Rocky River Chapter Trout Unlimited Charlotte, North Carolina
We Conserve, Protect and Sustain our
Coldwater Natural Resources
          Upcoming Events:
​Monthly Meeting -         January 17th 
Fly Tying Classes-           January 19th
Fly Tying Classes -          February 16
Friends of Rocky River Celebration - Feb 21
RRTU Streamside Valle Crucis - Feb 23
Spring Alarka Camping- April 11- April 14
Fall Alarka Camping- October 10 - October 13
NEXT Thursday, Jan 17, our chapter meeting will feature as our speaker,  Justin Shroyer of Trophy Water Guide Service.  He will be discussing the giant Fall run Brown trout on the Holston and Watauga rivers.   Oh yeah.

The Brews Crews
     Brews and Brookies December '18

Great event at Olde Mecklenburg Brewery on 12/20.  Great to see everyone who was there and we missed everyone who could not be there. Great to catch up and celebrate the season with such a great bunch of folks. 

Black Friday

Our longstanding stream side event at Wilson Creek for clean up and lunch was a great event for everyone attending.  Starting with our Adopt A Stream clean up, continuing with fishing and a hot lunch this is always a good day on the water with friends.  Oh yeah, the fish were very cooperative !

December Fly Tying Session 2

During an almost daylong rainstorm we had the second session of fly tying.  Great attendance and an even better group of folks.  Both classes tied several patterns and enjoyed a pleasant day of learning trout lore and fly tying.  Plan to attend the January session and learn along with all of us how to be more successful and find more joy on the water.

Alarka Fall 2018

The Fall Alarka was terrific with excellent Fall weather and great companionship followed by even better fishing.       Tim Ramsey won the card raffle and a brand new Orvis Helios rod !
Make plans to join us in the Spring !


​FLY OF THE MONTH
December 2018

Iris
Fly of The Month 01.19
During the cold winter days after the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, fly-fishing with a streamer is an excellent means of attracting and catching a trout. Surface feeding is limited to a warmer day with tiny midges or an overcast day with small blue winged olives. Most of the catching opportunity is underwater. The choices for the angler are wet flies, soft hackle flies, nymphs, streamers or attractor patterns such as an egg, egg cluster, San Juan worm, Y2K, Estes’ Mop Fly or a Squiggly-Wiggly. 
Choose a streamer because larger trout primarily eat small forage fish, crayfish and hellgrammites year-round and especially during the winter when food is much harder to find. Top of the list is an olive woolly bugger or a black ghost. On our list to try next is an experimental streamer from 1939.
 
Iris Streamer Series
                  Iris No. 1 is a streamer fly, designed and patented by Preston J. Jennings. Patent No. 2,188,753 was filed July 8, 1939 and allowed January 30, 1940. From the Patent: “The proper coloring of the lure is determined by viewing the object which it is desired to simulate through a prism and coloring the lure in exactly the same manner as it appears through the prism.”
Jennings claimed as a theory that: “Light entering the water from an acute angle is bent or refracted at the surface. This bending causes sunlight to split into the basic colored lights which form sunlight. That the design is the impression of how a small fish would appear to a gamefish when viewed in this refracted light. The basic colors being red, blue, green, yellow, the predominate colors of the spectrum are arranged in the same order as when viewed through a prism, illuminated by reflected light or silhouetted against a source of light.”
Preston J. Jennings the inventor is the author of A Book of Trout Flies, an instructive volume published in 1935. Jennings developed an entire series of Ibis streamers including: Murky Iris, Lord Iris, Iris No. 4, Iris No. 3, Iris No. 2, Lady Iris and one streamer that has no name. He also created the Light Silhouette Minnow and the Dark Silhouette Minnow. All these fly patterns had the qualities of a multi-colored, prismatic streamer.
Jennings was an individual who viewed the world of fly-fishing differently. After thousands of wet fly and streamer fly patterns had been created by some of the best anglers on earth, Jennings came along and added yet another unique chapter to the fly pattern recipe book for streamers.
Fish the Iris No. 1 streamer in the same manner as any other streamer. The experimental part is to use the streamer in the full sunlight of early morning and late evening when the prismatic effects are theoretically in place. If you research Preston J. Jennings, you will find that he was a very successful angler and other anglers followed his advice in his time and he still has followers today.
 
Iris No. 1
Tom Adams and Alen Baker
References:
Smedley, Harold Hinsdill. Fly Patterns and Their Origins, 1944
www.globalflyfisher.com

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Rocky River Programs

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NOTICE: A quick overview of the calendar is now at the top of this page under Upcoming Events.
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We who trout fish together ...will work together to
Conserve,  Protect,  and Restore our Coldwater Streams
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Rocky River Chapter of Trout Unlimited (RRTU) 348