General Meeting……………………
No monthly meeting in July – August BBQ
Summer Raffle Schedule……………………
President’s Line……………………
Fly Tying……………………
July Class: Copper John
Fly of the Month: Renegade Fly
Conservation Concerns……………
Tulare Lake is Back—For Now
Membership Notes…………………
Club Activities – July
Fly Casting Meetup July 22 at Jade St. Park
2023 Rosters available August BBQ
Fishout Schedule…………………
Cartoon ……………………
Posted on June 28th, 2023
| Info | Date | Excerpt |
|---|---|---|
Join us in August for a BBQ at the Aptos Grange. Hamburger, hot dogs, salad and sodas. BYOB. |
Aug 02 | Club BBQ |
Posted on June 14th, 2023
The Fly Club raffle is taking a short break for the summer. There will be no meeting or raffle in July, in lieu of the August meeting we will be holding our annual summer BBQ. No raffle but we will have some great door prizes. Don’t miss out.
September will see our regular meeting with both online and in-person raffle ticket sales.
Many thanks to all who participate in our raffles, your support is greatly appreciated.
Posted on June 26th, 2023
When I joined the Santa Cruz Fly Fishing club, I assumed that I was going to learn how to cast, where to go, how to read water, and land a fish. One day, I asked Sam Bishop where I could buy surf perch flies and he looked at me with incredulity. “You don’t buy them, you make ’em and if it takes longer than 3 minutes, than you did it wrong.” So a bit chastened, I went to to a fly tying class which featured a surf perch fly. On the left is a picture from the Feb. 2020 newsletter and on the right is the fly that I tied in the class. Let’s just say that I wasn’t a natural.
With that experience and COVID shutting down all in-person activities, it should have been the end of my fly tying. However by September, Tom Hogye (past-president) convinced Elaine to teach fly tying online using Zoom and I volunteered to help Elaine run the Zoom class which means I participated in the class. Over the months, I started to look forward to spending an evening a month in the Zoom class with other club members. Now I watch YouTube videos on tying, go to club swap meets, and buy material on-line. Oh and I still go to the monthly tying classes to learn from others in the club. I even think my tying has improved.
Over the summer months, we will have guest club instructors including Tom Eckert, Greg Foy, Jerry McKeon, and Michael Sherwood. You should give it a try, you might accidentally become a tyer.
Have a wonderful 4th of July,
Scott Kitayama, President
P.S. The fly that Sam was referring to is the “orange stick”. Very effective, fast to tie, and only uses two materials. I am not sure you can buy it. You might just have to make ’em.
Posted on June 14th, 2023
Jul 12 6:30 PM @ Aptos Grange
John Barr’s “Copper John” is our fly for this month’s class . This attractor fly has a stonefly nymph’s biot tail with a red wire body and a mayfly like thorax. The bead head and wire body help the fly sink to the bottom of the water column and hopefully grab the attention of some chunky opportunistic trout. Bring black 6/0 or 8/0 thread, other materials will be supplied. The club has tools to lend for beginners. I hope to see you there! My phone number is below, please text message or call to sign up.
Greg Foy – ph/txt: (831) 239-8780
Future tying classes. Dates and subject may change, please go to Fly Name to see more information.
| Date | Fly | Excerpt | |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Aug 09 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm | Chubby Chernobyl | Guest Instructor: Jerry McKeon |
 | Sep 13 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm | Barry Smelt | Guest instructor: Michael Sherwood |
 | Oct 11 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm | October Caddis - Fly Tying Class | All club members are welcome! |
Posted on June 16th, 2023
This dry fly pattern has been around for decades. It is an effective attractor, easy to tie, easy to see.
1. HOOK: TMC 100 (or any standard dry fly hook). Size 10-18
Crimp barb.
2. THREAD: Black 6/0, or 8/0 depending on size of hook.
Attach thread, 3/4 back on shank.
3. TAG: small or find flat gold tinsel.
Tie in back to above barb with silver side facing you. Hand wrap tinsel around 1/3 of curve of hook and back to starting point.
NOTE: that will expose gold side of tinsel. Tie off cut access.
4. REAR HACKLE: brown or grizzly Barbs equal to 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 times hook gap. Remove any fuzz at base of stem. Cut 4 to 5 barbs short on each side of stem (crew cut). Tie crew cut in with feather tip to the rear and light side of feather facing you. Advance thread 1/4 back on shank. Wrap feather forward to thread with close wraps and tie off. Cut excess.
5. BODY: peacock herl.
Using 2 to 4 strands, break off fragile tips. Tie in tips. Reinforce hurl with thread loop and dubbing tool. Advance thread to 1/4 back on shank. Twist thread loop forming a chenille. Wrap chenille forward forming a generous body. Tie off cut access.
6. FORWARD HACKLE: white or cream grizzly Barbs equal two 1 1/2 to 2 times hook gap.
Prepare feather the same as above. Move thread to one by length behind eye. Wrap feather forward with close wraps. Tie off, cut excess. Wrap small thread head. Tie off, cut thread. Apply superglue, if using a large hook.
Posted on April 21st, 2023
Some of the expected outcomes of the onslaught of storms this year are the near record snowpack, reservoirs full to the brim and swollen rivers. With climate change, we can expect more drastic swings between flooding and drought in a feast-or-famine cycle. One event during heavy rain and snowpack years is the re-emergence of the “ghost lake”—Tulare Lake. Part of the complex history of man controlling water in California, Tulare has an interesting legacy. Tulare Lake was once the largest lake west of the Mississippi River, although its size varied between dry and wet periods. It was fed by the Kings, Tule, Kaweah and smaller rivers. During a typical year, the lake covered 650-700 square miles!
It provided habitat to a vast number of wildlife including thicktail chub (now extinct), hitch, blackfish, Sacramento perch, pikeminnow, sucker, Tule Elk, blackbirds, singing marsh wrens, geese, ducks white pelicans, black cormorants, herons, egrets, frogs, turtles, otters and beaver. Living off the abundance of wildlife were the indigenous Yokuts bands.
The demise of the Yokuts and Tulare lake can be traced to the appearance of European settlers. In the case of the Yokuts, malaria, smallpox, enslavement, genocide and the loss of their ancestral land were certainly devastating.
For Tulare Lake, after California became a State, the newly annexed “swamp and overflow” land in the area was subject to sale by the federal government for pennies. The conditions for sale were that the lake can be crossed in a boat and that the prospective buyer was willing to drain the lake for the purpose of farming. With this incentive, farmers engaged in constructing levees and other water containment measures to make the lake bed farmable. The final blow to the lake came in the first half of the 20th century with the influx of mega farming. These farmers had a hand in convincing the Army Corps of Engineers to spend millions of dollars building Pine Flat Dam on the Kings River as a flood control structure. Following shortly afterwards, dams on the Kaweah, Tule, and Kern Rivers were built. So, except during years when the snowmelt overwhelms the flood control infrastructure (1969, 1983, and 1997 and 2023) Tulare Lake does not exist. From a wildlife resurgence perspective, this year can be considered a wonderful event. Not to mention recharging much-depleted aquifers that have been over-drawn over the years. The downside is how all the water has disrupted and displaced residents in the region. Many of the residents are on the low end of the income scale, will loose farming jobs. Water managers in the area think that it may take a year or two to reclaim much of the lake for farming, costing the economy over a billion dollars.
While we will never return Tulare Lake to its historic glory, I can’t help from thinking if a scaled back version of the lake would be a compromise for the best interests for all stakeholders in California.
For an interesting read, see the following website: https://californiawaterblog.com/2023/04/16/lake-tulare-and-its-fishes-shall-rise-again/
Posted on June 21st, 2023
| Date | Activity Link | Description | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 22 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm | Fly Casting Meetup | Bring your lawn chair, lunch, and fly rod to practice casting with other SCFF club members. | Jade Street Park baseball field |
| Aug 26 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm | Fly Casting Meetup | Bring your lawn chair, lunch, and fly rod to practice casting with other SCFF club members. | Jade Street Park baseball field |
Posted on June 28th, 2023
Additional 2023 Rosters are available at the August BBQ @ the Aptos Grange. Please email me if you cannot make the BBQ and want a Roster at Robert6367@aol.com.
Posted on June 24th, 2023
The newsletter provides brief fishout info. For full detail, go to the website menu and select EVENTS -> Fishout Schedule
| EVENT NAME | EVENT DATE | SPECIES | FISH MASTER |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lake Almanor/Hex Hatch – Jun 25 – Jul 1 2023 – New Info | Jun 24 - Jul 01 | ||
| Palm Beach Surf Fishout | Jul 01 | Surf Perch / Striped Bass | Sam Bishop |
| Loreto Fly Fishing Trip July 2023 | Jul 16 - Jul 20 | Salty Sharp Toothed Fishy Critters | Rich Hughett |
| Kennedy Meadows / Sonora Pass – Fish-Out 2023 | Jul 23 - Jul 27 | Trout | Tom Hogye |
| Rio Del Mar State Beach Surf Fishout | Aug 05 | Surf Perch / Striped Bass | Sam Bishop |
| Manresa State Beach Surf Fishout | Sep 02 | Surf Perch / Striped Bass | To Be Determined |
| Upper Sacramento River Fishout (Dunsmuir) | Sep 08 - Sep 10 | Trout | Alex Ferber |
| Mammoth Fishout – UPDATED – | Sep 23 - Oct 07 | Trouts | John Cook |
| October surf fishout – Beer Can | Oct 07 | perch, stripers | Sam Bishop - Fishing; Mike Lovejoy - Breakfast |
| Kelly Lake – Watsonville (bass, crappie) – CONFIRMED Oct 14 | Oct 14 | Bass, crappie, bluegill | Scott Kitayama |
| O’Neill Forebay ‘Stosh’ Memorial Fishout | Oct 19 - Oct 22 | Striped Bass | Kevin Murdock |
| 2023 Fishout Round-Up | Dec 01 - Dec 02 | FISH | Club Members |
| Upper Sacramento River Fishout (Dunsmuir) Date Postponed High Water | Mar 15 - Mar 17 | Trout | Alex Ferber |
| Pyramid Lake Fish-out April 1 – April 7, 2024 – New Info | Apr 01 - Apr 07 | Lahontan Cutthroat Trout | Mike White - (831) 706-5556 |
| Kelly Lake – Watsonville (bass, crappie) | Apr 20 | Bass, crappie, bluegill | Scott Kitayama |
Posted on June 16th, 2023
Posted on June 15th, 2023
