fishinwrench

I have several other scary beaver stories but we'll have to save those for a campfire sometime. 😉

I'm pretty sure that sow had babies nearby. Early March and she was kinda cranky. I quickly became very uncomfortable being in the water with her. 😁

Yeah in spite of the flooded timber it has never been a good crappie lake. When you catch one it will be small and paper thin. Just nothing for them to eat I guess. The gills get fat on insect larvae, lots of big burrower mayflys, damselflies, craneflys and giant midges. I've always found the bass fishing to be less than decent. Same with the catfishing. Good place to go froggin' though. Bluegill and bullfrogs are all it's really good for IMO.

My beaver story from Manito is way less interesting than yours. Was wading way back in that cove by the spill gate when a big mama came swimming towards me. I never really considered beavers anything to be afraid of so I kept on fishing. She gets about 20 feet from me still headed straight in my direction, so me, thinking that maybe she just hadn't noticed me said "Hey buddy what's up". Now about 15' from me she speeds up ALOT and goes underwater straight at me. I suddenly get this vision of her attacking my balls and I leaped out of the water and up on the bank like Spiderman. I never saw her surface again so I was afraid to get back in the water there. Headed to the old fence row at the other end of the pond to finish my day. 😅

Get'er done! 👍 You end up with 3 more pieces than I do. I need to get 3 killed pronto so I can try that squirrel pot pie recipe. Thinking I'll just boil them whole and skip the quartering. I never knew about that gland. Jeeze, cleaning squirrels is a big enough PIA and now there's something else. 😅

Kinda hard to get lost following that blood trail. 😂

Oh you shoulda seen ME the first of October. I hadn't fished a dry for trout in ages following 12 years of slinging clousers and oversized streamers. The term "bulldogging it" didn't even come close to describing it. You'd have thought I was standing in the stream splitting wood. I've got myself all straightened out now though. 😊

G-gnats, Cracklebacks, and EHC's usually don't need any help floating. A few aggressive false casts and she's gonna levitate. Fish slime and all.

Any Ranger made in the mid '80's or earlier should be solid as a rock and stay that way. I'm currently running a 1985 Ranger 350V that was never pampered, and she's solid as a rock. I have seen the old tri-hull style Rangers from the 70's with soggy transoms and soft floors but Wood mfg. got real serious about rigidity towards the early '80's. As for older motors....2-stroke Johnson/Evinrude all the way ! The older Yamaha's and Tohatsu's are great too but you don't want one that's older than a 1990. Stay the hell away from the older Mercs if at all possible.

I had heard or read about that years ago, but forgot about it. Might be ok for a Pre-treat but I'm not keen on carrying it around on me or in my waist pack. I have some Water-Shed that I got to treat deer hair bass bugs, but man that stuff is not to be messed with indoors! I actually began to hallucinate (started seeing tracers). I won't use it at all anymore.

Back when Metz and Hoffman was the best hackle available that was definitely the case. The good Whiting stuff we have now can take it without any problem. Smoosh away!

I have tried to be as clear as I can. I absolutely LOVE competitive fishing, but I am seeing and realizing the results of it when it is done excessively. It's not cool and some changes need to be made. Either WAY less tournaments, or the scoring procedure needs to be altered so that less (preferably none) fish are removed from their home range area. It would be better if guys kept and ate them, because possession limits would control how many fish get removed from any area. The average tournament angler removes WAY more fish on a monthly basis than he could possibly eat all year long. Agree?

Well here's my thinking on the matter, correct me if I'm wrong. 1. Dry fly hackle fibers aren't going to absorb water, so any coating you put on them is just adding weight. No? 2. A blob of Gink or any other silicone dropped into the water...SINKS, so it's heavier than water and doesn't shake off on a backcast. You can't blow it off, so WFG does it do? 🤔 I get it if it is a deer hair bug or a fly with considerable mass where it may keep water from absorbing into a larger area (pocket) but we are talking whispy little dry flys here. The powdered stuff seems to have a use, but the liquid/gel crap.....I don't get it.

Good job, man ! 👍

Not sure if it's relevant or not, but the only ones I ever hear openly complain or worry about being "cheated" are the guys that seldom if ever bring in a solid limit. I've been in lots of tournaments where the top 5 places was determined by a few ounces, and never once was there any actual concern about anyone cheating. Years ago several of us fished a little 4 hour derby every Tuesday evening out of a local resort. Most of us that fished it were either guides or tackle shop and resort owners and there were no official RULES ever written out. One of the guys (a guide from Tan Tara) whose regular partner couldn't fish that night took his little sister out with him, and after the weigh-in she was running her mouth and mentioned how freaked out she was because he kept asking her to hand him crawdads. Wait.....CRAWDADS !!!??? Well, there were no "written rules", but lets face it....we all knew the RULES, right? Whatever! That's the only experience I've ever had with someone cheating, and TECHNICALLY he wasn't.

Typically around Thanksgiving you will find Crappie suspended under docks. Just pitch a jig in there, let it fall on a tight line, and wait for the "tick". Keep trying different docks in different places until you find a dozen or so that have fish holding under them......Then make a milk-run of it and load the boat.

So.... Parachute, or Traditional ? I love tying parachute drys, love the way they look.....but I don't do very well with them in comparison to traditionally hackled drys, or no-hackle drys.

Well come on over this coming March as soon as the Henbit turns purple, and we'll go hit it. Bring a flyrod and a rugged set of hip boots. I'll provide everything else. There's some big ol' knot headed gills in there.

That's a bummer. By chance was he the Kipster from the old CC board ?

That's the only reason I agreed to leveling a spot, hauling in sand and building a swimming pool. Bait testing. Did some experimenting with dry fly floatant last week in one of the wife's mixing bowls. Pretty much came to the conclusion that none of it is worth a crap. Frogs Fanny seems to be the best, of the ones I had on hand, but even it is pretty disappointing. Gink (which is like the BEST SELLER) is worse than using none at all. All that paste crap does is add extra weight to a fly....and then seals in the moisture after it does become soaked. It also mats down peacock herl and dubbing, and makes the fly look like a drowned rat. Also discovered that a folded up Bounty paper towel is 10x better than a 15.00 piece of Amadou.

I see all types and brands fail at about the same rate. I have a feeling that leaving them plugged in constantly to "maintain" your batteries is a mistake and does more harm than good....but I have no science to back that up. Pay no attention to the reviews on things like batterys and battery chargers. I see people almost daily that swear their batteries are practically new and in perfect condition when they are obviously not. Just had a guy leave here a couple hours ago that was all pissed off because the battery he bought "LAST YEAR" was bad. The battery had a sticker on it that said 4/14. 🙄

I'm there with ya. I used to be into it in a big way but kinda lost interest, then the tornado ate my bows and guns and the desire to replace any of it still just hasn't come over me. Have friends and family that kill more than they'll ever eat so there's always venison in our freezer. No need for me to bother.

There's a 70 acre pond that I love to hit every March with a 4wt. flyrod for big honkin' gills. If you hit it right (timing) when they first move into the shallows you can catch nothing but the big ones for 2 weeks. After that the little farts take over and it gets rather monotonous.