THE
REEL THING March
1993
First,
on behalf of the rest of us, I would like to welcome our two newest members
into the club. Both Nelson Hunter
and Ron Bolton are fly fishermen who wish to improve upon their skills with
the long rods and fur and feather. Both
men showed that they already have in abundance the necessary requirements in
order to achieve their goals........enthusiasm and patience.
We all hope that Ron and Nelson remain with our club long after they
have reached their goals as they certainly are assets to the S.F.& B.C.A.,
with their smiles and good humour. We
also would like to welcome Paul Quarrington back into the fold.
Paul is a former member who polished his craft well enough to represent
our club in a number of competitions here and below the border before moving
to Orillia for a year or so. Paul
is one of Canada's leading novelists, having won the Stephen Leacock award for
writing humour, twice in recent years. He'll
need all that sense of humour now that he is back with our guys.
The
answer we have all been awaiting in regards to the 'Big One' in '94 should be
forthcoming shortly and we're all on pins and needles in the meantime.
However,
the big news for the moment is that my maple sap is running, the huge piles of
snow all over the place are rapidly disappearing and it appears that the
depressing winter that we have all suffered through might finally be dwindling
into spring. Thank God.
Well
most of our members have been busy as all get out tying flies for the spring
trip and the various trout openings, while several others have turned their
talents into industriously producing beautiful split bamboo fly rods.
Eight or ten of these wondrous wands have reached various stages of
completion with Scott Colin, myself and Jack Wilkings turning out several
already that would have required at least a second mortgage to raise enough
money to purchase if they had come from Winston or Orvis in the 'States'.
Ours
must be the only club in North America where one can master all these skills
that add so much to an angler's overall pleasure and enjoyment in his sport.
The
Toronto Sportsmens' Show just concluded yesterday with everybody in our crew
achieving personal bests in the various casting competitions.
There was a lot of disappointment amongst our casters as each and every
one of them knew that they were skilled enough to have achieved even higher
scores. However the point that we
continuously stress is that if you achieve personal bests every time you enter
a competition, it doesn't take too long before your full potential is
realized. That should be the
goal. Eventually it becomes an
extremely rewarding feeling to know that you are handling your tackle with
ease, while reaping maximum results from your efforts, whether on the stream
and lake - or on the targets.
Special
thanks to all those who participated in the show and congratulations to Sheila
who captured third place in the ladies spinning accuracy and Mike Reynolds,
who took second in the Juniors. John
Alexander anchored his team in that event with a fine score of 94 enabling
them to take the first place award. Dave
Collins and Doug Ryder also won plaques in the team event.
The biggest improvement overall though, must go to Scott Purcell who
improved his personal scores by twenty to thirty demerits in all six casting
games to finish in fourth place overall in his category.
Special kudos must also go to Scott Colin who, competing in his first
tournament, kept all his casts within the pool area and scored perfects on
several of the targets, Leon Schwartz who competed with our team although he
feels that his forte is actually in the fishing side of our sport.
Brad allen and Steve Ryder also gave it their best shot.
In terms of numbers of actual trophies we came up a little short of our
customary Sportsmens' Show haul, but we can lay the blame for that on the fact
that four of our best casters, Paulo, Jim, Fred and Rod were away on holidays.
The
next big event on our calendar is our annual ice-out trout fishing trip to A/B
Lake. As most of you know we head for Haliburton and Windermere
Lodge (with their giant hot tub) for several days of speckled trout fishing
and a great time next month. It
looks, now, like the trip will be either the weekend of April 24th or the
following weekend if the ice is not off the lake by then.
There is room for nine or ten on this trip and as usual, the first
people to get deposits in will be the lucky ones. The cost, $125.00, covers all meals and accomodation for 2
nights, including Saturday and Sunday breakfasts and shore dinners and
Saturday night supper. There are
still several openings, but get your deposits in now if you want to make this
one!
We
need volunteers to spruce up our targets for the outdoor casting season,
speaking of which, may be delayed due to construction in the pool area at the
city hall. We are investigating using our future home, the pond in
Milliken Park in the meantime.
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