Hello, 

My name is Mike Schmierer and I represent City Kids Fishing.  CKF offers free fishing outings to Portland area youth.  We work with group like Friends of Children, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Boys and Girls Club and numerous church organizations to provide up to 15 kiddos for our Saturday outings.  We provide a light breakfast before fishing and a nice BBQ lunch after the kids have fished for planted trout on private water.  All equipment and gear is supplied by CKF.  The kids do need transportation to our lake, but our user groups provide that for them.

We are currently in need of helpers for our outings.  The work consists of arriving at the lake around 7 am and essentially "setting up camp."  Move tables, chairs, rods, BBQ, canopies, etc.  from our utility trailer to the lake side.  The kids arrive around 8 am for the light breakfast and then we help the kids fish.  Usually one person will clean and ice the fish for each kid.  Lunch is served at noon and we start breaking camp around 12:30.

From this you can see we need worker bees for set up and take down, a cook and serving helpers, in addition to help with the fishing.  You don't need to be an expert in any of the areas, just provide a helping hand.  I find that four people can handle a group of kids comfortable, once you have practiced a few times.  

The camp setup and breakdown is necessary because we are on someone's private property.

The kids, I find, are well behaved because they are doing something fun and you are likely to get a hug at the end of the day.  There are all sorts of kids in the Portland area that think I am a "fishing god" because I can help them catch "planted trout."  Yes, you are a little tired at the end of the day but feel really good because you have changed a kid's life.  We have been supplied some extra rods and reels by Cabela's/Bass Pro Shops so that we can send an outfit home with one or two kids that really "get it" at the end of the day.  I like to use them a s positive reinforcers for kids that are polite and follow instructions.

If you think you would like to help us out on a trip or two, please contact me at mischmierer@gmail.com, 503-639-8797, or 503-407-6660.  If you just want to observe an outing, I will be hosting trips on June 6, 10, 17, 27 and July 11 and 18.  Just give me a heads up and I will send you directions.  All of these trips will be at our Sherwood lake.  Be careful, if you just come to observe, you may get caught up in the fun.

Thank you,
Mike Schmierer

                         

Written by Mike Gentry
 

 

Three of us ventured into Eastern Washington this last June to try some new lakes, including Chopaka Lake, which is nestled at the end of a torturous road a scan five miles short of the Canadian border.  We'd heard about the fabulous callibaetis hatches, and weren't disappointed.  While the commonly 20 inch or better fish took every stage of that genus, the surface fishing was not surprisingly a  thrill to behold.  I'd tied a "special" adult pattern for that lake that I found in a book, and the fish clearly liked it.  I'm sure it will work whenever Speckled Wings are found.
 
Hook:                               Tiemco 100, size 12-16
Thread:                            Tan 8/0
Tail:                                  Moose body hair
Body:                               Olive-gray super fine dubbing
Wing:                               Deer Hair
Hackle:                            Dun
 

1. Tie in a tail of six or seven strands of moose body hair, slightly longer that the body of the fly.
 

 

2. For the wing, cut and stack a bunch of deer hair, pinch and hold the butts of the hair bundle with your thumb and index finger on top of the hook (tips of the deer hair pointing forward over the eye of the hook), and tightly wrap the bundle on top of the hook with four or five turns of thread.  The tie-down point should be about 2/3 of the way to the eye.  Then with your fingers, bunch and pull the hair straight up and wind four or five turns of thread tightly around the hook just in front of the tie-in point of the hair bundle, to "prop up" the bundle as straight up as you can.  Then wrap two or three turns of thread moderately snugly around the upright bundle to hold it together in an upright position.  The wing should be about one and one half times as long as the body.

  

3. Trim off the butt ends of the wing hair as close to the tie-in point as possible and put a number of thread winds around the hook between the wing and the tie-in point of the tail to create a uniform gently tapered underbody of thread.
 

 

4. Wind the thread back to the tie-in point of the tail, and make a dubbing loop and wind a thin "yard" of body dubbing.  Wind the yarn forward to the tie-in point of the wing so that the size of the body increases slightly, tie off and trim.
 

5. Tie in a dry-fly quality dun hackle butt first just behind the wing, put two or three winds of thread behind the wing and three or four winds in front of the wing to just behind the eye, tie off and trim.
 

6. Build a head of thread and secure with a drop of head cement.