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www.cjtu.org |
March 2021 |
General MeetingVirtual Meeting
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President’s Letter
As I informed you last month we have two new Directors on the Board, Mike Marucci and Gordon Vickers both of whom are very dedicated. Mike has agreed to become the CJTU Financial Reviewer. This is an important role for someone who has no check signing ability, who will aid the Chapter by regularly review our accounts. He will be our second set of financial eyes. Gordon has agreed to serve as our Conservation Committee Chair and help to grow our Conservation efforts. Both of them are looking forward to meeting and working with as many CJTU members as possible on a variety projects. This gives us something to look forward to! We hope that more members will step up to participate in activities and events, do presentations, bring in new members and build and support our conservation work. Just a reminder, CJTU will be partnering with the Ernest Schweibert Chapter of TU at the Trenton River Days on 9/12 at the Riverwalk Park, near the Trenton Thunder Stadium. We will send out the further details as soon as we have them. We are hoping that members will volunteer to assist with the Temperature Monitoring at the Point Mountain stretch of the Musconetcong. This activity will help TU’s efforts and give the Chapter an opportunity to make a difference. There is even talk of an App that will help with the collection and submission of data. Gordon is hopeful that this will be one of the activities that bolsters CJTU conservation efforts and allows us to connect with other Chapters. Planning is going on now. We promise to keep you in the loop with additional information. We have an exciting speaker for our March 9th meeting, Kiki Galvin of Ms. Guided. She has a wide and varied background as an angler, teacher and guide. Kiki is well known for her extensive history in conservation and community outreach. We are looking forward to hearing Kiki’s presentation on “Classic Streamer Fishing”. We would like to put together a written account of the CJTU history. If you have anything important, interesting or especially poignant about the CJTU history that you would like to share with us, please let me or any of the Board members know about such an item. Old articles, write-ups or photos would be greatly appreciated. We would love to have a copy of your contribution. Hopefully when we get back together members will be able to share stories and memories. By the way, the catch and release fishing prior to opening day has been approved. We will have the full details shortly. The free fishing days in NJ are June 5th and October 23rd. Thank you for your support! Stay safe !
Marsha Benovengo, |
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News & EventsHelp CJTU when you shop at Amazon!
https://smile.amazon.com/ch/23-7355313 Use the link above to access amazon.com and help support CJTUAmazonSmile is a simple way for you to support your favorite charitable organization every time you shop, at no cost to you. AmazonSmile is available at smile.amazon.com on your web browser and can be activated in the Amazon Shopping app for iOS and Android phones. When you shop at AmazonSmile, you’ll find the exact same low prices, vast selection and convenient shopping experience as Amazon.com, with the added benefit that AmazonSmile will donate 0.5% of your eligible purchases to Central Jersey Trout Unlimited. More about amazon SmileOpening Day of the NJ Trout Season is Saturday, April 11, 2021The 2021 Spring Regulations are:
It's time for a new NJ Fishing License and Trout Stamp! You can get it here:https://nj.aspirafocus.com/internetsales 2021 New Jersey Freshwater Fishing Digest is available Here:https://www.nj.gov/dep/fgw/digfsh21.htm If you fish in saltwater you will need to register here:https://www.nj.gov/dep/saltwaterregistry/index.html Fly of the MonthEdwards’ Peeping Caddis UpdatedTied by Bill Ninke
Have you ever heard the belly of a trout “crunch” as you unhooked it in the net? If so, I’m betting it was on a New Jersey stream about this time of year. The source of the “crunch” is cased caddis and our local rivers are loaded with them, particularly the Musky. I have a belief that the trout are getting tired of scooping up the minutia I mentioned last month and are looking for a big meal as water temperatures warm. Yet, the nice “clean” chunks of food in the form of mayfly and stonefly nymphs are still growing while in hiding. So the only option for something “big” is a cased caddis which includes a lot of indigestible material. I’m not a biologist and have no hard data to support this belief but experience hasn’t dispelled it. My favorite cased caddis pattern is the Peeping Caddis. I learned this pattern while attending a class by the famous British tier Oliver Edwards at the International Fly Tying Symposium in the late 1990s. And for many of the intervening years I’ve tied it as taught then. But, fly tying materials continually change and to take advantage of these changes I’ve updated my tying of this pattern lately to incorporate a few of the new options. Different species of case-building caddis form their cases with assemblages of different materials. Some like small rocks and coarse sand granules. Others like twigs or other wood pieces. Some generate the material for their cases and cases look rubbery. Some use a little bit of all these options. As you can see from the above photo, this month’s pattern is a compromise. It doesn’t exactly match any of those you see on the stream but puts together key features from many of them. It consists of an imitation of a caddis case with a head representing the caddis larva peeping out from the case. A soft hackle behind the head represents the legs of the larva. Some weight at the head of the fly on the side of the hook opposite the bend causes the pattern to ride hook point up as it bounces along the bottom, hopefully snag free. As for updates, Edwards used a 2XL or 3XL straight shank nymph hook in size range 10 to 14. I like a York bend hook like the TMC 2302 in the same size range merely for the aesthetic reason of providing a nice curve upward from eye to hook point in the final pattern. For larva, Edwards used a synthetic yarn burned to give a black head. I like pearl core braid similarly burned since it provides a bit of additional sparkle. For weighting Edwards used a tin BB crimped on a short strand of monofilament. I like a slotted tungsten bead which wasn’t available when he designed the fly. Tungsten is much heavier than tin so the weight can be smaller and less intrusive. And the bead surrounds the hook shank and won’t pull off like the BB might. Penultimately, Edwards used hare’s ear dubbing to form the case. I like the modern dubbing of hare’s ear mixed with antron to give a little sparkle to the body which in the naturals is typically provided by small coarse sand particles. Finally, Edwards used a loop of thread to hold the dubbing which is twisted and wound to form the case. Modern threads like 6/0 Semperfli are very strong and split easily. So split thread dubbing is quicker and easier than using a loop. No need for a dubbing whirl which always seems to be getting in the way with the thread bobbin when you use a dubbing loop. As for fishing this pattern, you need drift it on the bottom as a tail fly. A small nymph on a dropper a foot above the caddis is recommended. This combo should serve you well when it’s crunch time. Click here for the recipe! |
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Central Jersey Trout Unlimited’s Supporters
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As we look forward to Spring, and all that it will bring, it is an exciting time of change and renewal. We are grateful for the work of members and we are looking forward to the contributions of longtime CJTU members a well as new members.
