wackaloo13

The big box is 9 x 4.5... same box as the bugger barn. The little box is 4 x 6. In the little box shown, I put 14 slits for blue gill poppers. That box can hold all of my bluegill poppers and spiders. I made a small box for bass poppers as well - 6 slits. Its enough to hold 2 yellow dahlberg divers, 2 white dahlberg divers and 2 black dahlberg divers. If i cant catch fish on one of those 3 flies it is time to go drink. I like only having foam on one side of the bass box - plenty of room for the deer hair bugs. The deer hair bugs get crushed in my bugger barn. For trout fishing i carry - 1 big box of articulated streamers and 1 small box of trailer flies. The silver sharpie lines on the slits make it 10x easier to get the hook back into the slit. I like this style of box because it doesnt get all ratty like the ones where you have to stick the hook into the foam.

I used neoprene closed cell foam. It looks like cliffs used Eva foam (craft foam). I ordered the boxes from mouser electronics. It is actually a flambeau box. P/n 4040-2. They are $4 per box

I decided to make up a batch of fly boxes for my brother and I. Buying a bunch of cliffs bugger barns was too expensive. I made 2 sizes - one the same size as the traditional bugger barn and one about half the bugger barn size. I think i am going to make the slits go the other direction on the next version of the larger box. It is about right length for the articulated streamers that i fish. I am going to get a cutter made to cut the outside & slits for the foam - the prototype looked like a drunkard (aka me) cut the slits. FYI, it is not worth your time to make just one of these - you get killed on the shipping of the boxes and foam.

I ended up getting a brown and a rainbow on Saturday on a pheasant tail nymph. I might have done better if I didn't spend the morning throwing streamers. We really do need some rain.

I knew it was going to be slow but I had to scratch the itch. Nothing cures the ills of 50+ hour weeks like the current river. I am looking forward to October. Although, I am really looking forward to nov- dec. Got to love the days when you don't see a single soul all day.

Fished baptist up yesterday am and down in the afternoon. Threw big streamers for the majority of the day with no real hookups. Had about a dozen chases from decent fish. Switched to a indicator rig around 330. Landed 1 on a San Jaun. Had a brown try to eat my indicator. I'm not sure why I don't tie a hook to it.... Went back to the streamer and had a nice brown swing and miss the fly. All the high water has changed up some of the holes. I'm not sure if it is for the better or not. Water was still pretty warm. Hopefully as we get into fall fishing picks up. I'm looking forward to having the entire stream to myself once the river gets crappy.... To many floaters. On another note, I saw a woman crash her canoe. It was hysterical. I was a gentleman, I checked to see if she was ok and waited for her to get around the bend before I cracked up.

This just caused me to buy $100 worth of fish skulls...

Game plan: Hero or zero. Flies: Gigantic streamers - sex dungeons, ice picks, butt monkies (all flies were 4+ inches in length) Results: 2 great days on the water. Caught some decent fish. Saw some gigantic stripers that did not want to have anything to do with me. Had fun. Fat 17" bow with a mouth full of ice pick The picture does not do just to exactly how coppery colored this fish actually was. 15"ish bow with a mouth full of sex dungeon. I didnt have a chance to snap a picture but i also had a 7" sucker chase down an ice pick and hook itself. im not sure what that fish was thinking. Lessons for next time: 1. dont trust google map directions on an iphone - print them out 2. strip set. 3. strip set. 4. strip set. 5. stop half-assing your double hauls. 6. put the stripping finger on the first day, not 3 hours from the end of day 2 float 7. bring advil.... my wrist is not used to doing that much stripping.

Headed down to the nfow this weekend. Drifting Saturday and Sunday with Brian wise. Hopefully the weather behaves. Report to come.

I use my tying vice to crush the barbs

I debarb bigger hooks. I don't debarb little stuff.

I fished 4x for my big cicada patterns last weekend. I use 4x when I polish nymph. If I am fishing little nymphs and midges I drop down to 5-7x. I fish 2x for streamers. I use flouo for 2x-6x and mono for the 7x. When the water is really clear, I tend toward the lighter tippets and longer leaders. I also use smaller indicators.

Good luck! Adam, your parents didn't by chance teach at Burroughs did they?

Left the house in stl around 615 and went to schnucks for some breakfast and to grab lunch. Standing in line, I realized I left my waders at home. Fml. Run home and grab the waders and headed out 44. I managed to get a speeding ticket near the Salem airport. Fml. Got to baptist and the canoe hatch was just starting so I grabbed my 11' nymph stick and headed upstream. I tied on a czech nymph setup with a heavy anchor worm and a caddis pupa and immediately hooked 2 nice rainbows. Worked my way further upstream and saw fish rising to cicadas. I tied on a cicada imitation I came up with the other night at the tying bench and started fishing some fishy looking water. Brought another 9-10 to hand before lunch. After lunch headed down stream. Hooked 3 8" browns on the way down. Switching back to a nymph rig I worked my way back up and got into 2 or 3 pretty big rainbows. Switched to an elk hair caddis, tan and hooked up with a dew more smaller fish. Biggest fish of the day was 18-19. I was hooked on a bigger rainbow but it chucked the cicada mid fight. Overall a great day of fishing.

Do y'all think that the current outside of the park will be fishable this weekend? I'm guessing it might be fairly crowded with a lot of floaters. What flow rate would you consider to be wadable?