fsabac

The dates for Tie&Talk in June and July are: June 8 and 22, July 6 and 20. The time will be 7:30 as usual. I will be available to host the meeting on zoom on these dates unless stated otherwise. Tight lines and tight threads! Florin

Not to make things too complicated, but I was thinking whether we could hang out and talk without one of us having to host the meeting. One way to do that is to create a virtual meeting room where anyone can join whenever they come (if too early, they will be alone for a while) and the meeting stays open until the last person leaves. If any of you are interested for next week, we could test drive Jitsi Meet. As far as I can see, it offers all the features of zoom and has more of a distributed hosting flavour, quite suitable for small meetings like ours. Here is the link, it should work in any up to date browser: https://meet.jit.si/virtualNLFTmay2020 Florin

Here is the link fro Dave Robinson, in case any of you are interested in joining the Saturday morning fly tying. Remember, this is for April 25 at 11 MDT/10 PDT: Dear Fellow Fly Tye-ers Rather than sending out “how to” directions each week, I have now made a User Guide webpage on Zoom Videoconferencing. Link to this Saturday’s Zoom Videoconference Fly Tying Event JohnP Golden Rods and Reels Virtual Fly Tying April 25, 2020 10:00 am Pattern - Klinkhammer Hook: #10 to #14 Hannek Klinkhammer Thread: 8/0 or 10/0 Tan Wing/Post: Antron wool - Beige, White or Grey Abdomen: Fine dubbing - Olive or Cahill Hackle: Grizzly Neck or Saddle Thorax: Peacock herl Comment: Parachute Dry Fly Developed by Hans Van Klinken of Holland Hook is bent near the eye Designed to sit with abdomen below the surface film Whip finish is around the wing post John Pierce will send out e-mails with the Zoom link Dave Robinson

With provincial and national parks closed and the overall recommendation to stay home or close enough many of us may not be fishing as much as we would like. Is there any interest in some kind of online get together? It is not the best, but better than not. Zoom is an option (RASC has a premium account so they can have more people, maybe we could do the same) but there are other alternatives. We can certainly do some tying-along, a show and tell on what we are tying now, or a round table on some other topic. If anyone had a presentation ready to go, that can also be done online. Any thoughts? I attach some pictures from last year....things that I could not do this year. Florin

Thanks guys, this is helpful. I also forgot that we have "good weeds" and "bad weeds". Flushing is of course good, that is the job of runoff and that is where dams screw up rivers. I will take my bug net to see what the river bottoms are holding. I am not worried so much about the fish, they swim in water and can return as the waters return to normal. What I am curious to find out is whether the substrate gets scoured to such an extent that the invertebrates living in it and on it are wiped out

No need, it shows the same all summer long... On a more serious note, there used to be a map of lightning strikes as they were occuring. That seems to be gone, but there is the following http://weather.gc.ca/lightning/index_e.html for those of you with phones and data access in the woods. There is also http://weather.gc.ca/radar/index_e.html?id=WHK for home-range trips and, for longer-range planning, I use http://www.wxmaps.org/pix/prec2.html All good stuff, who needs to go outside anymore?

Fair enough. The disappearance of happy salad beds is not necessarily good. Those translate into food and shelter. I used to have good pike, goldeye, and walleye fishing in the city on the river close to my home before the flood in 2004. Not anymore. And the happy salad beds are gone, together with beavers, etc. Keeping in mind the most recent flood of 2004 in cental AB, my question is whether the flood was enough to do damage to the fishery. Does anyone know anything? Are we going to have to wait almost ten years for the fish to recover, like with the Red Deer? Also, do you guys know how far the flood damage extended? I checked the water level histories on many of the fishy rivers and they all show quite the spike around the 22nd of June. What I cannot tell is whether these levels are normal runoff or catastrophic flooding. Any information would be helpful. I am thinking of a few days of stream fishing in mid-August, and I wonder if it is even worth bothering South of the Athabasca drainage. Any thoughts on that? Florin

Very interesting discussion. Another approach is to improve your peronal forecasting skills. On a lake, keep an eye on the sky and learn the prevailing direction of the weather. The typical thunderstorm is an afternoon event not likely to take anyone by surprise. I do get off the water when I hear thunder. I also shorten the distance between me and shelter ahead of time if the weather looks threatening. That is, row closer to the boat ramp/dock before I even hear thunder. Also, the timing of thunderstorms follows a fairly regular pattern as you move away from the foothills where they usually build. For a quick trip from home, check the radar before leaving, you may be able to fish the clearing right after a storm. The weather is also pretty regular in a set location. Use your past experience to learn the weather patterns on your favourite water. I pretty much stay away from the Rocky Mountain House to Red Deer corridor in June-July. I am sure to be missing on some good fishing, but I do get to fish another time... On a river, in the forest, hidden in a valley it is harder to tell, but the sky is still visible and thunderstorms are more clearly defined closer to the mountains. The timing is also more likely early to mid-afternoon. If there is a chance of electrical activity in the near future, I do not go far, or stay in and tie flies. The tricky ones are the electrical storms that develop within overcast rainy weather. Rarely, these roll through in the morning. If you are not sure of electrical activity, use a lighning detector or a radio tuned between stations on the AM band. If it is all clear, then head out. Otherwise... Finally, some of the best fishing is between late September until late April, including warm days in January. No lightning, no mosquitoes, no high UV, no excessive heat, no murky water, not even bears if you shrink the window a little more (but then it is also closed on many streams). If you are like me and do not enjoy hot and humid, then you are even less likely to get too close to funny weather. See example of good weather below.

Good point Roy, why should only the astronomers have fun? Here is another idea. Get the camera solidly on a tripod. Take several pictures from the same spot and send it to the photo half of the club to stack those images into a beautiful sharp picture, or a 3d like model you can play with. Here is a link to see what kind of stuff can be done these days: http://www.heliconsoft.com/. The astronomers use stacking software to milk more light out of the sky, this stuff is a little different. In addition to the flies we tie, it would make for great aquatic invertebrate shots with lots of detail...Which is very tempting, but requires some serious gear, starting with a sharp macro lens. I would not want my flies photographed too closely, you can see all kinds of things going wrong, loss of sleep at night, no good. Those are well tied flies Jim, they stand up to having their picture taken. Well done. Florin

Are we affected as Edmonton residents or as fishermen? Maybe we should bring this up at the next Wednesday meeting before we get into chicken talk. Since there is a deadline, we cannot wait for the next business meeting or executive meeting. Alberta is a dry place. The glaciers are receding. We've had some good snow pack the last couple of years, but aquifers are more of a long-term issue. This is more serious than a city of a million, because not all the water used by a city is lost to evaporation, some of it goes back to the river. The evaporated water is also not lost from the hydrological cycle. Water pumped down an oil well is gone for a while...We're talking geological time scales now. As far as we are concerned, that is as good as for ever. Florin

Organic rods, organic lines.... Maybe I do not fish enough, but my lines have been lasting a long long time with minimal or no maintenance. I was looking at ice augers last night. The Devil rears its ugly head at this time of the year. Testing my resolve. One of these days I should try silk on the cane, but I need to slow down more. I am getting there (almost) for fishing the cane, but the silk line is another step in slowing down. I guess I should learn to nap on the bank first. Instead ordered some #2 silk beading cord to try on wet flies and serendipities. Time to sit at the vise I guess and stop rambling. Florin

Well, I do not have to work on Sunday...Anyone seriously going?

This is the first lake I started fishing when I moved to Edmonton in 2000. I wish I had taken water samples or had done some systematic observations. Over this time, three things stood out: a prolonged drought that drove the water levels down significantly, a marked deterioration of water quality (increase in nutrient levels as evidenced by the suspended algae), and the island changed from a few geese nesting to a big bird colony as the size of the island increased when the water went down. I do not know how these three changes are related and what had caused them, the drought may have been the driving force. My guess is that the water quality is too low for trout. I have no idea if it can sustain other fish, such as walleye or pike. My opinion on this one is that discussing fish species before we address water quality issues is fruitless. Think of the fish as fruits on a tree, where the tree is the habitat. No habitat, no fish. You cannot grow oranges on a plastic Chrismas tree. Bottom line: is there something that we (NLFT/TU) can do to improve habitat in local (eutrophic) lakes? I suggest we find some experts on this and invite them for a presentation/discussion to learn some hard facts. Florin

Book is on the way (only one copy), should be here on Wednesday, may or may not make it to the meeting on time. Florin

I voted yes and I can bring my own small collection to illustrate. Maybe some fresh bugs as well, weather permitting. No unnecessary killing of bugs required, once you have a couple of specimens and you know you are not adding new species, just let them go. Otherwise, no harm done on the population. I suggest an evening program (or more) on bug collecting.

If there are drafts of these materials being prepared, we could have them circulated and we can edit them into something that we can print and offer to the participants in the tying courses. As for discussing things when we cannot meet, we could try to set up conferencing over skype (or similar). The other day, I demonstrated the nymph that Mike tied at the club meeting to my Dad who is now overseas, nine time zones away. It was fun and we were both comfortably at home. A separate webcam is necessary to get a good angle on the fly tying and close-ups, other than that, all of us already have the gear and the internet access. If we had WIFi at the meetings, we could also bring in distant guests. That should be fun. Florin

OK, maybe I should come clean, too. I do not think I have managed to tie that many flies, but I have a stack of full boxes. I will count and report back. Instead of throwing away the lot, I try to do the following. Before I get on the water, I pick two to four boxes to put in my vest, the rest stay in the car. During the Winter I do not carry Hoppers, adult Stoneflies, Green Drakes, etc, at all. The Boatmen are confined to my lake gear, I know I should not... If I am going to fish the Maligne, I will also not carry on the stream delicate small flies that would be suitable for Stauffer. So far, I seem to manage with three to four boxes reasonable well. I use a Filson foul-weather vest, with backpack and two large pockets in the front. I could cram four standard C&F boxes in each pocket. Now, I am trying to get by with two per pocket. The C&F boxes are pricey but their interchangeable inserts fit the above method perfectly. You can basically load up your minimalist two to three boxes by taking the empty shells and putting in the desired inserts. We should try the following exercise: name a water (and a season if required), then put up a list of what works when and why. Repeat. Once we have enough data, look for patterns of flies that can be grouped together. These become your building blocks for what to take on the stream. We could do this on an open night? So much for flies. I pack way too much other gear: in the Summer, clothing from tropical conditions to Arctic blizzards, spare rods and reels (this is actually good when one of your buddies breaks a rod or forgets his reels at home!), fly tying stuff, binoculars/birding stuff, bug collecting kit, coffee making implements (including the indispensable Kelly kettle), waterproof camera in the pocket, SLR for other wildlife opportunities, battery chargers, etc. I have not included food here... The net result, is that me and another guy (packing reasonably little) fill up the station wagon to the gills, including the rooftop box, for nothing more elaborate than a five-day trip to the Crow. It is true, I could last a month with the stuff, or just move there, other than groceries... Any fellow sufferers?

Here is the book: http://www.amazon.com/Tying-Fishing-Soft-Hackled-Nymphs-Allen/dp/1571884033 I am sure we do not have it. Should I order a copy? Florin

Very nice and instructive, thanks guys for all the information. The little that I fish of streamers tends to be either on a floating line, or with a sink tip, both easy to mend. On a lake, an intermediate line is all I seem to ever need for pike! Now a question: I know these classics were tied on long-shank hooks and they look just right. However, my experience with long shanks is that they apply a lot of leverage and can come out easily. Some argue that is because the hook works itself loose and does more damage to the fish than a short shank. How much of this is true? My limited experience with the longer shank (3x-4x) is that I loose fish easily, so that is some anecdotal evidence in support of at least some of the claims. How about the rest? Florin

I am sorry, but a bit of Latin is coming our way. In the order Plecoptera (Stoneflies), Clifford (1991) mentions the family Pteronarcydae with two genera present in Alberta: Pteronarcys and Pteronarcella. No further information is given as to species within the genus Pteronarcys. A Pteronarcys larva is depicted on p. 258. Now, to the topic at hand, I have not found information specific to the species Pteronarcys californica and its presence or absence from AB. That means it is perfectly possible that other species in the genus Pteronarcys are present without us having P. californica in our streams. My other books do not give identification to species level, although McCafferty (1981) does talk about several species within the genus. It may very well be that all we have here is P. dorsata. The entomology museum at the U of A has 17 specimens of this particular species, see http://entomology.mu...ails.php?s=2134 . Rick, my question is where do we know from that P. californica is not present in AB? By all accounts, it seems quite plausible. Does it matter for tying the adults, because I get the feeling it does not matter for the nymphs? I know my pickled nymphs are in the genus Pteronarcys and they came from the Clearwater not far from Prairie Creek. I am not suggesting you are confusing Plecoptera with Trichoptera. It may very well be that my nymphs, like that in the photo are all P. dorsata. Unfortunately, I have not enough information to attempt an identification at the species level. I'll miss next week's meeting, but I will be back a week from Friday, we can look at some bugs together if you like. Florin

Gary, you are right, as the nymphs crawl to the shore to emerge from the nymphal shucks (which they do on land), they become available to the fish. What I take from this is that Pteronarcys is a nymph that is only worth fishing around the time the hatch is on. Definitely not a general searching pattern. That looks very much like Pteronarcys. If you keep it in alcohol, I can look at it in two weeks at our last meeting for the year. I can bring my samples in as well. Alternatively, you could do a few more photos, including from the underside (belly) to show the white gills on the thorax. This is really for fun, because you can always fish a big black nymph... Florin

Thanks, Aaron, I will keep the information in mind. On the one occasion I sampled the bugs at Dolberg, I did not get beetles, but of course that does not mean much. Backswimmers can be crunchy, and they have a big cousin (huge) with a nasty bite. Avoid getting your hands near one of these monsters! The water beetles, including the ones you mention, are more abundant and harmless to us. I have a few beetles I tied simply as oversized versions of boatmen/backswimmer patterns. Lately, the Prince nymph has become my favourite boatman/backswimmer pattern; they also work in larger sizes (#8-6) sometimes. Florin

Hi Dan, welcome to the club. Keep in touch. Too hard to predict this far ahead for me, but I work in the B-school and you should come by my office on your next trip to Edmonton. I know where the good coffee is. Pike is another fish you do not see in your area... Florin

Rick, I have personally held fish with crunchy bellies. That felt very much like snails. Another possibility is clams, there are small ones I dug out of the mud at Dolberg. Sucking the snail out of the shell must be quite a sight, I'll look more carefully around. On the water mixing, that is an interesting theory. I wonder if the two aerators would suffice to keep the whole lake mixed all winter long. I have seen stuff float about after strong wind, but Muir on Sunday looked different. Some of the plant material I was picking up should have been happily rotting on the bottom, that is why I have difficulty blaming it on the wind. Maybe it is all those sinking lines dragging on the bottom...We would have to go out with thermometers attached to a line to figure this one out. Florin

I am wondering if over this last week our lakes have been turning over. Symptoms: murky water when the algae had not had a chance to bloom and iffy fish-catching. I was at Cardiff on May 7th and Muir on May 13th. Muir looked pretty awful, with brown muck floating about. Anyone else had similar experiences other places? I am tempted to stay put for a week (is that enough?) until the water settles. I wish I had taken my camera at Muir: Geese, Loons, Pelicans, and others doing cute birdy things in low sunset light.