tjm

I think hatch matching may be what makes it a hit or a miss. If the water has no leeches, no shiners, no sculpin , no crayfish, no tadpoles or minnows at a particular moment; then I would guess those imitations would not work well. Low light conditions may be when the prey are most active and thus when those patterns work best.

Why would that river be different than another river? I guess I've never fished where streamers wouldn't work. Usually my go to bait on all but the tiniest streams.

I always ask why solo? when you get into 14'+ , I think I'd want to give similar tandems a shot, just looks like more potential for bang/buck. Of course its just curiosity on my part, my experience is all with aluminum boats.

I have full sink lines and sink tip and very rarely use either. My thoughts are sinking lines suit me better in still water (time to count it down and line won't be carried away from target) and jig (including beadheads and clousers as jigs) or shot suit me much better in fast water, even in moderate flow. But then each of us are different. Spare spool or spare reel make less to tote and can be swapped out in minutes. Water depth is another factor when thinking of sinking or floating lines, I don't usually go over ten feet deep. I think of cracklebacks as surface flies.

I'd take casting lessons from Joan Wulff, she has certainly been a part of fly fishing for a long time and there have been some other lady fishers of note. Emily Whitlock could probably teach me something . Women are awesome, as trythisonemv said, and women that fish more so. I really don't think either of these categories of people as the targets of that ad.

ok, that is posted by Orvis? They appear to say a guy called them and left that message? so what? From the 50/50 home page What gear could be even considered gender specific? Clothing? Probably Orvis' biggest profit maker. Is clothing considered gear? I see this, as you say, targeting a specific group of conspicuous consumers, likely to buy entire line of goods for a photo op. Unlikely to ever cast a line. Very nice marketing scheme. The schism already exists, so use it. Isn't that whole movement just nature's way of limiting the extreme over population of the earth? Shouldn't a conservationist encourage it as such?

Don't you think that at some point the level of fish location will influence the desirability of the lake as a tournament destination and the problem, if there is one, will self correct in that the relocation stops? (provided no restocking)

I have never fished it, but the afternoon I spent looking and watching fish, they seemed very shadow shy. When a songbird flew over the hole the fish hid. If I held a stick over the hole the fish hid. I wondered if it was a leader only place to fish.

So, ~$3000, of which <10% will be profits going into the local? and the rest will go to overhead-whatever banks and China or where ever the supplies came from; Is $300 over a couple days really a major impact? fwiw, Teddy, I think you were agreeing with Quillback. I can't remember the last time I used a lake, just recall being almost run down by a fast boat and having wet waders.

If it seems I ask a lot of questions, it is because I really really don't know anything about the whole tournament thing except what is in this thread. And I really really don't understand it, the basic "Why?" of it at individual levels. I can certainly see why boat and tackle companies promote them.

Ketchup, as a general rule, I'm kinda against stocking of fish or other wildlife any time any place, but, that aside bird, deer and trout have special permits in addition to the general permits and thus are self funding. Additionally some Federal monies go into the pot in the case of deer and migratory birds. Does MDC raise added money from bass tournament fishing, do you as a tourney fisher buy a special permit in addition to the state wide general fishing permit? Are there special use permits for tournaments that are priced by number of users that would off set any loss or damage done /caused by or inherent to tournament fishing? I may be slow, because so far I'm just not seeing the upside or positive impacts of tourneys to the fishery or to the lakes themselves. Lots of mention of "The Money" generated by these contests; but I have not seen any indication of how much money nor of who gets all that "local" added money, how it is added to or absorbed by the local economy. See, looking at it from the outside and wondering "what the"; it appears there could be two kinds of contestants, locals who don't add any money to the local economy because they are the local economy and foreigners who add some fuel, lodging and meal expenditures. How much, couple days each? and take the totals of expenditures then figure that only the profits from sales and any local taxes are all thats added to the economy, how does that pencil out? Penny a gallon on fuel? 3 bucks per meal? Guessing, $20-25 per day on lodging (maybe less if rooms are shared?) ? I would like some facts, not just the " common sense" "we always did it thisa way" "there's a ton of money" talk that I have seen before. Can you tell me what those benefits are? MDC is not, nor should be, charged with concern over any local economy, the political powers that are elected and appointed to take charge of commerce, banking and bribery should carry that burden. MDC is charged with conserving forests and wildlife. If they are using the powers granted them to manipulate economic factors for the benefit of a small group of citizens at the expense of the public; then it maybe the Commission should be replaced with a political body subject to political changes and pressures, statewide campaigns and all. Let the suburbanites pick priorities.

It would be the end of them, they would be over fish and either turn into put and take fisheries or simply depleted. If you know of such places, enjoy them and only share with others who have the gumption to look for and find them for themselves. I don't do much prospecting anymore, but in the '70s back east I had 20+ little "private" waters with native brookies. It is neither cheap (time+gas) nor easy to find these places unless you are covered in "dumb luck".

This seems to fit with fishinwrench's theory of forever migrant fish. They don't stay at the "dump" because it ain't home but they don't go home either.

So, if I am following your meaning, you think that MDC should use monies from all over the state and from hunters and fishermen who never see your lake to subsidize bass tournament fishing be cause you think it helps the local economy? MDC page; I read this several times and I see no reference to aiding the local economies of the state or of any lake region. Depletion of and subsequent restocking of a species, as you suggest is almost diametrically opposed to the meaning of conservation in MDC.

Can't answer the why, but I'm kinda glad it came up. It is educational in more than one way.

This would be of less concern, to me at least. if "keep or release immediately" was applied to tournaments the same as it is to real anglers. As it stands there is simply no limitation on numbers of fish handled-hauled-thrown away. If every fish released by tourney fishers died it would have little more affect than those same guys taking home a limit, if the limits applied. The tournament exception to the regulations makes these people above the law. And as posted earlier some of them think that applies outside of tournaments.

Been trying to follow this and maybe learn something, I'll have to think about that, maybe i have or haven't learned anything here a lot of the terms ar not familiar to me and I'm not a lake and boat angler, so.. Anyhow; back about forty years ago I did a summer test in a 12A clear spring fed pond/lake in the N.E., this included about 12-15 outings using live night crawlers fished near or on the bottom, I started with 6# & 4# on separate rods and worked the size leader down to what was labeled 3/4# and 1# tippet material always keeping one line heavier than the other. Repeated this on several outings then just started with 3# & 2# and went down. This was designed as a learning experience for myself more than to catch fish. the result was that no matter whether my lines were as heavy as 12# & 10# or as light as the 3/4#, laying those night crawlers down within 5' of each other the smaller line always without exception took the fish. The larger line only took fish if I reeled in the lighter offering. As a side note, I discovered that trout will take on 12# test if offered a fat live worm and nothing else to compare with. I came away with the belief that size can matter, where visibility is good or better. Make what you will of it. Now, over the years I decided that 6-8# mono gave me good castability and was plenty strong for up to 12# fish, 4# has the ability to cast way farther and to break off when hooked up to a rock or log without damage to the rest of the tackle or great loss of line; so my spinning rods carry 6# green mono for the most part. My questions are why so many of you rig different baits with heavier lines and do you ever expect to catch 30,40, 50# fish or is the some quality about the heavy lines that I'm not seeing? And if xx# is good in clear water why change to heavier lines in murky water?

I have read that bass don't often travel more than about a mile and that they don't usually cross deep water, true?maybe?; at any rate homing device or not and say they could go a bit farther, disorientation of being slapped around and plunged into a live well then battered as the boat speeds up and down and to and fro and at release time there is no way that a fish brain is even going to have any inkling of home's location. I really don't see much upside to this kind of release, if the fish do survive, the release area will be so overstocked that feed resources will be stressed or exhausted. Just thinking here today, my guess is many of these fish die weeks later or starve to point of near death. Spend any time around a trout park during the C&R season and you will get an idea of what C&R mortality can be even if "released immediately unharmed". I believe that the parks are restocked a couple times a month during the C&R just to maintain fishing numbers. Who is monitoring or restocking the lake bass?

I bet they ain't going 15 miles to home, but just how far are black bass capable of returning home?

My statement that I'm not opposed to tournament fishing is under a little strain here. Largely I am opposed to manmade lakes and consider them environmentally destructive, however in the interest of lemonade, they provide a number of artificial fisheries. Since I have considered all these fisheries to be unnatural from the beginning and the lakes a waste of perfectly good rivers, it has never really bothered me for "bass fishermen" to have their tourneys anymore than it bothers me for drunks and druggies to have their parties at the lake. Sorta, I don't use it so they might as well attitude. I said I've never understood the fish tournament mind set, figured it was a tool compensation exercise. But comments on this board about the amounts of money being great enough to tempt "honest sportsmen" into fibbing or outright lying are causing me to rethink the whole tourney thing. What is the competition? If it is best fisherman, take the first three fish caught and go weigh in. The first three are indicative of skill at locating the target fish and of choosing the right bait and the right tackle for the conditions, as well as the skills in presentation needed to get the bigun first. Culling fish, 100 mph boats , a separate rod and reel set up for every color and every type of lure etc, is indicative that the competition may be more on who has the most money to spend and happens to luck out on a given day? So I still don't understand the reasons for tournaments, but the fact that participants are admittedly dishonest enough that they think transport and weigh in necessary to prevent cheating and possibly unintelligent enough to think relocation on a more or less regular basis is of no consequence to the fishery is cause for me to think this over again.

74 x 10 months a year 740 on a single lake? 5 fish kept? and unknown, unlimited numbers in each tourney released after transport in the culling process? And there are people who say this has no affect on the fishery? Do they actually believe what they are saying? Or is this more indication of degrees of honesty?

It may be different in different stores as well, the only Cabela's I've ever seen is the Rogers store. Tiny bar codes on tiny flies looks silly, no doubt, I didn't know they were hard to scan. I imagine the loose fly inventory is hard to track in such large open store, 15-20 times I've wandered around that store since they opened it and I have never seen an employee working the fly department. Guess the apparent disregard of the area plus the poor lighting added to my astonishment at the variety of materials and tools on show. I noticed they did not have a great selection of hackle, but they did have enough to keep an average dyi tyer going. I had to do a search on the "bugger packs" ; always bought necks or saddles, thought maybe this was loose or strung feathers, so I would not have known they should have them. Cabela's is more of a window shopping place for me, I still have a gift card from Christmas to spend there and have yet to see anything that just says "take me now", Things I want from the catalog are never in the store, so its always kinda disappointing to go there expecting to buy something, but if I go just to see it is a pleasant visit. Oh, and yes, support your local fly shop; Tim has got about all my actual fishing/tying money ever since he left the RR Lodge and started on his own. Anything the independent shops don't have they will normally get if you ask.

(A) Any species taken into actual posses- sion, unless released unharmed immediately after being caught, shall continue to be included in the daily limit of the taker for the day when taken except as authorized in sub- section (3)(E) of this rule. This says that only in a bonafide tournament can fish be culled, so what kind of sportsman does this daily or encourages it?

Maybe referring to this regulation; 3 CSR 10-6.405 -3(E) During the months of September through June, black bass released unharmed by participants in a bona fide catch-and-release fishing tournament, which requires entrants to have a boat livewell with adequate capacity and a pump constantly adding fresh or recirculating water, shall not be included in the daily limit, however, at no time may the daily limit be exceeded. However that would be June 30 end.

Point that out in the regulations please?