Hi All,

This heat has brought a considerable increase in snow melt that raises the flows at the club.  The flows hit 8000 CFS yesterday.  That is not safe to fish in my view.    This is great for the fishery, but hard on us.  I have wanted to hold our annual Spey casting clinic, but the flows are still too high to hold the clinic.  I had hoped to fish today, but at these flows it would not be wise.   Holding a clinic would not be worth the cost & time to put on with these flows.  I will do my best to put on the clinic as soon as it is safe.

I thought about going down to the American to fish for Shad and discovered the American has the same problem at 15,000 CFS.  I think it is time for doing a day of wine tasting around the area.

I talked to my friend and member Jeff Putnam who puts on our clinics.  I consider Jeff the best instructor in the nation if not world when it comes to teaching Spey or even single handed casting. Jeff taught my daughter Heidi and she was casting very well in a hour or so.   It is not only his knowledge and ability, he has an incredible capacity to make you understand what you are doing and what you should be doing.  He makes it so easy to understand and also gives you tips that help you recognize when you are not casting correctly.   If the line is not doing what you want it to do, he gives you reference point that tells you what you are doing wrong.  That is what a great teacher does, whether it is golfing, casting or doing any sport.  If a golf ball slices right you know what caused it and you make correction.  Same with Jeff’s teaching process.  If your loop is not the correct shape you will know what you need to.  Jeff is also a great guy to hang around with as he is always a true gentlemen and has great stories. Jeff also has great videos on his website.  I  enjoy watching them over and over.  Particularly when I have fished for a while.  It is like getting a tune up.  Here is a link to Jeff’s website.  http://www.jpflyfishing.com/  You can get his phone number at the site.  If you can’t fish, you can always work of things that will help you when you are able to fish again.

It is the same with tying knots.  If you don’t do it for a while when you get on the river you not as fast or you may even have to play around a bit to tie the knot you want.  Just take the “nail knot”  that I tie maybe once a year.  That knot should take a few seconds.  Tie it once a year and it takes several minutes of your fishing time.  Just think about how much time you spend tying knot.  If you haven’t fished in a while grab a few yards of line and tie a few knots during a commercial when you are watching the news.  It your changing flies and using different techniques you can easily chew 20 minutes of your fishing time tying knots.  If you can cut that time down below five minutes it can be the difference between a good and bad day of fishing. If you are tying on a new fly during a hatch, every second is important.  Hatches normally do not go on long periods.  They come and go.  So work on tying that improved clinch, surgeons and perfection loop knots.  Here is a link to a good animation video of knots.  http://howtoflyfish.orvis.com/fly-fishing-knots/

 

Tight lines,

 

Tom