Boulder Flycasters is apart of a lot of great kids events that are happening right now. I got to partake in the Louisville Kids Fishing Derby last Friday afternoon. I had a table setup and was one of many tables that were teaching kids about fishing. Larry Quilling loaned me his insect collection, and I brought out my fly fishing flies, and I showed the kids that you don’t have to use live bait to catch fish. Most of the kids got it fairly quickly, it was the parents looking over their shoulder that had troubles coming to grasp the concept. After a couple discussions, I think the conclusion for most people is that fish are a lot dumber than the parents were giving them credit for. For a fish to think that a san juan worm will feel and taste like the real thing – they have to be dumb.
I brought some fake fishing poles for the kids to swing around in the air like they were fly fishing, one lucky girl got to reel in a fish that I put on the fly rod, and a couple kids that were old enough got to cast a real fly fishing pole. If you want to share your fly fishing experience with kids, there are a bunch of great activities in Boulder, Erie, and surrounding areas coming very soon. Feel free to contact me for more information at chadpettrone@yahoo.com
Pike Season is upon us and is a great way to get away from the river and into a 30+ inch fish. Pike fishing can be some of the most intense fresh water fly fishing that you can find. I caught this one on a 5w t rod with 25lb test mono, stripping a big red and white minnow immitation – he hit it mid-strip and took off running. If you haven’t been up close in person with these eating machines, they have some big sharp teeth that will rip right through your light line; or your hand if caught in a head shake while taking the hook out of their mouth (like this one did – don’t forget your pliers!). Pike are known for following flies, so most of the time you will strip a big pike fly (fast or slow – both work – I like fast, because you can watch the fly come in) all the way back to the leader, then dangle the fly in front of their face and watch them strike a rods length away from you. It’s an amazing thing to be apart of. Look to our events section of the blog for soon to come Pike Fishing Events.
Last call for Pike fisherman. I picked up one new travel partner yesterday and there is room for more. Your mother will understand!
Please join ME on a trip to the Nebraska Sand Hills for a private water pike fly-fishing adventure. The cost is very reasonable at $75 per person each day for lodging accommodations and access to Spring Meadows Ranch located 5 hours from Denver or 2 hours 20 minutes northeast of Cabelas in Sidney NB.
We will plan to depart Friday, May 8th arriving for some late afternoon fishing and departing by mid day Sunday May 10th. Transportation, food and beverage are not included but group meals could be planned if attendees agreed upon divisions of cost. Car pooling arrangements can also be made.
Please contact Larry Quilling for more information.
A number of Daily Camera readers today were concerned about the impact of our Rogers Park Project on the fishing and habitat in the project area. We assure you, this project was not approved without the oversight and scrutiny of the Corps of Engineers, Colorado Division of Wildlife and Boulder County. The project is designed to recreate the natural contour of the creek by adding sinuosity to the thalweg and generating more diverse pool-riffle-run habitat.
If you are interested in more about the science behind our restoration, please feel free to review the attached Aquatic Habitat Assessment report for more information.
Boulder Flyccaster volunteers are invited to attend a Colorado Division of Wildlife Speaker Series event: “A Year in the Life of an Aquatic Biologist” with Senior Aquatic Biologist Ken Kehmeier on May 19th at the DOW Fort Collins Service Center, 6-7:30pm. Come learn all about the aquatic program, what it’s like to be a biologist with the DOW, and how valuable the volunteers are to the program. Please let me know if you’d like to attend so we make sure they have enough room.
Everyone has bailed on the spring pike trip even though I received a report that over 50 fish were caught before noon Saturday last weekend!
Please join ME on a trip to the Nebraska Sand Hills for a private water pike fly-fishing adventure. The cost is very reasonable at $75 per person each day for lodging accommodations and access to Spring Meadows Ranch located 5 hours from Denver or 2 hours 20 minutes northeast of Cabelas in Sidney NB.
We will plan to depart Friday, May 8th arriving for some late afternoon fishing and departing by mid day Sunday May 10th. Transportation, food and beverage are not included but group meals could be planned if attendees agreed upon divisions of cost. Car pooling arrangements can also be made.
Don’t miss this great opportunity to chase these toothy predators with your fly-rod! Space is limited to the 1st ten anglers so sign up now!
Please contact Larry Quilling for more information.
Don’t forget to bring your mother!
Many of our members might respond, “hey, I’m a trout fisherman..I don’t do pike!”WATCH THIS!
Here are three tips to help you conserve water when you irrigate your lawn.
Check: If you have an irrigation system, check and repair all leaks. Replace any broken or damaged sprinkler heads. Adjust all the heads so that they direct their output onto the lawn rather than onto the street or the sidewalk. If you use a hose and a sprinkler, check the washers on the hose and the sprinkler to ensure that they form a watertight seal. Check the hose and make sure that there are no leaks. Also, check your faucets and repair any leaky fixtures.
Calculate: Determine the output of your irrigation system or sprinkler. Place five small cans in the area that you are watering. Water the area for thirty minutes, then measure the amount you’ve collected. If you collect 0.5, 0.6, 0.4, 0.5 and 0.5 inches in your cans, your total will be 2.5 inches of water. Divide 2.5 by five, your system will output one half of an inch of water in thirty minutes.
Measure: Measure how deep the moisture is penetrating the soil. Press a long, steel stake into the soil until you feel resistance against dry soil. Mark this spot on the stake, remove it, and measure from the business end to your mark. This will be the depth of moisture penetration.
Ideally, you want to irrigate your lawn so that the water penetrates to a level of about six inches (it should, however, be to the depth of the root zone). Assume the stake indicates that moisture has penetrated four inches of soil, you now have two points that you can correlate. Firstly, you know that your irrigation system or sprinkler will penetrate four inches of soil in 30 minutes. To get to six inches, you’ll have to water for 45 minutes. Secondly, you know how deep one half inch of precipitation will penetrate your soil. If you receive three quarters of an inch of rain, you have a pretty good idea that the moisture has penetrated the soil to six inches.
Keep a log of your irrigation practices and the amount of rainfall that you receive. Measure the moisture penetration after irrigating or receiving precipitation. Correlate the results. This will provide you with data that you can use to fine tune, and reduce, the amount of water that you use to irrigate your lawn. You will conserve water by irrigating less frequently and applying the right amount of water.
Why it is important to the fish: Frank Fisher, a retired biologist for California Department of Fish and Game, documented a direct correlation between increases in exports of water from the Sacramento River Delta and the decline of Sacramento River salmon. His research was largely ignored in 1992. Today, scientists from the National Marine Fisheries Service have reaffirmed Mr. Fisher’s research. They have concluded that diversions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta are adversely affecting the populations salmon, sturgeon, and the southern killer whale. The situation is dire. The Pacific Fishery Management Council has canceled the 2009 commercial chinook salmon season.
Water for domestic use comes from many sources including diversions. Exporting water via a diversion from a distant watershed to a metropolitan area is an expensive way to grow grass; it extracts a tremendous toll on our fish. Reducing your irrigation requirements is a good place to start when you are looking to conserve water in the home. Check your system, calculate your usage, and measure the depth of moisture penetration. Help to conserve water for our fish by conserving water in your home.
I have some good news and bad news concerning the volunteer day for stream bank restoration at the Roger Park project site. The good news is that the heavy in-stream work has now started, shortly before the big snow storm of April 15.We will posting details and pictures of the on-going work soon.More good news is that we got an additional grant to help finance the project. The bad news is that I got word recently that we will need to postpone the volunteer day until after run-off, probably to mid July. I was 99% sure that the May 16th date was good, but delays in the permitting process and an unexpected grant award (which has timing constraints) were the culprit, hence the delay. While this impacts a host of volunteers, it is actually good news: as I noted above, it now allows us to go full steam with the heavy contractor work and also allows to us fully fund the project and not put Boulder Flycasters and Colorado Trout Unlimited in the red. We will post a notice when the day is scheduled.I expect we’ll decide soon on the date, stay tuned!!
Greetings, I’m Mark Riley, Treasurer of Boulder Flycasters. I was born just outside NYC but we soon moved to Tulsa, OK where I spent the next 21 years. I grew up fishing with a Zebco rod and reel on the lakes of Oklahoma. I earned my undergraduate degree in accounting at Tulsa University and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. I spent most of my career in New England (Connecticut and Boston) working in software development management. I’ve been flyfishing for about 12 years, learning on the streams of New England. I retired early from the corporate world and we moved to Boulder in 2004. I’m married to Candice Kasai, an eight grade math teacher at Platt Middle School in Boulder and we have no kids.
I’ve been the Treasurer of BFC for four years and I’m on the Board of Directors.
My favorite fishing trip to date was not really a fishing trip at all trip at all — casting to Tigerfish on the Zambezi River in Zambia while viewing elephants, crocs, hippos, storks, cranes, etc was the experience of a lifetime. Around the Rockies, I love the Bighorn River and near home, I enjoy fishing Rocky Mountain National Park.
Besides fishing, I enjoy doing charitable work, skiing, scuba diving, reading, hiking, bicycling and I travel frequently.
I have some good news and bad news concerning the volunteer day for stream bank restoration at the Roger Park project site. The good news is that the heavy in-stream work has now started, shortly before the big snow storm of April 15.
