Warm Water Fly Fish Clinic - @ NCWRC Pechmann Center 6-13-09

[Al]

The last of seven scheduled fly fishing clinics for the year 2009 took place on Saturday, June 13th at the NCWRC John E. Pechmann Fishing Education Center in Fayetteville NC. The weather was hot but the fish were biting and twenty-two participants had a great time testing newly aquired skills.

As with all of our clinics we start off in the classroom for a brief overview. We then break down into small groups and rotate through several stations where subject matter experts share their knowledge through talks and hands on exercise.


The healthy habitat and fishermen's ethics always draws some interesting discussions.


Today we were fortunate to have a volunteer fly tyer who specializes in foam popping bugs. Many of the participants would have stayed to watch him work his magic for several sessions if we had not moved them along.


Casting looks so graceful and easy but it is a learned skill and many of our participants find that there is more to it then just whipping the rod back and forth. We had enough volunteers to give them one on one instruction. By the end of the session the majority could lay a fly line out with pretty good form.


Volunteers come in all sizes. This is Ryan. He is the 13 year old son of a soldier who is now deployed. He and his dad came to us last year as a father and son volunteer team. Ryan has good skills and lots of energy. Give him a mission and a little supervision and he will get the job done. Today he was one of our knot experts.


You can't start fishing until your get this odd looking rod assembled.


The clinic consists of classes in the morning and fishing in the afternoon. We have ten ponds which are well stocked with fish of catchable size. All fishing is on a "catch and release" basis. Species available include catfish, bream, bass and hybrid bass. We furnish all of the equipment, however if participants have their own they are encouraged to use it. Bream were eager to hit small foam bugs today. The first fish always brings a nice smile.


The catfish were the stars of the show again today. They are fairly easy to fool with a nymph hung under a popping bug or a woolly bugger slowly stripped about a foot under the surface. This lady was not going to touch "that slimy old fish" so our fly tying volunteer stepped in to assist.


After several more successful hook ups she change her mind and handled them all on her own -" thank you very much"


It was hot out there today. We had lots of Gator-Aid and made sure everyone stayed well hydrated. This young fellow  looked a little peaked after catching several catfish in a row. They were biting and he did not want to leave them. After this photo I had to insist that he take a break and hit the Gator-Aid.


Ryan, our young volunteer, caught the big fish of the day. As you can see, it created quite a stir.


Lots of fish caught today. The bream and catfish earned their keep. We did have some bass and hybrid strippers caught but I did not get a photo of them. All in all a good day and a good way to end the scheduled fly fishing season. We will kick back and slow down a bit for the remainder of 2009. We will continue to host Wounded Warriors & NC Handicapped Sportsmen on the 2nd Wednesday of each month and of course the Pechmann Center has several public bait fishing events on it's calendar.

I can't close this out without publicly saying thank you to all of our wonderful volunteers. They give untold numbers of hours to make the fly fishing program possible. They let me think I am in charge but I know they are the heroes of the whole operation. Thank you guys and Jeanette. The good Lord willing we will do it all over again next year.

[Al]

One of our volunteers just sent me some photos so I will share.

We have some real lunker bass in one of our ponds. Last week while testing the water a few of us were able to entice them with foam poppers. The folks fishing for them on Saturday tried that same tactic to no avail. I suspect there was so much "popping going on that the bass said "what to h*ll" and hunkered on down to wait out the onslaught.

The volunteer pictured below switched to #4 long shank black nymph with orange butt which he swam about 2 feet off bottom and nailed two very nice fish. If you look closely at the bottom photo you will see the secret fly hanging on the edge fish's jaw.

[Al]

I just received this photo from a dad who is also a Wounded Warrior who was with us for last weeks WW event. He and his son Hunter came to our Warm Water Clinic. Smiles like this are what keeps us volunteers coming back.

[brownhunter]

Al,
It is wonderful what you have done and have continually done with all the different programs that you run. Thanks for keeping us posted, and keep up the good work!!!

[5xTippett]

Job well done, Al.