Little River Chapter of Trout Unlimited

President’s Corner
Mike Bryant (mjbryant1954@hotmail.com)

Newsletter

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught just the slightest movement in the water.  I froze and tried to focus into the water. The fish finally gave up its position when it rose to eat something on the surface.  I patiently waited and watched the trout slide over a couple of inches and eat again.  I slowly backed up and worked myself into position for a decent cast upstream.  The fly landed a couple of feet upstream of the fish and gently floated down the small run.  The trout adjusted, eat the fly and went nuts after feeling the bite of the hook.  A minute later I released a beautiful rainbow. The day had started slow with few takes or rises aimed at my CDC & Elk Caddis pattern.  But after about an hour in the stream I noticed some small mayflies coming of the water.  I switched to a #16 Parachute Adams and proceeded to have a great mid-day of dry fly fishing, mostly sight casting to rainbows and brookies in this high mountain stream.  It was a nice change after some rather slow fishing trips in the Park this summer. After the small hatch was over and the fish started to ignore the Adams, I switched to a #16 Perfect Ant pattern and continued to catch some beautiful brookies through the afternoon.  All in all, a great day to be out in the Park.

For those who couldn’t make the July outdoor meeting, you missed a good time. The weather was not cooperative in the afternoon, but nearly thirty folks from the Little River and the Great Smoky Mountain Chapters showed up. The weather cleared and I didn’t burn down any buildings cooking on the grill.

At the upcoming August meeting, you will have the opportunity to buy some fly tying materials and tools.  As we have reported, Ken Henderson is in a nursing care facility.  He was one of the founding members of the Little River Chapter, and an active and caring member. To help support  Ken financially, we will be selling and auctioning off his tying materials and tools at the August meeting.  This is your opportunity to pick up some materials and to help out a fellow member. All proceeds will be turned over to Ken.  Check out the list of items listed below.

Also at the August meeting, we will present the custom made Sage rod to Steve Young as the winner of the 2014 Eddie George Award. This custom rod was built by Steve Moore.

Plans to expand the Trout in the Classroom continue to move forward and we need your help.  Check out the article in the Newsletter and give some thought to volunteering your time to work with kids.  You won’t be disappointed.

Be safe. I’ll see you at the August meeting.
Mike

Ken Henderson Tying Materials

At the August Meeting we will be selling and auctioning off Ken Henderson’s fly tying materials and tools. The sale and auction will be from 6:00 – 7:00pm at Calhoun’s. Ken is now at a nursing care facility. Funds raised from this sale / auction will help with Ken’s expenses. The following is a list of items that I have sorted and organized:

• Renzetti Traveler vise (silent auction)
• Older Dyna-King vise (silent auction)
• Bags of mixed fur
• Bags of mixed feathers
• Mixed rubber legs
• Mixed chenille
• Dubbing packs (hare / beaver)
• Marabou (lots of white)
• Mixed tools
• Lead and lead-free wire
• Thread (mostly greens/browns/greys/yellows/lots of black)
• Krystal flash
• Mixed yarn
• Wire and vinyl ribbing
• Rod building thread (Gudebrod)
• Egg yarn
• Roger Lowe’s Pattern Booklet
• Hooks (mostly Mustad / some Diiachi – probably several thousand hooks)
• CDC feathers
• Biot feathers
• Two large compartment boxes of dubbing (fine synthetic and hair dubbing)
• Assortment of plastic drawer units (several sizes)

Steve Moore is selling Ken’s rod building materials. If you have an interest, please contact Steve before, during or after the meeting. At the September meeting, we intend to sell or auction off Ken’s rods and reels.

Cash is preferable, no credit cards please. This is your opportunity to pick up some materials and help a fellow member in need.

P r e s i d e n t ’ s C o r n e r

Mike Bryant   (mjbryant1954@hotmail.com)

Newsletter

The month of June proved to be a very busy month that included volunteering at Trout Camp,  grandkids staying with us for ten days followed by an eight day fishing trip to Colorado.  We had a great time with the grandkids including picnics in the Park, playing in creeks, swimming and of course some fishing.  It was a great opportunity to introduce fly fishing and fly tying to our eight year grandson.  I coordinated the evening fly tying classes at Trout Camp, so my grandson tagged along for most of the nights.  He had the opportunity to watch and interact with the big kids.  We had already started his journey on fly tying, and he cast his first line into a Park stream this year.  But his exposure to Trout Camp elevated his interest in the fly fishing.  It was a great reminder on how small actions on our part can have such a big influence on the next generation, especially when comes to exposing them to the great outdoors.

This year’s Trout Camp was another great success.  Great job by John Thurman, Steve Thompson and the entire volunteer staff!

After Trout Camp,  John Reinhardt and I went to central Colorado for eight days of fly fishing.  Our timing was off a bit given high flows still existed in most of the major streams due to snow melt runoff.  The rivers were dropping, but were definitely high. So we made the most of it and started searching for higher elevation streams. We found a couple of gems.  We caughtbrowns, rainbows and brookies, but oddly no cutthroats were brought to hand. Multiple days we had the opportunity to cast to rising fish, including some 16” rainbows that were poking their noses above the surface to suck down hatching Pale Morning Duns.  We were early for the caddis hatch so John didn’t get to use his 48 Elk Hair Caddis flies he brought or any of my two dozen CDC & Elk patterns.  But I did tie a great little nymph pattern that fooled a lot of 12” wild brown trout.  Good fishing in a beautiful part of the country!

Typical of summer, fishing is a bit tougher in the Park right now.  Nymphs down deepand the ever popular Green Weenie are still working.

Have a safe and great summer!
-Mike

July Chapter Meeting – Thursday,  July 23
As in the past, our July Chapter Meeting (Thursday, July 23) will be held outside at River Johns Outfitters (Map)  http://www.riverjohns.com/.  Just outside of Mayville, River John’s is located on a beautiful stretch of the Little River.  Dinner is free!  The July meeting will be a joint chapter meeting with the Great Smoky Mountain Chapter.  You can fish along the shoreline before and after dinner.  Last year I hooked but lost a rather large smallie on a hellgrammite pattern.  So bring your gear and an appetite. Dinner will be served around 6:00pm

Annual Clinch River Cleanup
Love to fish the Clinch? Want to help keep it beautiful? The third annual Big Clinch River Cleanup will be Saturday,  July 25 and the first 125 volunteers to register can enjoy a big free breakfast at Museum of Appalachia, 2819 Andersonville Highway in Norris.  More information can be found at http://crctu.org.

Smokemont Trip
The annual fishing trip at Smokemont is set for September 25 – 27.  This is a great trip,complete with excellent fishing, even better food and great fellowship.  More details to follow in the next couple of months, but mark your calendar for this awesome trip right in our own backyard.

8 July 2015
The fisheries staff, with assistance from local volunteers, Trout Unlimited members, Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GRSM) interns and a group of outdoor writers, ranging in age from 7 to 82, conducted population monitoring surveys on the lower 3 miles of Lynn Camp Prong June 22, 24 and 25.  Electrofishing surveys on Lynn Camp and a tributary (Marks Creek) indicate brook trout populations are at (15 kg/ha) or exceeding (>34 kg/ha)  pre-treatment biomass of rainbow trout at all 5 sites. The data indicate there are now between 1,392-5,616 brook trout per mile of stream on Lynn Camp Prong. The upper end of the biomass range (>35 kg/ha) would be considered exceptional in terms of trout abundance for any GRSM stream. Both 2014 and 2015 produced excellent year classes of young-of-year (YOY) brook trout, which
means there will be good numbers of adults in the next 2-3 years. In fact, YOY fish comprised 53% of the total brook trout catch across all sites. Of the adults collected in all sites, 23% were greater than 7 inches with good numbers of fish >8 inches. Catch rates of anglers have been reported in the 20-40 fish per hour range with the highest catch rates being reported farther from the trailhead.

Figure 1.— Biomass of pre-treatment rainbow trout and post-treatment brook trout after restoration of 8.5 miles of Lynn Camp Prong, GRSM using the fish piscicide antimycin. The pre-treatment biomass of rainbow trout was used as a recovery target for the newly established brook trout population. Each site number represents 100m increments from the barrier falls.