Whats new in Fly Fishing at Dizzy Ducks Den in Pennsylvania page 3

a. Hatchery strains. All life stages are readily available from state-owned trout hatcheries and these strains grow rapidly. Providing that sufficient numbers of mature brook trout successfully reproduce in the stream, a population of naturally produced fish commensurate with available habitat should be evident in 5 to 10 years. While the population is growing, harvest should be severely restricted or prohibited. There are some disadvantages of using hatchery strains: they are highly vulnerable to fishing and these genetic strains are different from the wild stocks that originally inhabited Big Spring Creek.

b. Wild strains. It is unlikely that any brook trout derived from the original strain are still present, and if they were, it would be extremely difficult (and expensive) to separate them from the hatchery strain and hatchery x wild strain hybrid fish. It may be possible to transplant wild juvenile and adult brook trout from other streams in the Conodoguinet Creek watershed into Big Spring Creek. Brook trout from other watersheds could be used, but they may be less closely related to the original population in Big Spring Creek than other populations within the watershed. One could also collect eggs from wild brook trout, fertilize them with wild males, and either bury the eggs in the substrate of Big Spring Creek or raise them in hatcheries to fry or fingerling sizes before stocking. This option will be more expensive than the hatchery strain option, and it may take much longer to develop a large, self-sustaining population.

4. Physical and Biological Intervention. Simultaneously enact options 2 and 3.

GARY LAFONTAINE DIED
JANUARY 4 2002.

Gary Lafontaine obituary:
Gary Lafontaine died today after a
3-year battle with ALS. He is survived by his daughter and her husband.
Gary Lafontaine was well known
world wide through articles on fly fishing in more than a dozen different national and regional publications.
He authored 5 published books and co-authored many more including
the brand new books "Fly Fishing
the Yellowstone" wich he co-authored
with Bob Jacklin and "Fly Fishing the Madison" (with Craig Mathews). Before he died he was working on a book on Blue-wing Olives.
Gary Lafontaine had a great many friends in the fly fishing world and will be greatly missed.

continued

Gary LaFontaine said he always knew he wanted to spend his life fishing. That's why he chose the University of Montana back in 1963.

"I could have gone to college somewhere in the middle of a big city, or I could have gone to the University of Montana which has the Clark's Fork flowing right by the campus," he said.

"I never took a class between 1 and 4 o'clock because there was always a Baetis hatch on the river," he said. "After fishing the hatch we'd go to the 4 o'clock class, take our waders off and lean our rods in the corner and the instructor would take the first 10 minutes of the class asking us about the fishing."

LaFontaine's degree is in behavioral psychology and his thesis work was studying trout when they feed selectively.

"When trout feed selectively it is a very simple stimulus response pattern," he said. "Food is the stimulus and the response is the rise. They get locked into a target and they want it to look exactly like that insect and anything that doesn't is ignored. That is not intelligence, it is simply rote repetition."

Much of his thesis work was done in scuba gear at the bottom of a hole watching trout rise. That work led to the book Caddisflies and launched his writing career.

The key to his caddis patterns is the DuPont material called Antron. When Dupont engineers were working on the product they were very helpful to Gary.

"DuPont was incredible," he said. "They had four to five of their top engineers talking to a fly fisherman. When they told me they only sold Antron by the carload, I said I'd drive down and they said "We mean by the train carload.' But they sent me a lot of it."

Currently fly tyers can buy skeins of yarn at discount department stores under the brand names of Dazzleair and Jewel Tones. Gary says, "Don't ask for Sparkle Yarn, that's just a name I made up and don't look for Antron, you won't find it. And don't look for these brands in fancy yarn shops. They don't carry it."

Other books LaFontaine has written include "The Dry Fly, New Angles" published in 1990 and "Trout Flies, Proven Patterns" published in 1993. All three books received the United

Fly Tyers' Fly Fishing Book of the Year award. He also writes a regular column for Trout Magazine, the Trout Unlimited journal.

His latest book is "Trout Flies, Proven Patterns" which is part of a trilogy. The next book, entitled "Trout Methods, Proven Presentations" will be out in the fall of 1997. The third will be entitled, "Trout Waters, Proven Places."

"When you are a writer, the hardest part of the book is the title and when you have the title, the rest is easy," LaFontaine said, laughing.

Tidbits

MORE WOMEN IN FLY FISHING

A recent survey commissioned by the American Fly Fishing Trade Association (AFFTA) and later published in Outdoors Unlimited, the publication of the Outdoor Writers Association of American, reveals a major increase in women in the sport of Fly Fishing.
There are 6.5 million active fly-fishers age 16 or older in the United States. The Survey indicates that 10.9 million people have fly-fished at least once in the past 12 months. Of this number, 40 percent were men age 45 and older.
Twenty five percent of active fly anglers are women -a marked increase over the 16 percent who reported active involvement in 1995.
The study also revealed that the average fly-fisher has participated in the sport for 16.6 years, and owns more than two rods. 81 percent of the anglers favored freshwater fly fishing, 7 percent the salt fishing and 12 percent enjoyed both. Read more on the AFFTA site report here!. http://www.affta.com/

TROUT LEARN TO AVOID YOUR ARTIFICIAL FLIES

What we as flyanglers have suspected long ago now proven!
New Scientist reports that a recent study made by scientists and anglers in two trout streams in New Zealand, now at last konfirm what we flyfishermen have suspected long time ago:
a trout, previously hooked by a fly and released, tend to refuse to bite in a similar or the same fly again.
In a popular river this fact is estimated to effect the catch rate there to only about one third of what un unfished river of the same fish density would produce. So apparently the fish also gets wiser, not only us.
The tests were made in two almost identical rivers with the similar fish population. Also the fishing gear and the anglers were of close match. After hooking the fish, all fish got tagged and released. This way the study also could reveal that individual fish once caught became veary and suspicous and were extra hard to get to bite again.
Well didn't we anglers suspect that already!