Copper Harbor — On Tuesday evening, the Calumet-Keweenaw Sportsmen’s Club and Keweenaw National Historical Park hosted their last joint fishing event of the year at Fort Wilkins Historic State Park.

Fishing Discovery: Fly Tying and Fly Fishing was put together to introduce knowledge and skills of fly fishing from the president of the Copper Country chapter of Trout Unlimited, Chris Adams.

Adams is a fish biologist who had earned his doctorate from Michigan Tech and currently works as an instructor for the university. In his free time, he runs a fly fishing business and indulges himself in fly fishing. That day, he had the opportunity to share his fly fishing skills to about two dozen attendees consisting of some children but also experienced fishermen.

“People see fly fishing probably on TV and are a little bit intimidated by it because the casting is a little bit different,” Adams said. “But what I hoped to show them today was that it’s not too difficult to get started with a basic setup.”

The setup began with the lures called flies and how he crafts them himself. Adams went over the equipment he uses to craft the flies as well as the assortments of materials one can use when crafting them. He explained how different materials will create different actions and affect flotation. Materials he showed were chicken and turkey feathers and deer fur and discussed how they each perform differently, separately or even together on the same fly.

When crafting a fly, Adams emphasized that one should try to mimic the prey of what the target fish is going after. He had different types of flies for trout and bass, but also revealed flies he had made that look like a small fish underwater for bigger fish such as northern pike. After going over the different types of flies, Adams set up his equipment and showed the multitude of ways he crafts them and gave tips on where those interested can find the materials to craft their own.

Those who were interested had the opportunity to tie their very own flies and take them home to put in their own tackle boxes.

After the fly tying demonstration, Adams went over the tool that held the flies: the fly rod. He explained how the rod works in comparison to a regular fishing pole and explained the reasoning for their design differences. He demonstrated the way to hold the rod and then moved onto casting. After showing how to cast a fly rod, Adams passed out several rods without hooks for the attendees to try themselves. A couple of times practicing anglers caught their lines in trees, but after a few tries most in attendance had improved their ability to extend the fishing line out in front of themselves.

Once the attendees were feeling comfortable with their ability to cast the fly rods, they were lent fly rods equipped with hooks to go down to the water and try it themselves with the subsequent Fish with a Ranger event that evening. Adams was able to teach even avid fisherman something new to try that day.

“Fly fishing is really cool because you get a chance to make your own lures,” Adams said. “And you really have to pay a lot of attention to the biology and the ecology of what the fish are eating to be able to ‘match the hatch’ and create flies and mimic what they’re eating naturally. It definitely makes you step back and look at your surroundings a little bit more closely and pay attention to the stream and what’s going on beyond just what the fish are doing at any given time.”

Adams said he was especially glad to see children in attendance given that they will be the ones that will be relied on to preserve the streams as they grow up.