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Youngster Teaches Fly-Tying, Casting in Rangeley

August 11, 2010 - OQUOSSOC -- Talking fly-fishing and fly-tying with Sam Kenney of Dixmont is akin to chatting up an adult fly-fishing enthusiast who's been doing both for years.

Kenney, however, is an 11-year-old who has been tying flies since age 7 and fly-fishing for three years.

Tuesday found Kenney itching to try out some of his flies on 50 brook trout from the state fish hatchery that were stocked at the pond at the Rangeley Guides' and Sportsmen's Association clubhouse during the 14th annual Outdoor Sporting Heritage Day.

However, because the event featured the blond youngster's debut at the Oquossoc event, he instead taught children and one adult the art of fly-tying. He also taught children how to fly-fish.

“Today, I was tying mostly woolly buggers and some (Maine) maple syrups,” Kenney said.

“Maple syrups are pretty much a woolly worm, but instead of red it has a calf tail or buck tail on it, and without the hackle. I usually tie pretty big when I'm teaching, because it's easier for them, but (fly-tier) Charlie Mann ties them about size 8 and I was tying maybe 4.”

Through Trout Unlimited at sporting shows, Kenney has taught adults and children the art of tying flies and fly-fishing, and has won state and national awards for his fly-tying panache.

At age 8, he won a second-place trophy for tying a woolly bugger, which is a wet fly or streamer fished under the water surface.

Since then, Kenney has won L.L. Bean's fly-tying contest several times, and this February, he took second place in the open division at the Pennsylvania State Fly Fishing Championship.

For the Maine contests, he tied woolly bugger flies, but for the Pennsylvania event, he won with a Henryville Special and a Royal Coachman.

As for designing a fly with which to catch fish instead of awards, he said you have to know the fish you're trying to catch.

“One tiny thing can make a lot of difference,” Kenney said. “It can mean, like, catching two fish and, like, 10 fish. Just one small material, like flash.”

Flash is Christmas tree tinsel.

“If you put a little bit of flash on, sometimes that flash could make the fish not want to (hit it), because it makes it think it doesn't look real,” Kenney said. “But that flash could also make it what a fish wants to strike, because it sees that flash.”

He has fished his flies for brown, rainbow and brook trout, but the largest he's caught to date was a 22-inch rainbow trout last year in Rainbow Valley Pond in Thorndike on a Sure Bet fly, which imitates a yellow perch.

“There weren't any yellow perch in the pond, but there were crayfish in there that looked like them,” Kenney said. “This year, I caught a few rainbows and opened their stomachs up and they had a couple of crayfish in there and pieces of gravel.

“So, they're scooping the crayfish up on the bottom along with the gravel. In ponds that don't have bait fish, if there are crayfish in there, they eat a lot of them.”

Kenney said he taught himself to tie flies after his father found a feather one day and wondered if it could be used for a fishing fly. Kenney's first fly, he tied without a vice, using only sewing thread and a worm hook.

When he's not tying flies, he's out fly-fishing, mom Ellen Gronlie said.

“He likes to be making things and building things,” she said. “We're just happy he's found something while so young that brings him so much joy. But 98 percent of the time, he fly-fishes.”

by Terry Karkos, Lewiston Sun Journal, August 11, 2010

Lakes:
Regions: Rangeley


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