All tied up

Local students are getting tied up in knots, thanks to an Alaska Department of Fish and Game program.

Students participating in the ADF&G STREAM (Salmon Trout Restoration Education and Aquatic Management) program last week learned how to tie four flies -- an egg, an eyed egg, an alevin and a fry -- using materials such as chenille, bead chains and pearl mylar.

The fly-tying program is the second of the four-part program in which students participate in an salmon egg take, raise the eggs to the fry stage and ultimately release them into Matanuska Lake in the spring. Fish and game officials also take the students ice fishing as part of the program.

"We've been doing it five years now, and four out here in the Valley," said Fritz Kraus of ADF&G.

Kraus and Craig Baer travel around the state, doing the egg takes in the fall, fly tying and ice fishing in the winter and the fry release in the spring. Their reward is seen through the actions of the eager students.

"One girl told me it was the most fun she had in class, and that means something," Kraus said.

At the fly tying clinics, Baer and Kraus teach students how to tie the four patterns that resemble what they will witness in their incubating aquariums. Right now, the eggs are in the "eyed egg" stage, and students tied a regular egg pattern and added an eye with a marker.

The Salmonids in the Classroom program serves more than 70 classrooms throughout Southcentral Alaska.

The goal of the program, according to the ADF&G Web site, is to "promote an understanding of the life cycle and biology of salmon, habitat requirements, responsible angling, and how we can protect Alaska's abundant wild salmon stocks well into the future."