Zach Bearden

I don't know man, I'm 6'2 and wear a green confluence... haha Try Marval? My mom and I went down there the past couple of days and below the camp has rendered some good fishing. T&M might be good too.

Oh, and another interesting fact. I fully intend to be in Fort Collins in August as a freshman at CSU. Maybe we can get some fishing done out there.

Awww, I feel special. Cricket mentioned me Hey there! I'd love to fish with you. There are plenty of fish to be had in the Lower Illinois right now. Let me know if you would like to come down and fish. One of my ancestors has the name of Jasper Watkins, they've pretty much all headed on up to Washington state by now but you never know.

http://troutlegend.com/forum/fips-mouche-tech-talk-37/technique-master-list/ That hyperlink will give you a lot of answers about czech and polish stuff. If you've got questions about how or why without an indicator, that's the forum you want to go to. Most of us are competition anglers and surely someone can get you an answer if it's not in a previous post.

Cricket, when you start that club up I wanna be the first to know! The tippet rings are pretty sweet if you're going to be changing rigs quite a bit. We were allowed to use them in Czech and they were awesome. Going from dry/dropper to a 3 nymph set up in moments. About how many flies for the Polish. More than likely Ducky is fishing 2 or 3 nymphs.

A friend of a friend told me there were a couple small males there at horseshoe now. Maybe a week or two for the females?

In the upper reaches of Roaring River wading is not allowed. The C&R area is wadeable though. Taney is almost necessary to have waders up by the dam.

Has anyone been to the Upper Illinois to look for some whites?

Walk downstream for a while. You'll pass a small riffle then it's just down around the next bend.

Mine's bigger Dude, I've got so many nets it's not even funny. But I still like my Frabill, my Fishknat is a close second though. When I start fishing more for the peace of it I'll probably switch back to wooden nets, traditional vest, get a Filson hat and grow my beard out. lol

Hey man, you need a bigger frabil Nice fish. Especially that brown, heard there's a bunch down there right now.

I understand this, but it's kind of a form of job security. I don't want options taken away from me before I have the opportunity. Maybe we could shoot some emails back and forth? I'd love to pick your brain

I don't see a benefit in making hatcheries private. Making all our waters private would just blow. Look at the U.K. it's all clubs and such. With inflation and the loss of jobs (which losing these hatcheries would increase that rate as well) people just won't be able to fish anymore just because of the price! Man, I'm about to go to college. I really don't want to have to split my budget (what little I have) between books, food, housing, my education, and trout. And what am I going to college for? As a Biology major with a Fish and Wildlife emphasis. The closing of these hatcheries is taking away my livelyhood without me even having a chance! I'd love to keep these hatcheries.

Thanks for posting this here Dano. My vote is that until we have creel limits cut down so that the fish have an opportunity to get to the point in their lives where they can naturally reproduce we should keep these hatcheries. I would love for all of our fish to be wild. That would be fantastic! But, until we can stop 50 people a day from taking their 6 fish limit, our fisheries are going nowhere.

Hey, Maybe I am just missing it, but maybe we could get a forum for this? Doing a quick search on "Hiking" rendered quite a few responses and I know I would enjoy having someone to talk to about it with. Thanks

If you debarb your hooks as previously stated you should be able to hold the fish and remove the hook with a pair of hemostats.

Hackle Pliars to wrap biots on my nymphs. Dubbing Brush! Whoa! I can't imagine how scrawny so many of my nymphs without a pick/brush. A good light. I think a good light makes things much easier on you. And good scissors are a really big deal to me. Some nifty things you could get are the little bowls you put on your desk to put hooks and beads in while you tie.

Alright, do you want to be able to see to the bone or just through the clothes?? I like my Smith Optics. They have a nice color range to choose from and the frames don't get annnoying after just a couple hours. I can wear mine all day long with no problem. So I would recommend them. As for seeing fish and structure in the water, I believe that is mainly experience. Which from what you say, you have plenty of experience on the water.

OB, you're just sick! I love watching a fish blow up on streamers or just slowly move across stream and intercept a bug. Both are pretty darn cool.

The only reason I fish my dry/dropper or multi fly rig this way is because of competition regulation. Not only that, but you're given more versatility. You can switch that dry off for a nymph no problem or just completely take it out and fish without an "indicator" fly.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Ifightsharks?feature=mhum Video to show you. Al also has a very good way of doing it.

Personally, I love to fish nymphs without indicators. To me, being able to see my line move and respond accordingly and dancing a trout from a hole has a certain mystique about it. What's yours?

The Arkansas River around Vail, Colorado. Tons of fish that are eager to eat, but that can be a real pain sometimes. Midges, caddis, mayflies... You never know what they'll want and where they'll be. It was fantastic. In fishing that river only a few times during competitions I've learned something each time. Learned to fish the "margins". 6" of water can still hold fish too One that will forever hold my heart though is a little muddy stream in the Czech Republic. I caught my first grayling in this little stream, I barely knew what I was going to get when I saw my line slow down and then tick. A few moments later I held a grayling of around 14" in my hand. Had to have been one of the most beautiful fish I've ever seen.

By the way, if you use the surgeons knot use the top half of the tippet that sticks off from the knot and cut the end that is towards your nymph. Tie an overhand knot over your main line with the tag. This helps the tag hang off at around a 90 degree angle.

Duane does exactly what I do. Something to keep in mind though when you are fishing like that is to keep that tag close to the main line. If you have it too long you will not be immediately in contact. I like around 3". A lot of small stream fish will hit the fly as soon as it lands in the water because that is where a lot of food comes from. Especially in the summer months. Another issue with this is that you have limited amounts of tippet to tie your dry fly on with. I use -what I have learned it as- a Davy Knot. Also a figure 8 knot. Really simple and if you practice it you can get it down to tying it in around 5 seconds.