Scarborough Fly & Bait Casting Association

Scarborough Fly & Bait Casting Association
23 Willowhurst Crescent, Scarborough Ontario M1R 3R7
Phone & Fax - 416/755-5663
E Mail - coachman@pathcom.com
Web Site - www.pathcom.com/~coachman

We’re a couple of days late with this one – February blahs, I guess – but the January bulletin was sent out a couple of weeks early so I guess we’re just working on the credit left over from then.

Sheila and I came home from a couple of weeks of holidays over Christmas in Panama on December 29^th and the first thing on my agenda was to get ready for the January 1^st ice fishing trout opening at A/B Lake with Jim Lloyd and new member, Harold Higdon. On the morning of the 30^th while running around to gas up and everything, a fellow obviously having been sent our way by old buddy, Murphy, flew out of a gas station without looking and piled into the front end of my Jeep already towing a trailer loaded with Jim’s and my skidoos and doing $5,400.00 damage to the Jeep. This was only hours before we were to head up north at 3 A.M. the next morning. Talk about ‘fun and games’! Somehow or another we obtained a 4X4 Trailblazer, courtesy of my insurance company, transferred the trailer-hitch, trailer and skidoos and still got away in time to experience one of our best opening days in quite a while.

Contrary to all the gloom and doom that was being bandied about by everybody because of a recent warm spell, there was already ten inches of blue ice on the lake to work on and it didn’t take long. The fire and tea pot weren’t even in action when Harold yelled, “Fish on!” While I fiddled with my tackle after admiring his lovely brookie, Jim then duplicated his feat with the biggest of the day, a 2 ½ pounder.

This continued throughout the day until my ‘buddies’ decided that their arms were sore from hauling in trout after trout while I had been busy sawing wood for the fire. Final score of trout kept – 12, Jim – 6, Harold – 5, 1 for the guide!

Jim and I followed that up a couple of weeks later with one of our typically adventurous outings. We had hoped to get to Limit Lake, but discovered that the trail had been badly chewed up by a couple of A.T.V.’s who had gone in before the season was open when the trail was soft and muddy. We struck out for Beanpole instead, where I had another fine day sawing firewood, while Jim took another three bucks from me with a four pound, 22” bow. On the way out, with most of the trail yet to be negotiated, Jim’s old Elan died – really died!

The rusty old chassis which had somehow lasted thirty years and countless rough travelling, often with two on-board, actually split in two. He and machine had to be towed out by my twenty-year old Safari. On top of all that, one of the skis on the old skiboose that carries most of our equipment, broke in two! Oh well, we’re going to try for Limit again this weekend and a chance to get even with Jim……and Murphy. Oh yes, the Jeep’s been repaired (3 weeks). Jim’s also hard at work replacing the broken chassis with one obtained from a wrecker, while the skiboose ski has also been welded.

George Monroe, our newest member from Rochester continues to amaze us all on two fronts: his improvement with his fly casting technique and his attendance. He hasn’t missed a night in the gym since he joined, no matter what the weather is for the long drive up. George has already mastered the fundamentals and is throwing a lovely loop and get this….he can do it casting either left or right handed. How many of you folks cans say that?

I have high hopes for this gentleman on the competitive front as well and trust he will be able to join us for the National in Lexington in August. Meanwhile, Jim Lloyd continues to take money from me in the gym, just as he does out on the lake, with scores flirting with a score of a 100 in all the accuracy games. There’s another guy that must make every effort to attend the National………How about all you folks out there dropping Jim an encouraging note accordingly. I’m sure it might help! His e.mail address is jglloyd@rogers.com

We are anticipating several new members in the near future and are looking forward to working with these folks on fundamentals before we move out to the pond in a couple of months. Meanwhile the shop folks are working in a warmer environment now that we have obtained a new, 4800 watt, heater so the fly-tying and rod-building crews should be able to get all their projects completed before spring as well.

We want to make a few changes to our website, but are having difficulty reaching our webmaster, Robert Beaudoin……..if you happen to see this Robert, please call me as S.A.P.