Steve-o

I was there yesterday on 8/18 and the water is still cloudy. Lots of people catching on powerbait as usual, so if that's your thing you should do alright. I caught four fish, one on pink and white marabou jig, one on a white rooster tail and two drifting black and yellow woolies with my fly rod. I caught those two on the fly rod late afternoon and missed quite a few fish too so fishing was picking up for me from about 3 till I left at 5.. One thing I hate about Maramec is the rude people that see you catch a fish then immediately there are four hooks with powerbait all over the water right in front of you.

It depends on the story that comes with it for me. If you can spin a good yarn on that one upper story I'll go with it.

Lancer, I will take that suggestion next time I head out. I do OK when I "yard fish" but something about being out in the water turns my fly casting technique into a bumbling "oh look I'm tangled again" disaster. I just need to suck it up and fight through the tangles and frustration and I'll get it. Al, I ordered a copy of that book the other day(I saw you make that suggestion in another thread so I had it on my radar already) I should have it any time now and I am looking forward to reading through it. Thanks for the suggestions guys.

Hello all, I've lurked the forum for a while and finally decided to register. I will give a little back story on my experience and then I will get to my questions. I have been trout fishing in our parks since as long as I can remember and I mean that quite literally I only have a few fleeting memories earlier than the first time I was casting some sort of fly/lure/bait into Bennett Springs. Now I've always been a spin caster and not fly fisherman and honestly I seemed to always do well enough on things like maribou jigs,and wooly buggers that I never really expanded my selection past that. So here I am at 32 years old with a nearly all my life as a trout fisherman and I feel like I am completely missing something. Not that the park experience is bad, I just want to take it a step further and do some fly fishing and in more natural settings as well as the park fishing. About a year ago I went down to wally world picked myself up one of their fly rod combos, which I'm sure isn't great but it's low cost and should get me started, put a Cabelas prestige WF line on there and have been practicing my casting when time allows. I have only taken my fly rod out to a park once so far on a rather crowded day and I didn't feel comfortable enough using it for more than 30 minutes before I went back to my spin cast. I am starting to feel more confident in my abilities now so I am going to give it another shot pretty soon. First question:. As my technique progresses what are the signs i need to pay attention to that will let me know that I need to upgrade past my current setup? The rod and reel feel quite alien to me still at this point so I don't know what feedback i should or should not be getting through the rod. Maybe I am just over thinking it at this point and time and it will come to me with more experience but I would like to have some sort of clue. Second question: What flies? Holy information overload Batman! I don't even know where to begin on this one. I have some grey and olive scuds that I picked up before I took the fly rod out the last time and a never ending supply of wooly buggers thanks to the fly tying kit I bought my dad for Christmas a few years ago. What are say, a dozen flies that I should have in my box? I will certainly expand from there, but I need to establish some sort of foothold. I may borrow that kit and give making them myself a whirl(I can already feel an addiction coming) and I can look up youtube videos on how to make them I just don't have any idea on where to start from. In another thread I saw someone suggest the book "Fly Fishing for Trout in Missouri" I will be ordering that off of Amazon ASAP! Sorry for the long winded post! I'm looking forward to many good conversations with what looks to be a pretty good online community here.