Merry Christmas!

Here's wishing a most blessed Christmas for all our members and friends!  Hope everyone finds something under the tree they can use for their piscatorial pursuits in the coming year.

And let's not forget the reason for the season:  “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us….” John 1:14.  Please be giving to those in need, and keep in our prayers those in suffering, in distress, and away from their homes and families this holiday season including our service members.

Shortly after Christmas, we'll have a post about the upcoming 2024 Mixed Bag Contest.  In the meantime, love and peace to everyone from Kisatchie Fly Fishers!

Festival time just weeks away!

Cenla Fly Fishing Festival
Saturday, January 20, 2024
8:30am to 3:30pm 
Kees Park, Pineville, LA
FREE admission!!

Every even-numbered year we hold our biennial Festival, a celebration of the fly fishing and light tackle lifestyle.  This event is a unique experience, vastly different from most outdoors shows.  With the Festival, it's all about education, instruction, and community.

We encourage attendees to come learn about new places to fish, how to fish them. Watch some of the top tiers from across the region tie flies, or make jigs.  Cast a fly rod and/or get casting instruction from top FFI certified instructors.  Learn why kayaks are an economical and very effective way to fish.  

And please take part in our giant raffle and fundraiser to raise money for our friends at The Food Bank of Central Louisiana - and help feed some hungry families! 

For complete details, including schedule, list of fly tiers and jig makers, exhibitors, speakers, and much more, click on the "2024 Fest" menu above.

Club honorees recognized at banquet

At our annual Christmas banquet, the club honored those members who have had an outstanding year, either in service to the club, in their accomplishment and/or contribution as fly tiers, or with individual achievement. Each recipient will receive a custom-designed coffee mug with their recognition, featuring artwork by famed fly fishing artist James Lady.  

Member of the Year - Jeff Albrecht
Awarded to that member who, either made important contributions to our club, or assisted in helping others, or achieved milestones in their own skills. Jeff was a fixture at most of our activities, and had several personal accomplishments as an angler. Several of his "new" species were entered in this year's Mixed Bag.  

Fly Tier of the Year - Richard Dewees
Awarded to that member who, either through active participation, or educating and sharing skills, or significant improvement in their own skills, advanced the art within our club. Richard participated in nearly all our tying sessions, volunteered as a demo tier at external events, and assisted newer tiers.

Presidents Award - Sam Poole, Jane Oxenhandler
This award is selected by the president in recognition of service to the club, or for any actions or deeds that they find worthy of recognition.  Club members Sam and Jane have provided the musical entertainment at all of our Christmas banquets. They also perform at all the local hospitals for patients, including the Cabrini Cancer Center.

Please join us in congratulating all of our 2023 award winners!

2023 Mixed Bag Contest results

Our 6th annual Mixed Bag Contest finished up on November 30th, and once again set records. The MBC is a months-long CPRE (catch-photo-release encouraged) tournament where size doesn't matter, but diversity does. The purpose of the contest is to produce a database of all species that can be caught on fly, where they can be caught, and what flies worked. This database has helped our members become more successful anglers.

At our recent Christmas Party, tournament committee chair Bill Morrison announced the results.  The top five (5) places were awarded Orvis gift cards. In addition, every participant had one ticket for each species they entered placed in the Consolation Drawing for over a dozen prizes.   For the final grand prize drawing, all tickets - including those of winners - were placed back in the bucket for a Redington Rise fly reel valued around $200.  Congratulations to Rich Hudson who was the lucky winner of the reel!

For 2023, we had 20 participants, slightly down from 22 the year before. We also had the second highest number of entries (170) ever, and the most entries ever from one participant (36).  

Among the most common species registered were bluegill (18), rainbow trout (12), longear sunfish (12), largemouth bass (9) and green sunfish (9).  Altogether 55 species were entered, including 10 new species never previously entered in the Mixed Bag.  Some of the more interesting species included: Black Spotted Topminnow, Cahaba Bass, Lowland Cichlid, Orangespotted Sunfish, and Creek Chub.  But the winner of "Most Interesting Species" was Carlton Townsend for a Snake River Cutthroat caught on the Norfork River.

By state, Louisiana had the most entries (108) followed by Arkansas (40), Alabama (8), northwest Florida (7), Mississippi (4) and Oklahoma (3). The most common waters for entries were the Little Missouri River in southwest Arkansas (25), Indian Creek (16), Little River (10), LSUA Ponds (8), and Capitol Lake in Baton Rouge (7).  Altogether there were entries from 52 bodies of water, up from 48 last year.

The most common fly patterns were the Soft Hackle Beadhead Hares Ear (25), Woolybugger (10), Popper (10), Mad Dog (9), Rio Bandito (8), Clouser Minnow (8), and the Bully Bluegill - Rosenbohm Edition.

Here's the final standings for the 2023 Mixed Bag:
1st - Bill Morrison (36 entries)
2nd - Chris Williams (26)
3rd - Jim Johnson (21)
4th - Noah Hoyt (11)
5th - Joel Dinnat (10)

Many thanks to Bill Morrison for his efforts in administrating the Mixed Bag entries and compiling these statistics.

The 2024 Mixed Bag will kickoff on January 1st. The form will go active shortly after midnight.