Founded in 1992, 55 interested people attended the first meeting. One of the first orders of business was to decide on a name for the club. The Hamilton Area Fly Fishers and Tyers was born. The stated purpose of the club is “To share information among people with a common interest in Fly Fishing and Fly Tying and to promote the sport of Fly Fishing.” The objectives of the club are to:
Promote fly fishing as a sport and conservation tool.
Educate others of all ages and walks of life in the area of fly fishing and fly tying.
Encourage young people to participate in the programs offered by the club as well as the sport of fly fishing.
Promote involvement and active participation in stream conservation projects
Provide an active voice for fishing and conservation concerns to all levels of government
Here is a link to some of our old Newsletters.
A History of the HAFFT Conservation Program
January 6, 2005
The HCA and HAFFT agreed in 1991 to mutually undertake a remedial cold water project in the Spencer Creek watershed under the umbrella of the conservation authority and with the advice of appropriate Govt. biologists. HAFFT would raise money through raffles and various grant such as CFIP etc. and HCA would provide the necessary bookkeeping.
We began in 1992 by recording weekly max./min temperature readings from six locations in stream, on property owned by a dairy farmer who had agreed to some serious and costly upgrading of his property, to eliminate manure run off into the creek and to fence his cattle out of the immediate area of the water channel. He also agreed that we would install proper tiling at a cattle and implement crossing ,which was causing flooding and impeding water flow Additionally, the provincial natural gas pipeline company agreed that we could remove a rock rubble dam that they had built some years earlier, which was causing a serious back up, warming and a heavy accumulation of silt upstream.
In the course of the next five years we accomplished our mission, eliminated stream braiding by removing obstructions, narrowed the water course, increased water flow and thus lowered water temp. We planted trees, and with cattle denied access, this stretch of water runs faster and cooler than it did before; to the extent that the MNR assisted in a transplant of wild brook trout from the upper watershed in 1997.
With input and advice from our club, HCA has included a cold water and fisheries component in their watershed plan and we have continued our work to this date further up in the watershed with similar results; including restoration of a section completely destroyed by a tornado.
In addition to the above, we have devoted a work day to road side trash and garbage collection in the upper reaches of the watershed. We assisted with the transplanting of mature Atlantic salmon in the Credit R. and the planting of fry in Bronte Cr.. With funds raised through raffles and grants, we have employed university summer students to assist in further studies.
An educational initiative by members includes fly tying instruction for young people at various fishing shows as well as our regular classes at club meetings.
In my opinion, a singular success story and an initiative I hope will be continued