Across
the Stream – May 2006
A
Publication of Heart of America Fly Fishers
HOAFF May Meeting
Monday, May 15, 2006 - 7pm
Darrell
Bowman
Arkansas
Trout Biologist
President's Message
HOAFF teams need your help
by Mark Borserine
While
the HOAFF has been blessed with a lot of willing volunteers, it seems that the
same few people
volunteer again and again.
This is SOP or “Standard Operating Procedure” in volunteer organizations; but,
it shouldn’t be! If you don’t have a lot
of spare time, and you can just volunteer to help out with one thing each year
it will help the club immensely. We have some Teams such as Conservation,
Auction and newsletter that could use some help!
We
now have a Conservation Team and we need at least three more people to make
this really work well. Conservation is a very important part of our club
mission. If you have an interest in Conservation, especially a ‘specialized’
interest, this is the “Team” for you. Tom James does an unbelievable job on our
newsletter but he does it alone. If you have a “gift”
for writing or photography, Tom needs your help. Jim Mattes has volunteered to
chair our upcoming (October) Auction, but he needs lots of help. This is a
one-time event each year and is perfect if you’re the kind that can only find
time to do one thing. Another area that can use help is education. Each year we
are being asked to teach more and more; this is very flattering, but it takes
time to organize and staff each event. We always need help with our educational
projects.
Volunteering
is a great way for new members to become “accepted” in a new organization. When
I was new to the Club, I began getting active right away. We hear complaints
that “the older members stay in their own little group”, “no one talked to me
at the meeting”, etc. These criticisms are again, all too true of volunteer
organizations. We have to always work at making our new members welcome; but,
new members should remember that the relationship is always a “two-way street”.
A new member can make themselves welcome in any organization by becoming
involved and helping out! Walk right
into those little groups, talk to others even if you don’t know them, activate the “process”!
One Fly Tournament at the HSP Strip
Pits
By Mark Borserine
On
Saturday, June 17th, the HOAFF will be the guests of Hunting Sports Plus. Our
traditional One-Fly Outing will be held at the ultimate fishing hole in the
Midwest: the incomparable Strip Pits near Amsterdam, MO. Although more than one
member is allowed on this poperty at one time, you
may never see anyone else. At 4,000 acres (three and one-half miles long and
two miles wide) and containing 35 bodies of water, the Strip Pits are a
resource that can’t be adequately described. They have to be experienced.
Five-pound bass are commonplace; in fact, all bass longer than 14 inches must
be returned to the water immediately. Several bass topping ten pounds have been
caught and released on HSO properties.
Beginning
at first light on the 17th, you may enter
at the main gate at the Northwest corner of the property. You must register at the May member meeting
or call Mark Borserine at 913-915-1002 before coming, when you do, you’ll be
given the combination to the lock on the gate – relock the gate when you come
in. We will gather at the dam area of
Pit 1, lunch will be provided by the club at noon in the dam area of Pit 1 and HSP
will make a presentation on Fishing memberships to
us. This is a float-tuber and
kick-boater’s paradise so bring your “rigs”.
As long as you can handle them, these bodies of water are ideal for
small jonboats, canoes and two-man bass boats; but
some of the pits have pretty steep sides.
For those who don’t have a “watercraft” there will be some extras
available, so come anyway.
For
your own safety, please don’t try to wade in these pits and ponds; some have
soft bottoms and others have severe drop-offs, plunging to fifty and sixty
feet!
The
pits are approximately one-hour south of the Metro area. From the Kansas side, you will come South on
69 Hwy to 152 and go East on the South side of the LaCygne
power plant to Amsterdam, MO. From
Missouri, take 71 Hiway South to Butler-Passaic exit,
then go West on F Hway. 10 miles to J Hwy. North on J to the 4-way
stop sign at Amsterdam, go South on Y Hwy to main gate on East Side of
Hwy. There will be a prominent sign at
the gate HOAFF is to use for access.
HSP is a private club, remember you need to
pre-register with Mark Borserine (HSP member) before coming to this
outing: (913) 915-1002, e-mail:
MAJBORSER@aol.com. You will also be
required to sign a Hold Harmless Agreement – a standard requirement for all
guests on HSP leases. For more information on Hunting Sports Plus visit their
website www.huntingsportsplus.com.
2006 Officers
PRESIDENT
Mark Borserine
majborser@aol.com
(913) 381-0722
pAST
PRESIDENT/SECRETARY
David Andrews
davidgandrews@kc.rr.com
H (816) 741-8314
tREASURER
Paul Bennetts
pbennetts1@comcast.net
913-338-3837
NEWSLETTER
EDITOR
Tom
James
tom@blackdogsports.com
O (816)
718-0393
PROGRAMS
Cliff Cain John Bell
cliffcain@hotmail.com j.bell@kcc.state.ks.us
H (913) 780-3865 H (785) 843-1782
O (913) 433-5224 O (785) 271-3139
OUTINGS
Jim
Jorgensen Bill Lyon
jhjflyfisher@everestkc.net blyon51@yahoo.com
H (913) 469-1950 (816) 525-1243
O (913) 477-7701
MEMBERSHIP
Cliff Newton Fred Clark
ccnewton@sbcglobal.net fclarks@planetkc.com
H (816) 943-8306 H
(913) 831-0305
O (816) 426 3925 x260
CONSERVATION/BLUE
RIVER PROJECT
Open Position
LIBRARIAN
Doug McDonald
mcdoug5148@sbcglobal.net
(913) 669-5222
EDUCATION/RECOGNITION
Bill Lindley Jim Mattes
wlindleyjr@kc.rr.com jimmattes@mattesappraisal.com
(913) 888-3177 H
(913) 268-6161
SPRING
PROGRAM COMMITTEE
Dick Martin Don Grundy
rlm@mllfpc.com dgrundy@sbcglobal.net
H (816) 781-9557 H (816)-781-9019
O (816) 221-1430
WEBMASTER
Vicky Newton
svnewton@sbcglobal.net
H (816) 943-8306
AUCTION/RAFFLE
Committee
Jim Mattes
jimmattes@mattesappraisal.com
H (913) 268-6161
HISTORIAN
Bill Brant
billandkathy@kc.rr.com
H (816) 941-9691 O (913) 458-6826
SOUTHERN
COUNCIL LIAISON
Hod McIntosh
singingreels@sbcglobal.net
Home: (913) 722-3684
BANQUET
CHAIR
John Richards
jreyedoc1@aol.com
H (816) 781-0545 O (816) 781-0500
Heart
of America Fly Fishers Meetings
Meetings
are held at 7pm on the 3rd Monday of each month
Community
of Christ Church
79th
& Mission Rd, Prairie Village, KS
Banner Creek Hens
We
have had a request for assistance again at a “Becoming an Outdoors Woman”
event.
Apparently
Bill Lindley was such a hit with the ladies that the word got out! This event is being held at Banner Creek
Reservoir (check the KS Dept of Wildlife and Parks) website near Holton, KS on
Saturday afternoon July 15th. It will again consist of Fly Casting and Fly
Tying. It should be a small group and we
should only need four of us to go. The
Reservoir looks great! Small enough for kickboats
and such. Perhaps we could drive
up on Saturday morning, stay over Saturday night and fish Saturday evening and
Sunday morning before coming home. Call
Mark Borserine to volunteer (913) 915-1002.
Give Iowa a Try
By Mark
Borserine
As the
song from the “Music Man” says; “You really should give Iowa a try”. Bill Brant
and I are researching an outing over the weekend of September 9th to the “Driftless”
area of Northeast
Iowa. This is area is covered with small, beautiful trout streams featuring
mostly Brown and native Brook Trout. If you like “technical” fishing demanding
precise casting and using small flies, this is definitely for you! The “plan”
is that we’ll rent a 15-passenger van, drive up on a Friday evening, picking up
our “guide” Jene Hughes from Des Moines on the way.
We’ll “lodge” in Decorah, IA and fish Saturday and Sunday, driving back on
Sunday evening. We’ll simply share expenses, also doing our own cooking as much
as possible. Of course, the more we have going the lower each one’s cost but
this should be a very low cost trip! Bill Brant and I have fished the “Driftless” area of SE Minnesota which is like the Iowa area
and it is wonderful! This has not been
finalized yet but anyone interested, please say something to me, give me a call
or e-mail me or Bill – we’d like to know how much interest there is.
Conservation
Team
Encouraged
by Ray Zook, the Officers and Directors established a
Conservation Team. The purposes are:
• To keep abreast of significant
activities related to conservation in areas of interest to the club.
• To make appropriate and timely reports
to the club pertaining to these activities and make recommendations or
proposals for actions to be taken by the club.
• To write grant applications to the
Southern Council.
There
will be four members covering the following areas:
General – Nationwide:
Missouri:
Arkansas: John
Bell
Metro Kansas City:
HOAFF Apparel now available
Now you can get a T-shirt or a fishing hat with the
new Heart of America Fly Fishers Logo. Hats $15, T-shirts $12
Watercress
by Norm Crisp, Stream Side Adventures
If
you have ever spent any time on one of Missouri’s Ozark trout streams you have
noticed patches of bright green plants growing in the spring branches or along
isolated gravel bars. That plant is
Watercress, the same herb you can sometimes buy at the local grocery store.
Watercress
is not native to North America. It is a hardy European perennial herb, Nasturtium
officinale, that is now widely distributed in
cool spring fed streams. Watercress is part of the mustard family and has a
pungent peppery taste that makes a nice addition to a salad or as a
garnish. For us trout fisherman it has
another use.
On
the stream, a patch of watercress is a sure sign that you need to stop and
fish. Watercress needs cool clean water
to develop and grow. A watercress patch
is a sign that there is ground water entering the river either as a small
underwater spring or, more likely as ground water seepage over a wider
area. In our Ozark streams that seepage
is important all year round but in the late spring through early fall it is the
life that keeps the water temperatures within the trout’s safety range.
Don’t
forget the culinary aspect of watercress!
Next time you find it on the stream pick some and bring it home to try
in this spread that STREAM SIDE ADVENTURES often uses for lunch.
Salmon, Goat Cheese, and Watercress Spread
Ingredients:
8 oz salmon fillet, skin removed and
cut into 1 inch cubes – salt to taste
two small shallots
juice of quarter lemon
1Tbs. butter
Sufficient white wine of your choice
to poach salmon
4 oz goat cheese
1 cup chopped and loosely packed
watercress.
Rinse
watercress in several washes of clean water. Pick over carefully to remove any remaining sowbugs or scuds. Course chop.
Melt
butter in pan and sauté finely chopped shallots. Add cubed salmon, lemon juice
and wine. Bring to a simmer and cook for about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from pan
and let cool.
Flake
the salmon and add the goat cheese and chopped watercress and mix gently to
blend ingredients. Correct seasoning as needed.
Serve
on bagel slices or on slices of crusty French Bread.
Garnish with the saved sowbugs and scuds if desired.
Copyright ©
2006 STREAM SIDE ADVENTURES. Used with permission.
Salmonids Have Hearing Too!
By Mark Borserine
Bass
fisherman know only too well how effective using a
fishes’ lateral line can be! This is why the plethora of spinners and rattles
in Bass lures. Salmonids
(Trout & Salmon) are primarily known as sight feeders but as Gary Borger
states so well in his book “Designing Trout Flies”: “The trout’s
lateral line mechanism is a very sensitive sonar device that runs along its
flank and forward around its mouth and eyes.
So sensitive is it that the fish can hear (feel) a nymph swimming or a
dry fly drop to the surface”. Bass fisherman have
learned that the more turbid the water is, the more important the lateral line
becomes! The same applies to Salmonids as I have
graphically seen on more than one occasion:
Once
fishing early spring run-off in the Allegheny Mountains in Virginia, the water
was high, cloudy and unbelievably cold (it stung my skin through 5mm neoprene
and fleece underpants!). The guide gave me a large, black conehead
woolly bugger because he felt that the size would cause the trout to “hear” it.
That wasn’t enough; after going fishless for quite a while I noticed that the conehead was loose and would slide back and forth a little
bit. I started “jerking” it rapidly like
plastic worm with a brass sinker and bead on the front to make it rattle and I
started catching fish after fish. The
“Rattle Bugger” was born, which is the bottom fly in the photo. I tie this with a conehead
and a brass bead behind it. There is no
thread at the eye, I tie the head far enough behind the bead to allow the conehead and bead to rattle back and forth. A simple
adaptation to the Woolly!
Another
example occurred this last September on our Club “excursion” to Ninilchik, Alaska. On a whim, I had bought some “Pistol
Pete” Salmon flies from Yager’s because they were on
sale (top fly in the photo). All these are is standard Salmon/Steelhead
patterns tied with a propeller in front.
When we got to Alaska we found that the Rivers were “blown out” with
high, dirty water due to heavy rains. The Pistol Petes
saved the trip for many of us! My “collection” disappeared among my companions
in a matter of minutes! Stripping this
fly rapidly, making the propeller spin provided the right amount of vibration
to use the Salmon & Steelheads’ lateral lines to our advantage. This
summer, when I go back, I’ll be “armed” with some of these again. Pistol Petes are also available in Trout and Panfish
sizes.
The
second fly in the photo is called a “flapdoodle”. I picked this idea up from a
recent magazine article by Ed Engle. He
was on a trip in Alaska with John Gierach and AK Best
and they were adding small spinners to the back of leech patterns.
The
swivel is held on the hook by plastic disks punched out of a popcan holder placed above and below – this is the way Bass
and Walleye fisherman put on “Stinger” hooks.
A small split ring connects the swivel and spinner. This particular fly is an adapted bunny
leech, the spinner an Indiana #2 in fluorescent orange. Carry some of the spinners and swivels
already connected and simply add them to flies as needed. You’ll have to make sure you trim off some of
the tail so the spinner can work and make sure the spinner is not too large
that it interferes with hooking!
The
third and fourth flies are simple Woolly Worms with an in-line spinner in
front. Some “purists” may feel that
fishing flies with “hardware” is not “good form” but years ago, (in the 30s,
40s & 50s) one of the most popular Bass flies was a large wet fly or Woolly
with an in-line spinner in front. This venerable fly is still just as effective
as ever! The two in the photograph are trout/panfish-sized
and were bought “over-the-counter”.
Get
out there and make some noise!
Cabela’s offers 5% Discount
Cabela’s will give a 5% Discount to all HOAFF members on 3000-series
SKU-numbered items: Fly Fishing items if you will send them your e-mail. Log
onto yahoo.com, click on groups, search for the group “cabela”,
go through the registration process and you will receive special e-mails about
discounts from Cabela’s Fly Shop in Kansas City.
When
you present your HOAFF membership card at the register, you’ll receive a 5% discount on 3000-series SKU numbers.
Participation is purely voluntary.
Upcoming Events & Programs
May 6, 2006 Fly
Tying 101 - Red Bridge Library - 2pm
May 15, 2006 Darrell
Bowman - Arkansas Trout Biologist
June 17, 2006 One
Fly Outing - HSP Strip Pits
June 19, 2006 Norm
Crisp - Fly Fishing Strategies
Sept 18, 2006 Annual
Picnic - Shawnee Mission Park
Visit
our Advertisers:
Black
Dog Sports
The
Fishing Hole
Ray & Jonell Fincke
(913)
642-5554
3731
W. 95th • Overland Park, KS 66206
Rainbow
Fly Shop
4706-D
Shrank Drive
Independence,
MO 64055
816-373-2283
9-5
Tuesday - Saturday
K&K
Flyfishers’
Everything for Todays Flyfisherman
• Total Equipment Selection
• Great ”How To” Schools
• Pro Staff for Your Questions
• Fishing Trips: Alaska • Canada • Montana • Bahamas
87th & Grant, Overland Park, KS 66212
www.kkflyfishers.com • 913-341-8118
Diane
Cristopher-Fulks
Watercolor
Wildlife
Designs
by Diane
(816)
578-4615
Pomeroy
Auction
James “J.P.” Rozine
Auctioneer
Kansas City, Kansas
(913) 334-2153
Lilleys' Landing
1-800-LILLEYS
367
River Lane
Branson,
MO 65616
Wilkinson
Outdoor Adventures
Clint
Wilkinson
272
Wild Cat Shoals Road
Gassville, AR 72635
870-404-2942
Saltery Lake Lodge
1516
Larch Street
Kodiak,
AK 99615
1-800-770-5037
Fax
(907) 486-3188
Fishing
River Custom Rods
Bill
Kreitz
13715
Nation Rd.
Kearney,
MO 64060
E-mail:
b.kreitz@att.net
816-628-5071
Cell:
816-392-6720
River
Run Outfitters
2626 Hwy
165
Branson,
MO 65616
417-332-0460
877-699-3474
(toll free)
Branson
Lodge
2456 State Highway 165
Branson, MO 65616
1-800-334-3104
Eleven
Point Canoe Rental
Fishing
Outfitter
Canoe
Rental
Guide
Service
Camping
417-778-6497
Fishing
Pole Guiding
Bow
River
Crownsnest River
Southern
Alberta
Float
Fishing
Walk
& Wade
Mountain River Fly Shop
1177 West Main
Cotter, AR 72626
870-435-6166
Gartside’s Secret Stuff
www.jackgartside.com/tying_material.htm
Bennett
Spring State Park Concession Shop
26248 Hwy
64 A
Lebanon,
MO 65536
417-532-4307
1-800-334-6946
Gaston’s
Tackle
Bennett
Springs State Park
11798
Highway 64 - Lot 63
Lebanon,
MO 65536
417-532-9449
Sand
Springs Resort
1996 Hwy
64
Lebanon,
MO 65536
417-532-5857
417-588-3110
fax
Brass
Door Motel
Hwy 62W
Gassville, AR 72635
Motel
Phone
(870)
435-2988
Restaurant
Phone
(870)
435-2288
(877)
272-7736
White
Sands Motel & Restaurant
Highway
62B - Next to Cotter's Rainbow Arch Bridge
870-435-2244
Bass Pro Shops
Chapman Creek Fly & Tackle
2701 North Marshall
Chapman, KS 76431
785-922-6630
Rim Shoals Lodge & Fly Shop
River Front Lodging
Guided FIshing Trips
Boat/Motor Rental
Full Service Fly Shop
Gary & Paula Flippin
(870) 435-6144
Anglers
and Achery Outfitters
136B Eden Way
Branson, MO 65616
(417) 335-4655
Parkview
Lodge
1-888-727-5883
5477
Hwy 165
Branson,
MO
Reading’s Fly Shop
Fly Rods • Reels
Nets • Waders
Tying Materials
Over 1200 Book Titles
11937 Highway 64A
Lebanon, MO 65536
417-588-4334
Two Ocean Pass Outfitting
Tightline Guide Service
Vogels Homestead Resort
Bennett Spring State
Park - Niangua River
Lodging • Canoe &
Raft Rental • RV Park
11451 Hwy 64
Lebanon, MO 65536
417-532-4097
Americanfishes.com
More
color illustrations of freshwater fish than anyplace on earth
Cabela’s
White River Trout Lodge
752
County Rd 703
Cotter,
AR 72626
877-84TROUT
Flats Lander Guide Service
Spring
and Fall in Kansas,
Summer
in the Florida Keys
Capt.
Paul “Sodie” Sodamann
785-456-5654