THE
REEL THING January
1999
It’s
certainly a Happy New Year for our club secretary, Jim Lloyd!
After five or six trips to A/B Lake with the rest of us, he finally
caught his first trout in that often barren-appearing body of water.
AND WHAT A TROUT IT WAS!!!
Once
again proving his patience and perseverance he diligently tended his line and
kept the hole free of ice during another long day of watching trout being
caught by another, me. About four o’clock, just as we were contemplating
calling it for the day and packing up for the skidoo trip back to our car,
his buzzer sounded the alert and he was into the fishing thrill of his
life. With little ice on the lake
(about 8” to 10”) the leviathan passed beneath the hole in the ice several
times during its frantic efforts to free itself, just about causing Jim and me
to have a coronary as we could see its length, breadth and girth.
How was he going to get this thing to co-operate sufficiently so that
it could be worked it into the hole and to the surface where it could be
grabbed?
After
a lengthy and careful struggle, all the while wishing his line tested more
than its six pound rating, he tricked the brute into poking its snout into the
hole where he could then raise it to
the surface sufficiently. It was
pounced on by the two of us, then dragged up and out on the ice. Like girls holding hands and dancing around a summer
camp-fire, we high-fived each other, then cavorted childishly for a moment or
two. Jim seemed rather stunned by
it all as I assailed him with exclamatory comments and congratulations.
He had shattered the previous A/B Lake championship held by Sheila for
the past three years. Her beautiful brookie had come in at twenty-two inches and a
little over five pounds. Jim’s
magnificent speckled trout was almost twenty-four inches and six pounds!
Sheila
says,
“Tell him to enjoy it while he
can - until we have our ice-out trip to the lake in early May!”
Opening
day on the lake also produced a limit catch of fine brookies, up to nineteen
inches although negotiating the five-inch thick ice with the skidoos was
somewhat unnerving.
Even
bigger news than Jim’s mighty trout was that Paul Kennedy made it legal,
marrying his long-time partner, Tressa, on January 2nd.
Paul contemplated going up to the lake for the New Year’s day trout
opening but with his marriage scheduled for the next day, prudently decided to
delay his assault on the trout until after his honeymoon in Florida.
I hope he enjoys his honeymoon and doesn’t sulk too much over missing
the trout opening and surrendering his club all round championship at the
December 10th competition. He
says, and I quote,
“Because I hadn’t been to the
gym since I got on this crazy night-time shift at work, I couldn’t find the
school and the gym. I spent a
couple of hours driving all over Scarborough and finally just gave up .”
Yeah, sure, Paul! (Just kidding.)
Paul’s
misfortune turned out to be good fortune for Junior caster, Kyle Sullivan, who
cast the round of his young life in Dry Fly Accuracy, 99!
This, combined with his
score in the plug event, gave him the overall title over our other two
sensational Junior casters, Andrew Cockburn and Richard Sluce, as well as
eleven of our supposedly superior adult casters.
Sheila, once again proved her superiority in the plug accuracy,
finishing six strokes ahead of her nearest competitors, Jim Lloyd and Tom
Sluce.
With
so much news to mention I almost forgot to say that we are lucky to have an
eager and talented new member in the club, nineteen-year old Fidel Campbell.
Fidel, already a reasonably accomplished fly caster has joined us with
the idea of learning everything he
can from us about the sport and polishing his craft to its maximum.
Welcome aboard, Fidel.
Rick
Matusiak took his wife, Rosemarie and son, Alex on a skiing vacation to New
York State over the holidays. Rick
doesn’t ski! I think the truth
is he was just looking for more places in the streams there to test his
fishing skills in the future. Speaking
of fishing, if anybody else would like to join us for one of the up-coming ice
fishing trips (we go most weekends) please call either Jim or myself. The
bamboo and fly-tying classes are well underway and Leon should be showing us
his tricks with fur and feather beginning next week as well.
We
are not getting much feed-back on the SWAP AND BARTER COLUMN in the
REEL THING, here are a few tid-bits for your perusal:
WANTED
Ruffed
Grouse wings - Gord
Fly
Reels - Jim Lloyd
Skidoo
cover - Jim Lloyd
Size
11 or 12, Snowmobile Boots - Fidel Campbell
FOR SALE
Assorted
chest coolers - Gord
Tilley
Hat (Brand-new, Large) - Gord
Micro-mini
spinning rod - Gord
Six
foot
“ “
- Gord
Penn
non-skirted spinning reel (Brand-new) - Gord
Spider
Web Outfit (5/8th distance) - Gord
Assorted
split-cane rods - Gord
Down
Bomber Jacket (red) -Gord
FOR TRADE
1987
Chevrolet Caprice for 1996 or better Jeep Grand Cherokee - Gord
Well,
that’s all I can think of at the moment……………call us with your
‘stuff’…… wanted….or for sale for the next bulletin.
·
Annual club dues were payable on January 1st, 1999.
So far, very few have paid their dues.
Please get these into us as soon as possible so that we can operate in
an efficient manner.
Tight
Lines in 1999
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