The weather is changing as I write this with a mix of warm days and cold nights. The snow is almost gone and the river ice is starting to thin out. Stay alive and off of any ice from here on out. Open water is not far off. And Muir Lake opens up May 1st (Where’s the clock Lance?)
The end of March winds up a pretty busy time for the Northern Lights Fly Tyers. We had a great turnout of volunteers for both the Edmonton Boat and Sportsman’s and the Fishin’ Hole and Campers Village Outdoor Shows. Our booths were well attended and lots of kids (both young and old) tied wooly buggers. Our new banners were the envy of other booths. We sold lots of raffle tickets, both on Don Anderson’s cane rod and on the Bucket Raffle for The Lloyd Shea fund. The latter raised over $5000.00. The raffle for the cane fly rod donated by Don Anderson was drawn at the Outdoor show with the ever-lucky Doug Como the winner. Congratulations Doug! And thanks again Don! At last count it raised about $2500.00.
And heaps of thanks go out to all our volunteers at both shows (you know who you are) with special thanks to Carl Johnson for doing the lions share of organizing, setup, pack up and manning the booths. Great job Carl!
Last month’s presenters at our regular meetings also deserve our heartfelt appreciation including: Rick LeBlanc giving us an entomology primer, Merv Hassler demonstrating some Streamer Patterns, Cal Kullman talking about “River Watch” and Peter Morrison for talking about Sage Rods. The Northern Lights thanks each of you for your contribution. The last program for the month of March is the Iron Fly Tyer. Who knows what secret material is in the works this year? It should be a hoot watching as Rick defends his title.
Our program this month starts on April 7th with Barry Wright talking about Rotary Vices. Week two on April 14th we’ll have Geoff Pieroway Showing us his Pieroway Fly Rods and talking about Spey Casting. Week three, on April 21st will be our Conservation Session. The new CEO of TU Canada Jeff Surtees the will pay us a visit along with Lorne Hutchison Director Finance and Admin and Kimberly Davidson, Membership Coordinator. Week four on April 28th we will have our annual Swap Meet.
Our upcoming events for 2010 can be found in the list on page two of our newsletter. Aside from regular meetings, the main event for April is Our Beginner’s Fly Tying Seminar on April 10th for which we’ll need volunteers to assist with the instruction. One-on-one teaching would be ideal, so sign up at a meeting if you can help out. Dave Murray is organizing.
Dennis Southwick and his work group, are putting details together for the two day long “Introduction to Fly Fishing” course. At this time we have at least 10 participants, so I’m sure it will be a successful event. We will be looking for people to help out with presenting some of the topics. An agenda will be available at meetings in April, so if one of the subjects is close to your heart, please let us know as we would like to involve as many club members as possible. We will need volunteers to assist with the casting portion as well.
Again this month the final note for is a reminder of the upcoming Trout Unlimited Annual Edmonton Dinner and Auction on May 6th at the Edmonton Crowne Plaza. Tickets are $150.00 each which includes your dinner and a TU membership. We will be raffling off a ticket a week at meetings during the month of April for $2.00 a chance. So come on out to a meeting and give your luck a try. We’ll also need volunteers to assist with various activities
on the evening. Be sure to mark our calendar for this major Trout Unlimited fund raiser.
It’s time to get that tackle in shape. Open water soon!
Dave Robinson
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