fishinwrench

Speaking of vile beasts......

I can tell you that my beadhead strip leeches and sparkle minnows with down-eye hooks ride hook point down when attached with a loop knot. The angle of the tippet has alot to do with it. Flys in the kitchen sink with 18" of line tied to them don't always act the same when attached to a 9ft+ leader at more realistic fishing angles. A bead will only keep the hook point up if it is positioned near the bend of the hook..... I'm pretty sure. Someone is gonna have to do some snorkling, or playing in a pool to find out for certain though. I remember reading a study done on TD vs. STR vs. TU eye hooks, and the TD eye was decidedly better suited for hook point penetration because it reduces flex/bending between the eye and the hook point when pressure is exerted on it. Scud type hooks with TDE were the hands down winner in the ease of penetration tests, as were wide gap worm hooks like the Owner/Gami's.

Never could understand people that think there's no place for a dog on a fishing trip. Jake looks like a winner.

Ahh, gotcha. You guys down there will be tearing up whites in no time. It'll be another month for us up here probably, providing we ever get any rain.

Table Rock Inn by the dam is very reasonable and their diner has good food. All you need is a place to shower, sleep, and plug in a battery charger.... right?

Nice Ron. I like it ! What is that head made from ?

What FLIES and technique are you using in the bottom 1/3 of the water column ? This thread got all F'ed up because some of us are talking flyfishing techniques while others are apparently referring to gear. Hell yeah if I'm gear fishing I am all over the bottom with jigs and plastics. But if I'm flyfishing (like this thread originally was referring to) then the least productive method is attempting to drag fur, feathers, and hair along the bottom and detect the bites in time to do something about it.

What the hell is a Serviceberry? That's a new one on me.

There you have it. So are you ready to dis catfishing and start targeting asian carp? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Cha-ching !!! Winner!

SB, if you've done much flyfishing for bass I'm interested to hear if the majority of your success came from dragging flys along the bottom. There was never any question that bass, LM/SM either one, do the bulk of their feeding closer to the rocks than to the sky...pretty sure we all know that without discussing it. But as far as flyfishing goes, bottom dragging techniques with fly gear are way harder to master and generally a last ditch effort. Regardless of who a person is a "member" of. If I'm guiding/teaching someone to flyfish for smallmouth the last thing I'm gonna do is rig them up with a lead-eyed crawdad fly and hope a fish trips over it.

Yeah well I grew up around Catfish, Bass, and Carp..... and I don't care what anyone says, Carp are still trash fish. I'm not cleaning and eating them as long as there are more palatable alternatives. No matter how disgusting something is there will always be some people who swear that it is the most delicious thing you've ever put in your mouth. To each their own.

What are they worth and do they have to be iced and delivered somewhere?

Good deal, glad I could help. Be sure to replace that roller though, cuz electric tape isn't going to last long. I listed the part # above, the marina up there at Long Branch probably has it in stock....or you can order one online. You don't want that tape to fall off and get sucked into the intake silencer.

Pffft !

They are the dreaded Bighead aisian carp. They sit there and gulp water (filtering plankton) all day and all night....and grow....and grow....and poop....and multiply. In the meantime all of MDC is stressing out over algae that isn't here and undesirable crawdads that aren't here. They need to run a few shock boats through there a couple times a week and haul those basturds to a landfill.....or dynomite....or something. They are gonna ruin the bagnell tailwater area for sure if someone doesn't do something. To hell with didymo, deal with THIS !

Outstanding !

I think there's something pretty special about that zone you're in. Because if that happens at any similar areas up and down the Mo./Miss. I've sure never heard about it. That's just awesome!

Ahh, well I'll be darn. Thanks for digging that up, I had always heard/read otherwise. How cool! Guess that explains it then.

Nevermind....I just looked at the pics again. Definately not Whites.

All very cool looking bugs. I'm just mildly blown away because to my knowledge the closest hybrid stocking is either gonna be Lake Ozark or one of the Illinois lakes. I guess it's not completely crazy to think that those might be HONKER river WHITES! Kinda hard to tell by the pics. Check the tooth patches next time you catch one. You realize, right, that hybrids don't reproduce on thier own....so if they are Hybrids (wipers) then they were stocked somewhere, and they don't dump them in the Mo. or Miss. Rivers at all (at least that is My understanding).

I like a #4 and white usually does the job on the water I fish mostly. I don't tie commercially but here's the pattern. Mustad 3366 #4 Cork popper body (reversed, painted, and epoxy coated) Tail: calf tail & two strands med. round rubber. Hackle: grizzly saddle The deer hair version doesn't cast as good, doesn't have that sexy "splat", gets waterlogged, and just doesn't get bit like this one, so I don't even carry or tie them anymore. But of course YMMV

If it wasn't for the shape of that fish I'd swear it was a striper. This is really interesting to me, cuz I don't think the Hybrids around here key on crawdads that often..... or maybe they do and I am missing out on it. Are there shad in that area? Where do you think those hybrids are coming from? Is there somewhere upstream from there that they are periodically stocked ?

You really got my interest in a big way when you said "hybrids" ! Do you get them to eat craw type flys along the bottom very often?

Yeah I gotta say that I do. I love spinning hair, but for poppers and pete's I have done alot better with cork. It kinda sucks too because the hair versions are alot easier/quicker/cheaper to make....and to MY EYE hair looks cooler, but I gotta stay with what gives me the most confidence. And the confidence in the hard headed pete's came from getting bit more often.