegate SteelheadApr 18 Galesville ReservoirMay 2 Copeland PondMay 16-18 Pronghorn LakeMay 29-30 Lemolo LakeJun 25-28 Cascade Lakes/ Upper DeschutesJul 11 Upper Sacramento River

March Outing: Applegate Winter Steelhead

2015 Outings

For our March outing, we will head to the Applegate River, asweusuallydo,tofishfor

winter steelhead. The Applegate is great destination for fly fisherstargeting winter steelhead, and there are good reasons for this: The Applegate is a smaller river with water that is easy to read and fish, and itgets a good run of winter steel-head toward the end of the season when conditions are normally conducive to flyfishing.

None of our resident experts that have led this outing in the past are available this year, so I will be the host. Since I have to work on March 21 (the date the outing was scheduled for), the outing will be on March 28.

We will meet for breakfast at Shari’s Restaurant, on the corner of Agness Avenue and the Grants Pass Parkway. Come at 8:00 AM if you want to have breakfast. Be there by 9:00 AM if you don’t want to eat. We will caravan to the river from there.

Bringyourfishinggear,waders,rainjacket, lunch, and water. Single-handed, switch, and smaller Spey rods in the 7 to 8-weight range are suitable for the

Applegate. Pack your f l o a t i n g and sink-tip lines, and bring a variety of nymphs and s t a n d a r d s t e e l he a d p a t t e r n s . There are places you can swing flies,buttheApplegate is very well suited to ny mphing techniques. An effec-

tive setup is to use a

large, heavy nymph, such as a salmon-flynymph,withasize10A.P.nymph,hare’sear,pheasanttail,orsimilarflyona dropper. For those that want to swing flies,traditionalsteelheadpatterns,eggsucking leeches, and smaller intruder-styleflieswillwork.Manypeople feelhavingalittlechartreuseontheflyhelpswhenfishingtheApplegate.

The Applegate River is a fantastic fishery for winter steelhead, and it isright here in our back yard. If you have not fished the Applegate, I encourageyou to come to the outing for an intro-ductiontothisgreatfishery.

David Haight, Outings ChairPS: I will be leading an outing to

the North Umpqua River for the Rogue FlyfishersonApril4.MembersofSOFFare invited to attend. We will meet at Swiftwater Park at 9:00 AM. You can read the article in Rogue Flyfisher’s

Cow Creek Outing

Just a reminder, that the Cow Creek Outing originally sched-uled for Feb 20th and 21st was

cancelled because of a land slide mid-way in the area when the outing was to be conducted. Dave Grosjacques, the outing host, has rescheduled the out-ing for Friday, March 6th. Please note the outing will now only be a one day event.

For more information email Dave at [email protected] or call him at 541 326-9330.

We have one of the longest running and more popular club outings coming in June – the Cascade Lakes/Lava Lake outing.Findthejoyoffishingthecen-tral Oregon area – Deschutes River, Big and Little Lava Lakes, Hosmer Lake, Cultas Lake, Fall River, and many other bodiesoffinefishingwaters.Thedatesare Friday June 26 through Saturday June 27. Several club members will be in the area anywhere from Tuesday June 23 through Sunday June 28.

The club has traditionally provided the main dish for a Saturday evening group dinner. Each person will bring a side dish and their own beverage. We will meet at a designated camping spot to enjoy some good food, good friends andsomegoodfishingstories.

If you are interested in attending please email Jerry and Sue Keeling (outing hosts) at [email protected] or call 541-218-7264. There are many options for camping in the area as well as cabins at various lakes in the area.

You don’t want to miss out on a wonderful time.

Jerry and Sue Keeling

Cascade Lakes/Lava Lake Outing

Dave Haight with a steelhead taken from the Applegate River.

March newsletter at www.rogueflyfish-ers.org for details.


FLY TYING CORNER




Membership Form


Tying Instructions:

Lady Caroline Spey Fly Hook: Alec Jackson Spey Hook 2051 Size 1 to 1.5.Thread: Black.Tail: Golden Pheasant Breast.Rib: Gold Medium Flat, Small Gold with Fine Silver Counter wound over hackle.Body: Golden Olive and Brown Dubbing Mixed.Body Hackle: Blue Eared Pheasant Feather Tied In and Wrapped forward at 1/3 From The Head of the Fly. Can add a Smaller One at the Head if Needed.Throat Hackle: Golden Pheasant Breast.Wing: Bronze Mallard Tied to End of Body.

Tie in golden pheasant breast for the tail.Youwillthentiein3ribs,1mediumgoldenflat,1smallgoldenflatandthecounterribwillbe1smallovalsilverrib.The body will be of golden olive and brown dubbing mixed. Wrap 2/3 of the body and then tie in 1 golden hackle at tip

with inside of hackle facing towards you. Tear the right side of the feathers off and then tie in at the tip with the back side of the feather facing you.

Finish body and then wrap the medium gold rib to the head, then between that, wrap a small gold rib and then wrap the golden pheasant feather up to head as close to medium rib as possible and tie off.

Now you take the silver and counter wrap it down and over the Blue Eared feather using a bodkin to separate feathers so you don’t lay a counter rib on it.

If you’d like a fuller hackle add another Blue Eared pheasant feather before tying in at the throat. Tear off feathers on one side like you did earlier.

Then tie in a Golden pheasant breast feather for the throat and make a couple of wraps and tie off.The wing is bronze mallard using 2 pieces about 1/4 in wide and length of body.Tieinthefirstpieceonthesidefarthestfromyou,andthentieintheotherontopofthewingwhichshouldoverlapalittle.

Make a nice head and the coat it with head cement.Good luck and have fun tying the Lady Caroline. Fly Tied By: Randy Taylor


CHANGING LINES COMING EVENTS3-6 Club Outing - Cow Creek3-10 SOFT Fly Tyers, Madrone Mobile Home Park in Gold Hill.3-13-14 Fly Tying Expo.3-19 Dinner Meeting with John Sherman.3-28 Club Outing - Applegate Steelhead.4-7 Board Meeting4-14 SOFT Fly Tyers, Madrone Mobile Home Park in Gold Hill.4-16 Club Meeting - Annual Fly Tyers Meeting.4-18 Club Outing - Galesville Reservoir.

Editor’s Notebook Cont. From Pg. 8long it took to tie one of his creations and he indicated that he has spent up toaweektyingonefly.Heck,ifaflytakes longer than ten minutes to tie, my interest fades and my mind skips tothenextflyIwouldliketoattempt.

Toaflytyingjunkylikeme,thisshow is like Christmas and a candy store all rolled into one. I just can’t get enough of the tying. I can hardly wait to get home to start tying one or more of the patterns that I saw dem-onstrated.

But that is not all as fly tying ismerely the icing on the cake. There are classes to be taken, vendors to be seen andauctionsandrafflesconductedasthere is something to pique everyone’s interest. I would suggest that you go to the Expo’s website www.nwexpo.com and see what all is offered. I am certain of one thing and that is if you attend you won’t be disappointed.

Lastly a few notes of interest. As you are now aware, the board of direc-tors have taken to heart what some of the membership requested and for the last two months have started the meet-ing a half an hour earlier – 5:30pm start time, 6:30pm meeting and dinner, 7:00pmspeakerandraffleand9:00pm

Triple Haul Cont. From Pg. 3

adjournment. President Dave asked by a show of hands at the last meeting if the membership wished to keep that sched-ule and it was overwhelmingly passed. With the March meeting and continuing on, the monthly club meeting will start at 5:30pm.

Finally, a reminder that John Stor-fold recently underwent successful pros-tate surgery and I’m sure he would ap-preciate emails as he convalesces from the surgery.

Also long time club member, Loren Black who is battling cancer, would ap-preciate hearing from club members and friends during these trying times.

hauling on the back cast and the forward cast. The triple haul is used by a very few in accuracy target casting. When the cast completely unrolls, say over a target, a deft pull (haul) on the line will hovertheflyandgivethecasterasplitsecond longer to decide to either drop it where it is or keep it energized and bring it back for another presentation. There is precious little time to make that decision and the triple haul is helpful. If thecasterwaitstoolongandtheflyfallsand touches the ground even just a tick, game over, move on to the next target.

I have played with the triple haul but am a long way from using it. You can see it done at the IFFF Fair in Bend this August. Some of the best casters in North America will be there giving castinglessons,tyingfliesandpresent-ingotherflyfishingprograms.FindtheCasting Rendezvous, it is a place where the casters hang out and just cast. Mas-ter Caster Chase Jablonski will be there and he will be glad to demonstrate the triple haul if you ask. He did it for me.

much to learn and master, my thought is we all hold the rod the way it feels most comfortable and there is no need to force my preference on a personal de-cision. I used to recommend the most prevalent grip, thumb on top, but cast-ing at the FFF Conclave (Now called thefair.)Inoticedsignificantvariationsamong some of the best casters in North America. The thumb up gives you the most power on the forward cast but be-cause of the way the hand bones and connecting tissue are put together, it limits the power on the back cast. The Index finger on top results in amorepowerful back cast. Remember the caster in the triple haul article, Chase Jablonski? He combines both grips!In his log cast he has a lot of line in the air and it takes considerable time to unroll. His thumb is on top on the forward cast and as soon as he stops the rod at the end of the forward cast and the forward cast is unrolling in the air he changes his grip and puts his In-dexfingerontop.Oncehecompletesthe back cast and the line is unrolling in the air behind him, he changes his grip to thumb on top for the forward cast. He is the only caster I have ever seen doing this. Obviously Chase is no ordinary caster. On a good day he can false cast (back and forth in the air) an entire 100’ line. That gives him the time to change grips. He has been at every FFF Fair I have been to and he and a host of other outstanding casters and teachers will be in Bend on August 11-15 for the annual event. Check it out on line and take advantage of the out-standing casting andfly tying classesthat will be offered. There are also freeprograms,vendors,auctions,fish-ing trips and other events of interest to attend. It is being held in Bend to cel-ebrate the formation of the FFF in Eu-gene 50 years ago.

A Most Unusual Grip At The FFF Annual Fair By John MacDiarmid

I avoid the subject of grip with new students unless they ask. There is so


Editor’s Notebook

NON PROFIT ORG

U.S POSTAGE



Continued on Pg. 7

handle. Rather, I spend the majority of my time sitting and watching those ty-ers that craft flies thatwill appeal tothefish,ifnotthefisherman.

Troutflies,steelheadpatterns,pat-terns for warm water species intrigue me as these are the ones that I’m go-ingtobeusinginmypursuitofa‘flycaught fish’. Among these are thosetraditional patterns that have endured the test of time.These flies are basi-cally simple patterns such as caddis or mayflyimitations,butdifferentinthatnew materials and tying techniques havebeenusedtocraftthefly.Andsoitgoeswithflytyers–neversatisfiedwith a pattern, but continually search-ing for ways to improve on the pat-tern.

Among my newer interests are the exotic steelhead creations, particu-lar spey flies and intruder style flies.Although these flies don’t look par-ticularly hard to tie, unless you have

someone showing you hands on tech-niques, your chances of success are rather limited. As I have become a spey caster and I use that term loose-ly, I have been infused with a desire to catch a steelheadona swungfly.You know where you cast out, mend in the current and then await that ‘savage’ strike of a chrome bright steelhead, but to do that you have the right pattern to use namely the spey orintruderstyleflies.Iwouldventurea guess that I’ll be spending a whole lot of time at the tables where these fliesarebeingtied.

And then there are Atlantic salmonflypatterns.AlthoughIwon’tspend a lot of time watching these ty-ers, I will be there long enough to re-kindle my appreciation for the works of art that they create. I once talked at lengthtosalmonflyconstructorandamong other things I asked him how

It’s that time of the year again whenthebigflytyingeventofthe season is about take place.

What is that event you might ask and I would say the annual Northwest Fly Tyer and Fly Fishing Expo scheduled for March 13th and 14th in Albany at the Linn County Fairgrounds.

Every year some 200 or more premierflytyersdescendonthefair-grounds and demonstrate their tal-ents. There are those who specialize in small trout flies,while others of-fer their expertise on steelhead pat-terns, while others demonstrate their abilities on warm water and salt wa-ter patterns. And then there are those who have given up functionality for art’s sake and specialize in Atlantic salmon patterns. Although I marvel at the latter group’s artistic prowess, the work and dedication that goes into creating these masterpieces is more than this old feeble brain can

SOFF News

SPECIAL MENTION



Vol.22 No.4 The Monthly Newsletter of The Southern Oregon Fly Fishers, Inc. April, 2015






Two members of the SOFF’s were hon-ored at the recent Oregon Council of the Federation of Fly Fishers, Fly Ty-ing Expo in Albany as the ‘Council’s Fly Tyers of the Year’.

Dave and Cathy Hamilton were honored at the recent Fly Tyers Expo in Albany as the ‘Oregon Council’s Fly Tyers of the Year’ not only for their ability as fly tyers, but for all the time they put in demonstrating the art.

SOFF NEWS April, 2015 Page 2

FROM THE BOARD


The Board of Directors meet in the conference room of the Taprock Restaurant The next meeting is scheduled: April 7th, 6:00pm or usually the first Tuesday of the month All members welcome


you did it again, how many times do I have to tell you to come to a good stop on the forward cast?” This new device will either help your casting or drive you crazy.

Another new device I have gotten some advance knowledge about from flyshopownersissomethingcalledthe“Tie-Right”. It is a mini-cam that you attachtoyourflytyingvise,withanappfor your smart phone. You put the phone where you can hear it, activate the app andstartingtyingyourfavoritefly.Theapp will make comments on how you tie eachpartofthefly.Theapphasaccesstoadatabaseofcommonflypatterns.

Allyoudoistypeinthenameoftheflyand start tying. If your tail is crooked, you will hear about it. There is a sarcas-tic setting on this app as well. If you tie on some crooked wings you might hear this: “You call those crooked, uneven things wings? Take them off and start over!”

New technology goes even further. The most controversial device is called the“Fish-Right”.TheflyshopownersItalked to are being pretty secretive about this one. There are rumors of some of these being tested on local waters. The device consists of a mini-cam that is mounted on your hat like a Go-Pro camera. There is an app on your smart

phone that goes with it. You activate the app, turn on the camera and start fishing.Whenyoumakeacast,theappwillevaluateyourattempttogettheflytowherethefishare.Ifthereisaprob-lem with the cast, or there is too much dragontheflyyouwillhearaboutit.Youmighthearthis:“Yestherearefishholding along that current seam, but with your sloppy cast you will never get to them!” You might also hear this: “Thedragonyourdryflyisrippingitsidewayssofastthatafishcouldnevercatch up with it! Try mending some line this time.” I think fly fishermenmight not be ready for this one.

New devices like this might be helpful for some, but a bit too technical for others. The SOFF might be asked to provide fieldtesters for the new apps. Should we stand up as a group and just say no to this new technology? Should we use our voices to re-ject this invasion of our uniquely individual errors when we cast, tieorfish?

In the spirit of the 1st of April, I say we laugh at technology and goonhavingfunflyfishingtheold-fashioned way, faults and all!

Is it April already? This is the time of year when the SOFF troutfishers start toget excit-

ed.Thoseofuswhoenjoyfishinglakesin Southern Oregon for trout are glad that spring is finally here.When I say spring I can’t help thinkingaboutlakefishingtripsin the past during the months of April, May and even June when the rain was mixed with snow and an icy wind was blowing. When the conditions are like thatwesaywearetroutfishingin steelhead fishingweather. Ifyou are on an Oregon mountain lake in the spring you need to be ready for snow, rain, wind and sunshine, sometimes all in one morning!

The spring is also a time to check out yourfishing gear andlook at the new things coming out for fishermen. One example of somenew technology is something I saw at the Ashland Fly Shop. It is called the “Cast-Right System”. A chip is at-tached to your fly rod, and an app isadded to your smart phone. You acti-vate the app, turn up the volume on the phone and put it into a shirt pocket so you can hear it. If you go too far back on your back cast, the app will activate a voice that will tell you what you did incorrectly. If you start to lift up your rod tip to start another cast with some slack line, you will hear about it. The app has a sarcastic setting, for those who need extra incentive to get things right. It will say something like: “There

President Dave demonstration his talents at the vise at the recent Fly Tying Expo in Albany


PROGRAMS Future Programs May 21 Phil RowleyJun 19 Dennis LeeJuly 16 No MeetingAug 20 No MeetingSep 17 TBAOct 15 TBANov 14 Annual AuctionDec 17 TBA



Annual Fly Tyers Meeting

Apr. 16, 2015

John Graves, Mark Tee-ters and Kevin Daniels represent just three of fif-teen or more tyers that will be demonstratimng their skills at the annual Fly Ty-ers Meeting.

This year, our SOFF Auction Committee is collecting both silent and oral auction

items throughout the year! As you do your “spring cleaning”, organize your fishing gear, or decide to “lighten”your load, give a call. We can even come and get the stuff! We are not limitedtofishingrelateditemsasoursilent auction includes just about ev-erything that is new or gently used. The only thing that we aren’t accept-ing is art work. If you’re cleaning out your garage - think of SOFF and call. If you’re looking at rods you have not used in years - call. Jewelry items that you or the wife or significant othernever wear - there will be a bidder for them! Not rafting anymore - someone needs that dry bag. Your extra stuff is our treasure! Do you have a talent for making up gift baskets – donate one. We can pick them up closer to our auc-tion date. Want to make club members aware of your business - a gift card for our auction works great.

I want to thank you in advance for your help in making our sole fundrais-er a success. Whether you are donat-ing or not, mark your calendars now as we hope to see you next fall on No-vember 14th to join in the fun and sup-port our club. If you anything now for the auction, please call Sonja Nisson at 541-582-4833 to coordinate pick-up.

Annual Auction: Dona-tions Needed By Sonja Nisson


CASTING ABOUT

Fourteen eager veterans, armedwithaSOFFflyrod,

nine guides with drift boats, and four dogsbod-ies to shuttle trailers! That was the vol-unteer contin-gent for the Project Heal-ing Waters (PHW) Out-ing on Octo-ber 3rd, 2014 to get the veterans to the river to test their instruction from the September classes.

O p e r a -tion Healing Waters is an international program for disabled vets, with 173 ac-tive groups ( s p o n s o r e d by FFF clubs and TU chap-ters) across 49 states, Puerto Rico, Austra-lia and Can-ada. PHW began in 2005, with SOFF coming on board in 2008. Dick But-ler, assisted by Teresa Kasza and Tony Brauner launched us, with John Stor-fold, assisted by Gary Miller, assuming responsibility last year. We have also had some expert assistance from Dave Roberts. Over 150 vets have partici-pated in the SOFF-lead program since inception. Our local program was de-signed by Tony Brauner to meet the PHW standards and to prepare for a day on the Rogue.

On the day of the outing we gath-

ered at Shady Cove to decide “Who goes where.” We scattered out from the

dam to Dodge Bridge after some nego-tiating be-tween guides. Taking in the Cheshire Cat grins and “ y e e h a w s ” as the boats drifted out was “worth the ticket.”

T h e scorecard at

dinnertime included many hookups with afewcamera-shyfishforthescrapbook.

It appears the some of the really big ones got away, but it did not damp-er the enthu-siasm around the dinner table.

Part of your SOFF auction dol-lars go toward

the sponsor-ship of PHW,

with the club providing leaders, tippet and flies (fly tyers: expect a call nextyear!) along with dinner at Manuel’s in Shady Cove. Since John, Dave and I are all vets, as are many of the guides/row-ers; it is a special honor to be a part of PHW.

Thanks to all the SOFF members who participated:

Guides: Tom Morris, Joe Knapik, Teresa Kasza, Dick But-ler, Dick Adams, Mark McGinnis, Russ Leavitt, and Dick Adams....... Shuttle Dogsbodies: John Storfold, Ray

McClenathan, Gary Miller, Tom Bev-erage.

2015 PHW classes and outing schedule are as follows:

Classes start May 1 or May 8th and run for four weeks. Tentative time is from 1 to 3 on Friday at the White City Domiciliary. On June 5th we take the vetsonafishingtrip,generallyontheRogue targeting the Salmon Fly hatch. The second class will be in September withanoutingthefirstweekinOcto-ber.

Project Healing Waters Outing By John Storfold

John Storfold briefing outing participants.

Tom Morris showing a couple of the vets on how to rig up.

Russ Pulliam show his pleasure at catching a fine summer steelhead on the PHW Outing.

If you would like to help with either the class or the trip as a shuttle driver or guide taking one or two vets on the water please contact John Storfold at [email protected], or 541-660-6584. Even if you can’t make all the classes and can only make a few we could use your help. The more help we have the more one-on-one help we can give the vets. The last couple of classes have been averaging about 16-18 students per class. If you would like to help by supplying some flies for the outings,that would also be greatly appreciated.

Please mark your calendar. I have found this to be a very rewarding en-deavor. I am sure anyone else that gets involved will do the same.



Apr 18 Galesville ReservoirMay 2 Copeland PondMay 16-18 Pronghorn LakeMay 29-30 Lemolo LakeJun 25-28 Cascade Lakes/ Upper DeschutesJul 11 Upper Sacramento RiverAug 29 Lower Rogue Halfpounders

April Outing to Galesville Reservoir

2015 Outings

The April outing will be to Galesville Reservoir on Cow Creek. We will meet

at Miwaleta Park near the main boat ramp at 8:30 AM to launch boats, then gather as a group at 9 AM in the park for information and a group photo. We shouldbefish-ing by 9:20 or so.

This will be a good chance for club members to dust off all the trout fishinggear. Almost any type of boat will work at Galesville. Lastyearwehadeverythingfromfloattubes to large lake boats. An intermediate line will work best at Gales-ville, with an a s s o r t m e n t of nymphs, buggers and emergers to tie on 4X to 6X leaders of 7 to 10 feet in length.

The reser-voir has rain-bow trout and

trout-sized coho salmon. The rainbows are planted fish, and theremost likelywill have been one or two plantings by April 18th. There will also be some larger holdover rainbows from 2014 to catch.Thecohoarefishthatareplantedas smolts and grow to be 10 to 13 inches.

These coho have larger eyes, more of a silvery body and forked tail than the r a i n b o w s . If you catch a coho that does NOT have an adi-

pose fin clip,please measure

it and let Dave Grosjacques know about it. That fishwould likely be a naturally spawned fishfrom adult coho that are released into the lake and swim up Cow Creek to spawn in trib-utaries above the dam.

To get to Galesville drive north on I-5 to the

Azalea exit, number 88. Turn right onto Cow Creek road and go east approxi-mately 6 miles to Miwaleta Park. The road into the park is a few hundred feet past the small campground that you can see from the main road. Drive down into the large parking lot and you will see the boat ramp.

Bob James with a nice coho taken at a recent Galesville Outing.

Club members getting ready for a day of fishing at a recent Galesville outing.

On May 2, the Southern Oregon Fly Fishers will head to Copeland’s Pond for what has become one of our most popular outings each year. The pond, carefully managed by SOFF life member Bob Copeland, contains lar-gemouth bass, bluegill, crappie, bull-heads, and carp.Bob requires all fishcaught from the pond be released; thus, allowing the fish to grow to impres-sive sizes. In past years, club members have landed crappie up to 15 inches and largemouth bass up to 20 inches in length.

Outing to Copeland’s Pond

Tanya Haight with a nice crappie taken from Copeland’s Pond.

The pond has plenty of shoreline access,butafloattube,pontoonboat,drift boat, or other small watercraft will give you better access to the wa-ter. For panfish, 3 to 5-weight rodswork well, but if you hook into one of the big bass or carp, which are abun-dant in the pond, you may wish you had something heavier. If you plan to target bass or carp, a 6 to 8-weight rod would be a good choice. Slow sinking lines will likely be the most useful, but bringyourfloatinglinesaswell.Yourflyboxshouldcontainbassbugs,rab-

Continued on P{g 7


FLY TYING CORNER




Membership Form


Tying Instructions:

Leech Fly

Hook: Size 8 to 12, 1x to 2x Long.Thread: Match Body Color.Tail: Wine,Red,Brown or Black Marabou.Body: Leech Yarn the Same Color as the Tail.Bead: Gold, Silver, or Match Color of Fly

Put the bead on the hook of choice and then add thread. Add marabou for the tail and then tie in leech yarn. Palmertheleechyarntothebackofbeadandwhipfinishhead.

Fly Tyed By: John Graves

Pleasenote:Iaminneedoffly’[email protected]


CHANGING LINES COMING EVENTS4-7 Board Meeting4-14 SOFT Fly Tyers, Madrone Mobile Home Park in Gold Hill.4-16 Club Meeting - Annual Fly Tyers Meeting.4-18 Club Outing - Galesville Reservoir.5-2 Club Outing - Copeland’s Pond.5-5 Board Meeting.5-12 SOFT Fly Tyers, Madrone Mobile Home Park in Gold Hill.5-16-18 Club Outing - Pronghorn.5-21 Club Meeting - Phil Rowley.

Editor’s Notebook Cont. From Pg. 8

fishing items,oneof the things that Ienjoyed the most each year is the after show party my wife and I host. This year I booked the largest suite that Comfort Inn and Suites had and let me say that packing in some forty plus people stretched the limits of the room. In fact I told the room clerk that if I get many more attending in the future I’m going to book one of their meeting rooms for the party.

As usual my wife outdid herself with hot and cold hors d’oeuvres, dips, cheese, desserts, crackers and chips. Added to all that was wine and beer and a good time was had by all.

In addition to all the club members that attended, there were several oth-ers that come from other clubs as well as other states that join us each year. Added to those were friends of those attending and we ended up with a lot of people.

One person I was particularly impressed to see drop in was Philip Greenlee, the president and ceo of the InternationalFederationofFlyfishers,the parent organization of the Oregon Council. If nothing else SOFF is be-coming well known in the hierarchy of the Federation.

So if you missed the show and ev-erything that went with it this year, not to worry as March 12-13, 2016 will be here before you know it and besides that I’ve already booked my suite with the meeting room in the wings.

May Outing Cont. from Pg. 5bit-stripflies,woollybuggers,leeches,streamers, and nymphs. Olive or white woolly buggers have worked well for both crappie and bass in past years.

To get to Copeland’s Pond, take Redwood Highway west from town. Turn north off the highway onto Ap-plegate Avenue then look for the club signs where Applegate Avenue turns right and becomes Leonard Road. You can join us there anytime after 8:30.

Copeland outing participants enjoying lunch after a morning’s fishing.

Bob and Valerie are again gracious-ly allowing us to use their picnic facili-ties for our noon barbeque. The club will provide hamburgers, chips and drinks. Those attending are requested to bring a salad, side dish, or dessert to share. If you plan to go, sign up at the April meeting or call or e-mail me by April 25, so I know how much food to purchase.

The outing to Copeland’s Pond is a great way to start off the spring fishingseason.Thefantasticfishingand the opportunity to enjoy a picnic and time on the water with fellow club members make it an outing you won’t want to miss.

David Haight, Outings Chair 541-855-9043, [email protected]

Isyourarmlimberedupforfish-ing season? Have you had your rod and reel(s) out and strung?

Maybe you have a new rod and reel and want to get the feel of casting it. Your opportunity to do so with other mem-bers of the club is coming in April. We will hold a casting “clinic” at the Rhine-hart Volunteer Park casting pond on the 26th from 1300 to whenever. Members with casting experience will be on hand tohelpfine-tuneyourmotion.Anycast-ing style is welcome. Come join the fun. If anyone has a desire to have some spe-cifichelpwithfuture“clinics”,e.g.Speyor Switch let me know and I’ll seek to arrange it.

Brady Keister, Casting Chair

Casting Clinic

Thank You For Your Support By Tanya Haight

Thank you to all the club members who supported the Casting for Recovery

rafflethroughouttheyear.Yoursupportis much appreciated!

The drawing was held at the SOFF meeting on March 19th and the follow-ing winners were:

Don Roberts (won the Winston Fly Rod)

Bruce Bartow (won the Burkheimer Switch Rod)

Sonja Nisson (won the etched fly box)


Editor’s Notebook

NON PROFIT ORG

U.S POSTAGE



Continued on Pg. 7

ested in, while others that intrigued me required that I sit down and watch severalfliesbeingtied.

As I am newly into intruder pat-terns, anyone tying those could be as-sured that I would spend ample time showing enough interest that I was

usually rewarded with a newly mint-edflytouseassampleformyfutureefforts at tying that pattern.

After becoming sated with fly tying, my interestnext went to the vendors of which there were some 25 to 30. As I was interested in ty-ing ‘intruder type patterns’, I needed material to tie those flies. Lady Amherst tails,guinea hen, and other items. Although these items have been displayed for sale in the past there were none to be found this year. In talking to the vendors they all said that they had what I needed, but didn’t bring any with them.

So much for shopping at the show!

As much as I liked watching the tyersandshoppingforflytyingorfly

Well the big event of the fly tyingyear isover,namely the annual

’Fly Tying Expo’ in Albany and might I say that SOFF was duly represented in an outstanding fashion. From those volunteers that handled the tyers sign in desk, to those that were there to tie and to those that were there strictly as observers or class takers, SOFF can be proud of the turnout.

As usual the Expo lived up to its reputation and pro-vided close to 200 tyers over the two day event. I flittedlikeabeefromflowertoflow-er as I stopped at each tyers station and watching them tie. Some were only brief stops, particularly at those tying Atlantic salmon patterns or other patterns that I wasn’t inter-

Some of the party goers at the after show party.

SOFF News

SPECIAL MENTION



Vol.22 No.5 The Monthly Newsletter of The Southern Oregon Fly Fishers, Inc. May, 2015






Local rivers, continue to give up their steelhead bounty to SOFF members both novice and seasoned alike. You just had to be in the right place at the right time to enjoy the action.

New member, Linda Congleton proudly displays her first ever steelhead a 33 inch hen taken on the Umqua River. Not to be undone, she caught two more, the largest being a 35 incher. Not bad for a first time outing!

SOFF NEWS May, 2015 Page 2

FROM THE BOARD


The Board of Directors meet in the conference room of the Taprock Restaurant The next meeting is scheduled: May 5th, 6:00pm or usually the first Tuesday of the month All members welcome


Sue take care of the SOFF hats, shirts andflyboxtableatourmeetings.Theyalso have organized the club picnic each September for several years. Our imme-diate past president is John “Steely John” Storfold. John has been on the board for years, was club president for two years, was fly tying chair for several years,auction chair for 5 years or more, and is now taking over the Project Healing Waters coordinator position. Our trea-surer is Rich “The Banker” Steed. Rich and his wife Jeannie are the smiling faces we all see at the entrance table for our monthly meetings. Rich has done a great job as treasurer, putting together a monthlyfinancialreportthatevenIcanunderstand! Rich is also our club histo-rian. Our secretary is Jan Knapik. Jan does a great job with our minutes, and together with her fellow board member and husband Joe, help welcome our new members. Duane “The Editor”Chebul is another board member who handles multiple tasks for our club. Duane puts together our monthly newsletter, takes care of our website and the din-ner reservations and arrangements. Ron “Winemaker”Cremo and Brady “Per-fect Loop”Keister are our newest board members. Ron has been an organizer of our Lava Lake outing, and Brady has just taken on the brand new position of casting chair.

Our club is also fortunate to have some great volunteers who take care ofthevariouschairpositionsnotfilledby board members. David “ODFW” Haight takes care of our outings. Da-vid has filled this position for a longtime, and knows the places to go and themethods to use for fishing successin Southern Oregon. Rich Hosley is our membership chair. Rich has been a board member in the past, and auction chair. He has to keep track of club dues, and is very good at giving all of us sub-tle reminders to pay our dues on time. Rich also puts together our club direc-tory. Ray “K Falls” McClenathan is our programs chair. Ray has helped bring in the speakers we all want to hear. He also

getstofishwithsomeofthem,andweare going to have to ask him to put on a programhimselfsomeday!Ourrafflechair is the one and only Ed Michalski. EdandhiswifeSandymaketherafflea lot of fun each month. John Graves is ournewflytyingchair.Johnbringsalotofflytyingexperiencetotheposi-tion, and was willing to step up to help whenJohnStorfoldmovedfromflyty-ing chair to Project Healing Waters co-ordinator. Sonja Nisson has taken over the auction chair position for 2015. It is a big job, but Sonja has the enthusiasm and ability to do the job and make our 2015 auction another total success.

That, my fellow SOFF club mem-bers, is our team. They are winners! When you get a chance, thank them for all the work they do. They not only do the job, but do it with good humor and enthusiasm. They are all a joy to work with, and make my job as club presi-dent pretty easy.

It’sMayandit’stimetogoflyfishing! The members of theSouthern Oregon Fly Fish-

ers will be venturing out in all direc-tionstopursuefishthissummer.Fromthe “Holy Water” at the base of Lost Creek dam to small streams in East-ern Oregon, we will be there. The lake fishermen will be going to Sel-mac, Galesville, Hyatt and Lost Creek to try their luck close to home. More distant tripswillfindourmembersatDiamond, Lemolo, Lava, Little Lava, Cultus, Crane Prarie, and some of the mountain lakes in Northern Califor-nia. Good luck and tight lines to all! Wewant to hear those fish stories atthe winery meeting on August 1st.

Our club had a great showing at the Albany Fly Tying Expo in mid-March. I stopped counting when I got up to 25 SOFF club members who were there. Thanks to all who tied and whohelpedtakecareoftheflytiersre-ception table. Our club members were everywhere that weekend, and I was proud of the fact that the SOFF is get-tingagreatreputationwithflyfisher-men from other parts of the state. Our club, like any organization, requires a lot of work by dedicated individuals to make it successful. As president, I feel privileged to work with the great team we have that is made up of our board members and chairs. They need to be introduced, just like the starters in the NCAA Final Four who get their names called and run out into the spotlight.

Starting at Vice President is Jerry “Coach K” Keeling. Jerry and his wife


PROGRAMS Future Programs Jun 19 Dennis LeeJuly 16 No MeetingAug 20 No MeetingSep 17 TBAOct 15 TBANov 14 Annual AuctionDec 17 TBAJan 21 TBA



Phil Rowley - Stillwater Tactics

May 21, 2015

This year, our SOFF Auction Committee is collecting both silent and oral auction

items throughout the year! As you do your “spring cleaning”, organize your fishing gear, or decide to “lighten”your load, give a call. We can even come and get the stuff! We are not limitedtofishingrelateditemsasoursilent auction includes just about ev-erything that is new or gently used. The only thing that we aren’t accept-ing is art work. If you’re cleaning out your garage - think of SOFF and call. If you’re looking at rods you have not used in years - call. Jewelry items that you or the wife or significant othernever wear - there will be a bidder for them! Not rafting anymore - someone needs that dry bag. Your extra stuff is our treasure! Do you have a talent for making up gift baskets – donate one. We can pick them up closer to our auc-tion date. Want to make club members aware of your business - a gift card for our auction works great.

I want to thank you in advance for your help in making our sole fundrais-er a success. Whether you are donat-ing or not, mark your calendars now as we hope to see you next fall on No-vember 14th to join in the fun and sup-port our club. If you anything now for the auction, please call Sonja Nisson at 541-582-4833 to coordinate pick-up.

Annual Auction: Dona-tions Needed By Sonja Nisson

Philhasbeenflyfishing forover30years.His loveofflyfishinghastakenhimacrossNorthAmericapursuingtrout,AtlanticandPacificsalmon,char,pike,walleyeandnumerousotherspeciesonthefly.But

Phil is probably best known for his stillwater exploits. Aformercommercialflytyer,Philhaswrittenforalmosteverymajorflyfish-

ing publication in North America. He has authored three books and numerous fea-turearticlesandtworegularcolumns.Phil’sfirstbookFlyPatternsforStillwatersis a best seller. In 2014, Phil was the proud recipient of a Life Time Achievement Award from Fly Tyer magazine.

Inadditiontohiswriting,PhilhasfiveinstructionalDVD’s.In2007,Philwasa member of the gold medal winning team at the Canadian Fly Fishing champion-ships.

When he isn’t on the water Phil travels North America performing at out-doorshows,providingseminars,speakingtoflyclubsandconductingfly-fishingschools. Phil also provides instructional stillwater guiding on the lakes located a short distance from his Edmonton area home.

Phil has appeared on a number of T.V. shows including, BC Outdoors Sports Fishing, Sport Fishing B.C., Fishing Alberta, Let’s Go Outdoors and Fishing with ShellyandCourtney.Phil isalsooneoftheNewFlyFisher,aneducationalflyfishingproduction.


CASTING ABOUT

Pronghorn Lake Outing By Russ Leavitt

Pronghorn Lake is a 150 acre lake 40 miles east of Klamath Falls. It has Triploid Trout, German Browns, Red-bands, and Brook Trout, although I have only seen triploids caught on re-cent outings. Largemouth Bass to 8 # and probably larger are present as well assunfish.The out-ing this year be-gins at 1:00 PM on May 1 6 t h . Members can sign up for one day and fish un-til 12:00 n o o n S u n d a y May 17th or stay over for a second day until 12:00 on the 18th.

P o n -t o o n b o a t s , f l o a t tubes, or boats with e l e c t r i c motors all work well. C a b i n r e n t a l s are avail-able on a firstcomefirstserveb a s i s , and they are going fast. Bring a sleeping bag and pillow.

Trout average 20” with an occasion-al trout over 10 lbs. Most SOFF mem-bers who try it once return. Pronghorn

offers an excellent opportunity to land verylargetrout,andMikeoffersusfish-ing at the reasonable fee of $100.00/day/person - the standard fee is $160.00.

Damsel flies, dragon flies, wooly-buggers, and leaches all work well. Den-nyRickard’slakefliesarealsosuccess-

ful. Some have done well with c h r o n o -mids and b a i t f i s h i m i t a -tions have w o r k e d for some f i s h e r s . Most fish-ing is done with inter-m e d i a t e lines.

F o o d and drinks

are your own responsibility, but there is a pot-luck d i n n e r Saturday n i g h t . B r i n g s o m e -thing to grill and a side dish, salad, or desert to share.

F o r additional infor ma-tion type “ P r o n g -h o r n Lake” into

your search engine.I have additional information and

directions as well as Pronghorn lake rules. If you are interested please con-

Rich Hosley with a nice Rainbow taken at Pronghorn Lake.

tact me. My contact information is:

Russ Leavitt2306 Haviland Dr. Grants Pass, Or. 97527541 441 [email protected]>

$100.00/day/person$5.00/night /person for the cabins$10/day/R.V. hook-up. Two are

available.Checks should be made out to

“SOFF” with “Pronghorn Lake” in the memo line and sent to me. I will insure they get to the treasurer. Confusion oc-curs if the checks are sent to the club address.

Perennial big fish catcher, Bruce Bochman, shows off his talent with a fine rainbow taken from Pronghorn Lake.

Russ Leavitt displays a nice bass he took from Pronghorn

Editor’s Note:

If you were at the last club meeting you heard Bruce Bochman report that the owners of Pronghown Lake just added a lot of big fish to the lake with some of the fish weighing 10 lbs plus. Where else can you go where the chance for a big fish is this great?Due to a recent injury to Bruce Boch-man, he and three other friends have cancelled so there are four more spots available.



May 2 Copeland PondMay 16-18 Pronghorn LakeMay 29-30 Lemolo LakeJun 25-28 Cascade Lakes/ Upper DeschutesJul 11 Upper Sacramento RiverAug 29 Lower Rogue HalfpoundersSep 26-27 Coquille Coho

May Outing to Lemolo Lake By Dave Grosjacques

2015 Outings

The SOFF outing for late May will be to Lemolo Lake. Outing host Dave

Grosjacques will be there from Tues-day, May 26th until Sunday, May 31st. TheofficialoutingdaysareFridayandSaturday, May 29th and 30th, but club memberscancomeupandfishanydaythat week.

The lake is located about 10 miles north of Diamond Lake. From Grants Pass you will take highways 62 and 230 to the junction with highway 138 at Diamond Lake. You will turn left and drive north to the entrance road to Diamond Lake lodge. From this junc-tion you go another 6 miles north on 138 to the Lemolo Lake cutoff at Bird’s Point road. Turn right and drive down 4 miles to either Poole Creek camp-ground or Lemolo Lake Resort.

The lake is at an elevation of 4200 feet, which is about 1000 feet lower than Diamond. Poole Creek camp-ground is where Dave will be on Tues-day and Wednesday. It is a Forest Ser-vice campground, with no hookups. It does have an excellent boat ramp and dock. On Thursday, Friday and Satur-day Dave will be in the boathouse cabin at the resort. We will have a social hour at 4PM at the cabin all three days. Club members are welcome to come over and tell fish stories. The kitchen andmicrowave in the cabin will be avail-able for cooking dinner.

Lemolo Lake has healthy popula-

tions of brown trout and rainbow trout. Itcanbefishedfromshore,butit’sbestto have a boat. Pontoon boats and even floattubeswillwork.Mostoftheactionwe have had in past years has been on intermediate sink lines with weighted flies. Dave’s favorite flies for Lemoloare Denny’s Diamond and the Stillwater Bug, fished slowly on an intermediateline with some short twitches to make them move a bit.

If you plan to go to Lemolo any of the days listed above, contact Dave to make arrangements to meet at the campground or at the cabin. He will have a map of the lake for you and some tips on how, where and when to fish.The best way to reach him is by email at [email protected]. At the lake you can call him on his cell at 541-326-9330.

The resort at the lake has a small store, restaurant, gas station and cabin and boat rentals. They also have an RV campground with hookups. The number to call for the resort is 541-643-0750.

Socomeonupandgofishing!Theweather will be great (we hope!) and the fishwillbebiting.

On May 2, the Southern Oregon Fly Fishers will head to Copeland’s Pond

for what has become one of our most popular outings each year. The pond, carefully managed by SOFF life mem-ber Bob Copeland, contains largemouth bass, bluegill, crappie, bullheads, and carp.Bobrequiresallfishcaughtfromthe pond be released; thus, allowing the fishtogrowtoimpressivesizes.Inpastyears, club members have landed crap-pie up to 15 inches and largemouth bass up to 20 inches in length.

The pond has plenty of shoreline

Outing to Copeland’s Pond

access,butafloattube,pontoonboat,drift boat, or other small watercraft will give you better access to the wa-ter. For panfish, 3 to 5-weight rodswork well, but if you hook into one of the big bass or carp, which are abun-dant in the pond, you may wish you had something heavier. If you plan to target bass or carp, a 6 to 8-weight rod would be a good choice. Slow sinking lines will likely be the most useful, but bringyourfloatinglinesaswell.Yourflyboxshouldcontainbassbugs,rab-bit-stripflies,woollybuggers,leeches,streamers, and nymphs. Olive or white woolly buggers have worked well for both crappie and bass in past years.

Continued on P{g 7

Mark Swanburg with a fine bass taken from Copeland’s Pond

Actually you never know what you may catch at Copeland’s as Mark Swanburg can attest to with this big carp hooked and landed at the Pond.

To get to Copeland’s Pond, take Redwood Highway west from town. Turn north off the highway onto Ap-plegate Avenue then look for the club signs where Applegate Avenue turns right and becomes Leonard Road. You can join us there anytime after 8:30.

Bob and Valerie are again gracious-


FLY TYING CORNER




Membership Form


Tying Instructions:

Brindle Bug

Hook: Size 6 to 8, 2x Long.Thread: Black.Tail: Brown Hackle.Body: Yellow/Black Verigated Chenille.Hackle: Brown Same As Tail.

Start with hook in vise, put down a base of black thread to point of hook. Tie in tuff of brown hackle ( wet fly grade ). Tie in chenille and wrap thread to front, now wrap chenille forward to eye of hook leaving room for hackle in front .Tie in hackle butt first and palmer in hackle 3 or 4 turns and tie in and trim off hackle. Now build head and whip finish and add glue. Note : You can make 1 hook size bigger or smaller, also can use strong or light wire hook.

Fly Tied By John Graves

Pleasenote:Iaminneedoffliesfortheflyofthemonth.Pleasecontactmeatjegfly@Hotmail.com


CHANGING LINES COMING EVENTS5-2 Club Outing - Copeland’s Pond.5-12 SOFT Fly Tyers, Madrone Mobile Home Park in Gold Hill.5-16-18 Club Outing - Pronghorn.5-21 Club Meeting - Phil Rowley.5-29-30 Club Outing- Lemolo Lake.6-2 Board Meeting.6-9 SOFT Fly Tyers, Madrone Mobile Home Park in Gold Hill.6-18 Club Meeting with Dennis Lee.6-25-28 Club Outing - Annual Lava Lake Outing.


What to do? We can do nothing and allow the pond to disintegrate once again or we can become proactive and do our part in maintaining the pond.

the pond, sees the opportunity to pro-vide casting instruction through clin-ics as well as bringing in noted casting instructors for the membership, but this all hinges on the condition of the pond. If the pond and its environs are clean, it will be used, if not it will deteriorate and revert back to its former self.

May Outing Cont. from Pg. 5

ly allowing us to use their picnic facili-ties for our noon barbeque. The club will provide hamburgers, chips and drinks. Those attending are requested to bring a salad, side dish, or dessert to share. If you plan to go, sign up at the April meeting or call or e-mail me by April 25, so I know how much food to purchase.

The outing to Copeland’s Pond is a greatwaytostartoffthespringfishingseason. The fantastic fishing and theopportunity to enjoy a picnic and time on the water with fellow club members make it an outing you won’t want to miss.

David Haight, Outings Chair 541-855-9043, tmdrhaight@ infostructure.net

Copeland outing participants enjoying lunch after a morning’s fishing.

American Legion Auxiliary Unit #28 will be hosting a dinner on May 15th from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm. It will be held at the American Legion Post #28 located at 206 N.W. F St., Grants Pass (corner of F St. and 5th). The dinner will cost $6.00.

We will be serving spaghetti, salad, garlic bread, dessert and coffee and wa-ter. Drinks will be available at the bar.

All of the proceeds will go to Proj-

American Legion Aux-iliary Hosting a Project Healing Waters Benefit Dinner

The club members struggling to pull the new liner into place.The idea that the club maintains the pond is not unique as there are several other clubs that have casting ponds that do this. Members are put in charge, as-sign dates and solicit volunteers to clean their ponds on a monthly or other set basis. We can do the same thing. All that is needed is an individual who will take up the challenge to be in charge and a cadre of club members (volun-teers) that will assist in the cleaning of the pond on a regular basis.

The club, with the establishment of a casting chair and the resurrection of

ect Healing Waters. Hope to see you there for a good dinner and help us support Project Healing Waters. If you have any questions you can contact me at 541-218-5945 please leave a message. Thank you.

Sandy Michalski

Bob Copeland stands by his heavy duty fork lift that was used to muscle around the hugh rolls of liner used for the pond.

I hate to use the old cliché, ‘the ball is in your court’, but that is the case. The casting pond will live or die by the deci-sion of the membership to take an ac-tive part in its maintenance. If you think it’s a good idea to maintain the pond, let your Board of Directors know or if you have no interest, don’t bother as the board will know your decision by your silence.


Editor’s Notebook

NON PROFIT ORG

U.S POSTAGE



Continued on Pg. 7

for the pond.During its early days, club mem-

bers like Bob Roberts amongst others could be counted on to provide cast-ing instructions to anyone that needed or wanted it. This was the heyday of the pond; unfortunately, in the later

years due to nonuse and neglect, the pond deteriorated to the point where

it would no longer hold water. Abouttheonlytimeitwasfilledwas either by rainfall or by spe-cial filling in order to facilitatethe casting games at the club’s annual picnic.

This situation went on for a number of years until in 2014 through a generous donation of a $5000 liner from the Durolast RoofingCo.,andonceagainBobCopeland providing mechanical assistance not to mention the 20 to 30 club volunteers, the casting pool was reborn.

Unfortunately the geese that reside at the park have found the

pond to their liking and took up resi-dence there. Hence, the pond water became fouled from their usage along with the area surrounding the pool.

A couple weeks ago, a gen-eral email was sent to all club members can-

celing a casting clinic set to be conducted at the Casting Pond at the Reinhart Volunteer Park. The reason given for the cancellation wasthatthepondwasfilthyandthe area around the pond was littered with goose excrement. Dave Grosjacques, contacted parks and recreation personnel and basically was told that with the start of the spring and sum-mer season, they were too busy to do anything about the pond.

A brief history of the pond shows that it was set up as a ‘Casting Pond’ more than a de-cade ago. In fact it was the result of a $6000 donation from the club to build it originally. This money, as well as a lot of the physical work, done by Bob Copeland’s company was the genesis

Dave Grosjacques re-dedicating the casting pond at last year’s club picnic.

SOFF News

SPECIAL MENTION



Vol.22 No.6 The Monthly Newsletter of The Southern Oregon Fly Fishers, Inc. June, 2015






Some 40 SOFF members and Rogue Fly Flyfishers plus friends descended on Copeland’s Pond for the annual SOFF outing and were rewarded with a day of excellent fishing.

At the recent club outing at Copeland’s Pond, Bob James shows that he has the ‘right stuff’ by landing this nice 21 inch bass. A beautiful day for the outing saw numerious fish being caught by those attending the event.

SOFF NEWS June, 2015 Page 2

FROM THE BOARD


The Board of Directors meet in the conference room of the Taprock Restaurant The next meeting is scheduled: June 2nd, 6:00pm or usually the first Tuesday of the month All members welcome


recently are making it a bit easier to tie good flies that catch fish. There havealsobeenadvancesintoolsandvises,aswell as the number and quality of simple flytyingvideosonline.Sotothosewhousedtotiefliesandnolongerdoit,nowis a good time to re-start your tying! There is something special about catch-ing a fish on a fly that you have tied.There is also something special about endorsing a particular fly, giving oneto a friend, and then hearing from that friend later that theflyyougave themreally worked!

As we get into some real summer weather, many of the members of the SOFFwillbeoutontheirfavoritelakesand streams chasing fish. Some con-centrateontheirfavoritespotswithinafewhoursofhomeandothersventuretootherstatesorevencountriesinpursuitofthatperfectdayoffishing.Thisexo-dus from home is part of the reason that ourclubdoesnothaveregularThursdaygeneral meetings in July or August. I was on the SOFF board 6 or 7 years ago when we decided to make that change. The primary reason was that it cost us to rent the room and get a speaker for those summer meetings and nobody came be-cause so many of them were gone on fishing trips! Sowe decided to foregothe usual July and August general meet-ings and replace them with a different typeofmeetingatanothervenue.Thusthe SOFFwinery eventwas born.Wefound out the first two years that thischange was a good idea. The winery event isdifferent in that it isheldout-doors, with plenty of good food, and that thereisnoprogram.Wediscoveredthatthesocialaspectoftheeventwasadrawfor some spouses whom we rarely see at the regular meetings. We also found out thatmanymembersbring relativesand friends to meet club members in a relaxed and informal setting.

Thisyearourwineryeventwillbeat Pleisance Ranch on Saturday, August 1st. Rich Steed is in charge of organiz-ing it this summer. There will be more details in the newsletter. Put that date on

your summer calendar and don’t hesi-tatetobringanyvisitingrelativesandfriends, they are all welcome!

Finally I want to take a look ahead in the SOFF schedule to the club auc-tion inNovember.JohnStorfold,whohasput togetherseveralverysuccess-ful auctions for us in past years, has handed off the auction chair position to Sonja Nisson. Club members who know Sonja are not surprised when they see the enthusiasm she brings to the table when anyone mentions the word “auc-tion”. NOW is the time to start think-ing about auction donations. Members of the auction committee are already at work trying to get those big items for the oral auction. The silent auction and thebucketrafflewerealsobigmoneymakers last year, and their items and prizes in part come from donations from the club members. So start look-ingforitemsyouhaveorwanttobuyto donate to the cause. The auction is a lot of fun and you can get some great dealsonfishing(ornon-fishing)items.Mostimportantly,theauctionprovidesthe funding our great club relies on for the meetings, educational events andprojects we will be planning for the fol-lowing year. So let’s all start thinking now about making 2016 a good year for the SOFF!

I will start this month’s message withalookbackattwoeventsthatwerebigforourflytiers.

The first event was the annualAlbany Expo in early March. As I mentioned in last month’s column, I stopped counting at 25 SOFF members who were there for at least part of the twodayevent.Wecanbeproudofthefact that the SOFF is starting to get the attentionofotherflyfishersaroundthestate and the region for our outstand-ing participation. The SOFF helped theeventorganizersbytakingcareoftheflytierscheck-in tablefor the twodays of the Expo. We also had a good numberofflytiersfromourclubtyingfliesattheevent.TheOregonCouncilof the International Federation of Fly Fishers puts on the Expo, which is a celebrationofallthingsflyfishinghasto offer. We owe a debt of gratitude to these dedicated people who make the AlbanyExposuchagreateventforthevendors,thetiersandtheattendees.

TheotherbigeventforourSOFFflytierswasourAprilflytyingmeet-ing.Wewant togiveabig thankyouandpatonthebacktoalloftheflytierswhocameinandtiedflies.Thosewhoattendedgottoseeavarietyofflyty-ing techniques andflies, and also gottohearalotoffishingstoriesfromthetiers.Someof themwereeven true! IhavetalkedtoalotofSOFFmemberswhohavetiedfliesinthepast,buthavegotten away from it for various rea-sons. One good way to get back into tyingistowatchothertiers.Theflyty-ingmaterialsthathavebeendeveloped


PROGRAMS Future Programs July 16 No MeetingAug 20 No MeetingSep 17 TBAOct 15 Gary LewisNov 14 Annual AuctionDec 17 TBAJan 21 TBA



Dennis Lee - Half Pounders

June 19, 2015

ANNUAL AUCTION: Saturday, NOVEMBER 14th

Help make it great!

The membership and auction com-mittee are working hard to make our annual auction a great success! What can you do? Most importantly, savethedate!Comeandhavesomefunandsupport our club! This year, we are expandingthe“BucketRaffle”soyouhaveevenmorechances towingreatstuff with a one dollar ticket. There willbe“specialraffles”and,ofcourse,the silent and oral auctions. So, come andvisitwithfriends,enjoytheevent,andmaybeevenbe the luckywinnerof a great item!

When asked what they miss from former auctions, there is a unanimous answer: “We loved the gift baskets”.So,wearelookingforafewvolunteersto get their creative juices flowing amakeagiftbasket (wecanhelpwithsupplying ingredients). Wehaveonevolunteersofar,agoodstart.Commitnow and make the basket in the Fall before the auction.

Many thanks to those who havehelpedsofar.Wealreadyhavesometerrificitemscominginandarelook-ing for more. If you are not using it, we need it! Just call Sonja Nisson at 541-582-4833 to coordinate pick-up, give it to any committeemember, orbring it to the June meeting.

Annual Auction By Sonja Nisson

Dennis P. Lee retired from the California Department of Fish and Game in2006asaSupervisingFisheryBiologistafter36yearsmanagingCalifornia’sinlandandanadromousfisheries.Hebeganhiscareerat

the Nimbus Salmon and Steelhead Hatchery and throughout his career worked onvariousprojectsandprogramsincludingRussianRiverSalmonandSteelheadStudy;NorthCoastfisherymanagement;CentralValleyandSierraNevadafisherymanagement,KlamathRiverSalmonandSteelheadResearchProject,theFederalAidinSportFishRestorationProgram,andsupervisedstafffortheHeritageandWildTroutProgram,LakeandReservoirProject, andhelp initiate theCentralValley Anadromous Resource Assessment Project.

After retirement, Dennis was hired by the Department as a Retired Annui-tantandresponsibleforthedevelopmentandpreparationofChinooksalmonandsteelhead program Hatchery and Genetic Management Plans for Central Valley anadromoushatcheries,andisamemberoftheFeatherRiver,Nimbus,andMoke-lumneRiverhatcherycoordinationteams.In2010,DenniswasappointedtotheCaliforniaHatcheryScientificReviewGrouptohelpdeveloprecommendationsfor the improvementofCalifornia’sanadromousfishhatcheries.DennisenjoystyingfliesandfishingnorthernCaliforniaandsouthernOregonsteelheadrivers.HeandhiswifeWendyliveinFolsom,California.


CASTING ABOUT

Pronghorn Lake Outing 2015 By Russ Leavitt

Pronghorn Lake is approxi-matelyathree-hourdrivelo-cated east and a little south of

Klamath Falls. The 150-acre lake is large enough to allow the 9 SOFF fly fisherswho made the trip to spread out nicely. The fish weremostly in the North-East cor-ner of the lake. Both the fish-ers and the fish knewthe location of the feeder, so there was a little conges-tion there.

Fishing was fair to good for trout that aver-aged about 20”. Several larger“triploids” had recently been introduced into the lake and a few in the eight to ten pound range were caught. Inter-mediate lines were the rule. Most of the anglers caught oneortwofisha day. Bruce Bachman was recoveringthisyear, so nobody thoroughly out-fished anybody else.It was good to see him on the mend

Thursday at the SOFF meeting. Amajorityofthefishingwasdone

with 3X tippet – the smallest allowed on the lake. I spent one day experiment-

ing with chirono-m i d s , bait f ish i m i t a -t i o n s , d a m s e l ny mphs (a fewd a m s e l ny mphs w e r e seen in the silty w a t e r )and wa-ter boat-

men.Ionlycaughtonefishthatday,soI returned to the large black leech that had worked the day earlier. Large black leeches and black leech-es with pur-ple sparkle seemed to be a good choice. Posi-tioning one-self over adrop off in depths from 4 feet to 7 feet was key. V i s i b i l i t y was poor and it appears large flies

thatmoved a lot ofwater or had con-siderablesparklewereeasierforthefish

tofind.At one point I tried a very large,

bug-eyeddragonflynymphandcaughta good bass in less than a foot of water. I alsogotonelargetroutonthesamefly.

Wesharedamealandconversationtime and excellent BBQ with owners Mike and Diann Tyrholm who joined us again this year for dinner Saturday evening.Althoughwedidn’tcatchlargenumbersoffish,itwasexcitingtoknowa double digit fish could be on at anymoment.Everyoneseemedtoenjoytheouting in spite of the silty water and rel-ativelyfewnumbersoffishcaught.Nextyear(2016)IhaverequestedthedatesofApril 30 – May 2nd. This is a superb pay to play lake relatively close to GrantsPass. If interested, type “Pronghorn Lake Ranch” into your search engine to explore how you may best enjoy this resource.

John Storfold displays a nice rainbow taken at the recent Pronghorn outing.

Trout were not the only thing on the menu as evi-denced by this nice bass taken by Russ Leavitt.

Gary & Bonnie Miller are on a cross-country ‘bucket list’ trip in their motor home. On an outing on the Cum-berland River in SE Kentucky Garylanded a dozen trout, including this nice brown.

The Bucket List By Gary Miller

Gary Miller takes the time from his ‘bucket list’ trip to fish the Cumberland River and is rewarded with this nice brown. Note the SOFF shirt that he is wearing - way to go Gary!



Jun 25-28 Cascade Lakes/ Upper DeschutesJul 11 Upper Sacramento RiverAug 29 Lower Rogue HalfpoundersSep 26-27 Coquille CohoOct 24 Middle Rogue Steel head.Nov ? Klamath Steelhead.

Cascade Lake/Lava Lake Outing By Jerry and Sue Keeling

2015 Outings

Wehaveoneofthelongestrunning and more popu-lar club outings coming

inJune–theCascadeLakes/LavaLakeouting. Find the joy of fishingthe central Or-egon area – De-schutes River,Big and Little Lava Lakes,Hosmer Lake, Cultas Lake, Fall River, andmany other bodies of finefishing waters.The dates are Friday June 26 through Sunday June 28. Several club members willbe in the area anywhere from Tuesday June 23 through Sun-day June 28.

The club has tradition-ally providedthe main dish for a Saturday evening groupdinner. This year the club will providebarbeque beef sandwiches and chili. Each person will

bring a sidedish and their ownbever-age.Wewillmeetatsite22attheLavaLake RV Resort/Campground to enjoy some good food, good friends and some

good fishingstories.

If you are interested in attending please email Jerry and Sue Keel-ing (outinghosts) at jer-r ykeel [email protected] or call 541-218-7264. There are many options for

camping in the area as well as cabins at variouslakesinthearea.

You don’t want to miss out on a won-derful time and besides you might catchafishortwo. It doesn’t get much bet-ter than that!

Sonja Nisson with a nice rainbow take at Lava Lake.

Ron Cremo get one at a recent Lave Lake Out-ing.

Nothing better after a day of fishing than swapping stories around the campfire.

California Trout By Dave GrosjacquesHerearephotosoffishIcaughtata

pay-to-fishplacedownnearReddingonTuesday and Wednesday of last week. ThefirstoneIthinkisthebest.Thefishwasover24inchesandmaybe4pounds.

Dave G with his best fish - almost!

After a little effort getting the fish out of the net, Dave G proudly displays his biggest fish.

Once Dave had his big fish out of the way, he became a fish catching machine. Here’s another fine rainbow he caught. I wonder if he was using his secret fly - The Stillwater Bug?


FLY TYING CORNER

Name(s):Address:City: State: Zip:Phone:Home()Work:()Email: Personal interests: Renewal:_____New:______



Membership Form


Tying Instructions:

Stillwater Bug - By Denny RickardsHook: Tiemco #200R 3X Long or Dai-Riki #730 2X Long in Sizes 8 or 10.Weight: .020 Lead Wire.Tail: LongMaribouStrandsinBlack,OliveorBurnt Orange.Underbody: Antron Yarn.OverWing: AngelHairinOliveorPeacock.Thorax: HoloBriteinOliveorBronze. Hackle: Saddle Hackle in Dark Orange, Burnt Orange or Amber.

Wrap a thread base and put 12 to 15 turns of lead wire on the front half of the hook. Tie in a thin strand of Antron at the tailandwrapforwardoverthelead,formingasmoothbody.

Take a bunch of marabou and tie in a tail about the length of the body. Take the thread forward about 1/3 of the way toward the eye. Wrap the ends of the marabou forward to the thread, forming the body. Tie off and trim ends. Take another bunch of marabou and tie in a mid-wing at this point that is just a bit shorter than the tail. Take the thread forward about 2/3rds of the way to the eye. Take the ends of this marabou and wrap it forward, forming the body the same way up to the thread and tie off and trim. Take a third bunch of marabou and tie in another mid-wing at this point, making maybe one turn of it to formathorax.Tiein6or8strandsofAngelHairoverthiswing.

Shape the thorax with the thread, then dub on the Holo Brite from the forward mid-wing almost to the eye. Make the thoraxthickerthanthebody.Trimanybitsofdubthatarestickingforwardovertheeyeorbackalongthebody.

Tie on a pretty long strand of hackle just forward of the thorax, shiny side forward. Wrap 2 or 3 turns of hackle forward toward the eye. Then take the thread and wrap the hackle, sweeping it back along the body at a 45 degree angle. Finish a smoothheadandwhipfinish.

Comments:IhavecaughtfishwiththisflywhereverIhaveusedit.Itworksgreatinlakesonanintermediatesinkline,withstripsand/ortwitchestogiveitsomemovement.Ihavealsouseditwithafloatingline,withtheflyhanging3or4feetunderthesurfacewithlotsofmovement.Fly Tied By: Dave Grosjacques


CHANGING LINES COMING EVENTS6-2 Board Meeting.6-9 SOFT Fly Tyers, Madrone Mobile Home Park in Gold Hill.6-18 Club Meeting with Dennis Lee.6-25-28 ClubOuting-AnnualLava Lake Outing.7-7 Board Meeting7-11 Club Outing - Upper Sacra mento with Will Johnson.7-16 No Club Meeting.8-1 Annual Wine Dinner.8-4 Board Meeting.8-20 No Club Meeting.8-29 Club Outing - Lower Rogue Halfpounders.


most about Loren was his skill at the flytyingbench.Hereveledinproduc-ing complicated and detailed hexagenia andcallabaetispatterns.InfactIhaveaflyplatedonebyhimshowingthethreestates of a hexagenia mayfly as wellas a glass bell jar in which callabaetis mayfliescanbeseencrawlingup thefoliage included in that bell jar display. I treasure these examples of Loren’s work.

In ad-dition to fly tying, Ihave fishedwith Lo-ren severaltimes at Copeland’s Pond. Al-though I remember him catch-ing many bass and other fishof the pond, the thing that stands out most in my mind is a photograph IhaveofLoren inwhichhe’sinhispontoonboatfloatingonthe

pond. Although this may not appear to be remarkable, but given the fact thatthis was a rainy day and there was Loren,flyrod in one hand, um-brella in the other and still f i s h i n g . He wasn’t going to let a little rain both-er him.

O n someone’s gravestonebesides their name, there is twodates.Thefirst be-ingthedatetheindividualwasbornandthe second is the date they passed away. In between those dates are a lifetime of achievements,offailures,timesofgreatjoy, as well as times of sadness, and all other things that made that individualunique. Too many times, we may know

the two d a t e s , but little of what went on between them.

I k e e p s a y i n g that I want to get to k n o w p e o p l e d u r i n g t h o s e i n t e r -

veningdatesandhavethemsharewithme what they’re really all about and not wait to hear their life stories and plati-

This is how many will remember Loren at his vise show-ing someone how to tie his style of fly.

tudesattheirMemorialservice.Hopefully as time marches on, we

all can put a little more em-phasis on s e e k i n g out the mea n i ng of some-o n e ’ s life, be it family or friend, and not wait to be told about their life by some-one else w h e n they’re no

longer around.

Probably one of my favorite photos of Loren was the one in which he didn’t let a little rain bother him as there were fish to be caught.

Sage z-axis custom Gary An-derson rod for sale. This wasnotaraffleitem.

Gorgeous four piece 7wt Genera-tion V 9’6” for sale. Last one sold on ebay for $406.00 with 27 bids, no case. I am offering it to the club first for$300.00.

IalsohaveacustomSagecaseforan extra $25.00. This will hold the rod and a mounted reel.

Please contact Teresa for more in-formation. 541-324-0485 or [email protected]

Fly Rod For Sale


Editor’s Notebook

NON PROFIT ORG

U.S POSTAGE



Continued on Pg. 7

At Loren’s recent Memorial ser-vice that point struck home again as

family and friends paid tribute to the man. Such things as the positions and jobsthatheheldoverhisworkingca-reer were news to me. In fact that he

had been married to his wife Dean for 31 years and that this was his second

marriage and that his three sonswere from the previousmarriage and were raised by he and Dean. In fact, I didn’t know that he even had threesons.

I also didn’t realize that he was a skilled craftsman who enjoyed building model trains and the countryside that they passed through. As a matter of fact, many of these items were built from scratch requiring work on a lathe, precise construction and dec-oration.AlthoughIneversawthese railroads, I have heardfrom people that have and

they remarked how detailed and ex-acting they were.

The slice of life that I remember

As we age and the days become seeminglyshorter,wesee the inevi-tability of man. He’s born, liveshislife,andwhenitishis time, he quietly passes away. My mother used to haveasaying,theyoungcango, but the old must go. As one’s circle of family and friends age, we see the real-ity of that statement.

And so it was with Lo-ren Black, he came into this world, lived his lifeand without fanfare left this world. It’s at those times that we reflect on these peoplesuch as Loren Black and realize that we really didn’t know them. That’s not say-ing that we didn’t know some facet of theirlives,ratherthepartweknowisgenerally superficial andbut amereglimpse into that person’s life.

Loren Black with ‘Billy Bass’ that he exercised regularly at his backyard pond.

SOFF News

SPECIAL MENTION



Vol.22 No.7 The Monthly Newsletter of The Southern Oregon Fly Fishers, Inc. July, 2015






If it is sometime between July and August then it must be time for the SOFF’s annual wine dinner. This year the affair will be held at the Plaisance Ranch and Winery on August 1st.

Ahh, the pleasure of the grape awaits members of SOFF when they meet on August 1st at the Plaisance Ranch and Winery for the club’s annual wine dinner and social.

SOFF NEWS July, 2015 Page 2

FROM THE BOARD


The Board of Directors meet in the conference room of the Taprock Restaurant The next meeting is scheduled: July 7th, 6:00pm or usually the first Tuesday of the month All members welcome


firesmokeandotherminordifficultiestogether.A campfire is a natural drawto human beings worldwide, and for us it is a perfect opportunity to tell stories oftheday’sfishingandofgreatfishingplaces and partners of years gone by.

I have led numerous outings for the SOFF the last few years, and I enjoy the experience. Leading an outing is a task that involves getting out some early in-formation on how to get to the place as well as basic fishing tips on imitation,presentation and location. The members whohavefishedthespotbeforeareex-tremely helpful and valuable in that they can add their own experiences in past years to help orient those members who havenotfishedthearea.Onceeveryonehas arrived,more specific informationisgiven,thenweallgofishing!There-sults of certain areasfished,flies usedand presentations tried are shared, add-ingtothestoreoffishingknowledgeofthat particular lake or stream. Members share successes and failures as they happen during the day, helping all zero inon theflies and tactics thatwork togetthefishtobite.LikeIalwayssay,itisalotoffuntogofishing,butitisevenmorefuntogofishingwithagroupoffriends.

How then does one judge the suc-cess of a SOFF club outing? After host-ing more than twenty of them, this is a thought that I have after each one. One way to tell if the outing was successful is simply by looking at numbers of par-ticipants. An outing that is far enough away from Grants Pass that it requires an overnight stay can be successful, in my view, if 6 or 8 participants show up. An outing that is less than an hour’s drive from home should produce more participants. Another way to rate an out-ingisbyfishingsuccess.Hereitisagaindependant on other factors, like the spe-cies we are after. On a steelhead outing, a few hookups will make it a success. If we are after trout, we want the ma-jority of the members who attended to catchatleastafewfishtomakethetripa success. A third way of rating the suc-

cess of an outing is the number of par-ticipants who have never been to that area to fish. I think that introducingnewcomers toafishingspot that theyhave not seen is a very important part of our outings program. Longtime out-ings chair David Haight does a great job keeping some of our traditional outings going each year, while mix-ing in some new places to try. At last month’s Lemolo outing, there were 6 members of our club who attended the outing and had never been to Lemolo before. To me that makes an outing a success, especially if the newcomers catchafewfish!

Finally, I have to mention the part of an outing that is difficult to mea-sure, but extremely important. This is the feeling of fellowship and sharing as a group that I mentioned earlier. We gettogetherwhilewearefishing,attheboat rampor around the campfire af-terwards.Wesharestoriesoffliesthatworkedandthefishthatwecaughtandthe big ones that got away. We tell about the hot spots that produced fish thatmorning. We enjoy each other’s com-panyandasharedpassionforflyfish-ing in a beautiful setting. These are the club outing experiences that we cherish and remember, and these things truly make the outing a success, regardless ofhowmanyfishwerecaught.Sogetout there and attend the club outings, youwillbegladyoudid!

July is the start of some real summer weather in Southern Oregon. The warm weather

makesafishingtripintothemountainseven more inviting, with some cool mountain air to enjoy along with some greatfishing.MembersoftheSouthernOregon Fly Fishers head to the hills to get to those secret and not-so-secret hot spots in the high mountain lakes and streams. The recent outings to Prong-horn, Lemolo and Lava Lake are good examplesofthesesummerfishingdes-tinations. The weather can be a chal-lenge when one heads into the moun-tains, with past experiences of rain, hail and even snow on these outings in past years as proof. Club members take the weather in stride, however, and make the best of things. I swear I expe-rienced rain, hail, snow and sunshine at Lemolo a few years ago, all in the same day!Wewerecatchingfishanyway,sowe tolerated the weather.

I tell new members that the outings are the best way to really get to know the people in our club. The social time at our general meetings is a start, but that time is limited and only happens once a month. The outings give us a chancetofishandsharestoriestogeth-er, with fellowship and good humor a big part of the experience. I joined the SOFF in 2003, and I distinctly remem-ber getting to know the club members on habitat andfishing outings.On anouting, especially an overnight out-ing, you really get to know people. You share the fishing experience, but youalso share the mosquitoes, rain, camp-


PROGRAMS Future Programs July 16 No MeetingAug 20 No MeetingSep 17 TBAOct 15 Gary LewisNov 14 Annual AuctionDec 17 TBAJan 21 TBA

WHEN: TIMES: WHERE:

Annual SOFF Wine Dinner

Aug. 1, 2015

ANNUAL AUCTION: Saturday, November 14th

Helpmakeitgreat!

The membership and auction com-mittee are working hard to make our annualauctionagreatsuccess!Whatcan you do? Most importantly, save thedate!Comeandhavesomefunandsupport our club! This year, we areexpandingthe“BucketRaffle”soyouhave even more chances to win great stuff with a one dollar ticket. There willbe“specialraffles”and,ofcourse,the silent and oral auctions. So, come and visit with friends, enjoy the event, and maybe even be the lucky winner ofagreatitem!

When asked what they miss from former auctions, there is a unanimous answer: “We loved the gift baskets”.So, we are looking for a few volunteers to get their creative juices flowing amake a gift basket (we can help with supplying ingredients). We have one volunteer so far, a good start. Commit now and make the basket in the Fall before the auction.

Many thanks to those who have helped so far. We already have some terrificitemscominginandarelook-ing for more. If you are not using it, weneedit!JustcallSonjaNissonat541-582-4833 to coordinate pick-up, give it to any committee member, or bring it to the June meeting.


Come join your Southern Oregon Fly Fisher friends at their an-nual wine dinner to be held at Plaisance Ranch in Williams. Plaisance Ranch has been a working ranch since 1858. It is located in the heart of Williams valley in the shadow of Greyback Mountain. The Ginet family has a rich history of farming and vineyard business that spans over hundreds of years and across two continents. For many genera-tions, the family has been growing grapes, raising cattle and produc-ing grapevines amongst the mountains of Savoie in eastern France. Today, the tradition continues in America.

When: Saturday, August 1st, 5:00 pm

Where: Plaisance Ranch 16955 Water Gap Road Williams, OR 97544Food: James Daw, Bacchanal Catering

Wine: Plaisance Ranch

Entertainment: Live, acoustical

Tickets: Reservations are a must. Tickets are $20 with reserva-tions required by 7/26 as caterer requires a total count by that time. Attempts will be made to accommodate those without reservations with tickets $25 at the door. Wine Dinner Reservations: E-mail - [email protected] or call the Club at (541) 955-4718.

The club has been having a wine dinner every since we decided to go dark in the months of July and August. For the last five years the dinner was held at the Wooldridge Winery, but this year as Matthew Flickstein once said “Everything comes to pass, nothing comes to stay” and so it is with a bottle of good wine. After many years at the Wooldridge Winery the time had come to try another vintage and venue and with that the event was moved to the Plaisance Ranch and Winery. Several club members have been to Plaisance for other events and have assured the board that their facilities, meals and wine were excellent and that the membership will not be disappointed in the change of venue. Please note the deadline for res-ervations and get them in early or lose out on a fun time.

The Editor

Plaisance Ranch16955 Water Gap Rd.

5:00 PM Social Hour 6:00 PM Brief Meeting 6 :15 PM Dinner


CASTING ABOUT



Jul 18 Smallmouth on the Umpqua RiverAug 29 Lower Rogue HalfpoundersSep 26-27 Coquille CohoOct 24 Middle Rogue Steel head.Nov ? Klamath Steelhead.Jan 1 Chilli Feed on the Holy Water

July Outing Changed to the Umpqua River

2015 Outings

Continued on Pg. 7

the North I-5 interchange. We will car pool to the Umpqua from there. We will floatasectionofthemainUmpqua,soif you have a driftboat or pontoon boat,

please bring it. If you don’t have a boat, we will try tofindyouaride,or will provide a map identifying placestofishfromthe bank.

Smal lmouth bass can be found in the pools and backwater ar-eas, and even in the slower riffles.They especially like to hold along the bedrock ledg-es and around the boulders. They will readily take poppers, Clouser minnows, woolly buggers, stream-ers, and large

nymphs. Floating or slow-sinking lines fishedon5or6-weight rods are ideal.If you are interested in going, call me at 541-855-9043 or email me at [email protected]. Please let me know if you will be bringing a boat, and if you have room for a passenger.


ing just for the day or staying overnight foralongerfishingtrip.Thetwo-hourtrek from Grants Pass to the lake is a beautiful drive, with a good portion of it along the upper Rogue.For the July outing, we were

scheduled to go the upper Sacramento River in north-

ern California. Unfortunately, the per-son that was going to lead that outing had to cancel. I will lead an outing in its place, and in talking to some of the club members, fishing for small-mouth bass on the Umpqua Riv-er seemed to be the popular choice. It is easy to under-stand why: This is a great fisheryduring the sum-mer, which is at its best when the action is slower on many of our trout lakes, and the summer steel-head still have not yet arrived in significant numbers. Smallmouth areabundant throughout the main Umpqua and in the South Umpqua up to Tiller, theyareaggressivefishthatwillreadilytakeafly,anditiscommonforanglerstocatchdozensoffishinaday.

The outing will take place on July 18. We will meet at 7:00 AM in the Di-amond Home Improvement Store park-ing lot on 7th Street in Grants Pass near

Dave Haight holds a nice smallmouth bass taken at a recent outing on the Umpqua.

The 2015 SOFF outing to Lemolo was held the week of May 25 – 31. Each year this outing is actually scheduled for the Friday and Saturday after Me-morial Day weekend, but club members come and go from Wednesday through Sunday.Thisflexibilitygivesmembersa choice of six days to come up, stay-

Lemolo Outing Report Dave Grosjacques

Joe Knapik with a nice 17” brown taken at Lemolo outing

This year 15 SOFF members took advantage of some good weather to at-tend the outing. The lake has popula-tions of rainbow and brown trout, as well as a few kokanee. We all wanted to catch some browns, but they were hard to find theweekwewere there.Most of the fish caught by the clubwere rainbows from 10 to 14 inches. Some browns were caught, and Nick Merrill and Dave Grosjacques both caught a kokanee. Joe and Jan Knapik got a couple of good brown trout in the 17-18 inch range.

Jan Knapik with a Lemolo brown.


FLY TYING CORNER




Membership Form


Tying Instructions:

Stimulator Hook: Curved Shank 3XL, Dry Fly #6 to 14, or Equiv.Thread: Lt Cahill, Cream or Tan 6/0 or your choice.Tail: Deer Body Hair, Natural or Dyed.Body: Floss or Yarn.Thorax: Orange Floss or Yarn. Hackle: Barbules the Same Length as the Hook Gape Palmered over the Body, Slightly longer over the Thorax. Grizzley, Cree or Badger work great.Wing: Deer Body Hair that is Fairly Firm not Soft Which will Flare and cut the Thread when Tied Down.

This pattern can be tied in a variety of colors, but the thorax seems always to be orange. The largest brown trout I ever caught was fooled by an olive and orange stimulator. It is standard to use just on saddle hackle for the entire flywiththebarbuleslength1½timesthehookgape,butIlikethewayitfloatswithalongerhacklewoundover

thethorax.Thatwaythefronthackle,rearoftheplameredhackleandhookallrestonthesurfacefilm.This version is a bit different from the standard. I don’t like to use dubbing for the thorax, and I like a slightly under-

dresseddryfly.Itcanbetiedonsmallsizedhooks,butitseemstoworkbetterasalargerpattern.Iprefertofishitinasize10andlarger.Itbestsimulatesastonefly,butitcanbeusedasagrasshopperinfastwater

FlyTied By: Ed Morphis


CHANGING LINES COMING EVENTS7-7 Board Meeting7-18 Club Outing - Umpqua Smallmouth7-16 No Club Meeting.8-1 Annual Wine Dinner at the Plaisance Ranch and Win- ery.8-4 Board Meeting.8-20 No Club Meeting.8-29 Club Outing - Lower Rogue Halfpounders.9-8 Board Meeting9-9 SOFT Fly Tyers, Madrone Mobile Home Park in Gold Hill.9-17 Club Meeting.9-20 Club Picnic.

Editor’s Notebook Cont. From Pg. 8there the remaining time we were on this trip.

ThefirstdayIwastryingtodialinthe lake with what I thought would be the‘hotticket’.ThefliesItriedallelic-ited numerous bumps, but I couldn’t seal the deal with a hook set. I did catch a trout or two that day, but that was all.

The next day we wanted to fishsomewhere else and took a look at Lava Lake. It must have been popular withthefishermenastherewasn’tanavailable parking spot to be found. Out of frustration we returned to Hosmer. This time I found the ‘hotfly’whichwas a ‘Sheep Creek Special’ that did some serious damage to fish popula-tion. It accounted for numerous rain-bows,butalsoa12”Atlantic salmonwhichwasafirstinitself.

Thefishofthetripformeturnedout tobe the lastfish Icaughtwhichwas a measured 20 inch male red band rainbow in what I assume was full spawningcolors.Whatabeauty!

Do I have regrets about the trip? I havetwoofthem.ThefirstbeingthatIwassocloseanddidn’tfishtheMeto-lius although I did go by and saw how twenty years had changed the area and

Some club members stayed at Poole Creek campground, a Forest Service facility with no hookups but with good water and clean rest r o o m s . O t h e r s stayed at L e m o l o Lake Re-sort, which has an RV park, cab-ins, a small store and restaurant. They also sell gas and rent boats for fishing. The resort is ownedand operated by Scott and Diana Lamm, who provide friendly service for visitors along with up-to-date fishing reports.Their breakfasts and the hamburgers they make for lunch are excellent fare forthehungryfisherman.

The highlight for this trip was the

Lemolo Outing Cont. From Pg. 7

the second that I had left my camera in the car when I caught the big rainbow.

A group photo of the Lemolo Lake participants.

Dave Grosjacques taking a break from fishing to tie a few extra flies.

SOFF afternoon social hour on Thurs-day, Friday and Saturday at the cabin on the lake Dave rented. Club members drove to the cabin or came by boat. The firewasgoing,theflytyingvisesweresetup,andthefishstorieswereplenti-ful. Members shared success stories of fish caught and the big ones that got

away. The view from the cabin across the lake of Mt. Theilson and the snow along the crest of the Cascades next to it provide the backdrop. We estimated that more than 80 trout were caught by club members during our time there. With somedecentfishing,abeautifulsetting

and lots of fellowship and shar-ing, this trip was a good one. Those of us who were there are already l o o k i n g forward to next year’s outing at L emo l o !

Dave Grosjacques says Lemolo is prob-ably his most favorite lake. Maybe this 20 lb brown taken from Lemolo is the reason.


Editor’s Notebook

NON PROFIT ORG

U.S POSTAGE



Continued on Pg. 7

that general area. Considering that our fishingvenueswouldeitherbeonthelakes of the Cascades or the Crooked River, staying at Sisters added a lot to the driving time.

Our first day there, we fished aprivate lake near Sisters owned by the people that owned the rental house and was rumored to hold very large fish.Four fish in total were landed, threeby myself not what you would call ‘red hotfishing’.

The next day we made the long haul to Prineville and fished the CrookedRiver. I have to say that although we fishedtherebefore,Icouldn’tremem-ber anything about the river. Using the numerous campgrounds and day ac-cess areas below the dam, we fishedseveral different areas of the river; although, not ‘red hot’ it was good enoughtoproduceseveralnicefishona ‘San Juan Worm’, that is until several thunderstorms and heavy rain finally

forced us to call it a day.WenextfishedEastLake.What

a picturesque lake located some 7000 feet above sea level right in the clouds. We were greeted by lightening, rain and wind as well as some calm times as we rowed our pontoon boats out to see what we could entice. Unfor-tunately for me noting that I had so-licited so much as a bump. Had I a callibaetis dry or a facsimile thereof Icouldhaveslainthefishevenintherain and wind. As it happened, East Lake was the only venue of the en-tire trip that I had to raise the ‘skunk flag’.

We next tried some of the Cas-cade lakes. Not really knowing the area all that well we drove around looking for a lake that appealed to all of us and with that we came upon Hosmer. What a perfect little lake. Itwouldturnout thatwewouldfish

Each year there are two highlights ofmy fly fish-ing year – thefirst ismy

annualtripwithmysontoaflyfish-ing resort in the Sierras and the sec-ondismyannualtripwithmyflyfish-ing buddies to somewhere in the west for a week. Unfortunately, both trips have already come and gone leaving a long time until the next ones are scheduled.

This year’s trip, the first weekof June, with my long time fishingfriends was to fish the Cascades inOregon, a trip of four hours for me as opposed to the usual couple of days of traveling say to Montana or Colo-rado. We rented a house in Sisters and used that as our base of operations. This was the second time that we hadbeeninSisters;thefirsttimewassome 20 years ago. In retrospect we would have been better off if we had rented something either in Bend or in

SOFF News

SPECIAL MENTION



Vol.22 No.8 The Monthly Newsletter of The Southern Oregon Fly Fishers, Inc. August, 2015






If you do not avail yourself of some of the club outings, you could be missing a lot. This year’s edition of the Lava Lake outing is a good example. Good friends, good food and good fishing.

Some of the highlights of the recent Lava Lake Outing was not only the fellowship between those attending, but also the fishing. Joe Knapik chose to fish Craine Prairie during the outing and was rewarded with this nice 23 inch rainbow.

SOFF NEWS August, 2015 Page 2

FROM THE BOARD


The Board of Directors meet in the conference room of the Taprock Restaurant The next meeting is scheduled: August 4th, 6:00pm or usually the first Tuesday of the month All members welcome


I joined the Middle Rogue Watershed Council in 2006, the Rogue Basin Co-ordinating Committee in 2009, and the Partnership for the Umpqua River in 2014. The Middle Rogue Watershed Council merged this year with 3 other councils into the Rogue River Water-shed Council, and I am a member of that board as well. I also have worked with Oregon Department of Fish and Wild-life personnel from the Central Point of-ficeandtheRoseburgofficeonvarioushabitat projects. Our club has provided volunteers for riparian planting projects and the carcass enrichment project for many years. I also have done stream surveys, helped with large woody debris projects on local streams, and worked with fish traps and mask and snorkelmonitoring of juvenile fish.As habitatchair, I have tried to keep the members of our club up to date on these projects, using displays at our general meetings.

Another part of our effort to ful-fill the second goal involves donationsfrom SOFF to help fund projects. In most cases, the agency asks for match-ing funds as part of a grant proposal to doaspecificproject.Theyearlybudgetfor our club contains a line item for this type of donation. We pledge a certain amount as part of the grant proposal, which is submitted six months before the planned start date for the project. If the grant is awarded, we pay the agency our pledged amount to help get the proj-ect going. An example this summer is the removal of a small dam on the east fork of Jones Creek. Our donation will help pay for the heavy equipment need-ed to remove the dam and re-form the stream channel. The dam removal will open up a section of the creek that has beencompletelyblockedtofishpassagefor more than 50 years.

In addition to these donations to local projects, the SOFF also donates annually to three habitat-related organi-zations: Oregon Stewardship, Western Rivers Conservancy and FFF Osprey. Oregon Stewardship is a non-profitgroup based in Ashland that actively

promotes fisheries andwatershed sci-ence in schools in Southern Oregon. Western Rivers Conservancy is a large, well-funded organization that helps to preserve and protect fish habitat bypurchasing large tracts of land adjacent tocriticalfishhabitatintheNorthwest.FFF Osprey is the part of the Interna-tional Federation of Fly Fishers that focusesspecificallyonpreservingandprotecting steelhead populations and habitat in the west. Our donations to these organizations make it clear that the SOFF supports their efforts.

The third goal that is stated in our By-Laws is a more general statement. I believe that we accomplish this third goal by all the work we do as a club on thefirsttwo.Thethingswedoasaclubpromote the sport and foster conserva-tion and appreciation of the natural re-sources we are blessed with in South-ern Oregon. Our club will continue to give our volunteer time and funding to helppreserveandprotectfishpopula-tions andfishhabitat inSouthernOr-egon. That is a big part of who we are and what we do in the Southern Oregon Fly Fishers.

In this month’s message I want to focus on the goals of our club.Inthefirstsectionofthe

SOFF By-laws, under Section 1 – Pur-pose, it states:

“Our goals are:To provide public education in the

artofflycasting,flytyingandflyfish-ing tactics.

To assist our government agencies withfisheriesrelatedresearchandhab-itat enhancement projects.

To promote the sport of fly fish-ing as a means of conservation of our natural resources by fostering a greater appreciation of our natural environ-ment.”

The Southern Oregon Fly Fishers provide club members and the pub-lic educational opportunities to fulfillthefirstgoal.Thebeginningflytyingclass we offer each winter and the be-ginningflyfishingclinicofferedinthespring are important parts of our over-all educational program. In addition to theseclasses,weprovideflytyingandflyfishing tipsand information in themonthly newsletter and at our monthly meetings. I like to think that all of this information can help both the newcom-erandthemoreexperiencedflyfisher-men.

The second goal is one that I am involved with as club president and as habitat chair. To help accomplish this goal, I felt I needed to get involved in habitat-related activities by joining the local watershed councils. To this end


PROGRAMS Future Programs Aug 20 No MeetingSep 17 Jeff PutnamOct 15 Gary LewisNov 14 Annual AuctionDec 17 TBAJan 21 TBAFeb 18 TBAMar TBA


Photo Potpourri

Aug. 20, 2015

ANNUAL AUCTION: Saturday, November 14th

Help make it great!

The membership and auction com-mittee are working hard to make our annual auction a great success! What can you do? Most importantly, save the date! Come and have some fun and support our club! This year, we are expandingthe“BucketRaffle”soyouhave even more chances to win great stuff with a one dollar ticket. There willbe“specialraffles”and,ofcourse,the silent and oral auctions. So, come and visit with friends, enjoy the event, and maybe even be the lucky winner of a great item!

When asked what they miss from former auctions, there is a unanimous answer: “We loved the gift baskets”. So, we are looking for a few volunteers to get their creative juices flowing amake a gift basket (we can help with supplying ingredients). We have one volunteer so far, a good start. Commit now and make the basket in the Fall before the auction.

Many thanks to those who have helped so far. We already have some terrificitemscominginandarelook-ing for more. If you are not using it, we need it! Just call Sonja Nisson at 541-582-4833 to coordinate pick-up, give it to any committee member, or bring it to the June meeting.


Although there is no story to go along with the photos of the recently held wine dinner at this time, there will a story in the future.

The Editor

No MeetingIn August

Personnel at Plaisance Ranch and Winery set up the din-ing area prior to the arrival of club members and guests.

The entertainment provided by the winery gets in a few licks before the crowd arrives.


CASTING ABOUT

The Lava Lake Outing Redux Jerry Keeling

SOFF’s Lava Lake 2015 was a fun time for all. We started with our Friday morning in-

formation meeting. Sonja gave a splen-didpresentationonfishingLavaLake.She had a map showing the various hot spotsandaboxoffliesthathadshownsome promise.

John Iding and Tom Beverage gave somehelpfultipsonfishingFallRiver,thoughthefishingtherewasveryslow.

We met again on Saturday morn-ing, then gathered together for the din-ner at 6:00 pm.

The event was well attended with 28 total attendees, 9 from the San Jose Club.

We celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Lava Lake outing with a delicious chocolate cake and a brief presentation by John and Redge Heth on the history of the outing began.

How can an anniversary be celebrated without a cake? Not to worry a cake was provided by Sonja Nisson for the event.

Manyfishwerecaughtinthelocalwaters, ranging from small Brookies from Fall River and the Deschutes to large Rainbows and “Cranbows” from Crane Prairie.

Sue Keeling landed a 3 ½ lb Cran-bow with a size 16 Flashback Pheasant Tail Nymph.

Everyonehadagoodtimefishing,visiting, eating and getting to know some new friends.

Sonja Nisson giving a morning briefing to some of the club members that attended the the outing.

The group gathers for a communal dinner Saturday night sharing food and fellowship.

Redge Heth and John Iding seen here hold the anniver-sary cake were the original outing co-chairs when the event started 10 years ago.



Aug 29-30 Lower Rogue HalfpoundersSep 26-27 Coquille CohoOct 24 Middle Rogue Steel head.Nov ? Klamath Steelhead.Jan 1 Chilli Feed on the Holy Water Holy

Jan 16 TBA

Lower Rogue Halfpounder Outing Set For August 29th and August 30th.

2015 Outings

Illinois River) for breakfast at 7:00 AM each morning. Those that don’t want to eat should arrive by 8:00. After a short

d i s c u s -sion about e q u i p -m e n t , flies,tech-n i q u e s , and loca-tions; we will head to vari-ous access p o i n t s a l o n g the river. There is a lot of good bank ac-

cess in the Agness area, as well as sev-eral good drifts for those with boats.

Agness is about a two-hour drive from Grants Pass over the Bear Camp Road, so it is pos-sible to get an early start and just come over for a day. For those that want to spend the night, there are plenty of options. There are Forest Service Campgrounds at Quosatana Creek and Foster Bar, the Agness RV Park (541-247-2813, w w w. a g n e s s r v.com) is next door to Cougar Lane, and rooms are available at Cougar Lane (541-247-7233) as well as several other lodges in the area. A good selection of motels and restaurants

Those of you that listened to Dennis Lee’s presentation at our June meeting about

the half-p o u n d -ers know what a s p e c i a l oppor tu-nity we have. The R o g u e is one of only a few rivers that sup-port this u n i q u e run of y o u n g steelhead, which return to the river af-ter spending only a few months in the ocean.These12 to16-inchfishspendthe fall and winter in the river before returning to the ocean again prior to theirfirstspawningrun.Halfpoundersaregreat gamefish.Theyeagerly takefliesandfightlikecrazyoncehooked.Whenthefisharein,theactioncanbefast.

The Southern Oregon Fly Fishers will head to Agness for an outing on August29and30tofishfortheseminia-ture steelhead. We will meet at the Cou-gar Lane Restaurant in Agness (located on the south side of the Rogue River a short distance above the mouth of the

John Storfold hooked to a nice half-pounder at a previ-ous club outing to Agness.

are available 28 miles downstream in Gold Beach as well.

Asix-weightrodwithafloatinglineis ideal for halfpounders. Light-weight Spey or switch rods also work well. Thetraditionalwaytofishhalfpound-ersistoswingstandardsteelheadfliesthrough runs and tailouts. Good pat-terns include Golden Demon, Del Coo-per, Skunk, Silver Hilton, Burlap, Brin-dle Bug, Tiger Paw, Golden Rogue, and Red Ant, all in Size 8 or 10. Nymphing is productive as well, even during the middle of the day. Hare’s Ear, Pheas-ant Tail, Prince Nymph, Copper John, Bloody Mary, Glimmer Nymph, and Flashback Nymph in size 10 or 12 are good choices. Chinook salmon will be in the river as well, so you may also wanttobringalongaheavieroutfit.

Halfpounders are thefish thatputthe Rogue River on theflyfisher’smap.If you have never fished for them,you really should give it a try.


Did John Storfold land the fish that he is hooked to and the answer is yes as he displays the fine halfpounder he landed.


FLY TYING CORNER




Membership Form


Tying Instructions:

Al’s Glitter Bug

Hook: Dai Riki #135, or Equiv., Size 6 or 8.Thread: Black 6/0 or Your Choice.Bead Head: 5/32 Gold.Body: Short Peacock Glimmer Flash.Hackle: Partridge or Dyed Brown Grizzly Hen Saddle.Collar: Black Dubbing.

ThispatternisarepriseofanAlBrunellflyandunfortunatelydoesnotcomewithdetailedtyinginstructions.Thepattern is straightforward enough that it can be tied without detailed instructions.

“Thisisanexcellentsummersteelheadflyandcanbefishedwithadownstreamswingor,deaddrifted.Italsoworkswellforawintersteelheadfishedunderaindicator.Ihavealsotiedinasize12and12’sanddonewellontroutthroughoutthe West. For smaller sizes, the body will have to be clipped somewhat because the smallest Glimmer Flash available works perfectforsize6and8hooks,IbelievetheflyistakenforaCaddisemerger”.

Fly Originated and Tied By: Al Brunell


CHANGING LINES COMING EVENTS78-4 Board Meeting.8-20 No Club Meeting.8-29-30 Club Outing - Lower Rogue Halfpounders.9-8 Board Meeting9-9 SOFT Fly Tyers, Madrone Mobile Home Park in Gold Hill.9-17 Club Meeting with Jeff Put nam9-20 Club Picnic. 9-26-27 Club Outing - Coquille Coho.10-6 Board Meeting10-13 SOFT Fly Tyers.10-15 Club Meeting with Gary Lewis

Editor’s Notebook Cont. From Pg. 8hosting a mini event in my hotel room at the host hotel either Thursday or Fri-day. So if you’ll be attending, look me up and let’s share a glass of wine.

Club’s Annual Picnic is on Tap for Sept. 20th.

Please remember to mark your calendars for the an-nual SOFF Picnic set for

Sunday, September 20, 2015. We will be at the same location – the Harry and David Pavilion at the Reinhart Volun-teer Park (All Sports Park). This is a great time to share with your friends all the stories of your summer adventures andthefishyoucaught,andthebiggerones that got away.

We will again provide space for those who wish to sell/swap their no longer needed fly fishing/fly tyinggear. Just bring what you wish to sell to the picnic. You can set up beginning at 12:00 noon. Make sure to bring a ta-ble or blanket to set up your gear. Also beginning at noon will be some cast-ing help. You can bring your own rod and reel or use one of the club’s setups. Club members will be available to as-sistinthefinerpointsofcasting.

The picnic will begin at 1:00pm with SOFF providing barbecues Tri-tip and Chicken, sodas and water. Those with the last name beginning with A-M please bring a dessert, and those with the last name beginning with N-Z please bring a side dish/salad. The cost of the meal is $5.00 per person. After the picnic we will having casting games in the new casting pond.

So, mark your calendar for an afternoon of food and fun with friends. Please sign up for the picnic at the September dinner meeting or email Jerry and Sue Keeling at [email protected]. Please include your name and the number of people attending.

As Jerry and Sue Keeling long time coordinators of the event will be out of town, there will be a new coordinator for the picnic. Look for further information from him or her in the September edition of the newsletter.

More Wine Dinner Photos

My thanks to club Treasurer Rich Steed for taking photos of the wine dinner in my absence.

The Editor


Editor’s Notebook

NON PROFIT ORG

U.S POSTAGE



Continued on Pg. 7

with a few photos of the bridge at De-ception Pass taken while on a boating tour. While my group was looking at the bridge, I’m looking at all the boats withfishermencatchingpinksalmon.

Then too was my annual trip with my son to the Eastern High Sierras. GenerallyIcanbeconfidentthatoverthefourdaysthatIstayandfishthere,Iamrewardedwithmanyfishsomeofexceptional size. So much for expec-tations as due to the drought, the wa-ter was so thin that no self-respecting trout would be around much less rais-ingtomydryfly.Nophotossaveoneof a rainbow from the Owens River that jumped out of my net before I could photograph it and then gave the impression that it had died and that I merely tookaphotoof thedeadfish.I’m happy to report that ‘damn fish’was merely playing possum as I placed it back in the water, it took off like a shot.

Thatsortofsumsupmyfishingopportunities for fish photos to beused in coming editions of the news-letters. Fortunately for me all is not lost as Jan and Joe Knapik and Jerry and Sue Keeling were blessed by the fishgodintheskyandlandedseveralnicefishtobeseeninfutureadditionsof the newsletter.

Now onto another topic – the 50th edition of the International Federation of Fly Fishers Fair is set to begin on August 13th in Bend. I, my own darn self will be in attendance this year. I have always wanted to attend the National Conclave, but for whatever reason never made it. So I was deter-mined to go this year. I’ll have my camera with me and you can expect a story about the event in the future.

Just a reminder to any and all of you that may be attending the con-clave as with the Albany show, I’ll be

“Summer time and the liv-ing is easy” so goes the song written by George

Gershwin. “Fish are jumping” maybe for some, but I hate to admit it they weren’t jumping for me. I had hoped to take bushel baskets of fish pho-tos during the club’s summer hiatus as well as other subjects of interest which just didn’t happen.

I missed the wine dinner because I was up on Whidbey Island in Wash-ington State with another group that I belong to; unfortunately, they weren’t fisherfolkwhichwastoobadbecausethere was a run of Pink Salmon that were embarrassingly easy to catch. All I could do was to look on and chide myself for not bringing a rod with me. I suppose that I could ra-tionalize that had I known that there wouldbe ‘dropdeadfishing’, Idefi-nitely would have brought a rod with me. As it is, I have to console myself

SOFF News

SPECIAL MENTION

Rich Hosley: MembershipJohn Storfold: Fly Tying ChairDale Heath: Fly Tying InstructorRay McClenathan: ProgramsSonja Nisson: Auction ChairDavid Haight: Outings ChairSue Keeling: SOFF WearRich Steed: HistorianEd Michalski: RafflesJohn Storfold Project Healing Waters Chair


Vol.22 No.9 The Monthly Newsletter of The Southern Oregon Fly Fishers, Inc. September, 2015






If its fall, then anxious SOFF’ers ea-gerly await the arrival of steelhead in the State’s many rivers and streams.

Dave Ellision, a member of last year’s Cow Creek outing led President Dave G, landed this fine steelhead. Dave’s looking forward to February to see if lightening strikes twice!

SOFF NEWS September, 2015 Page 2

FROM THE BOARD


The Board of Directors meet in the conference room of the Taprock Restaurant The next meeting is scheduled: September 1st 6:00pm or usually the first Tuesday of the month All members welcome


canals in and around Grants Pass. When it was removed, a pumping system was built to get water into the canals. Both ofthesedamshadfishladders,buttheyproved to be a problem for adult fishpassageupstreamatcertainflows.Thedams also were a problem for juvenile fishheadingdownstream.

Two dams on Evans Creek were next on the list for removal. Evans Creek runs into the Rogue at the town of Rogue River, just downstream from where In-terstate 5 crosses it. Evans Creek is an important stream for Chinook and Coho salmon, and for steelhead. In the early 1900s Fielder Dam was built three miles up from the mouth of Evans Creek, and Wimer Dam at the nine mile mark. Both diverted water into irrigation ditches. Starting in the 1980s, water rights were abandoned and neither dam served any purpose.Theyhadinadequatefishlad-ders that were added years after the dams were built. With the support of the Rogue Fly Fishers, the Southern Or-egon Fly Fishers and the Middle Rogue Steelheaders, these two dams have been removed this summer. Wimer Dam was 11 feet tall and 150 feet wide, and Field-er was even larger, so their removal was a big job. The concrete had to be chis-eled apart and hauled away. The stream channel upstream from the dams had to be re-shaped, so that the rock, gravel and sand that had built up over the years would move downstream gradually with thewinterfloods.

The Evans Creek dam removal proj-ect started several years ago with the ne-gotiation of landowner agreements and permittingworkdonebythenon-profitorganization called WaterWatch. Bob Hunter, who lives in Southern Oregon and is a board member of WaterWatch, spearheaded this effort. Bob was also very active in the push to remove Sav-age Rapids dam, and was recently given the Leopold Award by the International Federation of Fly Fishers. Brian Barr, formerly of the GEOS Institute based in Ashland, is the project manager for the dam removal. Brian also was hired in

December of 2014 to be the coordina-tor of the new Rogue River Watershed Council, but continued on as project manager with the work he had started when he was with GEOS. Scott Wright of the River Design Group worked as manager of the design and demolition plan. The River Design Group is based inWhitefishMontana,andalsohasanoffice in Corvallis. They are expertsin river restoration and dam removal projects. Last but not least, Staton De-molition out of Eugene did the actual removal and excavation work. When I toured the Wimer site, they had three large excavators on site; one to chisel and break apart the concrete in the dam, the second one to move it, and the third to load it into large trucks for removal.

Soforthefirsttimeinalmostonehundred years, salmon and steelhead will have easier access to miles of habi-tat in the upper reaches of Evans Creek for spawning and rearing. No longer will they be blocked or impeded by two inadequatefishladders.Thisisacauseforcelebrationforthosewhovaluefishpopulations and healthy stream habitat. Dams that no longer have any function need to be removed, and many of them have been. We celebrate this victory for fishandthankpeoplelikeBobHunter,Brian Barr and Scott Wright for mak-ing it happen.

For the president’s message this month I want to start with a joke I heard a long

time ago. QUESTION: What does a beaver say when he swims into a ce-ment wall? ANSWER: Dam!

The subject of dams in the Rogue Basin has been in the news for years. After devastating floods in 1955 and1964, three large dams in the basin were planned and funded. Lost Creek, Applegate and Elk Creek dams were to be built for flood control. Lost Creekand Applegate were built, and then construction was begun on Elk Creek. After tens of millions of dollars was spent, Elk Creek dam construction was halted in 1987 due to legal challenges. It was decided that this dam would neverbefinished,andtheexistingpartofitwasfinallynotchedin2008toal-low the stream to return to the origi-nal channel and allow free passage for salmon and steelhead.

Other dams on the mainstem Rogue included Savage Rapids Dam near Grants Pass, Gold Hill Diver-sion Dam near the town of Gold Hill and Gold Ray Dam, just downstream from the mouth of Bear Creek near Medford. All three of these proved to beproblematic forfishpassage.Afteryears of legal wrangling, all three have been removed to allow fish passage.Gold Ray had been built for power generation, but had not been used for that purpose since the 1950s. Savage Rapids diverted water during the sum-mer months into a system of irrigation


PROGRAMS Future Programs Oct 15 Gary LewisNov 14 Annual AuctionDec 17 TBAJan 21 TBAFeb 18 TBAMar 17 TBAApr 21 TBAMay 19 TBA



Jeff Putnam - Pacific Northwest Steelheading

Sep. 17, 2015

Continued on Pg. 7

SATURDAY-NOVEMBER 14TH

SAVE THE DATE

Fall is almost here, the steelhead are running and it is almost time for our fabulous fund raiser, the SOFF auction. The auction promises to be a fun-filled evening, so don’t missit. Our members and the community have pitched in Big-Time with offer-ings large and small.

Like dining out? We have dining certificates

Like wine? We have that, too.Likeguidedfishing?Ourgenerous

guides have come through with some great ones!

Likefishingonyourownandallalone? We have a “private waters” package with cabin.

Like a massage with the VIP treat-ment? Club Northwest Spa is waiting for you!

How about an accessory for your cooking adventures? Visit the Kitchen Company with your winning certifi-cate!

Get away for a night with a gour-met meal, a night’s stay and a day’s fishingatMorrison’s.

Like to golf? Bid on one of our great “rounds of golf” packages.

Designer jewelry- It’s at the auc-tion! We even have a special collection designed by Christine Archambault!


AtelevenyearsofageJefftradedinhisspinningrodforhisfirstflyfishingoutfitandstartedfishingmanytrout-filledstreamsintheSierraMountains.Itwasnotlongbeforefishingchallenginggin-clearspringcreeks,emeraldgreencoastalsteelheadriversandfertile lakesallover theWesternU.S. thatJeffrealizedflyfishingwasmorethanjustasport.Jeffbeganflytyingcommerciallyat13andstartedguidingflyfishermenonNorthernCalifornia’swatersasearlyasage16.HeisaF.F.F.CertifiedCastingInstructor;bothCI.andTHCIandwasthe5thindi-vidualintheworldtocompleteandpasstheDoubleHandedCertificationTest.

Jeffhasworkedmanypositionsintheindustryincludingretailflyshopsales,manufacturesrep,flyfishingguidefor17yearsthroughoutCalifornia,MontanaandColorado.Jeffhasalsobeenfortunatetohavetraveledtosomeofthetopflyfishingdestinationsaroundtheworldinsearchoftheultimateflyfishingexperi-ence including the Dean River for monster steelhead, Tsiu River in Alaska, tropics ofBelizefortarponandChristmasIslandforbonefish.

HerunsoneofthelargestNorthernCaliforniaflyfishingschoolsandassistsindividualsandgroupsonflyfishingtravelandoutfitting.Jeffenjoysfishinglocalwatersforanyfishspecieshecancatchonaflyrodandpossessesatrueanglingpassion for steelhead on a spey rod, matching the hatch for spring creek trout and searchingthesaltwaterflats.


CASTING ABOUT

Rogue on the FlyA Fly Fisher’s Rendezvous

September 19 & 20th

Join us for a weekend offunontheRogueatIndianMaryParkforourfirstannualRogue on the Fly event. We are carrying the torch custom Rod builder Gary Anderson lit 10 years ago when he started his Two Hands at Tou Velle event. Gary’s event was exclusively a Spey event. But, Rogue on the Fly is a steelhead

flyfishingevent,includingandwelcomingallfly-fishingmethods.Theweekendagendaincludescastingpresenta-tions,flyingtyingdemos,sponsoredgames(SteelheadOlympics),greatfoodandlivemusic.Flyfishingmanufac-turers and their reps will be present to show you their stuff and, of course, you can try it out. Various vendor and outfitterboothswillfeaturetheirproductsandvenues.Allgameswillbesponsoredbyconservationgroupswhichinclude prizes. Call it a clave or gathering, we call it Rogue on the Fly, A Fly Fishers Rendezvous.

Rogue On The Fly Weekend Agenda

Saturday, September 19 Sunday, September 20

9 AM Coffee and Donuts 9 AM to 12 PM - Free Casting Lessons, Spey and Single Hand10AMto12PM-(4)Presentations 12PMto1PM-Lunch12PMto1PM–R.B.MeiserBratwurstBBQ 2PM–RaffleandAwardsCeremony1PMto4PM–(6)Presentations 3PM–BreakDownandHeadHome

Besidesthesescheduledevents,there’llbeseveralflyTyer’stowatchandlearnfrom,lotsofrodsandlinestodemo, food, drink, and entertainment.

Presenters that will be attending:

CharlesGehr-flywatertravel JeffPutnam-JeffPutnam’sFlyFishingSchoolsRich Zeilman - steelhead water guide service Eric Neufeld – Winston RodsSteve Eadie - Agua dulce guide service Jon Hazlett – The Ashland Fly ShopWillJohnson-theAshlandflyshop DarrellHanks–Morrison’sLodge



Sep 26-27 Coquille CohoOct 24 Middle Rogue Steel head.Nov ? Klamath Steelhead.Jan 1 Chilli Feed on the Holy Water HolyJan 16 TBAFeb 20 TBAMar 19 TBA

September Outing Scheduled for the 26th and 27th to Target Salmon in the Coquille Estuary.

2015 Outings

can use an eight-weight rod, an interme-diate to type 4 sinking line, and 10 to 15 lb leaders. To target Chinook, you should bring a ten-weight rod, a fast-sinking

line, and 20 lb leaders. Bring an as-sortment of streamer pat-terns. Clous-er minnows, d e c e i ve r s , comets, and b u c k t a i l s in combi-nations of char t reuse, green, pink and white should work well. There are places to fishfromthebank, but a

boatwillhelpyoutofindandstayonthefish.Theestuaryislargeandcanhavestrong tidal currents, so a motor would beneficial. Unfortunately, float tubesand pontoon boats are not well suited for this fishery. You can catch fish bytrolling, wind drifting, or casting and retrievingyourfly. Itoftenworkswelltotrollupordownthebayuntilyoufindthefish--eitherbyhookingoneorseeingthem jumping--then start casting to the fish.

Bullards Beach State Park offers camping, and there are numerous restau-rantsandmotelsavailableinBandon.Youcan look up information about Bullards Beach State Park at http://www.oregon-stateparks.org/index.cfm?do=parkPage.dsp_parkPage&parkId=50 and make reservations at http://www.reserveam-erica.com/camping/bullards-beach-state-park/r/campgroundDetails.do?contractCode=OR&parkId=402398&useOLMaps=N. Information about services

Last year we had an outing totheSixesRivertofishforsearun cutthroat trout. We

had a fun trip and caught a few trout, but thefish-ing was slow. On the way home, a couple of us stopped at the mouth of the Co-quille River and fishedfor coho for a couple of hours. We caught sev-eral coho and had a great time. Consequent-ly, for this September’s outing, will go to the Coquille River to fishforsalmon.

The outing is scheduled for Sep-tember 26 and 27. We will meet at 9:00 on Saturday morning at the boat ramp at Bullards Beach State Park. The ramp is on the north side of the river just downstream of the Hwy 101 bridge.

There should be both coho and fall chinook salmon in the river while we are there. Coho usually offer better op-portunitiesforflyangler,andwillread-ily take streamers. To target them, you

in Bandon can be found at https://www.bandon.com/.

Jerry Haynes displays a really nice coho he caught. Unfortunately, this is a fish he caught in the upper Rogue - a seal took the one he hooked last fall in the Coquille.

Dave Haight holds a coho he caught while fishing the Coquille last fall. Its not big, but at least the seal did not get it.

Fishing for salmon in Oregon’s es-tuaries can be a lot of fun, and the fall is usually a great time to be at the coast. Although steelhead fishing should begood in the Rogue at that time, why not try something different and join us on the Coquille?



FLY TYING CORNER

Name(s):Address:City: State: Zip:Phone:Home()Work:()Email: Personal interests: Renewal:_____New:______



Membership Form

John Storfold Fly Tying Chair 541-660-6584 [email protected]

Tying Instructions:

Prince Nymph with Minor VariationsHook: 200R Size 10.Thread: Black 6/0.Tail: White Natural Goose BiotsBody: Peacock Herl Rope.Ribbing: Medium Tinsel.Wing: White Natural Goose Biot.Collar: Grizzly Hackle.Bead Head: Green with Red Glass Bead.Weight: (Optional)12wrapsof.020leadornon-lead substitute.

Debarb the hook and slide the bead on the hook and mount in the vise. Dress the hook with thread and make a bump with the thread just above where the barb was. This will be used to help keep the tail separated. Tie in the biots for the tail. Tie in the ribbing and place in the material holder out of the way. Tie in about 5 strands of

peacock herl just in front of the tail. Now wrap the thread around the herl making a herl rope. Wrap forward to just behind the bead and tie off and cut extra material. Wrap the ribbing forward spiraling evenly making a bout 5 wraps and tie off just behindthebead.Nowtieingoosebiotwingsandsecure.Imadeasmallcollarwithgrizzlyhackleandtieoff.Whipfinishandapplyheadcement(yourchoice).Iputthecollarinalongwiththeglassbeadjustasaddedattractants.Iwillletyouknowif it worked on the half pounders at Agness.

IcaughtmyfirstadultsteelheadontheRoguewithaPrinceNymph.Anditisoneofmygotofliesbothontheriverandin still water.

Tight Lines Fly Tied By: John Storfold


CHANGING LINES COMING EVENTS9-1 Board Meeting9-9 SOFT Fly Tyers, Madrone Mobile Home Park in Gold Hill.9-17 Club Meeting with Jeff Put nam9-20 Club Picnic. 9-26-27 Club Outing - Coquille Coho.10-6 Board Meeting10-13 SOFTFlyTyers,Madrone Mobile Home Park in Gold Hill.10-15 Club Meeting with Gary Lewis.10-24 Club Outing - Middle Rogue Steelhead.


Cathy Hamilton. After that, there were a couple of more rows of vendors and a front row and that was that! If nothing interested you, you could have seen all the vendors within 20 minutes.

Asfortheflytyers,Ispentanhourand a half stopping here and there to watch different tyers. Within two to three hours, I had seen the whole show. Although, there were three different banquets at the conclusion of each day, I didn’t attend any of them and can’t say anything about them.

The one bright spot for me dur-ing the three days I was there, was hosting theminifly fair social inmyhotel room for 10 club members who stopped by on Friday night.

Overall impression of the 50th IFFF Fair was one of disappointment. Since I didn’t take any of the classes, I am unable to give them an evalua-tion; however, the rest of the show was lacking. I can’t help but compare this fair to the Oregon Council’s Fair at Albany and the comparison pales. Towheretherewerenomorethan30tyers at any one given time at Bend, the Albany show has a hundred. As an aside, the majority of the tyers at Bend were Oregon and Washington tyers,

Club’s Annual Picnic is on Tap for Sept. 20th.

Please remember to mark your calendars for the annual SOFF Picnic set for Sunday,

September 20, 2015. We will be at the same location – the Harry and David Pavilion at the Reinhart Volunteer Park (All Sports Park).This is a great timeto share with your friends all the stories ofyoursummeradventuresandthefishyou caught, and the bigger ones that got away.

We will again provide space for those who wish to sell/swap their no longerneededflyfishing/flytyinggear.Just bring what you wish to sell to the picnic. You can set up beginning at12:00 noon. Make sure to bring a table or blanket to set up your gear. Also be-ginning at noon will be some casting help.Youcanbringyourownrodandreel or use one of the club’s setups. Club members will be available to assist in thefinerpointsofcasting.

The picnic will begin at 1:00pm with SOFF providing barbecued Tri-tip and Chicken, sodas and water. Those with the last name beginning with A-M please bring a dessert, and those with the last name beginning with N-Z please bring a side dish/salad. The cost of the meal is $5.00 per person. After the pic-nic we will having casting games in the new casting pond.

A day with our own members at their “secret” angling spots? We have several!

How about a hanging floral ar-rangement for next Spring? It can be yours!

Who doesn’t need a box of fliestied by our talented exhibition tyers? They have really come through for our auction!

PIES!PIES!PIES! Yep, you canwin them at the auction.

Back by popular demand! Gift baskets!

Ready for a road trip? Choose from the Wild and Scenic Rogue or stay at the Lonesome Duck, or spend two days on the Grand Ronde.

Need a custom rod? New oars? A precision reel? They will be at the auc-tion!

How about accessories and mate-rials for your tying bench? Updating your angling accessories? A new pair of waders? A pontoon boat that weighs only 27 pounds? They are at the auc-tion!

Join in the fun!We have made a few changes to

add to the fun! An earlier start and shorter oral auction, appetizers to keep yougoingbeforedinner,abucketrafflewith dozens of choices so everyone has a great chance to be a winner! Even a specialraffle!

Doors will open at 4:30. All we need is you!See you there- Sonja Nisson, Auc-

tion Chair

Auction Continued From Pg. 3

many of which I had seen at the Albany Fair before. The same held true with the vendors. With few exceptions, most of the vendors had displayed their wares at the Albany show and in fact truth be told again, I believe that the Albany Fair has more vendors that the Bend Fair.

All in all, I’m glad that I came. I have always wanted to attend the Inter-national Fair and now I can cross one more thing from my bucket list. Would I ever go back? Why, when you can get a better bang for the buck and see more of everything at our own fair in Albany.

So, mark your calendar for an af-ternoon of food and fun with friends. Please sign up for the picnic at the Sep-tember dinner meeting or email Dave and Sally Grosjacques at [email protected]. Please include your name and the number of people attending.


Editor’s Notebook

NON PROFIT ORG

U.S POSTAGE



Continued on Pg. 7

there. One problem, there wasn’t a parking space to be found even though I circled the parking lot several times. Frustrated by this, I decided on getting an early dinner. Returning to hotel af-ter 4:00 pm, I checked in only to be told that the fair was over for the day.

While unloading my car, I saw Dave Grosjacques, Gary Miller, John Storfold and Bob Furry. An invitation to join them at the hotel bar was wel-comeaftermissingthefirstdayoftheshow.

The next day, I went to the conven-tion center to take in the event. I wan-deredaroundonthemainfloor,peek-ing behind closed doors to see what was happening. Most of the rooms were empty and those that were occu-pied had very few people in attendance and those were mostly featured tyers or some type of tying class.

I was told that all the vendors as wellastheothersflytyerswereinthe

basement area. On my way down-stairs, I ran into Larry and Bobbi White, Vera and John Edwards, Son-ja Nisson and Dale Heath. They told me Nancy Fruitman had fallen down some stairs at a nearby restaurant and had ended up at the local emer-gency room for some 5 hours before it was determined that she had a se-vere sprain and no bones were broken much to the relief of Morris.

Finally downstairs I began to look around. The first row had theFederation’s silent auctionand rafflebooth as well as three other vendors. The next row consisted of 5 vendors on both side of the aisle. In the cen-ter section between the vendor rows weretheflytyer’stables.Eachrowoftyer’s tables probably seated maybe 10tyersforatotalof30tyersifeachof the tableswerefilled.Twoof thetyers were our very own Dave and

Last month in my Editor’s Notes I said that I would review the International

Fly Fisher Federation Fair in Bend and true to my word, here it is.

Public access to the fair started on Thursday Aug 13th, even though some of the classes started the previ-ous Tuesday. I had planned to arrive earlyonthe13th and take in what was to be seen; unfortunately, that was not to be. Even though leaving early enough to spend at least half the day at the fair, my arrival was delayed considerably by having to take a dif-ferent route to hwy 97 and onto Bend duetofireclosures.Ifinallyarrivedatthehotel(TheRiverHouseHotelandConvention Center) in the early af-ternoon only to be told that my room was being cleaned and that I should come back after 4:00 to check-in. No problem, I’ll just go over to the con-vention center and spend a little time

SOFF News

SPECIAL MENTION

Rich Hosley: MembershipJohn Storfold: Fly Tying ChairDale Heath: Fly Tying InstructorRay McClenathan: ProgramsSonja Nisson: Auction ChairDavid Haight: Outings ChairSue Keeling: SOFF WearRich Steed: HistorianEd Michalski: RafflesJohn Storfold Project Healing Waters Chair


Vol.22 No.10 The Monthly Newsletter of The Southern Oregon Fly Fishers, Inc. October, 2015






The wait is over and members of the Southern Oregon Fly Fishers ply the waters of Oregon in search of the elu-sive steelhead.

We steelheaders are a masochistic lot considering what we endure in the pursuit of a steelhead. Cold and wet weather, endless casting, frequent fly changes, but when it all comes together and a steelhead is at hand all the trials and tribulations are forgotten in the ecstasy of the moment.

SOFF NEWS October, 2015 Page 2

FROM THE BOARD


The Board of Directors meet in the conference room of the Taprock Restaurant The next meeting is scheduled: October 6th 6:00pm or usually the first Tuesday of the month All members welcome


ing,lakeandstreamflyfishingtactics,and so on. Last year the 12 spots in the clinicwerefilledmonthsaheadoftimeand there was a waiting list. What are they looking for?

After a rather long hike, we got to the gravel bar along the river. As we prepared our fly rods we saw several half pounder steelhead roll in the slick at the bottom of the pool. No one else was there. The second cast produced a strong grab, and a steelhead was hooked and running and jumping. It was going to be a great day.

We have all had those days where nothing was happening on the lake, river or stream. Our best efforts using what we thought were the best choices of imitation, presentation and location produced no fish. Likewise, we haveall had those days where the weather was perfect, the lake or stream was not crowdedandwecaughtlotsoffish.Thememories of a successful day like that stay with us always. Don’t we try to haveadaylikethateverytimewegoflyfishing?Maybeitisthosememoriesthatwe are really chasing. We are constant-ly looking for the right combination to makeaflyfishingmemorythatwewill

never forget. I looked up

in my pontoon boat and saw several fish ris-ing only 4 feet from the shore-line of the lake. If only I could get into posi-tion and make a good cast in the right spot with the right fly, I might hook some of

them. After some silent rowing upwind, the boat was in position. I tried a cast….too short! Another cast…. Just right…. Wait, wait…. Swirl on my fly… fish on!

I think we can say that we are searching for fishingmemories.All of

Continued on Pg. 3

those “grip and grin” photos we have from the past are proof. We did some-thing right that day to fool and land a fishthatwasworthaphotograph.Whenwe look at that photo we remember a place,afishingpartner,arodandlinecombinationandaflyandpresentationthat all worked to produce a memorable fish.Thosememoriesofthefeeloftheday, the sights and sounds, and the re-sults are much more than a photograph can portray. Those memories will stay with us and are there for us to revisit whenever we wish.

The bottom of the large pool looked to be the perfect speed, with some large boulders causing swirls in the current. It looked like a good place for a win-ter steelhead to rest. My partner made several casts with his spey rod, the fly crossing the top part of the chute. Nothing happened. He worked his way downstream a few feet and tried again. The first cast from the new spot moved across the run 15 feet lower into the chute. An explosion of sight and sound happened in what seemed like a half second! A big winter steelhead took off, causing the fly reel to give off a wonderful sound. It was going to be a battle.

So that must be why we do it. We are chasing memories, looking for those high-quality moments in a beau-tiful setting with friends. We have the equipment, and we think we have the proper knowledge. We are prepared

Whydoweflyfish?Whatmakes us spend all the time and money we in-

vest in it? We certainly do invest a lot, traveling for hours in our car or truck or on a commercial jet to try to findsomefishthatwillbiteandfight.Manyof us have way more expensive equip-ment than we need.

It was a perfect June morning, the lake was like a mirror at dawn and the cove where we saw some fish rising yesterday was deserted. After the boat was silently positioned, I made a cast to the spot I wanted. BANG! Fish on!

Flyfishingisanactivitythatdrawspeople from all walks of life and all ages. We often meet couples who have retired and want to learn how to fly fish.What attracts people to it? Fly fishingcertainly re-quires some e d u c a t io n , which our club is glad to provide. I have been involved for several years in the beginning flyfishing clinicweput on in the spring. The people who enroll in the clinic are enthusiastic and totally committed to learn everything they can about knots, equipment, cast-

President Dave with a rainbow that will provide future memories.


PROGRAMS Future Programs Nov 14 Annual AuctionDec 17 Jeff MorganJan 21 TBAFeb 18 TBAMar 17 TBAApr 21 TBAMay 19 TBAJune 16 TBA



Gary Lewis - Fall Chinook on a Fly

Oct. 15, 2015

President’s Message Cont. From Pg. 2

Continued on Pg. 7


Gary’s Guide Service is located in Roseburg Oregon which is in Southern Or-egon near some of the best rivers in the Northwest like the famous North Umpqua, South Umpqua, Main Umpqua, Elk, Rogue, Sixes, Coquille, and Coos. They are the best Salmon, Steelhead, Smallmouth Bass, and Shad Rivers in Oregon.

GaryLewishasbeenguidingfishermanforover35years.Andhasbeenfea-tured in magazines such as American Angler, Sports A Field Fly Fishing The West, and many others. He has also appeared on ESPN, Fly Fishing America, and Brent Shore’s Get The Net.

Garystartedfly-fishingattheageof7andhasbeentyingfliesandfly-fishingeversince.Garyhasalsomasteredthetechniquesoffishingwithbaitandarti-ficiallures.InthiswayyougetthebestofbothworldswhenfishingwithGary’sGuideService.Garyhassomeofthemostprofessionalqualifiedguidesintheareaworkingwithhimtomakesurethatyouwillhaveagreatfishingexperience.

physically and mentally. What we want for our efforts is an experience that will move us, an emotional roller coaster. That type of experience is dif-ficulttoexplaintosomeone.Youhaveto be there. What we seek is an experi-ence that will stir our soul. That is why we do it.

SOFF Auction Saturday, November 14th

Save the Date! Bring a guest!

This year’s auction committee, our club members, and the community have gone overboard in getting ready for our annual fund raiser auction. We have something for everyone! This year’s auction promises to be lots of fun, so plan to be there. Better yet, plan to bring a friend or two. The Date: Sat-urday November 14th at Taprock event center.Doorsopenat4:30.Ourclubmembers and local businesses have contributedterrificitemsforoursilentauction,bucketraffle,andoralauction.We have expanded the bucket raffletoincludeahostofterrificprizesthatyou can win for just a one buck ticket. The“SuperRaffle”includesaRichardWheatley fly box with 500 flies andDave Scadden’s newest innovation, a pontoon boat that handles Class III rapids, but weighs only 26 pounds. We are starting earlier and limiting the


CASTING ABOUT

The Southern Oregon Fly Fishers fall picnic was held on Sunday, September 20th

at the Reinhart Volunteer Park. The pic-nic is a SOFF tradition, always held the 3rd Sunday of Sep-t e m b e r . This year it was h o s t e d by Dave and Sally G r o s j -a c q u e s , with lots of help from club members.

T h e club owns a large barbecue, w h i c h was put to good use by head cook John Stor-fold. With some help from Bob Stafford, John got the grill hot and put on our traditional main dish of tri-tip steak and chicken. Members brought salads, side dishes and desserts to round out the meal. While the meat on the grill was cooking, members had somefunworkingon theirflycastingskills on the large lawn below our re-served shelter.

When the meat was done, we all sat down to a wonderful meal with friends andlotsoffishstoriesweretold.Araf-flewasheld,with lotsofwinnersandone LUCKYwinner of the Anderson5-weightflyrod.

Club Picnic Recap By David Grosjacques

After we ate a good number of club members tried their luck and skill at a casting competition set up by John Mc-Diarmid. In the past we had a simple distance competition, followed by a sep-

arate ac-c u r a c y c o n t e s t . John had a new cast-ing game, c o m bi n -ing accu-racy and distance. The peo-ple who tried it en-joyed the challenge, g e t t i n g points for show i ng some ac-curacy by hitting the hoops and then get-ting more points for their best d i s t a nce cast.

Sa l ly and Dave

want to thank John McDiarmid for setting up the casting game, Dan and Krystal Delaney and Bruce Cochran for setup, Ed Morphis for taking tickets, EdandSandyMichalski for the raffle,John Storfold and Bob Stafford for han-dling the barbecue, and Jan Knapik for helping prepare the meat. A good time was had by all. We just wish more club members could have been there to join in the fun!

Chefs John Storfold and Bob Stafford look on as Jan Knapik slices the barbecued tri-tips

President Dave who chaired the event oversees the slicing of the tri tip.

Some of the group enjoying the club’s annual picnic and casting games.



Oct 24 Middle Rogue Steel head.Nov ? Klamath Steelhead.Jan 1 Chili Feed on the Holy Water HolyJan 16 TBAFeb 20 TBAMar 19 TBAApr 16 TBA

Photo Potpourri Agness Outing

October Outing will be on the Middle Rogue for Steelhead

2015 Outings

Although there are plenty of good places we could go tofishinOctober,itseem

only natural that a club that is based along the world-renown Rogue River wouldfishour home river dur-ing its peak sea-son. Con-sequently, our Octo-ber 24th o u t i n g will be right here on the R o g u e River in GrantsPass.Wehavefishedforsteel-head on the Rogue River during our October outing for quite a few years now; however, it remains popular with our members, and we typically enjoy great fishing. The fishing was out-standing during last year’s outing, and with even higher numbers of steelhead returning to the river, this year outing promises to be good as well.

Wewillmeetforbreakfastat7:00AM at Shari’s Restaurant, on Agness Avenue just off the Grants Pass Park-way by the south I-5 interchange. If youdon’twanttoeat,bethereby8:00.After a brief strategy session, we will head to the river.

There are a number of good loca-tions in the Grants Pass area for bank anglers to access the river, and several good drifts for those with boats. A six to eight-weight rod or light Spey rod with

a floatingline will work well. With the s a l m o n s p a w n -ing, the steelhead will be a c t i v e l y feeding on eggs and ny mph s , so fliesthat imi-

tate these items will be the most pro-ductive. Effective patterns include Globugs, Hare’s Ears, Pheasant Tails, Prince Nymphs, Copper Johns, Ice Nymphs, and Stonefly Nymphs. Thefliesshouldbelightlyweightedorweightshould be attached to the leader to help getthefliesdownnearthebottom.Forthose that prefer a more traditional ap-proach, swinging steelhead patterns can be productive as well.

This outing is always popular with our new members, and many have caught their first steelhead during thisouting. It would be great if all the par-ticipants had the opportunity to join us onafloatdowntheriver.I encourage members with driftboats to come to the outing and take some of these new folks down the river and share with them your knowledge about the Rogue River and its steelhead.

If you have any questions or would like additional information, contact Da-vid Haight.


Summer Steelhead the target of the October Outing. Archie Clay with a Chinook Jack he caught while fishing on the Agness Out-ing.

Dave Haight with a half pounder he caught at the ‘Wee Riffle’ on the Agness Outing.


FLY TYING CORNER




Membership Form


Tying Instructions:

Jack’s Half Pounder

Hook: #8 Eagle Claw 84-F or Equivalent.Thread: Flo Fire Orange.Tail: Flo Orange Calf Tail or Orange Saddle Hackle Fibers.Body: Speckled Lt. Olive Pearl Chenille.Wing: Red Fox Squirrel Tail.Collar: Molted Chinese Hen Hackle.Head: Flo Fire Orange Thread.

Tie in thread at point of hook.Tieintailusingsparseamountofcalftailorhacklefibers.Tie in chenille and wrap forward leaving room for wing and collar.Tie in sparse amount of squirrel tail setting tips to middle of tail.Palmer hen hackle to form collar.Completeflybytyingheadwithorangethread,whipfinishandcoatwithheadcement.

Fly Tied By: Joe Knapik


CHANGING LINES COMING EVENTS10-6 BoardMeeting10-13 SOFTFlyTyers,Madrone Mobile Home Park in Gold Hill.10-15 ClubMeetingwithGary Lewis.10-24 ClubOuting-Middle Rogue Steelhead.11-3 BoardMeeting11-10 SOFTFlyTyers,Madrone Mobile Home Park in Gold Hill.11-14 Annual Club Fund Raising Auction.11-? Klamath Steelhead.12-1 Board Meeting12-17 Club Meeting.


club held its annual picnic and cast-ing games at Reinhart Volunteer Park. This year, Dave and Sally Grosjacques stepped in at the last moment for Jerry and Sue Keeling, the usual coordina-torswhowere out of town andfilledin admirably. There were tri-tips and chicken, barbecued by John Storfold and Bob Stafford and salads and des-serts supplied by the picnic partici-pants.

In addition to the food there were the casting games directed by John MacDiarmid which also proved to be a fun event.

Lastly, it is not too early to start thinking about the Club’s annual fund raising auction, scheduled for Satur-day, November 14th. This year, Sonja Nisson the chairperson of the event and her committee have pulled all the stops to present an outstanding event. Not only will there be a live auction consistingofnumerousflyfishingandnonflyfishingitems,buttherewillbea silent auction and a major expansion ofthebucketraffleitemsaswellasasuperraffle.Therearesomanyitems,that there has to be one or more that will inspire you to bid on or drop a ticket into a bucket for.

number of items up for bid in the oral auction, so we can wrap up by 9 PM. Come join us for appetizers, dinner, and an evening of fun with friends, old and new. We are just about set- ALL WENEEDISYOU!


Just remember that this is our only fund raising event for the year. All money raised goes to support the club’s activities such as its speakers, the dona-tions it makes to various conservation groups and to our annual scholarships given to two students at Oregon State just to name a few.

So plan on coming out with your spouseorsignificantother,yourfriendsand neighbors for a fun evening with the opportunity to bid for some outstanding gifts and prizes, knowing that all funds raised will go to a worthy cause. And just a reminder, if you’re a little short on cash not to worry as plastic is readily accepted.

The annual picnic gives us the opportunity to bring out our flyrodsforsomecastingles-

sons and friendly competition. We usu-ally practice and help each other before the meal and cast for the “BIG BUCKS” afterward. The competition course this year was the 5wt. Game developed by the American Casting Association. The ACA developed this game based around the premise everyone has a 5wt. rod. One distinct advantage is you can practice in a smaller space than that necessary with

casts.Thefinalscoreisacombinationofthetargetanddistancescores.Youcan find the course on theACAwebsite. Nine brave casters entered the competition and the four winners are pictured here. Lucky Leavitt was the overall winner with a score that was so far out in front of the others, one of the contestants in the men’s division com-mented, “...I am glad there is a separate women’s division.” Jan Knapik had the second best women’s score while John Iding and John Storfold were one, two in the men’s. All 4 received gift certificatesfortheRogueFlyShop.

The Casting Games By John MacDiarmid

The winners in the casting games were Lucky Leavitt, Jan Knapik, John Iding and John Storfold

a heavier rod. Also, many of us use this rodforfishing.Rodsmaynotexceed9’in length. The course consist of 8 casts to 5 targets followed by several distance

Used but sound, a bargain as I can-not row and want to sell it to a fellow flyfisherwhocanenjoyitasmuchasI have. The trailer has a new winch, 14 inch wheels and good tires and working lights, etc. At 15 feet with a 72 inch beam, this boat is both quick and stable. Includes both a bow and stern anchor set-up, a plus for avoiding “swing”whenanchoredorstillfishingand two forward seats. This boat is highly maneuverable, pre-dented, and water-tight!Asking$2100.SonjaNis-son541-582-4833oremailquestionstosonjanisson@gmail.com

Drift Boat for Sale


Editor’s Notebook

NON PROFIT ORG

U.S POSTAGE



Continued on Pg. 7

The Ashland Fly Shop put on their first casting fair at IndianMaryParkonSeptember19and20th. At least on Saturday the day that I attended, it was well attended by the general public as well as members of the SOFF. There were casting demonstrations on the water hourly using both two handed and single handed rods. I was particu-larly impressed by those presenters that used the two handed spey rods and maybe just maybe I may have picked up the basics of the spey cast.

I was able to button-hole Jeff Put-nam for a little one on one instruction and learned one thing and that was no wonder I couldn’t cast a spey rod as I doing it completely wrong. It just goes to prove that in some things, instruc-tion beats learning by hook or crook any day of the week!

In addition to casting presenta-tions, there were probably at least a dozen or more vendors displaying

boats, rods, reelsandflytyingdem-onstrations.

At noon there was an outstanding lunch of barbecued pork steaks, beans and salad. The attendance at the event was more than expected and they ran out of the first day food and had tobreak out the Sunday menu to satisfy all those that missed the pork steaks.

Speaking of food, Joe and Jan Knapik need to be thanked for man-ning the club’s coffee and donut pa-vilion. That hot coffee really hit the spotfirstthinginthemorning.

As for the casting games and eve-ning’s entertainment, I hear that they had it and it was a big hit.

Hopefully, Will Johnson at the Fly Shop will continue to hold the event again next year and if he does, make a point of attending it. Youwon’t be disappointed.

On Sunday, September 20th, the

Just received the latest Inter-national Fly Fishers newslet-ter and among other things it

washailing thefact that ithad1300attendees at its 50th anniversary fair at Bend. I would have thought that beingthe‘big’50th, there would have been a lot more people than that at-tending the show. Considering that the Bend area is so well diverse with variousfishingvenues,itwouldseemto me that fact alone would have at-tracted a larger attendance. Since I don’t know what the draw is at their fairs in Montana, it is hard to make a comparison.

I was pleased that the Southern Oregon Fly Fishers was represented byover20memberswhoattendedthefair. In fact I’m glad that I attended and saw what the International Fair was all about and now as I said last month, it’s one more thing that I can cross off my bucket list.

SOFF News

SPECIAL MENTION

Rich Hosley: MembershipJohn Storfold: Fly Tying ChairKevin Daniels: Fly Tying InstructorRay McClenathan: ProgramsSonja Nisson: Auction ChairDavid Haight: Outings ChairSue Keeling: SOFF WearRich Steed: HistorianEd Michalski: RafflesJohn Storfold Project Healing Waters Chair


Vol.22 No.11 The Monthly Newsletter of The Southern Oregon Fly Fishers, Inc. November, 2015






The annual fund raising auction of the So Oregon Fly Fishers is on tap with numerous items to peak the interests of fly fishers and non-fishers alike.

Last year at the club’s annual auction, Teresa Kasza bid on a guided trip provided by Dave Archambault and Tom Morris to the Elk or Sixes Riv-ers for a chance at Chinook Salmon. Teresa just returned from the Elk having caught several salmon one of which was this fine example that she is holding. This year Dave and Tom have once again offered a guided trip for the 2016 season on either one of the two rivers and all you have to be is the winning bidder and you too can be pictured next year holding a fly caught chinook.

SOFF NEWS November, 2015 Page 2

FROM THE BOARD


The Board of Directors meet in the conference room of the Taprock Restaurant The next meeting is scheduled: November 3rd 6:00pm or usually the first Tuesday of the month All members welcome


mid-March. Our April general meeting isourflytyingevent,withmanyofourowntiersspendingtheeveningshowinghowtotieoneoftheirfavoriteflies.Alarge group of club members also make the trip to Albany, Oregon the second weekend in March to participate in the Oregon Council of IFFF’s Fly Ty-ingExpo. If you tie flies or are think-ingaboutlearningtotie,thiseventisamust-see.Ourvideo librarycontainsalargenumberofDVDsonfly tyingaswell.

Toprovideeducation inflyfishingtactics, we provide a variety of guestspeakers who tell us where and how to catch thebigones.Someof themgiveus so much information about fishingtactics that I sometimes take notes! The otherwaytheclubprovidesfishingtac-ticsisthroughouroutings.DavidHaightor whoever hosts the outing gives theparticipants lots of information about fishing tactics for theareawearefish-ing.Oncewefigureouttheproperimi-tation, presentation and location we are ready to catch those big ones.

To make all of this instruction suc-cessful, several factors must be ad-dressed. I am a retired teacher, and I remember well the times where my in-structional efforts were a success and when they were not. What are the most important factors for successful teach-ingandlearning?Ibelievethatoneex-tremely important factor is meaning or relevance–thelearningmustfindrele-vanceandvalueiswhatisbeingtaught.For ourfly tying class andourfishingclinic,therelevanceisthereforthestu-dents in that they would not sign up if they did not want to learn. For these studentsthemotivationisthere.Allwehavetodoisprovideasettingandastyleofteachingthatwillgivethemtheskillsand knowledge that they are seeking. Foraskilllikeflycasting,properexpla-nation is the start, followed by careful demonstration.Then it is time tohavethe students try it, with the instructor providingindividualandgroupcorrec-tion and feedback.

Continued on Pg. 3

Club members Ed Morphis and Morris Fruitman put on a presentation attheIFFFconventioninBendinAu-gust addressing teaching and learning asitrelatestoflytying.Theydidanex-cellent job showing and telling those of us in the room about teaching methods, motivationandtacticsthatwillworktomake the fly tying instruction a suc-cess. That presentation made me think about extending their ideas to casting andflyfishing tactics.ThankyouEdand Morris!

Most of us can remembervividlya situation where someone showed us how to do a certain cast, use a special fly tying technique or demonstrate aparticular fly fishing strategy. Whatwas the magic element in that lesson that made it stick with us? My guess isthatweweremotivatedtolearn,weconsidereditrelevant,andtheinstruc-tor provided explanation and demon-strationthatsimplifiedthingstoapointwhere we could do it and remember it. That type of experience is what our clubwantstocontinuetoprovide.Nomatterwhatourskilllevelis,wearealllearnerswhenitcomestoflyfishing.

OneofthefavoritesayingsofclubmemberandexpertflytierDaveRob-erts is that we are always learning, no matterwhattypeofflytierwehappento be. In fact, one could say that we are almost all teachers and learners when itcomestoflyfishing.Welearnfromothers and are willing to pass on what

It’s November and that meansthe SOFF auction night is near! I hope to see as many club mem-

bers as our meeting rooms can hold on Saturday night, November 14th. Sonja Nisson and her hard-working auction committeehaveafantasticassortmentof oral and silent auction items, as well as some special raffles and other sur-prises.Allwehavetodoisbringourbank cards and checkbooks and bid, bid, bid!

My column this month is about teachingandlearningasitrelatestoflyfishingandourclub.Thefirstgoalstat-edinourclubby-lawsis:“Toprovidepubliceducationintheartofflycast-ing, fly tying and fly fishing tactics.”TheSOFFprovideseducationinthesethreeareasinseveralways.

To help us learn more about cast-ing the club has sponsored casting clinicsatalocalpark,andwehavehadinformal casting instruction at our club picnic. Many times our guest speak-erswilltouchoncastingtechniquesaswell. We are in the process of modern-izingourvideolibrary,whichincludessome DVDs on single-handed and spey casting.Wearecontinuingtotrytofinda solution to the problems at our cast-ingpondcausedbyanoverpopulationof geese, so that we will be able to use that facility to practice casting.

The SOFF takes pride in the fact thatwehavemanyverygoodflytiersin our club. We offer members and the public a fly tying class heldWednes-day evenings from January through


PROGRAMS Future Programs Dec 17 Jeff MorganJan 21 Jason AtkinsonFeb 18 John AndersonMar 17 Andrew HarrisApr 21 Fly Tyers NightMay 19 Jeff PerinJune 16 TBAJuly 21 No Meeting


Annual Fund Raising Auction

Nov. 14, 2015


4:30 PM Social Hour and Silent Auction 6:00 PM Meeting 6:30 PMDinner and Auction

Continued on Pg. 7


weknowtootherflyfishermenandflytiers. That willingness to share knowl-edge is found all through our sport. It brings us together and strengthens bonds between fly fishers whereverthey meet. Sharing knowledge is a big part of what our club is about, and we want to make sure that it continues. Weareallteachersandlearnersinflyfishing.

SOFF Auction Saturday, November 14th

Save the Date! Bring a guest!

This year’s auction committee, our clubmembers,andthecommunityhavegoneoverboardingettingreadyforourannual fund raiser auction. We havesomething for everyone! This year’sauction promises to be lots of fun, so plan to be there. Better yet, plan to bring a friend or two. The Date: Sat-urdayNovember14thatTaprockeventcenter. Doors open at 4:30. Our club members and local businesses havecontributedterrificitemsforoursilentauction,bucketraffle,andoralauction.We have expanded the bucket raffletoincludeahostofterrificprizesthatyou can win for just a one buck ticket. The “Super Raffle” includes a Rich-ard Wheatley fly box with 500 fliesand Dave Scadden’s newest innova-tion, a pontoon boat that handles Class

SOUTHERN OREGON FLY FISHERS ANNUAL AUCTION Saturday, November 14, 2015 4:30 PM TAPROCK EVENT CENTER 955 SE 7th Street Grants Pass ORAL AUCTION EXAMPLES: 10 GUIDED FISHING TRIPS 6 LODGING GETAWAYS VIP SPA PACKAGE FINE WINES AND WINE TASTINGS FLY RODS, REELS, FLY TYING TOOLS, AND MORE CUSTOM HAND-TIED FLIESHANDCRAFTEDJEWELRYSCENICJETBOATRIDES GOLF, MERCHANDISE, GIFTS AND GIFT CERTIFICATES

SUPER RAFFLE:500 FLIES/ PONTOON BOAT/ GIFT BASKET BUCKET RAFFLE WITH OVER 40 WINNERS SILENT AUCTION with RODS, REELS, FLIES, GIFTS, AND MORE

Reservations:[email protected] or call: 541-955-4718 Dinner $20 per person. RESERVATIONS REQUIRED for dinner. Pay on site.SilentAuction&Bucketraffle:4:30PMOralAuctionPreview4:30PM Silent Auction ends 5:45 PM Meeting: 6:00 PM Dinner 6:30 PM Auction: 7:00 PM

RESERVE YOUR SPOT EARLY AND JOIN IN OUR SOLE FUNDRAISER


CASTING ABOUT

Annual Auction in Photos

Silent Auction Room. Some of the items for the oral auction.

Sonja Nisson 2015 Auction Chair.

Auction Dinner Line. Bidders studying their lists of auction items.



Jan 1 Chili Feed on the Holy Water Jan 16 TBAFeb 20 TBAMar 19 TBAApr 16 TBAMay 21 TBAJun 18 TBAJul 23 TBA

Photo Potpourri Coquille River Outing

November Outing Cancelled

2016 Outings

The people who were going toleadtheNovemberoutingto the Klamath River had

some issues come up, and are no longer able to host the outing. I will be away onafishingtrip,soIamunabletoleadtheouting,andIhavenotfoundanyonetotakeover. Asaresult, theNovem-ber outing has been cancelled The next club outing will be to the Holy Water on New Year’s Day.


Joe Knapik with a nice Chinook taken at the recent Co-quille River outing.

Dave Haight with a nice silver salmon he caught on the Coquille outing.

Coquille Outing

Jan Knapik displays a silver salmon she took on the Couqille Outing.


FLY TYING CORNER




Membership Form


Tying Instructions:

Stewie Fly

Hook: TMC 3761, #10-16.Thread: Olive. Bead: Gold,1/8”(3MM)forSizes10-12hooks.Tail: Hungarian Partridge Barbs, 6-10.Body: Light Hare’s Ear Dubbing Brush.Hackle: Hungarian Partridge Feather.Collar: Peacock Herl, 1-3..

The“Stewie”wasdevisedbyR.L.StewartoftheTrinity-ShastaFlyFishers.Itisaneffectivepattern,yeteasilytiedwithdubbingbrush.Ifyoudon’thaveamanufactureddubbingbrush,youcanmakeyourown,withlighthare’seardubbing (include guard hairs) and small copper wire. Stew suggests that you can try different shades of dubbing

brush. (The one in this picture looks darker than original.) He recommends hook sizes 10-16. The example is tied on a size 12 TMC 3761, which is 1 or 2XL, allowing room for bead.

Place bead on hook with small hole to eye, tie on and lay a base of thread, tie in tail (should be shank length). Tie in dub-bingbrushattailandwrapforward,tieoff,andtrimexcess.(Leaveroomforhackleandcollar.)Striportrimoff-sidebarbsfromhacklequill,tieinbytipwithbarbspointingbackandmaketwoturns,thentieoffandtrim.Tieinherls,wraptoformcollar,tieoffandtrim.Cementthreadand,“Voila!”YouhavetiedaStewie.

Fly Tied By: Ed Morphis


CHANGING LINES COMING EVENTS11-3 Board Meeting11-10 SOFT Fly Tyers, Madrone Mobile Home Park in Gold Hill.11-14 Annual Club Fund Raising Auction.12-1 Board Meeting12-8 SOFT Fly Tyers, Madrone Mobile Home Park in Gold Hill.12-17 ClubMeeting.withJeff Morgan.1-1 Chili Feed on the Holy Water.1-5 Board Meeting1-21 ClubMeetingwithJason Atkinson.


there were rods and reels and many other things for the flyfisher as wellasahostofitemsforthenon-fisherinthe family. Sonja Nisson and her auc-tion committee has worked ceaselessly to insure that there will be the mix of itemssospectacularthateveryonewillhave their auction paddleswaving inthe air with each succeeding bid chant of our long time auctioneer, Wayne Liska as he cajoles and pries out the last dollar on each item up for bid.

And if the auction isn’t enough, we have commissioned the EventCenterto craft a super dinner for this night’s event. A sneak peak at the proposedmenu by the editor offers a feast that should more than satisfy the palates of those attending. Add to that, trays of appetizers served before dinner dur-ing the silent auction and raffle timeand it only gets better. Last, but not least there will be two bottles of com-plimentarywine servedat each tableduring dinner.

Can it get any better? It sure can if each one of you decides to come out andsupporttheclub.Thisistheeventthat you can bring your spouse to, yoursignificantother,yourbrother-in-law that you don’t really care for or for

III rapids, but weighs only 26 pounds. We are starting earlier and limiting the number of items up for bid in the oral auction, so we can wrap up by 9 PM. Come join us for appetizers, dinner, and aneveningoffunwithfriends,oldandnew. We are just about set- ALL WE NEED IS YOU!


that matter the rest of the in-laws, your friends and your neighbors from down the street.Everyonecan comeout andhavetheopportunitytobidonanitemortwo,haveagreatdinnerandenjoyanightoffunandfestivities.

Should you find yourself a littleshort on cash, not to worry as plastic is welcome at this event. To furtherstreamline the payment for silent and oralauctionswonandraffleticketspur-chased, they can now be paid for at the endoftheeveningwhenthe‘reckoning’takes place.

So make it a point and call in those reservationstoday,youwon’tbesorry.

Project Healing Waters Outing

Several times a year, club mem-bers under the direction of John Stor-fold provide 4 weeks of instruction and then host an outing for some veterans from the VA in White City. Here are some photos as well as a thank you note from one of the veterans that took part in the class and outing.

The Editor

I amadisabledvetatWhiteCitywho went thru your Healing Waters program. I would like to

thankeveryoneinvolved.Iamalsoin-terested in info on the pontoon boat that is mentioned for auction in your Oct. 2015 SOFF News. This was a wonder-fulprogramforvetsandIhavenowin-vestedinmyownflyrodtoseeifthisis

really for me. Thanks,GlennDavies

John Storfold the current director of the club’s Project Healing Waters program

John Storfold giving directions and hav-ing everyone sign a release before board-ing the boats.

Some of the group at the Project Healing Waters outing


Editor’s Notebook

NON PROFIT ORG

U.S POSTAGE



Continued on Pg. 7

your dues alone, but rather the club’s general fund. How about the newsletter and other in house expenses, they come

from the same source. How about the three thousand dollars in scholarships that the club awards each year to two

fishery students from Oregon State,where does that come from - the gen-eral fund. How about our donations

tothevariousconservationsgroups that the club sup-ports, it also comes from the general fund. And the list of club expenditures goes on and on. So needless to say that the club is dependent on the good will and generosity from you the club members who’ll dig down deep and generously bid on the items at the auction or buy raffletickets.

A couple of weeks ago, a partial list of items for the auction and raffle were

emailed out. If you didn’t see anythingthatpiquedyourin-

terest, feel your wrists and see if there is a pulse! There were guided trips,

Well gang as I write this, it is a little overtwo weeks before

our annual fund raising auc-tion. This is the time of the year that the club depends on the membership through its generous bidding on the oral as well as silent auction toprovidethefundstocarrythe club through the com-ing months. This year a new wrinkle has been added and that is the addition of some 25 bucketitemsforraffleaswellas a super raffle filled withthree great prizes.

As I said, all the funds raised go to fund the club, its activities and conserva-tion donations for the coming year. Where do you think the money comes to pay for the great speakers wehaveeachmonth;surely,notfrom

Wayne Liska cajoling the last dollar out of an auction item.

SOFF News

SPECIAL MENTION

Rich Hosley: MembershipJohn Storfold: Fly Tying ChairKevin Daniels: Fly Tying InstructorRay McClenathan: ProgramsSonja Nisson: Auction ChairDavid Haight: Outings ChairSue Keeling: SOFF WearRich Steed: HistorianEd Michalski: RafflesJohn Storfold Project Healing Waters Chair


Vol.22 No.12 The Monthly Newsletter of The Southern Oregon Fly Fishers, Inc. December, 2015






The SOFF fund raising auction was an outstanding success. The house was packed with members and guests who came out to support the club.

Just some of the people who attended the club’s annual fund raising auc-tion in November. In the club’s entire existence this was the largest crowd that has ever part in the annual affair. There could have been ‘standing room only’, if there had been room, but there was no room for even that.

SOFF NEWS December, 2015 Page 2

FROM THE BOARD


The Board of Directors meet in the conference room of the Taprock Restaurant The next meeting is scheduled: December 1st 6:00pm or usually the first Tuesday of the month All members welcome


outings! Sue and Jerry Keeling are in charge of our SOFF wear – the hats, shirtsandflyboxeswithourSOFFlogoon them. I always tell SOFF members to wear those SOFF shirts and hats! I wear mine around town and enjoy answering questions people ask about our club. Ray (K Falls) McClenathan is our program chair. Ray keeps the speakers coming to us,withavarietyoflocations,fishspe-cies and fly fishing techniques to hearabout.

KevinDanielsisournewflytyingclass instructor. Kevin has gotten a lot of help from past instructors Dale Heath and Ed Morphis in organizing the class.

Ed Michalski is the one who keeps the monthly club raffle going, selling usthoseguaranteed“lucky”raffletickets.Duane Chebul has been on the SOFF board longer than I have! Duane puts together our monthly newsletter. I have seenmany fly fishing club newslettersand I think ours is the best of the bunch because of Duane. Keep sending him those“gripandgrin”fishphotos!

Another new position for SOFF this year is Mentor Chair. Joe Knapik took on that job and new members are get-ting some needed help and advice from Joe. One of the biggest jobs for our club is Auction Chair. Sonja Nisson took on that job this year and her endless energy and great auction committee put togeth-er a fantastic auction night for us last month. Bravo Sonja!

Board member Jan Knapik is our club secretary. I respect Jan for her ex-cellent advice and opinions on all club

Continued on Pg. 3

matters. She would make a great club president, but my attempts to convince her to take on that role have failed so far! Jan really helps me keep the month-ly board meetings on task and focused. Rich Steed is our club’s treasurer. Rich just retired from his job in banking and Itellhimthatwecouldnotfindabet-ter person for treasurer than a retired banker! Rich does an excellent job keeping the bills paid and tracking all of our club’s income and expenses. His wife Jeannie joins Rich at the welcome table at our monthly meetings. I have heard several complements from new members and guests about how they

enjoyed coming to our meetings and being greeted with smiles and help from Rich and Jeannie when they walk in the door.

Speaking for the entire club I want to thank these members for their energy and hard work. I know how much time it takes to do the things they do. I think wehaveoneofthebestflyfish-ing clubs in Oregon and it is be-cause of them that I can truth-fully say that. If you see any of

these dedicated club members at the next meeting, let them know that you appreciate their hard work.

I would also like to thank them personally. My job as president is a lot easier because of their dedication and expertise. A football coach is only as good as his players. Our “team” of

I am writing this edition of the SOFF President’s Message 5 days before Thanksgiving. In-

stead of writing about fish andfishing thismonth Iwant to fo-cus on those men and women who make the Southern Oregon Fly Fishers the great club that it is. Every volunteer organization needs energy and commitment by the members to be successful. As president of SOFF I am sur-rounded by and amazed by the level of energy and commitment exhibited by our Board of Direc-tors and Chairs.

Board members Ron Cremo and Brady Keister are always there with suggestions and ideas. Brady has taken on the role of casting chair, a new posi-tion. We are working with the city to make some changes at Reinhart Park so that our casting pond will be us-able for casting. Board member John Storfold, as immediate past president, helps the group keep past experiences in mind as we plan club events for the future. John also organizes and leads the Project Healing Waters program at the veteran’s facility in White City.

Club Membership Chair Rich Hos-ley keeps our membership database up to date and makes sure we pay our club dues on time. This month is when your membership needs to be paid, so don’t make Rich come after you! David Haight is our outings chair, and does agreatjobgettingusoutfishingeachmonth. You can help by attending those

“My job as president is a lot easier because of their dedica-tion and expertise. A football coach is only as good as his players. Our “team” of board members and chairs is an all star team!”


PROGRAMS Future Programs Jan 21 Jason AtkinsonFeb 18 John AndersonMar 17 Andrew HarrisApr 21 Fly Tyers NightMay 19 Jeff PerinJune 16 TBAJuly 21 No MeetingAug 18 No Meeting



Jeff Morgan - Winter is Coming

Dec. 17th 2015


board members and chairs is an all star team! We can all take pride in our club because of them.

JeffMorganhasbeenaprofessionalflytierandtyinginstructorforthepasttwentyyears.Hisflyfishingworksinclude“AnAngler’sGuidetotheOregon Cascades” and “Productive Trout Flies for Unorthodox Prey: The Oddballs.” He has taught American history and political science at Stan-ford University, Chadron State College, and Western Nebraska Community College.HecurrentlylivesinPortlandwithhistwoflytyingmaterialde-stroying cats—Rhea and Assisi—and works as a SAT/ACT/GRE tutor and financialadvisor.

Therewillbeaspecialraffleat our January meeting. Participation will be lim-

ited to those members who have paid their 2016 membership dues. The winner will receive one of Gary An-derson’scustomflyrods.Inordertobe able to participate, your dues must be paid prior to January 1, 2016. If you mail your check to the club PO box, it must be postmarked January 1 or earlier.

Thisrafflehasbeenapprovedbythe club’s board of directors as mo-tivation for the membership to pay their dues in a timely manner. Unfor-tunately,wecannot include thefifty-fivelifemembersinthisraffle.Whileyour commitment to our club is signif-icant and appreciated, we are focusing on those members whose membership status requires a yearly renewal.

Article II, Section 3 of the club’s by-laws reads: All dues shall be due and payable prior to January 1 of each year.

2016 Dues - Special Raffle By Rich Hosley Membership Chair


CASTING ABOUT

Continued on Pg. 7

A good time was had by all at the 2015 SOFF Auction. A big thank you to those

who helped make it a success! The g e n e r o s i t y of our mem-bers, the com-munity, and businesses is hea r t wa r m-ing. This year, we paid special tribute to our charter members who not only start-ed SOFF, but have contin-ued to be piv-otal in mak-ing it a success! Of course, I must give special thanks to our auction c o m m i t t e e and volunteers whose tireless efforts and positive ener-gy make it fun to put on our annual fund raising event. C o m m i t t e e members in-clude: Dave Archambault, Tom Brandes, Toni Bromley, Dale Heath, Brady Keis-ter, Jan Knapik, Ed Morphis, Chuck Rund, Bob Stafford, and John Storfold. Thecup rafflesubcommittee includesDiana Sheldon, Jan Knapik, and Julie Rogers. Dale Heath led the silent auc-tion team. It really does “take a village” to make an event like this a success and the countless volunteers who helped set up, worked at the event, and par-

SOFF Auction: “It Takes A Village”

ticipated in the clean up are our unsung heroes. Last but not least, thank you to those who attended the auction and bid. Without you, there is no auction. I hope

each and every one of you had lots of fun.

As many of you know, our auction sold out for the first time, andthe mood was beyond festive.

We sold out of Super Raffle Tickets(300 in all) and, when all was said and

done, here’s who took home the prizes:

R i c h a r d Wheatley Fly Box and 500 flies: DaleHeath

Dave Scad-den Escape boat: Mike Leonard

Julie Rog-ers gift basket: Vera Edwards

We had over 50 win-

nersinthecupraffle.Itisnosurprisethat the items in greatest demand were, once again, the pies baked by Sue Keel-ing, Karla Peterson, and Sandy Michal-ski.Diningcertificates,DaveRobert’sflies,CristinaArchumbault’shandmadejewelry and Julie Roger’s gift baskets also garnered lots of interest. The best part- everyone seemed to get a hoot out

of taking a chance and sometimes win-ning the prize they wanted most.

Sonja Nisson, auction chair person, giving a lit-tle bidding instruction prior to the bidding.

With the auction attendees, the raffle cans in the rear of the room and the oral auctions on the side of the room, there wasn’t any “standing room only” to be had.

Club members and guests viewing and bidding on items in the Silent Auction.

Bidding was fast and furious in the oral auction with lots of folks looking forward to guided fishing trips, roadtrips,newgear,giftcertificates,andaspirit of contributing to the success of our club.

This is our sole fund raiser and, thanks to all, it was a huge success, al-lowingustofulfillourmission.Here

There was a steady parade of people dropping in their tickets in the 50 cans for the various raffle items.

The silent auction had more items than ever before and those in attendance showed their appreciation by bidding on a wide array of choices. There were bargains to be had, whether you were anewangler,anoldsalt,aflytier,orageneral “picker”. It was a raucous and fun group in the silent auction room.



Jan 1 Chili Feed on the Holy Water Jan 23 TBAFeb 20 TBAMar 19 TBAApr 16 TBAMay 21 TBAJun 18 TBAJul 23 TBA

New Year’s Day Chili Feed

2016 Outings

Tom Thumb Continued From Pg. 6

The Southern Oregon Fly Fishers will join the Rogue Flyfishers to celebrate the

New Year with a chili feed at the Holy Water, as we have been doing for over 20 years now. We will meet on New Year’s Day at the picnic shelter near the parking lot on the south side of the Holy Water.Thefireshouldbegoingby10AM, and the chili will be served about noon. There will be opportunities to fishbothbeforeandafterweeat.

We need volunteers to bring pots of chili. To make things a little more interesting, and to encourage more people to bring chili, the Rogue Fly-fisherswillagainawardasmallprizeto the person the group decides made the best pot of chili. We also need a personortwotobringfirewood.Oth-ers can help out by bringing cornbread, salads, desserts, or other items to share. The clubs will provide hot drinks and table service.

The Holy Water has been producing somelargefishagainthisyear.Duringthe winter, drifting midge patterns un-der an indicator is normally a produc-tive technique. Stripping or drifting small marabou leeches, woolly bug-gers, or nymphs along the bottom can also be productive. If the weather and flowscooperate,wecouldhaveablue-winged olive or midge hatch. If you aregoingtofish,remembertogetyour2016 fishing license.

The Holy Water Chili Feed is a fun way to celebrate New Year’s Day, and

there is no better way to get a new year off to a good start then by goingfish-ing. Bring a pot of your favorite chili, and you could take home the top honors from the chili contest.


YOU CAN HELP SOFF EARN DONATIONS JUST BY SHOPPING WITH YOUR FRED MEYER REWARDS CARD!

Fred Meyer is donating $2.5 million per year to non-profits inAlaska, Ida-ho, Oregon and Washington, based on where their customers tell them to give. Here’s how the program works:

Sign up for the Community Re-•wards program by linking your Fred Meyer Rewards Card to Southern Oregon Fly Fishers at ww.fredmeyer.com/communityre-wards.

• You can search for us by our nameorbyournon-profitnumber90061.

Then, every time you shop and •use your Rewards Card, you are helping The Southern Oregon Fly

Fishers earn a donation!

You still earn your Rewards •Points, Fuel Points, and Rebates, just as you do today.

If you do not have a Rewards •Card, they are available at the Customer Service desk of any Fred Meyer store.

For more information, please •visit www.fredmeyer.com/com-munityrewards.

Can You Help

ThisflyisanoldfavoriteinBritishColumbia and Alberta, where it origi-nated. It imitates a caddis adult, or a largemayfly.Itreallyfloatswellwithagooddoseoffloatantappliedtothetail,body and wing. It can be skated along the surface, presented with a drag-free floator even strippedback justunderthe surface. It is similar to a Humpy or Ed Morphis’ Foampy. The body dub-bing can be tan, brown, yellow, orange or even red. Fly Tied By Dave Grosjacques


FLY TYING CORNER




Membership Form


Tying Instructions:

Tom Thumb

Hook: Dry Fly Hook - TMC 100, Mustad 94840 or DaiRiki 300.Thread: 8/0 Tan. Body: Dry Fly Dubbing - Fine-N-Dry or Equivalent.Tail: Deer or Elk Hair.Wing: Deer or Elk Hair.

Continued on Page 5

After putting on a thread base, clean out and stack a bunch of elk hair about half the size of a pencil to even the tips. Make the tail about a shank length long. Attach the bunch of hair about halfway on the shank, using several loose wraps, then pull up on the tying thread to start tightening it. Then spiral the thread wraps back toward the bend of the hook, making the last wrapsloosersothatthetaildoesnotflare.Workthethreadbacktowardtheeye,lashingdownthedeerhair.

Take a bigger bunch of deer hair and clean and stack it. Attach it so that the tips will be a half shank length longer than thetipsofthetail.Attachittotheshankjustinfrontofthefirsthairinthesameway,withseveralloosewrapsfirst,thenpulling up on the thread as you start tighter wraps. Spiral wraps rearward as you hold up on the bunch of hair. This keeps the hair up over the top half of the hook shank. Then lash the hair down evenly all along the shank, making a tight, smooth base for the dubbing.

Withthethreadatthebend,dubthethreadandwrapitforwardtojustbehindtheeye.Thengatherallthefibersofthelongerdeerhairtogetherandpullthemforwardupoverthetopoftheshank.Moisteningthefingerswillhelp.Letanyshortertailfibersfallbackawayfromtheclump.Trytokeepthesehairsupsothattheycoveronlythetophalfofthebody.

Tie down the tips of the hair you have pulled forward just behind the eye. Hold up on the tips as you wrap tighter. Then bring the thread in front of the hair and wrap a thread dam just in front of the hair so that it sticks up and a bit forward. Tie a smoothheadandwhipfinishandcementthehead.Thedeerhairshouldbeslightlyflaredandoutovertheeye.


CHANGING LINES COMING EVENTS12-1 Board Meeting12-8 SOFT Fly Tyers, Madrone Mobile Home Park in Gold Hill.12-17 Club Meeting. with Jeff Morgan.1-1 Chili Feed on the Holy Water.1-5 Board Meeting1-6 Start of the Club Fly Tying Class.1-12 SOFT Fly Tyers, Madrone Mobile Home Park in Gold Hill.1-21 Club Meeting with Jason Atkinson.1-23 Club Outing - TBA

Editor’s Notebook Cont. From Pg. 8lent auction items and if you didn’t win something you really didn’t try.

The auction is an excellent time to bring one’s spouse with them to the event and I did so. I picked up a paddle number and gave it to her and off she went to survey items of interest in the silent auction. This year in addition to using the paddle numbers for the oral and silent auction, it could be used for purchasingticketsinthecanraffleorthesuper raffle.After shefinished, itwas my turn. I went to the silent auc-tion room really to take photos, but couldn’t resist adding my number to a few items in the process. So it was withthecanraffle–likeabeeflittingfromflowertoflower,Idroppedtick-ets here and there.

Lastly came the oral auction, I was warned from someone “who would not be named” that I could bid all I wanted in the silent auction or the cup orsuper raffle,but Iwas tokeepmyhand at my side or on the camera dur-ing the oral auction. I agreed which in ‘marriage speak’ is you’d better keep your hand down or you’re really in big trouble. I was pretty successful for the most part, but standing to take photos gave me not only the opportunity to take photos of the bidders, but also the

are a few of the efforts made possible:

A Scholarship Fund to help stu-dents pursuing Fishery Science at Oregon State University.

Conservation Projects: Public Education, tree planting and stream repair of the Applegate, Middle Rogue and Illinois River watersheds.

“Project Healing Water”: A rehabilitation project that teaches flyfishing and fly tying to disabled active military personnel and veterans at the local VA Hospital.

“Casting For Recovery”: A program that teaches survivors of breastcancertheartofflyfishing.

Support of Rural Outdoor Ed-ucation Projects through area middle and high schools.

Public education classes about oftheartofflyfishing,flytyingandflycasting.

Youth projects related to flyfishingandhabitatimprovements.

Takes a Village Cont. From Pg. 4

Vera Edwards with a gift basket she won in the Super Raffle.

Next year’s auction is Saturday, November 12th and plans are already under way. If you would like to join the auction committee, please call Son-ja Nisson 541-582-4833. You, too, can get in on all the fun!

Thank you again, Sonja Nisson, Auction Chair.

chance to see the items up for each bid. I did well until the guide trip with Mar-lon Rampy came up for auction. It must have been the devil making me do it, but I had no control of my hand and it came up so many times that I thought I was waving at Wayne Liska, the auctioneer. Well as luck would have it, I won the trip and was delighted for the moment – that is until I happened to look at my wife and the icy stare said it all.

A few minutes later my wife left the room and what should come up for bid in her absence, but a spa package from Club Northwest. I bid and won the pack-age and presented it to her on her return. Funny, how you can go from being the devil incarnate to a loving husband in a mere blink of an eye.

The auction was a rousing success thanks to the generosity of the member-ship and others that bid on items or took achanceintheraffle.Theclubdependson its annual fund raising auction to fund the various things that make the club what it is. The money is in and were good to go for another year with the funds being applied to the monthly speakers, to our conservation interests, to our educational pursuits and to other club expenses.

A very Merry Christmas and a most prosperous New Year - The Editor.


Editor’s Notebook

NON PROFIT ORG

U.S POSTAGE



Continued on Pg. 7

single handed rod in casting from the rear position on the boat. Note to self - buy or built a six weight switch rod for next season.

Next was the big auction extrava-ganza held on the 14th of November. Let me say from the outset, Sonja Nis-son and her auction committee did a yeoman’s job in procuring, then select-ing into which category each item was to be placed.

This year the membership and friends really turned out to take apart in the festivities. The room was set up for the maximum number of people it could hold which was 160 and we had 155 people taking up the space which was in my remembrance the largest attendance that we have ever had at an auction. With such a large crowd, Sonja Nisson put in place a call order so that only two tables went out to the buffet line at a time and this worked perfectly as there was room to pick up

one’s food and return to the their ta-ble without bumping into others that were attempting to access the buffet line.

Was the dinner perfect? No, there were a few hiccups that needed to be addressed such as the under doneness of the steak, and the dessert line that reverted back to everyone trying to get a dessert at the same time. Other than these couple of miscues, the din-ner was a success.

This year in addition to the usual oral and silent auction items, she and hercommitteesetupa‘canraffle’thatencompassed over 50 items and a su-perrafflethatgavealltheparticipantsan opportunity to win a prize. There weregiftcertificates,wine, itemsofinteresttowomen,boxesoffliesandfour deliciously looking pies. Add to that some 55 items in the oral auction and rows of tables containing the si-

Well November is over! With that said a little review is necessary.

First, a friend of mine from Califor-nia was up and he asked me to join him on a Teresa Kasza guide trip and what could I say, but agree.

The weather was perfect for a fall trip, not too cold with just the right amount of sun to warm things up.Thefishingforsummersteelheadwas also good as my friend landed three steelhead out of four hooked. And then there was me. I hooked two fish and landed – none. Although Idid see one of the fish that jumpedseveral times and released itself just inches away from the net. Oh well, I would have let it go at any rate. Sever-al small trout saved me from a totally ‘skunked’ day.

I did learn one thing on the out-ing and that is a switch rod would have worked better than a standard

Documents

SOFF News€¦ · Teaching Credential and a Master’s degree from Chico State where he worked as an Instructor, Administrator and Counselor before following his passion to guide