Candlewood Valley Chapter

Loren Williams

If you haven’t been on a trip or attended one of our Master Classes you’re missing some of the best features of being a Candlewood Valley TU member. These events are reasonably priced and focused on making you a better fisher person.

Register Now for Upcoming Classes!

We have finalized the schedule for the CVTU-sponsored Master Classes for the 2009-2010 season. Our planned classes include:

• Fly Tieing Class by Peter Peterson – 6 weeks begining in January, 2010
• Caddisflies by Thomas Ames on April 24, 2010
• Fly Fishing Fundamentals with George Daniel on May 10, 2010
• A Walking Tour of the Croton River by Rob Lewis in the spring of 2010

Share Your Ideas for Future Classes

The schedule of 2010 Master Classes is done but input is always welcome. Share your thoughts with the education coordinator.

The question is: what would you like covered in one or several future master class(es), and is there someone who you hold to be an expert in this area of expertise? Could be focused on a fish species, like salmon or steelhead or muskies. Could be an angling technique like tying and fishing soft hackles or swinging a fly.

Here are some ideas to prime your pump:

• Walkabout for Salmon (CT) River.
• Walkabout for Salmon (NY) River.
• Organizing your fly boxes.
• Swinging wet flies/soft hackles.
• Reading rise forms.
• Finding trout & getting them to play.
• Playing, landing & releasing large fish.
• Spey casting clinic (Note: only 5 members indicated an interest in a spey casting class when it was suggested at the meeting on January 13, so it was removed from consideration as a master class topic at this time. Three of us attended an East Coast Spey-taught class in March, and GMW recommends it to anyone wanting to learn spey casting).
• Hauls, mends & drifts.
• Up, down & across stream presentations.
• Fishing dry flies, emergers & soft hackles.
• Charles Jardine has been recommended as a person to do a casting clinic.
• Landon Mayer, author of How to Catch the Biggest Trout of Your Life, and the DVD Landing the Trout of Your Life, might be enticed to piggyback a class onto his regular trip east to go steelheading.
• If there is enough interest, we could bring in an expert in a particular tieing discipline. ie, a person who is a deer hair spinning wizard or a czech nymph tieing expert.

Let your board know what you think. No idea is too wild to consider. Post your suggestions below.