Wayne SW/MO

Ugly! That's not meant as a smart aleck answer.

Cricket creek or Bear creek could be good candidates.

So it was probably best you didn't check. Were the fish taking it on a dead drift?

As I've said many times there are no firm rules in fishing, but more often then not for me smallies like a dead float. Sometimes a topwater will fail when a bug in the film will rock.

Same here.

I don't know why they wouldn't.

Not all that glitters is gold. Aside from the spool bearings and the level wind bearings, the rest of the bearings are mostly window dressing. I don't find that there is a big difference in magnetic spool control and centrifugal. The magnetic is capable of almost instant change while the centrifugal relies heavily on the spool end play adjustment knob, which is virtually impossible to duplicate without testing.

I'll bet nobody screwed with his fishing places.

I'll take Nixon because it doesn't hurt to have someone in power who shares our recreation.

I'm sure that no matter what we think the responsibility lies with the caster. He knows for sure the danger and can't assume that someone walking behind him does.

How do you like that glass? I fished with one Wednesday, first time in decades.

I used to fish out of a belly boat, many decades ago, in some small ponds in Oklahoma. It seemed that every trip there was a water snake who acted determined to join me in the tube. I don't think any were poisonous, but just seeing a quick head come up and disappear repeatedly around you can be unnerving.

In a pool with a slow current mend aggressively up stream so that your streamer will have the slack to go deeper. You can fish them much like a nymph. Doing this gives you something attractive to slow hitters while it's drifting and then something for the aggressive fish when it starts to swing and when you strip it back upstream to make your next cast. I don't start retrieving a streamer until it's completed its swing, this often works with smallies no matter what you're throwing.

If there is current I swing a Clouser and don't strip it until it completes its swing. The bottom of the swing can often be the where the take occurs. More often than not a smallmouth will prefer a dead drifted popper. Like all things this isn't written in stone, but it does happen a lot. They can also be picky about color on top.

I believe that is so that Billy Bob can't load the boat with kids and then set that many more hooks.

I have to ask, I understand the flies, but what about the pies?

Make them out of pool noodles with the hollow center. Cut the noodle to length, run a rope through the center hole and through fender washers big enough to keep the rope from pulling into the noodle. Make a loop in each end of the rope and tie your dropper to one and use the other as a lifting handle. Bait them with 2-3" perch.

Never heard of it.

Or a telephone!

I would hook them back toward the tail and let them drag the float around. I wouldn't think you would need a weight. You're probably fighting low O2 and warm water and live bait isn't going to change that. The fish, including the bait fish, are probably confined to certain areas and the larger fish are most likely well fed and not interesting chasing anything.

Very nice Steve, great job.

I do. I actually used it for the first time on the Niangua this week. I bought it for river and creeks thinking that a short rod would be easier to handle in solo craft and have an edge on accuracy for the short cast that so often come up where you have trees in the water and at your back. I had it loaded with a 444 bass taper and it threw everything from #4 hairy flies to #12 leeches without any problems. The only limitation was in roll casting and I'm not sure whether the length or the line was the bigger negative there, but I got by and picked up several trout out of a roll casting only riffle. It's a little faster than the older glass rods which is a plus because you still have the glass, but you can put a little more into the cast. So far so good in my eyes. This is the rod in the pictures. My link

Again, great pictures!

While I wouldn't want to leave home without some, I wouldn't say you don't need anything else if you want to have a good day.