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kschu

Would you donate flies?

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Greetings fellow fly tiers,

 

I recently took on a role as fly fishing coordinator for the Illinois

Smallmouth Alliance (ISA). I was already hosting a monthly fly tying

session. I was involved in leading a some outings for the fly fishing

members within the ISA. I was rather involved in our "BassBuggers"

forum on the club's website. Not much has changed except that now I

have a title.

 

Each year, the ISA has one big fundraising event. This year our

"Bronzeback Blowout" will be Feb 26th. At this event, everyone is

given a goody bag or door prize when the arrive. Last years bag was

probably worth over $35. Not bad when the tickets are $20. We have

dinner (not too fancy), speakers, a silent auction and the big raffle

(hundreds of prizes).

 

http://www.illinoissmallmouthalliance.com/blowout_05.html

 

So now that I am an officer, I feel an obligation to look for new

ideas to help make this event the best it can be. I have asked each

of the fly tiers in the club to pick one (or more) pattern and tie six

of them. I will assemble these into six nearly identical sets of

flies. There are more chances to win that way. If I get enough

people to donate, Perhaps I could put together more sets.

 

I ask you (yes, you) to please consider donating a few flies that you

have tied yourself. Tie six of your favorite Smallie catching pattern

and mail them to me. I'll assemble the donations into sets which we

will put into the raffle at this year's BronzeBack Blowout. I'm

working on getting fly boxes donated. I need to recieve the flies by

Saturday 2/19. If you are willing donate more than one pattern, that

would be greatly appreciated. I will photograph all the fly boxes I

assemble and post those photos so all who donate can see how their

contribution was put to good use.

 

Send your flies, in a crush proof container to Ken Schumacher, 26W210

Harrison Ave, Wheaton, IL 60187-2505. Please drop me an e-mail if you

have any questions.

 

Thanks in advance,

Ken Schumacher

 

 

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Ken:

 

Absolutly. As I tie only for my own use I was trying to figure out what the heck to do with all the flies I have accumulated.

 

Ted

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Thank you. The donations will be greatly appreciated.

 

When I posted the request for donations on our own club message forum, I told our tiers about how I had learned of toe tags here on the FlyTyingForum. The tags are a great idea. If you don't mind putting tags on your donations, I would appreciate it. Please don't feel like you have to. I'm the one tapping your generosity. I'm certainly not going to be picky. If you put a tag on, please list the name of the pattern and your screen name on this forum. If you add the letters FTF, I'll make sure everyone knows that is the Fly Tying Forum. Several have already heard from me about this great site and the fine group of fellow fly tiers they should get to know.

 

What I asked the tiers of the ISA to do was submit six flies, all of the same pattern. Something they themselves use for Smallies on their home waters. I'll then sort these into six nearly identical sets of flies for the raffle. If you have six similar flies to send, that's great. If you just send a few mixed flies, I'll work all those into mixed sets and we'll set them out.

 

If any of you will be attending the big fly fishing show in Chicago's SW suburbs (Tinley Park) next weekend (2/5-6/2005), It is right off I-80 not too far from the Indiana Border. I will be in the ISA booth all day Saturday. Please do stop by.

 

If any of you generous souls plan on visiting the Western Suburbs of Chicago this season, please drop me a line. I'll do my best to put you on to some fine Smallmouth fishing.

 

Ken S. -- ISA Fly Fishing Coordinator

 

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Guest

I will see what i can come up with....Have not bass fished with fly yet but its for a good thing........

 

tt

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Guest

Ken, I will defiently try. Things are a bit hectic but if I get the free time I defiently want to contribute. My flies should be worth millions cool.gif laugh.gif

 

 

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QUOTE (SmallieHunter @ Jan 30 2005, 08:37 AM)
Ken, I will defiently try. Things are a bit hectic but if I get the free time I defiently want to contribute. My flies should be worth millions cool.gif laugh.gif

Will,

 

Your flies will be a highlight just because of the name on the tag. Imagine pulling your fly out of the kit, checking the tag and wondering which name is the fly pattern and which is the fly tyer. I bet you would draw applause just being introduced at our Smallmouth club.

 

Have you had any contact with the Ohio Smallmouth Alliance? Maybe that would be discussion for another thread, maybe in another forum.

 

More later,

Ken S.

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I have tied up six marabou bait fish flies. Two each white, olive and grey.

 

Hook; T.M.C. 300 size 4

Thread: Danvilles Flymaster black

Tail; Marabou, and one strand each side of Krystal Flash, green for olive and silver for others

Body; Wide holographic silver tinsel ( to just past middle of hook), coated with hard as nails,and palmered marabou ( rest of shank to just back of the eye)

Throat; A small clump of red wool clipped short

Cheeks; one on each side, a small pheasant head feather preened with hard as nails

Wing; Black fox tail tied shorter than the palmered marabou extends

Topping; 4 strands of peacock herl just slightly longer than the wing

Head; The tag of the topping twisted and wrapped a couple of turns. Whip finnished thread head, cement.

 

I will send these out this week, good luck on your fund raiser!!!!!

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Just a quick update. I have ten sets of flies already. Each tier has turned in sets of six flies. I have six fly boxes. That means that with two weeks to get them in, I already have 10 flies for each box. I have more donations promised. And I still need to put in a couple sets myself. I'm waiting to see the mix that comes in and then will decide what flies I will contribute.

 

I'll post a listing of what has come in (hopefully with pictures) as the event get's closer.

 

FYI, many of the donations came from ISA tyers. Most had not heard of Toe Tags before I tried to describe the idea. Anyway, I think I'm going to give up on toe tags for these sets. I'll make some sort of map, like the map in the lid of a box of mixed chocolates.

 

Keep them coming. I know I would love to get one of these fly boxes when all is said and done. Thanks very much to those who have submited flies, and to those who are about to.

 

Thanks again,

Ken S.

 

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QUOTE (kschu @ Jan 30 2005, 01:33 PM)
Have you had any contact with the Ohio Smallmouth Alliance? Ken S.

The Ohio Smallmouth Alliance representative is right here! Good to see the ISA has participants on this forum as well. I'll see what I can do about whipping up a dozen or so killer patterns for your banquet. I'll be tying all day at the Buckeye Fly Fishers annual fly fishing show this Saturday, it will be a good use of the time!

 

Good luck!

 

joe C.

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Just a short update.

 

I have 17 different contributions sitting next to me here on the couch. I believe there is at least one more set that I left downstairs on the tying bench. I know that another officer from the ISA is dropping flies at my house tomorrow. And the store manager at the local fly shop said he was going to try to get me more flies as well. I need to stop by his shop Thus night to pick up the prize they are donating for the raffle. It looks like we will have at least 20 flies per box.

 

I had a great idea for the next time we try something like this. Everyone is donating six flies to make up six fly boxes. Next year, I will raffle off five of those boxes at the fund raiser. The sixth set will be raffled amoung those submitting flies. If you submit one fly, you get one chance. If you submit 4 flies, you get four chances. If I get 24 flies donated, you get a 1 in 24 chance of winning a full set. 1 in 12 chance if you submitted two. You get the idea.

 

So far, one ISA member donated four sets. Three tiers have donated two sets. More are on the way. I can't thank you guys enough. I'll post a list of what I have later. Right now, it is way past my bed time. :-)

 

It is not to late to drop flies in the mail, but you might want to use one of those two day mail envelopes (less than $4 in the USA). If I do get any flies in too late for our fund raiser, I will use those to put together raffle prizes for other local area club meetings.

 

More later,

Ken S.

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Well folks this years blowout was a huge success. There were about 200 attendees. Lots of funds raised for continueing conservation and education efforts by the ISA. I posted the following on the ISA forum this evening:

 

Thanks to all. There were 16 flies in each box. I really liked that this prize had several chances for folks to win. I don't know how many tickets were in that box, but I like having a five in ??? chance as opposed to a one in ???. And in the two years now that I have attended the blowout, winning one of these was the only prize I won. (And then I gave it away, go figure).

 

I still have one more kit. We will raffle that off at a meeting or at a bassbuggers outing. More on that later. As a side note, I got more flies in the mail yesterday, while I was at the blowout already. One set was mailed on Feb 8th from Nova Scotia and apparently took a while to get through customs.

 

These sets came from fly tying buddies of mine that I know through the 'FlyTyingForum.com'. We got contributions from six tiers (counting myself) from that forum. These are awesome guys who came through in support of the ISA. I will figure out how to add these latest donations to future prizes. I'll at least add one of each to the one remaining set.

 

Those who donated flies for this prize are listed below. Each donated one set of six flies, unless otherwise noted. I've listed the screen names for the tiers from the "FlyTyingForum.com" (FTF)

 

Dr. Rob Girder ( 4 sets ) (ISA?)

Alan Sherman (ISA)

Joseph "ATroutBum2" ( 2 sets )(FTF)

Michael Taylor ( 2 sets ) (ISA)

Ryan Van Duzer (of Fly & Field in Glen Ellyn)

Bob "OSD" (FTF)

Rick "TroutTraveler" (FTF)

John Loebach (ISA)

Keith Grady (ISA)

Ken "kschu" Schumacher (ISA & FTF)

Rich McEligot (ISA)

 

Late arrivals:

Darrin Smith (FTF)

Mark "LuvinBluegills" ( 2 sets ) (FTF)

 

Other's had offered, but did not get them in on time. I understand. Stuff happens. Thanks for thinking of us. Tie a few and set them aside for next time. I am sure that we will do this again. If I got anyone's name or affiliation wrong, please forgive me (and let me know)

 

Thanks again.

Ken S. -- Fly Fishing Coordinator - ISA

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