www.cjtu.org

March 2020

General Meeting

Tuesday, March 10, 2020

Tim Flagler
Secrets of the Ken Lockwood Gorge

Ken Lockwood Gorge on the South Branch of the Raritan River in Hunterdon County is one of New Jersey’s premier trout fishing locales, with both wild and stocked fish, and is open to anglers year round. As a result, there are often crowds and the fish get pressured. Fortunately, there are some tips, techniques and things to look for that’ll help you to catch more fish in these difficult conditions. The presentation will include video of the gorge, it’s water, the bug life and the flies we use to imitate it.

Pre-Meeting Fly Tying Program

As a broadening of our Chapter’s educational offerings we are continuing the pre-meeting program aimed at those in our Chapter who have interest in the pattern or techniques mentioned in the Fly of the Month.

So come at 7pm this coming Tuesday if you are interested. Bill Ninke will be demoing the tying of the “Long’s Hedgehog” featured as the March Fly of the Month.

Tuesday, Apr. 14, 2020

Erik Barton

Fishing for Salmon in Norway & Sweden

Erik is part of the Tight Lines guides team and is an expert spey caster. He’s got the video to show and prove it. Erik specializes in all kinds of salmon and steelhead flies, ranging from big, weighted intruders for winter steelhead to small spey flies for Atlantic Salmon. One you don’t want to miss.

Influenced by his father, Erik started fishing when he was four years old. Previously an avid bass and muskie fisherman, it wasn’t until the age of ten when he started to transition into the fly fishing addict that he is today. After his first year of trout fishing on the Musconetcong, he couldn’t help but notice how effective fly fishing was for the fishermen around him. It was then that he asked his father for his first fly rod. Within a few short minutes of getting down the basic fly cast, Erik landed his first fly caught fish.

Since that day, fly fishing has encapsulated Erik’s life. Every available weekend since has been spent fly fishing with his father on streams near and far, whether it be locally on the South Branch of the Raritan or on the numerous wild trout streams throughout the Great Smoky Mountains. Although some of Erik’s favorite fishing is for big wild brown trout on the West Branch of the Delaware or on one of Pennsylvania’s fine trout streams, his preferred stomping grounds are found on the Salmon River in New York. Catching big steelhead on a swung fly is truly his forte.

When he’s not fishing, Erik can be found tying some of his favorite flies. Erik specializes in all kinds of salmon and steelhead flies, ranging from big, weighted intruders for winter steelhead to small spey flies for Atlantic Salmon. If he’s not tying he’s either doing research on anadromous salmonid locations or research on reptiles, one of his other favorite hobbies.

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Bart Lombardo

The Warm-Water Fly Box – Flies for Warm Water Fish and How to Fish Them

Do you want to keep fly fishing this summer when it’s too warm to fish for trout? Why not try fishing for bluegill and other panfish? The bluegill readily takes flies, fights well on light tackle and can be found everywhere. Warm water fly fishing guru and former CJTU president, Bart Lombardo will explore fly fishing for America’s favorite fish.

This presentation will discuss the flies you want to have in your “warm water fly box” and the techniques to target bluegill, crappie and other members of the sunfish family.

Bart is CJTU president who is also a rep for Tenkara USA, Regal vices, along with running the very popular Panfish on the Fly blog. He is also an expert fly tyer and will guide you in making the most of the warmer months of the year when trout and other coldwater species should get a break.

Tuesday, June 16, 2020

Annual Bar-B-Que & Picnic

A meeting outside by the grill. Share good food, good company and a fish story or two. This one starts at 5:00 pm! All meetings other than the June General Meetings start at 7:30 pm at the American Legion Hall, 137 New Market Road in Dunellen, NJ.

American Legion Hall
137 New Market Road
Dunellen, NJ

Meeting starts at 7:30 PM - Non Members are always welcome!

President’s Letter

Unless Mother Nature throws us a curveball, this has been a year without winter, at least in my little corner of New Jersey. I have been on the water in nothing shirt sleeves quite a few times this winter. Earlier this week, it was in the sixties, and I took my first bass and panfish from a local pond. It goes without saying that fishing for cold-water species like trout has been excellent this winter.

March is usually a quiet time for Central Jersey Trout Unlimited, but this year is a little different. Our fly tying classes are in full swing, and we have a bumper crop of new students going through the beginner's class this year, along with the usual intermediate/advanced group. One of our members generously donated a bunch of fly tying materials for all the students in our beginner's class. Each student went home with a bag stuffed to capacity with fly tying materials. Thanks, Glen! We have one event going on this month, the March Madness Fly Tying. Rahway River TU sponsors this annual event, which is held to tie flies to support fishing events for Project Healing Waters, Wounded Warriors, and Casting for Recovery (a women's breast cancer recovery group). We will have a number of our members attending this event. The event will be held this Saturday, March 7, in Cranford, NJ, at the Cranford Community Center from 9 am till 3 pm.

Next month we will be attending the annual Rutgers Day event on Saturday on April 25, 2020. This is a great event where we get a chance to tell the public about Trout Unlimited and introduce folks to fly casting. We will also be participating in the Musky Watershed Clean-up on Saturday, April 18, 2020. As usual, we will be working on the Point Mountain section of the Musconetcong River. Please consider spending a few hours with us to clean up trash along this section of the river. If you can help out at either event, send an email to volunteer@CJTU.org, and we will fill you in on all the details. We have a program in place to reward members who volunteer for chapter activities. At our annual BBQ in June, we will be giving away four $25.00 gift certificates to those folks who volunteered at least 4 hours of their time at chapter events. For every four hours, your name will be entered into a drawing for one of the gift certificates. We want to give back to those that give to us!

We have some great speakers lined up for you for the rest of the year. Attend our general meetings to check them out. The meetings are held eld on the second Tuesday of the month. They start at 7:30 pm for a little socializing and fly tying. Pizza, snacks, and beverages are usually on hand. The business portion of our meeting begins at 8:00 pm, and our guest speaker goes on immediately after. This month Tim Flagler of Tightlines Productions will be giving a presentation on Ken Lockwood Gorge. The Ken Lockwood Gorge on the South Branch of the Raritan River in Hunterdon County is one of New Jersey's premier trout fishing locales. The gorge is beautiful, has both wild and stocked fish, and is open to anglers year-round. As a result, there are often crowds, and the fish get pressured. Fortunately, there are some tips, techniques, and things to look for that'll help you to catch more fish in these challenging conditions. The presentation will include video of the gorge, its water, the bug life, and the flies we use to imitate it. This is a presentation you don't want to miss! I hope to see you there.

Tight Lines
Bart Lombardo

News & Events

Trout Season Opens
Saturday, April 11, 2020

Rutgers Day
Saturday, April 25, 2020

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CJTU is now part of the Amazon Smile program. By clicking through to Amazon with the above link, CJTU will receive a small percentage based on your purchase.

Fly of the Month

Long’s Hedgehog

Tied by Bill Ninke

With local rivers being fully liquid this year instead of the normal ice edged, the midge larva that were drifting merrily along the bottom in January have pupated and may on warm days be hatching and drifting on the surface as clusters of mating adult midges. The most common pattern for these clusters is the Griffith Gnat. This pattern, a simple palmer of a grizzly hackle over a peacock herl body, is often attributed to George Griffith, one of the founders of Trout Unlimited. The pattern was actually shown to him by a friend but it was his favorite pattern and he publicized it extensively, hence the name.

While the pattern is very effective it is hard to see and track on the surface. Also it rides high instead of settling deep in the film as do natural midge clusters. Fisherpeople often trim off the hackle below the hook shank to get the fly to ride lower. Enter this month’s fly, Ned Long’s Hedgehog, which deals with both these problems.

When you look at the photo of the fly above you’ll most likely say that’s just a Griffith Gnat tied in hackle stacker style with an added indicator up front so you can easily see and track the fly. And indeed it is. As you learned last month hackle stacker style uses a hackle wound on a thread or material core much like a parachute hackle with the core then pulled over to top of a pattern and tied off. This results in the hackle fibers sticking out of the top and sides of the pattern with none on the bottom. Ned Long, one of the early inventors of the style, called it Hedgehog.

What’s clever about Long’s pattern is that he winds the hackle around a core of brightly colored poly yarn so that when he pulls the core over the body and ties it off he is left with the yarn sticking out the front of the fly. .This yarn is bent back and wedged up with thread to form the indicator. No need to separately tie in an indicator. Long used a gallows tool to hold the yarn but I have modified the tying to use a loop of yarn which is held vertical by your left index finger while the hackle is wound. Thus the tying is strongly related to the tying of last month’s pattern. How to attach the hackle is the same as for last month’s pattern. How to form the yarn loop is covered in the tying instructions. The hackle winding and tie off are different from last month’s pattern so pay close attention to the related portion of the tying instructions.

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