Stone Mountain Chapter - Trout Unlimited

The TIC meeting will be re-scheduled for next month due to inclement weather.

Due to the sketchy weather for tomorrow nights meeting our presenters will be rescheduled for next months meeting. This was to be the ladies from East Wilkes Middle School who are our first TIC participants. We may also try to set up a presentation later this month at EWMS so the girls can meet there Envirothon dead line and I will post the time and date for that. So be sure and check back with us late this week.

Recently Stone Mountain TU made the front page of the Wilkes Journal Patriot with our Trout in the Classroom Program we have at East Wilkes Middle School. Thanks to everyone for their help especially the teachers and students participating. Keep up the good work.

http://www.journalpatriot.com/fullstory.asp?id=1877

Got some pictures I wanted to share on the setup and the receiving of the Brook Trout eggs at East Wilkes Middle School. First is the setup a couple weeks ago on a Saturday at the middle school. Shown below in the first picture are some of the people involved in this including SMTU members, grade school kids from a chapter member and the science teachers overseeing the program. Second picture has the adults helping to set the tank up and include Bob Pearson-treasurer, Jeff Payne-president, Shelly Somers-science department, Russell Sparks-science department, and Keith Cockerham-banquet chairman. Move forward to November the 30th and the young ladies in charge of monitoring the water quality of the new born brook trout first remove any dead eggs in the third picture with the help of Mr. Sparks. All five of the girls took turns doing this and were very careful removing the dead eggs. The fourth picture shows a student placing the eggs in their new home and the final picture shows the eggs in the basket they will be in till they swim over the top of the rim to the aquarium. The girls really enjoyed their work and when one of the trout hatched out of an egg they all crowded around to watch. I think the trout will be in good hands.

Fished Stone Mountain Sunday afternoon from 4:45-7:00pm.  Water level was up and flowing well.  Fished East Prong only.  Hooked four trout and only landed two.  One was 6”-7” wild rainbow and the other appeared to be a naturalized brown trout measuring 10”-11”.  Missed a couple of large stockers on the dry fly.  Caught one on the dry and one on a #14 Prince Nymph.  Saw no other fisherman in the section that I fished which probably indicated that I was on the wrong stretch of stream.  Did not see many other fish in the 1/4 mile stretch that I fished.  I did enjoy getting on the stream for the first time in several months.  Look forward to returning soon  

Regards,
Rick

A great time was had on the Smokies trip!  Bob, Keith, Jeff and I spent a few days astream amid the gorgeous and rapidly changing Fall colors.  We were able to fish several area streams, large and small-including a really great stream just full of specks.  Bright wild fish were caught all throughout our time there, some nice ones-though nothing just huge.  But if you fish solely to catch large fish or large numbers of them, you’re missing the best part of it all in my opinion.  It reminds me of a quote by Rafael Sabatini: “Only those become weary of angling who bring nothing to it but the idea of catching fish.”.  Look closely at your surroundings while you’re out.  The beauty of the created world is truly astounding!  And carefully study each fish brought to hand and see it for the jewel it is. Then let it slip back into it’s element.  The GSMNP is a fantastic place to find great beauty in both fauna and flora.  Mile after mile of productive wild trout streams and wild places to explore and enjoy.  It’s a bit different than our local area-it’s more lush and fertile.  One of the guys commented on the many and varied bugs they had seen on the streams.  I think it’s safe to say everyone enjoyed their time there.  We’ll go back too, Lord willing.  In fact, there was already the beginnings of a plan for a Spring trip even before this one ended.  I’ll close with a few photos from the trip.  They’re OK, but they don’t begin to compare with seeing it firsthand.  Here’s to never growing weary of angling!
Scott

We are trying to get together a trip for October the 8th through 11th. Scott is organizing it and we will be headed to the Smokies to do some Fall fishing. His contact number is 336-961-3115 and all members are invited. If there isn’t enough interest we will try again in the Spring.

Just wanted to post a few pictures from our recent effort to make our streams a better place for the trout and the fishermen. Below is Keith, Jeff, Scott, Seth, Ethan and Bob from SMTU along with Courtney and Jasmene from the National Committee for the New River. We had a great time and will schedule another one soon. Courtney sent me a list of items we collected and a few were 20 tires, (1 from a 18-wheeler), push peddle frame with wheels, inflatable raft, Wal-Mart shopping cart, tricycle, large wooden umbrella frame, 3 sections of a conveyor belt, and numerous bags of recyclables and other small trash.

We have a special guest as our speaker for the September the 1st meeting. Anthony Hipps will be presenting a program for us and I know everyone will want to attend. Anthony is great fly tyer and is sought after as a program presenter. Please don’t miss this one as you will have missed a wealth of information and guidance. Here are just a few of Anthony’s accomplishments;

Anthony served as the Federation OF Fly Fishers-Southeastern Council (FFF-SEC) Conclave Fly Tying Co-Chair 2004-2007 and is 2010 FFF-SEC Conclave Chairman. Anthony has served on the FFF- Southeastern Council Board of Directors and tied flies at the FFF-SEC conclaves since 1999. He is a professional speaker, tier and tying instructor having taught numerous fly tying seminars. He has served as president, vice-president, and program chairman of his local club, the Nat Greene Fly Fishers in Greensboro, NC. Anthony has been nationally recognized for his spun deer-hair bass flies, smallmouth bass nymphs, saltwater streamers and especially his unique soft-bodied foam poppers, divers and sliders. In 2004 he was a featured bonefish fly tier on the Outdoor Life Network’s Fly Fish TV Magazine. Fly Tyer Magazine published Anthony’s article on tying his unique soft-bodied popper in the summer 2006 issue. Since then Anthony has authored 4 additional articles in Fly Tyer Magazine (Soft Bodied Frogs, Jig Flies, Hipps Hellcraw Nymph, and Soft Bodied Divers).

So be sure to mark your calendars for this one. We will meet, as usual, at the Foothills Arts Council Building in Elkin NC at 7:00 pm. If you are not familiar with Elkin call me for directions or even better find it here on our web-site. See ya’ there.

Our 5th annual kid’s fishing day went well with our highest number of children participating. I heard many comments and “thank yous” from the parents and grandparents who brought their family and friends children. One man who brought 3 children said this was their first opportunity to go fishing for trout and wanted to let our chapter know how much he appreciated us doing this. Hotdogs and drinks were provided by SMTU and the brook trout were stocked by the NCWRC with Kevin Hinning heading that up again this year. It is his 5th year doing this and we want to thank him. Rods were given away to eight lucky kids and were donated to SMTU by Denver General Store owned by Frank Craven. Thanks again to everyone who helped and looking forward to doing it again next year

I usually target wild trout streams when I get a chance to go fly fishing but I had a few hours after church to hit the delayed harvest section on the Reddies River here in North Wilkesboro so I couldn’t resist a chance to wet a line. This is the new C&R section from Robbies down to were the Reddies River enters the Yadkin River. In just a couples hours I managed to catch and release 21 trout. It was a good mix of browns, bows and brookies. The biggest fish was a 12 inch rainbow with the rest being about standard size, 8 to 10 inches. There are some fresh fish in from the recent stocking so the fish weren’t that particular about the fly selection. I did notice some rising fish but didn’t take the time to change from the nymphs I fished the whole time I was there. I saw blue winged olives, crane flies, and alot of midges. There seems to be alot of bug life in that section despite the fact that it is far from pristine. Fish seem to be holding mostly at the end of riffle sections and along seems were fast and slow water meet. They also seem to be pretty well spread out in the areas I have mentioned. If you fish this water please be careful because there are some deep pools and some areas were you could get stuck in the silt so try to avoid these areas. As far as I could tell these areas didn’t hold fish anyway. Good luck.

Thought some of our members might enjoy reading these articles on plasma converters. Many of us who saw “Back to the Future” with Michael J. Fox remembers Doc’s car used this to burn garbage for fuel. We don’t want to limit our member blogs to just fishing, so anything that might have a conservation theme related to the environment is welcomed.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/plasma-converter.htm/printable
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2007-03/prophet-garbage

Notes from the march 14 Joint Meeting (by Alen Baker)

The Joint Initiative of the
North Carolina Council of Trout Unlimited and their Chapters;
North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission; Foothill Nature Conservancy representing other mountain/foothill NC Nature Conservancies; and, North Carolina Wildlife Federation, their Chapters and their affiliates.

Common Goals and Objectives
GOAL: Establish annual in-depth habitat monitoring and consulting at ____ sites over the next five (5) years in the mountain region.
The larger group will determine a reachable stretch goal for the expected number of sites where we may have the opportunity to put habitat stewardship to practice and make a huge impact on protecting the future of our resources. This can include public land but much of the opportunity is expected to be private land where current landowners buy into habitat protection and willing seek guidance and take actions that make a difference.

Objective 1. Establish a working group among NCTU, NCWRC, FNC and NCWF to develop a flexible and mountain region oriented conservation habitat stewardship training program that may be sponsored by any of these organizations or Chapters and Affiliates of these organizations.
The working group consists of Fred Harris, Squeak Smith, Dick Everhart, Steve Schmeiser, Doug Besler, Sam Ogburn and Tim Wilhelm. The larger group and any others that have interest in leading this effort will reconvene soon as the working group completes this objective. The program is focused on the mountain region but is expected to be adaptable to the piedmont and coastal regions. Diane Silver currently teaches a Master Stream Stewards course that appears to be very close to our needs for the mountain region. NWF Habitat Stewards training appears to be adaptable in many regards as well. The working group’s mission is to leverage any current training opportunities and develop the desired content of a model conservation habitat stewardship training program focused on the mountain region that will support other programs such as the Wildlife Friendly Development Certification.

Objective 2. Conduct ___ habitat stewardship training program classes at

Dick Everhart and myself went to the recent meeting in Morganton to find out about the North Carolina Wildlife Action Plan. It is basically a plan offered to developers to get a stamp of approval from these groups if they meet certain criteria of wildlife habitat and maintain that habitat. Buffers along mountain streams was one of the main focuses of this meeting and is why NCTU was involved. This program will be a state wide venture though, involving groups in all areas and will focus on the needs in each groups specific area but will include some type of body of water from mountains to coast. The goal is to protect our most valuable resource which of course is our water. Dick and I will keep our chapter up to date on the progress of this new venture and I am proud to say Mr. Everhart will represent us on the board getting this program going. I will also get Doug Besler, who is regional supervisor of the division of inland fisheries, to come and talk some more to our chapter to further explain the concept. I would also like to invite everyone to visit a very interesting web-site that will shed some more light on the subject. http://www.ncwildlife.org/greengrowth. I will also post any other link information as I receive it.

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Hope everyone has had a chance to hit the water for some fishing the last few weeks. The weather hasn’t been for the faint of heart, but it has been nice to see the rain and the streams are looking the best I have seen in some time. I hope this is the start of a better year as far as water flows are concerned as we have seen terribly low conditions for the last several years.

As the title would imply, this is the first entry of the new SMTU web-site. It took us awhile to get it going and will take more time to get up and running at full tilt, but we plan on making it one our chapter can be proud of as well as being functional. I feel our web designer has made us a tool that will not only give us the ability to keep you better informed but will be a tool for communication between all our members. Our recent meetings have been a mix of ideas and suggestions as to how we can create more participation from our members and one of the things we felt to be important for the future of our chapter was a web-site people could not only visit but be a part of. I hope you will enjoy what we have done here and be sure to use it as a tool for your cold water conservation and become more involved for the coming year.