Although the most fanatic of anglers will find ways to fish year round, even if it’s through the ice, the urge to shake the webs off the gear stirs about now.

The Chinook Waters Fly Fishing Club, a fledgling group of 35 or so members which has found a way to feed the passion year ‘round, has a couple of events on the schedule starting today.

With a fly fishing club from Medicine Hat, the club has organized a trip today to Bullshead Reservoir near Cypress Hills, one of only two delayed harvest lakes in southern Alberta. It’s the first of what club president Kyle Hanna hopes will be a number of outings for fly-fishing enthusiasts.

The club started about a year ago as a way for fly fishers to get together and share their interest. Blair Spence, a long-time local fisherman who has an online catalogue of fly-fishing equipment, organized a beer and flies night at the Wooden Kilt pub. The first session attracted about a dozen fly tiers and that’s been the norm at regular meetings since, says Hanna, who pitched the idea of the club as a catalyst to fill the obvious need. It’s now a club with bylaws and an executive, a core group to organize events that are basically social and fun, says Hanna.

“Basically, we’re about promoting the pleasure, fellowship and sportsmanship of fly fishing and its related activities.”

The club is planning a banquet and conclave for May 1 and 2 which meets both objectives and adds a fund-raising element to support a couple of charitable groups – Project Healing Waters and Trout Unlimited Oldman River Chapter. The banquet follows a successful venture last year sponsored by Oldman TU, involving many of the Chinook Waters club members as volunteers. That dinner netted more than $15,000 for fisheries enhancement projects mainly in the south.

This year’s event will feature sessions dealing with fly tying and fly fishing for pike and golden trout, new materials and tying techniques, outdoors photography and identification of trout and aquatic insects, among other topics.

One of the fund-raising beneficiaries, Project Healing Waters, focuses on fly-fishing as therapy. The group was formed in the U.S. in 2004 and became established in Canada last year to help injured military personnel, firefighters, police and EMS staff in their physical and emotional recovery. The group points out that since 2004, more than 400 Canadian soldiers have been injured.

Trout Unlimited Oldman Chapter has been active in the area since the 1908s and since 2000 has been a registered society involved in fisheries habitat rehabilitation projects in the south. As well, the chapter has been active in establishing Police Outpost Lake as a delayed-harvest fishery and raising funds to place a seasonal conservation officer in the Oldman and Castle River drainages.

Go to goneflyfishin.ca for conclave information and e-mail flyclub@goneflyfishin.ca or call Kyle Hanna, 403-327-3359, or Ray fair-weather, 403-388-9532 for tickets.