THE NEXT MEETING WILL BE HELD ON: March 1st (see inside for details)

I like to start out by saying thank you to Capt. David Blinken for the great show he put on at our last meeting. I would also like to mention that the Saltys will be getting together with Dave on some special projects aimed at kids, in the near future, more info to follow. This will be part of an effort the Saltys will be making to increase our public visibility in the community and an increase in our standing in the sport-fishing arena as well. A new century is fast approaching and an organizational face-lift is long over due. It is my hope, that many of you will involve yourselves, in these changes. Your input is welcomed. As we get closer to the start of a new fishing season, keep in mind that belonging to a fishing club, means more than just fishing.

I'm happy to announce that our March meeting will include Shinnecock and Montauk fly and light tackle guide Capt. Ken Turco. Shinnecock has always been a very productive fishing spot, and this past year was no exception. Fly fishing friendly for both surf and boat. Get the lowdown from one of the best in the area, Capt. Ken Turco.

I would be remiss if I didn't take the time to wish Tommy Cousins a fond farewell. Tommy has been a Salty since the 70's and a driving force in its administration. As past president he has help to elevate the status of our club and its notoriety, as a top U. S salt water fly club.

I serve as Pres. of the Saltys because of his nomination, for which he has my heart felt thanks. I hope I can show as much tenacity and gumption in my term.

It is a pleasure to count him amongst my favorite people. Tommy save some fish for the folks in NC and thanks for the ladder.

THANX

FRANK

By Jaiem Fleishmann

For some time, I had wanted to take a trip to a far away exotic fishing spot. Visions of tarpon, bonefish, jacks, 'cudas and the rest had been enticing me for years. I finally got my wish when I joined a group lead by Joe Keegan from Ramsey Outdoor Sports on a trip to Turnireffe Flats Lodge in Belize. What an adventure it was!

The lodge was located on the Turnereffe Islands atoll, approximately 20 miles east of the Belize mainland. Situated on a series of mangrove and coral islands are several places to stay with Turnireffe Flats Lodge located in the northeast section. Accommodations are comfortable and the food is great.

While tarpon and permit are available, Turnireffe is best known for its bonefishing. Most fish are around 4 to 5 pounds, but the quantity is awesome! In many other tropical places, you're lucky to see 3 or 4 bones together at a time. In Turnireffe, schools of 30 or 40 fish are common on the flats! Of course, seeing that many and getting a hook-up are two different matters.

Fishing for bonefish was mostly done by wading the flats (bring a good, solid pair of wading boots!) while tarpon and permit fishing was done from a flats boat. The guides were very helpful when it came to rigging our lines for the local species and getting us close to the fish.

There is a great variety of fish available at Turnireffe. In my weeklong stay, in addition to bonefish, I caught lots of jacks and Spanish mackerel, 'cuda, yellow tail snappers, a nice mutton snapper, hooked a nice permit, and jumped my first tarpon. Not bad for just 5 days fishing!

If you go to Turnireffe, bring along an 8- or 9-weight outfit for the bonefish and at least a 10-weight for the tarpon.

The sun is powerful in that region of the world. A wide brimmed flats style hat and good polarized glasses are a must. Also I suggest wearing white long sleeved shirts and long-legged pants to block the sun (don't just rely on sunscreen!). And above all remember to bring your camera with lots of film.

After even brief experience, the average saltwater fly rodder is able to determine somewhat the type of fly line he needs, the proper rod, and has a good idea as to which flies will produce. But, most saltwater fly fishermen have almost no understanding of the function of their tapered leader.

Aside from seriously mismatched tackle, an improperly designed leader is one of the greatest reasons why a cast does not get to the target. Or if it does, it presents the fly incorrectly. The fly may fall back on the leader, or it crashes to the water so heavily that it discourages the fish from striking.

There is little wonder that fly fishermen are confused about what constitutes a good tapered leader. For many years there was a fairly universal formula that said the leader should be comprised of 60% butt section, 20% mid section, and 20% tippet. Even worse, has been the theory that the butt section of a leader should be made from stiff, or what is sometimes called hard, monofilament. The most popular of these brands is the Mason hard mono.

To understand how a tapered leader functions, you need to realize what happens on the cast. As the rod is brought forward and flexes, the line is rather straight. When you apply the speed up and stop at the final moment of the cast (frequently referred to as a power stroke), the tip stops and the line unrolls towards the target. What is important here is to realize that a line arrives at the target by unrolling. Once a line stops unrolling (or straightens) in flight, it falls. The same thing occurs with the leader. As the line completes unrolling, the leader must do the same to deposit the fly on target. Once the caster realizes this, many of the things that have been suggested about building a tapered leader become clearer The Leader Must Unroll.

Let's first look at the conventional rule that the butt section should be constructed of harmonofilament. The fly line is soft, flexible, and has weight. It unrolls well because of these properties. In flight the line unrolls and arrives at the leader. A stiff but section will resist unrolling. Because stiff monofilament doesn't want to unroll, the cast often falls short.

What is necessary in building a tapered leader us that the butt section must have two important qualities: it must be flexible and have weight. A butt section that is supple, or flexible, will want to continue to unroll. But, it must have enough weight in the butt section to continue to unroll forward.

Once you get a car rolling, it doesn't take too much to keep it moving. So it is with a leader. If the fly line unrolls and arrives at a leader that has a heavy, flexible butt section, the inertia will cause the leader to continue to unroll toward the target. Unfortunately, I don't know of any manufacturer that makes the leader that I am going to suggest, although, to my knowledge, Scientific Anglers comes the closest.

Here is how I suggest you build your tapered leader, which works well in fresh or saltwater. You should use any premium spinning line. The top of the line DuPont, Berkeley, etc., are fine. I find that Maxima is a bit on the stiff side, but still okay. The entire leader should be constructed from the same company's monofilament, as the suppleness of the materials differs. For example, use all Berkeley Big Game, or all DuPont Super Tough, etc.

The second point I'd like to emphasize is that while I'm going to list the lengths for each section, you can easily be off several inches and it won't matter. Don't be too concerned that one section is a few inches shorter or longer.

The third point is what really makes this leader system work. The butt section should be approximately half the length of your leader. By constructing a leader where half of it is butt section, you are able to get that critical, flexible weight required to turn over the leader, even on breezy days.

If you use a fly rod that throws a line from size 8 through 15, I urge you to start the leader with a 50 pound butt section. I know this sounds heavy, but give it a try. For rods matched with lines from 6 through 8, you may want to begin with a 40 pound butt section. If you don't want to use 50 pound, then substitute 40 pound in the butt section in place of what is suggested in the formula. Then, add 30, 25, and 20 pound test to form the mid section, and then add your tippet. Regardless of how you build the leader, a tippet from 15, 12, or 10 pounds can be added that is about two feet in length.

By Jack Denny

Well this is the month that things will begin to happen and it couldn't happen soon enough. Stripers

will be moving into local waters and some other species will start to become active.

But it is the stripers that we have been waiting for and if we have a normal spring then we should see some action very soon. The key is the sun and the bottom of your favorite early spring fishing hole, it should be a dark bottom.

Let me explain, the darker the bottom the more heat it will collect the heat and so the water temperatures will rise quickly. As the temperature rises everything goes into high gear from the smallest marine creature at the bottom of the food chain to the fish that feed on them at the top of the heap. The darker bottom will hold the heat and that is why one area has better action than another. Little Neck Bay, which is a traditional early season hot spot for stripers, is one of the first places to have such good fishing early in the season. Stripers that migrate from the Hudson begin to pour out and driven by an internal force and head up the Sound to do their thing. There are also bass that have wintered over in the deeper parts of the Sound that wake up and

begin to search out the warmer temperatures of shallow bays and they are hungry!

The key to catching these early fish is "low and slow", the fish are not moving like they do in June. It's like you waking up in the morning and getting started, you just don't move that fast. Warm days in March

can get up there so the fish act accordingly, they move quicker and chase the bait with more desire. The Clouser Deep Minnow is a good early spring fly or you can use a weighted Lefty's. The bait is usually small so keep this in mind when choosing a pattern. Water clarity is also a problem, it is often murky due to spring rains and winds so make sure the fish can see your fly. Last year I had good success with a lime green and chartreuse Clouser during an afternoon fishing trip early

in March. Don't overlook black flys during the day, they create good contrast and can be picked out by the fish easily.

Take a trip early to find out what has happened to you fishing area during the winter. Things change and a trip, at low water, will give you a preview of what to expect on your first outing. Holes and bars may have come and gone since the last time you there. Safety is the prime reason to check things out, you want catch fish and get home with the memories. Good luck and be safe.

Contributed by Tom Baumann

This past season I had the opportunity to fish on Several occasions with our past president Rino Bratelli aboard his 17 foot Aquasport. While all the trips were enjoyable, two trips in the late fall were memorable.

Our initial stop during the first trop was off hart island in Long Island Sound. Upon arrival, Rino handed me one of his chartreuse and pink Clousers, which looked like nothing I've ever seen in any fly shop or catalog anywhere. But it was his boat so I tied it on and cast where I was told, and on the first, hooked a nice schoolie bass. We caught several more bass on that spot, then moved further into the Sound to a tiny Island.

"Cast into that small gap between those two rocks", Rino directed. First cast, another bass. This spot held fewer fish and we soon moved to another location. The water was deeper here and we switched to teeny fast sinking lines but stayed with the Rino Clouser. When again directed to cast to a particular spot by the zen master, I did so without hesitation. "Let it sink, ok..strip, strip, stop, strip again." he intoned. Of course you know, a striper nailed the fly midway through that last strip. We stopped in five locations that Sunday, catching fish at each.

The second trip really sold me on the Rino Clouser. We fished the sound again but this time over acres of diving birds and feeding fish. You couldn't miss but I noticed I was being outfished about 15 to 1. I was using a white clouser while Rino used that pink thing again. Granted he's a better fisherman than me but this was getting silly. When we finally noticed my lack of productivity, he handed me one of these magic flies and my score immediately improved. I now go nowhere without this fly.

This is a standard Clouser style with some refinements.

1. After attaching eyes, tie on chartreuse bucktail and bind along the entire shank. Add pearl and silver flash material extending 1/2 inch past the bucktail. Tie in another bunch of chartreuse bucktail. Immediately behind the eyes wrap a narrow band of red thread.

2. Turn the fly over and add pink bucktail with pink crystal flash on either side.

3. Epoxy head and eyes.

My name is Alan Evelyn and I'm the new Conservation Chair for the Club. My goal as the Conservation Chair is to help the club members maintain and expand their conservation activities. It is my plan to keep the membership informed on conservation issues through the newsletter, website, email, and the monthly meetings. If you have conservation items that you would like me to bring to the club's attention , please let me know. It is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT that the voices of all club members are heard loud and clear about the importance of protecting our fisheries.. Currently, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) actions are favoring commercial fisherman over recreational anglers. This bias is readily seen in the NMFS proposed "Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Tunas, Swordfish and Sharks (HMS FMP) and Draft Amendment I to the Atlantic Bill Fishery Management Plan (Billfish Amendment). The proposed changes place additional restrictions on recreational anglers while allowing commercial longliners to continue with out new conservation measures. We must convince Fishery Managers that if they are serious about rebuilding the highly migratory species fishery then they must get serious and restrict longlining in all US waters. Even if you do not fish offshore it is important that you voice your opposition to HMS FMP and the Billfish Amendment. These proposals contain a dangerous precedent of closing stressed fisheries to recreational access, but allowing unrestricted commercial harvest. If NMFS is successful in applying the strategy of excluding or restricting recreational access to this offshore fishery, it is only a matter of time before they try the same strategy on the inshore fisheries as well. Please voice your opposition to HMS FMP and the Billfish Amendment and let your elected officials know: I FISH AND I VOTE !

Members from New York should write to:

The Honorable Charles Schumer

United States Senate

229 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable James Saxton

339 Cannon House Office Building

1st Street & Independence Ave., SE

Washington, DC 20515

US Department of Commerce, NOAA

14th & Constitution Ave., NW

Washington, DC 20230

It is imperative that as recreational anglers, we take an active and vocalrole in protecting our fisheries. PLEASE WRITE TODAY

Please feel free to talk to me at the meetings or contact me at home: (516)256-0726, work: (718) 951 6522, work fax: (718) 951-4744 or by email:aevelyn@brooklyn.cuny.edu.

Scott Feltrinelli caught a 21 pound, 38" long striper on a tiny 5 wt. flyrod! Hempstead Harbor, November 1998.

"THE FISHING LINE"

1st Annual Fly Fishing Seminar

With Rich Johnson

&

Sponsored By:

7:30 to 10 p.m. (doors open 6:30)

Knights of Columbus Catering Hall

2183 Jackson Ave. Seaford, Long Island

Featured Guest Speaker

The Northeast's pioneer & acknowledged forefather of saltwater flyfishing

Author of "Inshore Fly Fishing" and "Lou Tabory's Baits and Their Imitations."

Federation of Flyfisher's Board of Governors, casting instructor and an Orvis endorsed Pro.

Theresa Hendriksen holds one of many 20 pound albacore caught off the shores of North Carolina last November. She attributes her success to the Saltys meetings, the talk by Bob Popovics, and guide Donny Hatcher.

By Tom Cousins

The most important fishing permit of the season, the 1999 New York State Parks Fishing Permit, is made available twice a year, in the spring from January 1st to April 30th and again in the fall from Labor Day to December 31st. Please note that time is running out, if you have not picked up this permit. The last day, this spring is April 30th. This permit provides access to some of the best fishing on Long Island and covers the most territory on both shores and the east end. Not having this permit will severely restrict your access to shore-line fishing.

COST: $15.00 for parking permit and $39.00 for four wheel drive permit.

WHERE TO ACQUIRE: State Park Regional Headquarters, Belmont Ave., North Babylon. Telephone: 516-669-1000, ext. 224 (permits), Robert Moses State Park, Montauk State Park.

DIRECTIONS TO BELMONT LAKE STATE PARK: Take Southern State Parkway to exit 37N and go north on Belmont Ave. The first large white wooden building on the right is the Headquarters marked by a large sign. Walk the brick path and follow the path to right for the entrance to the building; the permit office is the first door on the right.

WHEN TO ACQUIRE: The permits are issued from January 1st to April 30th and after Labor Day to December 31st. The permit office is open from 8:45AM to 5:00PM, Monday through Friday.

PERMIT PROVISIONS: The parking permit provides parking and the four-wheel drive permit provides night-parking and night beach access to the following state parks:

Sunken Meadow State Park: Note that parking in the cast parking field is to be avoided after dark, cars parked there will be ticketed.

Each park has special seasonal provisions that are detailed for you when you purchase the permit.