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Reflections 2004
November 2004
The annual Flyrodders Awards Dinner was held November 13 at the Stuart Thomas Manor in Farmingdale. The dinner was a resounding success with nearly sixty people in attendance including invited guest Susan Balch of Casting for Recovery. Plentiful food and libations combined with good camaraderie and atmosphere resulted in a good time by all.
The LIFR annual dinner is also an opportunity to recognize individual member contributions to the club. Awards this year included the Lifetime Achievement Award to Cliff Dies for his long service as club treasurer, Volunteer Awards to Tony Agnese, Dennis Aron, Al Battistelli, Joe Caroleo, Nick Friedman, Mike Lackey and Peter Yuskovich, and Member of the Year Award to Joe Otterstedt. A special recognition was made to Paul McCain, our past president of two terms, for his dedication, commitment and strong leadership to the club.
A very special award, the Ancient Order of the Angle, was given to the Casting For Recovery (CFR) organization for its fine work in using fly fishing as both a physical and spiritual means of rehabilitation for women recovering from breast cancer. Susan Balch accepted the award on behalf of CFR headquartered in Manchester Vermont.
Kudos to Joe Otterstedt and Al Westbrook for planning and arranging this well coordinated event.
October 2004
During the week of October 20th, nine Flyrodders made the second annual club trip of 450 miles to fish the Oak Orchard tributary of Lake Ontario. This tributary is famous primarily for its spawning run of huge brown trout in addition to steelhead, king salmon and coho salmon runs. Last year we hit the brown trout run just right and caught mainly these large spawners. This year, however, due to the different weather conditions during the summer, the brown trout run had not yet materialized to any extent but the king salmon run, which should have been waning, was at its peak and we had a ball with these 20 to 35 pound giants.
September 2004
The Casting For Recovery Retreat took place on Sept. 12th and had 16 volunteer River Helpers from LITU and The LIFR. Volunteers included Cliff Dies, Joe Otterstedt and Jessie Lilly among others.
August 2004
Unlike previous years when our annual camping/fishing trip to the Housatonic was held in the middle of August, our 2004 event was held from July 30th to August 2nd. Also, unlike previous years when Paul McCain ran this trip, the task this time was assumed by Mike Gelber. Besides making all arrangements, Mike did most of the cooking and after meals clean-ups. Thanks, Mike, we know there's a lot of work involved in planning and running a trip and we appreciate it.
Of course, no LIFR camping/fishing trip would be complete without one or more torrential downpours. On both Friday and Saturday evenings, just around dinner time, the rain came down in buckets. That, however, did not stop us from having a great time, eating and relaxing under whatever shelter we could find.
June 2004
There were two LIFR club trips in June (see below) and both of them were run by Lee Weil and Jeff Farrell. A lot of work goes into planning and running such endeavors, especially one like a camping/fishing trip. This involves making campgrounds reservations, campsite assignments, buying, carrying and cooking the food for three days. Thank you, Lee and Jeff for a job well done (as usual)!
June 8th marked the
launching of the Fifth Annual Peconic River trip for the Long Island Flyrodders,
and 16 members showed up to match their skills and wits against the bass,
pickerel and bluegills. The weather
was on the warm side and as the day went on the temps ranged well up into the
high eighties, but in spite of the heat, most of the anglers had fish.
Joe
Otterstedt reported some decent sized bass taken on a deer hair slider, and
several other members took fish on white patterns and streamers. Shawn Sullivan used his kayak to troll a Mickey Finn and
connected with a nice pickerel in the channel upstream from the pagoda.
Lee Weil took a nice bass on a club sandwich hopper pattern from a lily
pad bed near the launch site.
Nick
Friedman came through three times for us. First he provided a spare rod for a
member who had forgotten his, then he came up with a folding table for the
picnic, and even assisted Dan VanBuskirk in the rescue of Phil Schlereth’s
john boat on the expressway on the ride home!
The
Long Island Flyrodders Annual trek to the Farmington River in Connecticut took
place on June 25th. We rolled
into Austin Hawes Campground and pitched the tents just before the first drops
of rain began to fall. That night,
while the rain was coming down hard, 30 flyrodders ate dinner sheltered by two
canopies wisely erected by Lee Weil and husband Jeff Farrell.
On
Saturday we awoke to a steady rain and served mess once again under the tarps,
toasting bagels on the grill. By 10:30AM, the skies began to clear and from that
point on we had perfect weather.
The fishing reports were very positive, the river was in good shape and
hatches of Caddis and Sulphurs came off as expected. There were some very big
fish landed while some broke off. All in all it was a very productive and
enjoyable club trip.
May 2004
The club’s trip to assist the Housatonic Fly Fishers Association on their annual tree planting and streamside clean-up of the Housatonic River was held on Saturday, May 1. Ten LIFR members attended and all the work was completed by noon. Paul McCain then cooked up a great picnic lunch of hamburgers, franks, beans and sauerkraut. The Flyrodders also supplied beverages, chips, pickles, etc. After the picnic, it was an afternoon of fishing for trout and bass.
Our annual club trip to the Hungry Trout (Ausable River, Wilmington, NY) was also well attended. On Friday the water was fairly low and during the morning and evening hatches, the dry fly fishing was terrific. On Friday night and early Saturday morning we had rain and this raised the water to normal levels. Not a great day for dry flies but excellent for streamers like the Moosehead Belle. Torrential rain greeted us on Saturday night and most of the day on Sunday making fishing impossible due to the high and murky fast water. Still we had a great time. The new chef at the Hungry Trout has introduced several new dishes and they were out of this world!
April 2004
As in past years, April is Project Access month . On Saturday, the 24th, eight club members met at the Fly Fishing Center in Livingston Manor, NY. From there, they proceeded to the Hazel Bridge and Covered Bridge areas where they restored two trails to the river for handicapped and wheelchair access. Although the turnout was somewhat poor this year, we still managed to complete the work in time for the usual streamside picnic which was superbly handled by Peter Van Buskirk.
March 2004
In March, we have seen our members representing our club in some great programs. Casting for Recovery held a fund raising function at the Connetquot and we were there with a crowd of Flyrodders. Lee Weil ran a junior Fly Tying class at Pancho's in Bethpage and March 9th was our last Fly Tying night at Pancho's for the winter.
As a fly fishing club we are second to none. We love our sport, we are conservation minded, we observe stream ethics we practice camaraderie and we are always there when we are needed.
February 2004
At the February meeting, Mike Gelber, Jim Foley, Lee Weil and Cliff Dies were elected to the positions of President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer respectively. Dennis Aron, Joe Otterstedt and Herbie Schneiderman were voted in as three year term board members. Al Westbrook was voted in as a two year board member to fill the seat vacated by our new Vice President Jim Foley.
We thank Paul McCain for his tireless work as LIFR President during the past two years. His act will be a hard one to follow.
January 2004
Like last January, we started the new year by having a booth at the "World of Fly Fishing" show in Danbury, CT. Unlike last January, when the show opened up in the middle of a snow blizzard, the weather this year was perfect: warm (for January) and dry. Paul McCain and Gil Padovani got there early on Friday morning to set up the LIFR booth in time for the show's opening. Later on they were joined by Gordon Grimes and Bob Skoy. On Saturday, Danny Van Buskirk, Cliff Dies, Herbie and Morty Schneiderman, Lee Weil and Jeff Farrell came to the show and helped man our booth as well. Also on Saturday, Paul McCain presented the "Ancient Order of the Anglers" award to Dick Jogodnick. (See Photo Section).
As for the three days of the Somerset Fly Fishing Show, we were greeted with below freezing temperatures and slippery ice on the ground. This didn't stop the multitude of visitors from attending the show and stopping by our booth. Mike Friedland and Gil Padovani got there early on Friday morning to set up the booth. From that point on and for all three days, many of our members helped man the booth selling raffles, accepting memberships and providing information about our club. The drawing for the raffle was announced at the end of the show.