January 2014 – Rhody Fly Rodders Newsletter
Peter Nilsen does a superb job with design, format, and content. Thanks Peter for keeping us informed.
Video by Dr. Aaron Adams discussing different features of fly design.
The January meeting of Rhody Fly Rodders will be held on Tuesday, January 21st, at 6:30pm. (Rescheduled to February 18th)
Our presenter this evening will be our own, Capt. Ray Stachelek, a 20 year member of Rhody Fly Rodders and a long time Captain and guide, providing fly fishing and light tackle charters in Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island sound for many years.
Capt. Ray h
as been winding thread for 50 years and is a pro-tyer for Umpqua, and an author of many fly fishing articles for numerous fly fishing publications.
His presentation is an excellent fly tying program with information, and some great Micro photography, about learning to make the task of winding thread easier and simpler, including tips to improve anyone’s bench performance regardless of tying level. Ray will also discuss and cover the progression of some our tying tools in fly tying history. Also, he’ll be showing many successful flies for fresh and saltwater.
Come join us for what should be a very informative evening. The coffee pot is always on and bar refreshments are available. Bring a friend! Bring Two!
by Alan Caolo | July 24th, 2013
John Repoza with a nice bass
Striped bass subsist on a wide array of forage. By weight, they consume baitfish more than any other food source, and fly fishers take the majority of their fish on various types of baitfish imitations. But stripers can be acutely selective, and they routinely defy anglers who exclusively fish baitfish flies. This is particularly true on the flats, where stripers turn their focus to crabs, juvenile flounder, and shrimp, perhaps 60 to 70 percent of the time. Based on numbers of prey consumed, shrimp are most important for inshore-feeding bass, especially during the warmer months of the season—anglers equipped with a good shrimp pattern are prepared for these picky fish.
By Tom Keer
“…South County is one of the prettiest parts of the Ocean State, but you won’t find it on a map. It’s a colloquial reference that has been argued about for more than a century. The official name of the southwestern part of Rhode Island is Washington County, and it includes the towns of Charlestown, Exeter, Hopkinton, Narragansett, North Kingstown, Richmond, South Kingstown, Westerly, and West Greenwich. In general terms, it stretches from the Connecticut border east to Greenwich Bay”
Check out this pattern on Steve Culton blog Current Seams
“While I am loathe to use the phrase “go-to-pattern,” I beg to report that Ken Abrames’ Big Eelie is my go-to pattern when there are large sand eels around.”
David Pickering – Friday January 3, 2014
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“…I landed over 1200 stripers in 2013, my best year of the last 5 years as far as numbers. Yet, numbers don’t tell the whole story. My numbers of keepers were down compared to recent years and large keepers were really down. This is probably the first time in the last five years that I did not land a 40 inch fish from shore in RI waters (got some at the Cape and from the boat though). There are lots of complaints out there about the declining numbers of keeper fish, particularly from shore fishermen. Unfortunately, I think this trend will continue as keeper bass are highly targeted by commerical as well as recreational fishermen. I see 2014 as a year of big numbers of schoolies but even poorer numbers of keepers.” more…
It’s a special time for fly fishermen. If you have never fished the spring run then you have missed the sweetest part. It’s a wonderful time to fish for stripers. The things you see can only be witnessed in the spring. The spawning shrimp and mummies, the horseshoe crabs bumping into your booted feet, the silversides and the clam worm hatch and stripers. Stripers everywhere. That’s how I like to think about spring. Tidal rivers and creeks, small water, fish that are predictable in where they hold and feed. Good fishing, easy and hard, sometimes a stretch to catch even one and sometimes you leave exhausted from way too many fish caught and the next evening you return and do it all again. It’s the way it is in spring. Read more here…
Joe floating the Deschutes Photo: Tom Fowlks