fishinwrench

True. I used to order online from a MO flyshop thinking I was doing a good thing supporting my locals, but they are insanely slow to get the goods on the way and they have this annoying habit of not letting you know that an item is out of stock until the package arrives short. It is unacceptable that I can get stuff quicker from California than I can from STL, and be notified before the order is processed if anything is out of stock. Some 'good' brick and mortar flyshops just can't pull off the online sales thing very well.

There is still a big "trout" stigma associated with FFing that is holding it back. A ton of gear fishing guys are gonna take to warmwater FFing someday.....and boy oh boy will they ever have some coin to blow ! It's time is comin'. We'll be lucky if there's enough deer tails and saddle hackle to supply us all.

Yeah. Perplexed. I've never been in a boat that threw a blade, I bet the vibration is intense, not to mention the sudden steering torque. Were these all fresh props or ones that had been rebuilt or tweaked ?

Yep. I had it figured out as soon as you mentioned planting 3 flats of flowers. It's cool running into you here.

Fishing LO forces you to keep the bill of your hat pulled down low and concentrate on the water because the scenery is butt ugly. If you're not catching fish here you just wanna go home. TR is pretty, and just makes you glad to be out there. Hard to say which makes for a "better" lake.

My dad never swung a flyrod all his life but his dad (my Papaw) was one of those old guys that waded the muddy creeks of the Salt river basin in the same pants he wore to church. A flyrod and an UMCO aluminum box full of medium sized bugs, mostly poppers and mostly "yellow" was his favorite way to fish, and he was my idol. I learned to tie flys years before I was ever handed a flyrod, and when I finally got cut loose with one it was for the purpose of catching sunfish for limb-line bait. No instruction or teaching ensued, I guess he figured that I had followed along and watched him long enough that I could figure it out on my own, and eventually I did. I strayed away from flyfishing after I saw my first issue of Bassmaster magazine but kept going back to it from time to time whenever 'gear fishing' got even the slightest bit boring, or anytime I realized that I could probably catch the same fish on the fly that I was using gear to catch. The whole experience of flyfishing is just cooler to me, kinda like bowhunting vs. rifle hunting, it just puts my mind in a better place and I can appreciate success alot more....and accept failure better

East side or West?

Horse-puckey ! I've installed over 2 dozen of these over-glorified image producing 'depthfinders' on customers boats over the last several years and not a one of them has increased their yearly average catch rate, or become any more capable of putting together manageable patterns consistently than they could before. If anything, it causes them to keep hammering a piece of structure for 2 hours longer than they should. Meanwhile the guys fishing the same way they have been for decades before those things hit the market are still taking the majority of checks at weigh-in. Just sayin'

OMG! Y'all and your "new age fishing gadgets". I bet ya spend more time idling around wasting gas and dickin' with your toys than you do with a rod in your hands And in the end you'll not have caught one extra fish by doing so. I think you are screwing yourself by relying too much on high-dollar electronic gizmo's instead of fine tuning your natural instincts. But hey, that's just me..... I'm glad you're having fun and helping boost the economy 'over there'. LOL

I'm interested in this. You have thrown blades off how many props, without hitting anything? This is crazy. Gotta be more to this story... What year is the boat/motor ? I would expect it to turn a 24 tempest at 56-5800 wot, so what rpm were you getting with the 26 BEFORE it came undone?

In their bed? Whites don't mess around with beds, they grab the females and throw them over a log... or just 'hit it' on the fly right at the surface.

Instead of watching your speed (MPH), watch your tach. Have you lost or gained top end RPM?

I'm picking up on the sarcasm. But when was the last time you had that much fun fishing for trout or Smallmouth? I just think our native species that are doing so well WITHOUT ANY ASSISTANCE deserve the same concern as the ones we have to spend time, money, and worry about all the time. "Oh, here's a fish that is doing good all on its own....lets load the freezer with them while the gettin's good." Nothing wrong with a few fish frys, but massive numbers of anglers hauling them out by the bucketfuls until they are just " too tired to clean anymore fish" is a bad habit. I don't care what the legal limit is, it's wrong. What happens when the whites have a bad year (like happened at Pomme) ? When will they come back? What was that, like 3-4 years ago? How's the white bite on Pomme? Nobody knows, cuz they ain't caught enough to know.

Upon second reading you're probably (hopefully) right. My apologies. I've just seen such an open and encouraged raping of whites the last few years it's making me defensive.

After being drug around on a stringer and then laying out on the tailgate for awhile ? Seriously?

I think it's like the Winchester mansion, where they have to maintain a never-ending state of construction so the ghosts of past trout fishermen remain civil. They must believe that if they ever stop "improving" that all hell will break loose.

I saw a big one (2.5' and thick) caught in a minnow seine from a chain of ponds near Richland, Mo.. When you think about how it got there it is beyond amazing. Mean basturd too!

What makes Bennett a better place for THAT? Can you not grill, take family along, or be sociable without concrete casting decks, surveillance cameras, and discharge outlets that pile the fish up in balls positioned for snagging? There was grilling, family friendly atmosphere, and all that jazz several million dollars ago. So what has all of these "improvements" done to improve on any of that? I can't think of a single thing, but I can easily see what it has taken away from the place. That's all I'm getting at.

That's kinda what I was thinking, champ. A "Pro" Tournament Angler with 5 in the box is not late for weigh-in. LOL

Every fishable mayfly 'hatch" in the Spring branch is either cream or celery colored and size 18-24, they are baetis and hatch out of weedbeds (if you wanna get technical about it) and the spinner fall happens over land. The "pale evening dun, and the PMD" that you hear about all the time (via Weavers report and from JR) doesn't even exist at BS. The Caddis's are coffee bean brown with slate wings, and #20 (they are divers so the "hatch" really isn't a hatch, it is egg laying. And they die mid-stream or in the surface film after laying their eggs. The crawl to the bank to "hatch". Midges are creamy gray and smaller than any hook made...but a #26-32 works. There's a lime green/red legged hopper hatch in June (#10) Those are the only dependable/fishable "hatches" at BS as far as I know.....except for the "Gut hatch".

This is the best I can do. http://server.odd.net/waterlevel/index.php Gives current and past, usually good enough for my purposes.

Well yeah, but a racetrack is gonna be roaring every Sat.-Sun. all season long. I'm assuming that the only reason y'all had airboats up there for that particular event is because a bunch of bayou swamp-boys came up for it. Airboats are by far NOT the preferred craft for all bowfishers in this region. Speaking of which, I have an 18' Lowe pontoon stripped down.... that would make a SWEET bowfishing rig.

Best to leave those doctors alone, they'll see to it that your never healed until your funds are gone.... Somehow they just know.

Outstanding SM, Have you met Paul Dallas yet?

Yeah the fact that the "agency's" condone this conversion so far away from its natural state with all the concrete casting decks, stairs, and spillways is sickening to me. It appears that they won't be content until the whole place resembles Big Surf Waterpark (with fish in it). Maybe they should just forget about the fishing aspect and add log slides and tube rides.