tjm

For future, here is a list of Fenwick dates (that someone else compiled and y'all should save)- A--1960-61 B--1961-62 C--1962-63 - first Feralites previously back to '55 they used Sizematic aluminum ferrules with the O-rings D--1963-64 E--1964-65 F--1965-66 G--1966-67 H--1967-68 I--1968-69 J--1969-70 K--1971-73 Used for two years. The transition from two to three digit model numbers occurred at this time. Early HMG rods had a separate series of numbers starting with 00001 L--1973-74 M--1974-75 N--1975-76 O apparently not used (too hard to tell from a zero?) P--1976-77 Q apparently not used R--1977-78 S--1978-79 T--1979-80 U--1980-81 Serial numbering ended

The three digit model number "805" places it between 1972-1988 when they became Woodstream, it tells us it's length is 8'0" and it's rated as a 5wt. The letter "M" in the serial number dates it's production to the 1974-75 manufacturing year which was approximately Aug '74-July '75. Give or take. From the accounts of former workers that I've read they weren't exact on dates. Still Fenwick is one of the best documented of the production fiberglass rods. Quite a few users say their FF805s are 6wts, other users disagree, saying theirs are just as rated. on the other hand I have a couple of Fenwicks that I down line one weight from the rating, so take the line rating as a suggestion and experiment. I think the resin used changed from batch to batch and the rods from any one run might be different from the run before or the run after. In the Fenwick line I prefer the two digit models made from '63-'71. You'll have fun fishing that rod if you keep the casts under ~50'. One caution, and it applies to all glass to glass ferules, if you roll cast a lot check that ferrule about every 10-15 casts, because the torque of roll casting does twist them loose. I recommend the canning paraffin (or candle) be rubbed on the male ferrule per Fenwick's instruction until it's coated in wax then rubbed off with a clean cloth or paper towel until just a slight film of wax remains, barely enough for lubrication. I usually have birthday cake candle in a vest pocket for this, because it seems to help keep those joints together. I have an FF807 about the same age that I'd sell and an FF75 and FF85 a little older that don't get much use that I should sell. With something like two dozen fly rods I surely don't need all of them.

I imagine a lot of that kind of stuff was contracted for prior to the war's end and if the contract was for 1,000,000 widgets and if with war over there was no need for widgets, the contracts still got filled and delivered. It's why lots of surplus was still available into the '80s. We would have hard time doing that kind of supply work today.

I'm not sure the military had any made after the war, the design was originally Bantam's and the Army brought in Willys and Ford to help produce enough of them for us to use and to give all our allies as many as they could use, so with multiple manufacturers and post war Willys trying to claim credit for all of it including the design; the facts get a little murky. But perhaps the Army units would have been produced 1940-45. I believe Russia got ~60000 of them during the war and I was told that there several hundred (he may have said thousand) of them brand new still pallets on a Pacific island as late as 1971, by a shipmate who had spent a year standing guard over them. I saw a new one being unpacked about '85-6 that was a WW2 surplus buy. Of course the military being the military they may have continued to buy more even while selling off new unused stock.

If you come across his "Wet Flies" you might want to get it also.

I think they can but don't want the extra work.

Sheriffs, other Police etc. would not have the training to recognize/differentiate fish species and training them would be just as costly as training new Agents. I doubt that without special training that their testimony would stand up in court. I think that is why they trained wildlife cops separately in all states and at the Federal level. I don't think there is an obvious solution other than education or the wildlife authorities in the 50 states (and other countries) would have come upon them. The most effective solution to poaching of game might be to prohibit all hunting and fishing with a cash reward for turning in violators and I don't think that we want that. I think that conservation education in the schools could help. But I also think that as time passes the old poachers die off and the younger generations have more interest in other things. Who be fishing in 50 years? Will past and present conservation efforts matter then? For now we can keep on as we go?

I think that stricter regs or more regs is generally the wrong approach to wildlife management, especially when we don't have funds nor manpower to enforce existing regs. Full enforcement of currently existing regs would likely need to have about ten times as many Agents, enough that each agent had only 50 miles or so of stream to patrol, a small enough sector that each agent could walk all of the assigned area regularly rather than make random parking lot checks. Since the 1950s I have never seen more than accidental enforcement of any fish and game regulations. Even if the agents try hard, they can only be in one place at any given time and can usually be seen coming before they get there. I asked the spawning question because some years ago a biologist had told me that he thought some stream reproduction possible there but had no real evidence of it being successful. I've caught dozens/hundreds of fingerling RBT out of Hickory Creek, some years more than other years, and presumed they were National Hatchery escapees, so when talking to a bio, I asked about in steam reproduction and he didn't rule out reproduction in either of those streams. There was a stream back east that I caught fingerling brown trout in for about 6 years before the fisheries people "made the discovery" of natural brown trout reproduction there; I had reported such catches a few times and my info was pretty much dismissed, until one of their "inventories" turned up lots of young browns. I have the notion that any stream capable of holding trout year round has the potential of natural reproduction, but also thing that our huge rainstorms with the accompanying floods make all but the shortest drainages marginal in that respect. Capps gathers a lot of runoff in a two or three inch rain and the change in temperature and water quality would be traumatic to baby trout, I would think.

I believe the stream through Haskins' field changed after the new bridge was built but long before the old bridge fell down, but that being in the water didn't help anything. I also recall that years ago there was a lot more water in the stream above the mill pond than I've seen in recent years and that must have an effect. On the baby trout, has there been any evidence of spawning below the dam? or anywhere that you've noticed?

you can go all the way to Shoal Creek, must be about two miles or a bit more, but the stockings are mostly off the two bridges and the locals get on them before the truck is out of sight. It was better fishing, imo, about 25-30 years ago when the farms were still active, but that could be simply that I fished it often enough back then to be familiar with it. It seems to me that when they built the new bridge near the mill that they changed the water flow at that point and caused a lot of erosion in subsequent floods, holes filled in banks got higher and the long weedy runs diminished. Those weeds were hard to fish but they gave the fish a lot of protection and held countless crawdads for them to eat.

Above (D) is the definition you want. I included the other portions because they are referenced. doesn't have to be barbless, unless you want it that way, and it's basically anything except scented or natural bait or soft plastic, so long as it permanently attached to the hook and per section (52) you can rig up to three flies at a time I've caught a few hundred fly rod fish there over the years and most often use 6# nylon as my tippet, even on the small flies. I can't remember the last time I even used 4#, probably back when I could still tie #22s. So, I always get a smile when the spin guys say one must have 3# test or 2# test, more so when they say it needs be fluorocarbon, so thanks for the smile.

I don't like kiosks for anything, avoid them whenever I can. But, the alternatives might be a much higher day pass charge to pay for the manning of a booth, or closing the access when the booth is not manned. Might not be worth the $40 if time is also counted, but, I'd probably make a fishing trip out of it.

There should be an office in Branson on or near the dam, look up "Table Rock Project Office" Springfield, Stockton and KC are in a different District and a different Division than Little Rock, Bull Shoals, Table Rock and Tulsa. Little Rock office- General Questions 501-324-5551, recreation 501-324-5418 a phone call could solve your problem. or

we used to have a female agent that spent more time in court than in the woods, she checked everyone she saw on the creeks and wrote lots of citations, check me three times in one day as she left and came back a couple times, she got transferred and the next guy I saw once in 6-7 years, Recent years I've seen agents checking others and walk right past me. I prefer they check everyone even if i get checked more often, but they are understaffed and one guy can only be in one place at a time.

Egg has the same general shape as beetles and grubs, bass don't know that you think it's an egg. Honestly I've never thought that egg patterns looked like fish eggs either. they say bass don't see color the way we do, mistaking chartreuse for white or vise versa etc. That egg may have looked black or yellow to the fish. I have caught smallmouth on almost all my trout flies from #16 up. Never caught a large bass on the small flies, but, I wouldn't rule it out.

It's taken me ~50 years to learn what little I know, and I own a couple dozen vintage fiber glass rods, 4-5 each of graphite and bamboo, and besides that I must have slammed car doors or trunk lids on another dozen, all have been used for whatever my whim was at a time. Maybe some of them are meant to be streamer rods? I don't how to tell. Your 8wt should work with about any streamer up 6" or so, I fished only an 8wt for several years, from size 24 to 4.5" streamers. They are heavy in the hand when you fish all day, but they handle wind better than light lines.

Appoligize to @eknapp for a slight thread drift, but, What do you guys think defines a "streamer rod"? I've seen this term many times on the web and I'm always curious, because being self taught I've always used used the same rods for dries, wets, nymphs and streamers. Same lines too, although I do cut and splice to change the leader for different applications.

Depends entirely on the streamer, and conditions, streamers can run from a #10 marabou to heavy articulated Galloups to 4/0 Clousers. the streamers that I would use at RRSP or Crane Creek can be fished with a 5wt and probably with a 4wt. Streamers that I used to surf cast with need a 9wt. And also how big the water is can govern how far one needs to cast, the White River above Beaver Lake I might use a 5wt and below Bull Shoals I'd want 7-9wt. Might make difference if in a boat or wading, in a boat you can sometimes get closer. And if the wind is blowing I might fish an 8 or 8 wt line on a 7wt rated rod. On sinking versus floating, I typically fish full floating lines in water less than 8-10' and when using a sinking line I use one of the Jim Teeny T series. The shooting head mass dependent on the rod casting strength, and current speed, but the T-130 is a handy line to have.

No doubt, but the non trout wouldn't be counted as part of the trout sampling. They might have been recorded as part of another species study. But I'd say that you are right in that all the sample trout came from a very small stretch of the river. Whatever they could cover in given 1/2 hour and from that they'll extrapolate.

If my arithmetic is good that means that a single cutthroat makes up 3% of the sampling, so a total of 33 fish with 14 browns and 18 rainbows, that's not nearly as many fish as I would have thought they would collect over a 7mile stretch.

The article states that they did-

All that reel cranking, all that time loading and unloading a boat, driving miles from where the fish are to find a ramp, boating from ramp to fishing area and back are things that I don't have patience for, but I can fish the same pool or run for hours or until it seems that I've caught most all of the fish in it at least once. I can fish the next hole on another day. Perhaps patience is expressed in different ways.

I'm sure you are doing it just fine. I've been around enough people to know that my definition of "very patient" is way shorter than most other people's. So perhaps we have different interpretations of what constitutes patience. Or perhaps I'm doing the swing wrong, I've never seen it demonstrated. Perhaps my ADD is higher than yours. I'm good for about 10-15' of swing or or that many seconds, whichever comes first. If the stream is narrow enough and fast enough, I can get a full sweep, before the need to "do something" kicks in. The reason that I quit spinning tackle all those years ago was because of the time lost reeling in line after the lure passed the productive water, I had no patience for that, with the fly rod that line can be rolled or flicked right back to the starting point when there is still 20, 30, or 40' of line out. But, I'm posting way too much on your thread, thanks for showing us your flies and that is great photography.

I'd say that's a caddis pattern and should produce anywhere caddis are present. I guess as a generality tailless wets would all resemble caddis if in the right size range. I'd have to cast that one up and across in fast pocket water and let it tumble with the current, leading it with the rod, kinda like euronymphing. Of course it could also be taken as a fry or as a terrestrial or who knows what fish think. I seldom swing wet flies, just don't have that bait fisher's kind of patience, More often than not I fish these flies pretty much like a spinner or spoon, often casting beyond or behind the suspected lie and retrieving with short strips or hand twist. Diagonally up or down or straight across. Occasionally casting the fly within the fish's vision and letting it sink with no line movement and after a moment or two give it a couple of six inch strips then a pause. Sometimes I get to repeat this strip and pause. If I am trying to swing a fly, it will get a time to sink and then an up steam mend to bring it back up in the water column, (essentially Lessingring's lift where the current forces the fly up against the line tension) and after a moment or two a downstream mend will allow the fly to sink again. I might repeat that a few times. To make full long swing from across to dangle, like I read about, is just beyond my ability to stay focused. I also cast these wingless wets several feet upstream of visible trout so that the fly has time to fully sink below the fish before reaching the fish and then tension the line to cause the fly to rise and cross in front of the fish. Again a variation on Lessingring's methods. His book "Art of Tying the Wet Fly & Fishing the Flymph" was one of my primary text books back in the '70s. Recommended reading if you can find it in a library. Because it's been out print for a while the price has become a bit high. Another highly recommended book on wets is by Dave Hughes "Wet Flies" and it is offered on Kindle as well as being readily available in print editions.

The way that Carey Special was in the books I had it would have appeared to be more of a streamer because the hackle was called out to be pheasant rump and the long soft fibers would blend with the tail. I found an image of that on FAOL. Story about the fly's invention there too. I've seen it listed as pheasant saddle too, but as I said before variations on this type fly are endless. The availability of feathers leads to substitution. And time or location can change what is used or preferred.