Flyfishing is a subtle and aesthetic way to deepen your appreciation of aquatic ...
take care of last-minute registration details, introduce ourselves, distribute ...
Introduction To Flyfishing
Doug Virtue May 14–16, 2004 $225 per person/$200 for MLC members limited to 6 participants Rod, reel, and all tackle provided for the weekend! Flyfishing is a subtle and aesthetic way to deepen your appreciation of aquatic landscapes, but it’s sometimes fraught with complexity and expense. If you’ve wanted to learn but found the tackle too costly or the standard courses too intimidating, this seminar offers a simple alternative. Limited to six participants so everyone gets personal attention, with all tackle provided, you’ll learn how to cast, how to locate feeding fish, and how to select the right fly. The seminar begins Friday evening with a slide show, and then continues through Saturday with a combination of casting instruction, outdoor study, and on-the-water fishing in the lakes near Tioga Pass. Sunday morning will be spent on Hot Creek, a challenging but accessible stream that provides a good venue for observing (and possibly catching) wild rainbow and brown trout. An optional Sunday afternoon/evening postseminar fishing treat is offered to those who don’t have to get home Sunday night. Instructor Doug Virtue has been flyfishing since 1975. He has a wealth of experience from operating a remote lodge in Alaska’s Iliamna
Lake to catching oceanic yellowtail in Baja California. He emphasizes a holistic, appreciative approach to fishing that’s appropriate for the waters of the Eastern Sierra.
Itinerary: Friday, May 14: We will meet at 5pm at the Mono Lake Committee Information Center and Bookstore. We will take care of last-minute registration details, introduce ourselves, distribute course materials, and make a few announcements. Afterwards we will take a break and reconvene for dinner at the Mono Inn at 7:00pm for those who wish to join Doug. At 8:30pm we will have a slide presentation, “Flyfishing the West” upstairs in the Lake Room of the Mono Inn. Saturday, May 15: We will meet at the Mono Lake County Park 5 miles north of Lee Vining where we will have our first introduction to casting, “Shaping the Line.” We will then investigate some of the tools of the trade: rods, reels, lines, leaders, flies, waders, clothing, kayaks, float tubes and assorted doodads. After some more casting practice we will investigate fish behavior and water types. Again, we will practice casting and then break for lunch. After lunch we will continue with alternating casting practice and mini-charrettes following our brief post-lunch casting practice with “The Fine Art of Sneaking—Finding and Approaching Trout.” After one more brief casting session we will dismiss for the afternoon siesta at about 3pm. At 4:30pm we will reconvene at the Mono Lake Committee Information Center and Bookstore and then caravan to Tioga Lake for some real casting and fishing! Our seminar will end for the day officially at 6:30pm, but if some folks are willing, we may stay ‘til dark when they really bite! (Note: if Tioga Lake is inaccessible due to snow, we will have an alternate site planned). Sunday, May 16: Breakfast is on your own, but Doug will be having coffee and muffins at the El Mono where you are welcome to join him. We will officially meet at 8:00am at the Mono Lake Committee Information Center and Bookstore and then drive south to Hot Creek for fish observation, on-the-water casting instruction and actual fishing at Hot Creek, one of California’s noted flyfishing destinations. We will end our seminar officially at noon. OPTIONAL: For those that don’t have to get back home on Sunday we will take a break for lunch and then go to a very special fishing spot about a 45 minute drive north of Bridgeport where we can fish for large Brook Trout and Lahontan Cutthroats. This is an optional adventure (which has nothing to do with our field seminar) that involves hiking three, mostly level miles. We will have a picnic dinner at this secret lake locale and walk out via headlamp. Altitude and Dehydration Cautions: Remember to bring (and drink!) lots of water because your body loses more water at the higher altitudes of the Mono Basin. Experts recommend that you begin drinking extra water as you drive to higher elevation in order to prevent dehydration and headaches. Also, the sun is rather fierce at high elevations, capable of burning even on cool and cloudy days, so be sure to protect yourself thoroughly, using sunscreen, sunglasses, hat and don’t forget a bandanna to protect the back of your neck. Lunch: Bring a packable picnic lunch both days. Saturday we’ll definitely have lunch in the field, and it’s highly likely we’ll do the same on Sunday. To Bring: __ lunch, both days __ plenty of water __ notebook or clipboard & paper __ pens & pencils __ camera and binoculars (optional)
Recommended reading:
__ comfortable folding chair for use in the field __ sunscreen __ mosquito repellent __ hat, bandanna __ sunglasses (bring polarized ones if you have them)
1. Anderson, Sheridan Andreas Mulholland. The Curtis Creek Manifesto: A Fully Illustrated Guide to the Strategy, Finesse, Tactics and Paraphernalia of Fly Fishing. Portland, Oregon: Frank Amato Publications, 1976-2002 (currently in print -- Ninth Edition). This is still the best overall primer for beginning flyfishers. Presented in a lighthearted cartoon format, it emphasizes attitude and approach over tackle. If you read only one book prior to the seminar, this should be the one. It’s fast: one hour goes cover-tocover. Current retail price is $9.95. 2. Chatham, Russell. The Angler’s Coast. Livingston, Montana: Clark City Press, 1990 (2nd Edition). This is my deathbed book, the one I’ll have cracked open on my chest if I check out while reading. Chatham is a stunningly talented landscape artist who wrote this collection of essays to put food on the table before he got famous. Centered on the coast of northern California during the sixties and seventies, Chatham captured the rivers, fish and anglers of that region as their age of innocence was ending. Along the way he presents an aesthetic justification for the blood sport of fishing and shows that it’s not inconsistent with conservation. The updated second edition also includes a gut-tightening look backwards at what we’ve done to our natural heritage. The entire package is unequaled among modern books on angling. Although he never uses these exact words, Chatham shows us that each day a stream is like a blank canvas, to be painted with care by the anglerartist whose work will be judged by those who follow. Very few fishing books can be called important. This is one. 3. McGuane, Thomas. The Longest Silence: A Life in Fishing. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999. McGuane and Chatham are close friends and for many years lived as neighbors in Montana. McGuane writes as beautifully about fish and fishing as anyone, without the melancholic overtones that give Chatham’s book more weight. Another important book that transcends the genre. 4. Gierach, John. Trout Bum. Boulder, Colorado: Pruett Publishing, 1986. Less serious and more fun than either Chatham or McGuane, Gierach’s book became the coda for abandoning a normal life in pursuit of trout. Now we also have ski bums and climbing bums, but the trout bum came first. 5. Arnold, Paul. Wisdom of the Guides. Portland, Oregon: Frank Amato Publications, 1998. A very simple approach that yields good insights for beginning anglers: ask the guides what works best for them and their clients. This book has proven helpful to several friends who found its conversational tone more accessible than the overtly technical how-to books. 6. Deeter, Kirk D., and Andrew Steketee. Photographs by Liz Steketee. Castwork: Reflections of Fly Fishing Guides and the American West. Minocqua, Wisconsin: Willow Creek Press, 2002. As worthwhile for its photographs as its text, this is another look at the state of the sport through guides’ eyes. There’s a lot of technique mixed in with observations about the health of various river systems and the new flyfishing economy that’s taken hold in certain small western towns. 7. Behnke, Robert J., with illustrations by Joseph R. Tomilleri and an introduction by Thomas McGuane. Trout and Salmon of North America. New York: The Free Press, 2002. The definitive natural history of trout and salmon by the recognized dean of the discipline. The chapters on golden trout, rainbow trout and cutthroat trout describe how the important species of the eastern Sierra and adjacent Great Basin are living manifestations of post-Pleistocene changes in their watersheds-- the remnants of which form the lakes and rivers where we fish today. Tomelleri’s illustrations are lovely.
Mono Lake Committee Field Seminars P.O. Box 29, Lee Vining, CA 93541 (760) 647-6595
