All posts by MikeB

Events, Meetings, Meetings 2016

Annual HFF Club Members Picnic

Normally the month of May marks warmer weather, plentiful hatches and good fishing. The constant inconsistent weather patterns this Spring has me all confused on how to dress for fishing, neos, lightweights or buff. Some days I am wearing my winter buff and some days no buff at all.

Best burgers on Lake LemonOne thing you can always depend on is the Annual HFF Picnic. You can’t beat great food, fellowship, fish tales, a great location along with a little fly fishing. If you top all that off with a piece of TimMs chocolate cake you have a perfect day. Once again this year Barry Clarke will be hosting the club picnic on May 14th, members and guests should arrive around 11:00 ish.  Club Members can check the forums for more information, be sure and send an email to Barry to let him know how many are coming.  Hopefully it will be a no buff day.

HFF Club member, Roger Daily , has been traveling about and fly fishing a lot of different places. Early this month he ventured South to Jamestown, Kentucky for the opening of a new trout stream and he sent in this report:

Roger Daily
Roger Daily

“The Cumberland River is a well known and long established cold water fishery supplied by low level discharge and power generation from Lake Cumberland. The fishery starts at the Wolf Creek Dam and goes downstream for several miles (30-40). The river has a very large population of trout (rainbow, brown, brook) , walleye and stripped bass. Fishing the river can be frustrating because of power generation and large flow rates. There is also a fish hatchery near the dam. For years the hatchery discharge was into a ditch that ran 1/4 mile and dumped into the main river. A couple of years ago, they started a project to replace the ditch with a “stream”. The stream is now done and exceeds expectations. They have not done any stocking on the stream. However, it is loaded with fish. Loaded with large fish. The average fish in the stream is larger and more robust than the average fish in the river. We averaged 15 per four hours of fishing and the fish had to average over 15″.  If you have an interest in some high quality cold water stream fishing, this is the place to go.”

Check out the video about the new Kentucky stream, what a great project it was! Congratulations Kentucky on a job well done. New Kentucky Trout Stream

 

Fish Report, Meetings, Meetings 2016

April Meeting going once, going twice……..

Kernal Kevin
Kernal Kevin working his magic.

The April Hoosier Fly Fishers Meeting was a great success.  Everyone had a good time visiting and telling fish stories as well as welcoming some new faces to the group.  There were several of us old faces there for the fellowship and  a helping of  Steve’s awesome cooking but mostly we were there for the Annual HFF auction of good stuff.  The Annual HFF auction helps to fund the club’s activities and any Environmental Projects we support.   As usual, Kernal Kevin was in good form for the occasion and with his quick wit and humor he managed to auction off tons of good stuff.  Among some of the more popular items were fly tying supplies, fly rods, and fly boxes full of one pound bluegill flies.  Kevin worked hard at clearing the tables full of stuff and when the dust settled he had raised over $600 for the club.  Many thanks Kevin for a job well done and thanks to all the members that brought in all that good stuff!

After the meeting, I was standing in the Colorado Steakhouse parking lot talking with club president TimM about all the one pound bluegill flies he had been tying.  All the good stuff had been loaded and hauled away and all that remained was a small car exiting the parking lot. As the car turned south on College I heard a faint voice say “going once…… going twice…….”

HFF Projects: The HFF Club has purchased 500 trees for the Indiana DNR to plant around Monroe Lake.  The DNR plans to plant the trees the morning of May 21st. Fishing clubs and the Boy Scouts have volunteered to help plant the trees but more help is needed. If you can spend a couple of hours with friends and help with the planting you can contact Rex Waters at the Paynetown Office and let him know you are coming to help. Bring a shovel and meet at Paynetown.  PH: 812-837-9546

The club also purchased some fishing line disposal units to be placed around Monroe Lake. More info soon.

Fish and Lake Report: Fishing has been good pretty much everywhere. We have received good reports from North Carolina, Lake Lemon, Griffy Lake, farm ponds, Monroe Lake and a few local creeks. We have had reports of almost every species of fish being caught on flies. Warmer weather has the fish in a feeding mood, Spring is a great time to fly fish, try it.

Monroe Lake is 5ft high and dropping slow, surface water temperature is hovering around 60 degrees and warmer in the backs of bays. Northern Indiana Reservoirs are at pool or below, expect low flow rates downstream from them, southern reservoirs are high and releasing lots of water, expect high water levels if you fish downstream from them. If you fish below reservoirs or in Indiana streams or rivers you can get water flow rates and levels on the USGS website. You can read historical, recent and real-time water data by clicking on a location in Indiana. Some of the gauges even read real time water temperature.  Check it out here: USGS Water Data for Indiana