tjm

@BilletHeadyou just want me to take a nap.

Woolly bugger is the original bass nymph/hellgrammite, although I usually fish it as a crawdad. My warm water nymph fishing has only produced rough fish and <10" bass. No, I haven't fished the Clouser nymph, but then there are about a dozen (zillion) other patterns that I haven't fished either. Five or six patterns can keep me busy, so I may never get to try all the "new and improved" versions. If you tie a bunch of these and fish them hard, post the results and an SBS of the tie. I like new things on occasion.

DNR doesn't do anything for any fish, they control mining and water/sewage quality. MDC owns/manages all wildlife including fish, but I doubt that any agency will try to alter our flood-drought cycle. Those trout have been self sustaining for decades, so evidently they can survive the cycles. One thing about the exposed gravel in many Ozark creeks is that water flows through/under that gravel and resurfaces cooler down stream. Trout like cooler.

Live predators make horrible coats and unsatisfactory playthings for toddlers.

In the video the idiot said mange was reason to remove the coyote from the population as though it was a communicable incurable disease that threatened the rest of the coyote population, it is in fact not a disease at all but a parasitic mite. The ivomectin will also cure the canine's worms and keep the ticks off for two or three months. The best reason to remove the coyote is because it is a coyote, and we just don't like coyotes or other predators because they are, in our "tribal memories", competitors for food. We also like dead predators better than live ones because their fur made warm clothing for our ancestors, in the olden days when was still legally and socially acceptable to wear clothing not made from fossil fuels.

The mangy coyote can be cured with 3 cc of ivomectin, the mange of itself is not a reason to remove it from the population. I don't understand how people can be surprised at "how bold" a wild animal is, those are predators, it's only natural that they attack fleeing prey and as soon as the child or pet flees it becomes prey by that action. I am surprised that predators don't attack unattended children more often than they do, especially in urban/suburban areas where the animals have become used to humans not attacking them.

I was thinking cage trap and pond or water tank. Treat them like skunks. I don't like shooting into the cage because of possible damage.

That's only one cat per week. They must only have a single coyote and it must eat out of town most days. To be honest though I've never seen where anything but a possum had eaten a dead "house" cat and I've made a few dead cats over the decades. I have seen several cat carcasses rot when vultures were in the area, the "town" dump on BLM land out in Idaho once had 7-8 dead cats rotting at the same time, and a dead jack rabbit would disappear over night. I have known of bob cats killing farm cats and leaving the carcasses, the presumption by the farmers was that they were eliminating competition. At any rate, places like Ca. that out law sales of fur clothing and prohibit hunting or trapping deserve to have more coyotes and big cats to live in towns where the residents can appreciate them. I can't imagine why the town would want to "to identify problem coyotes or locate hot spots of coyote activity to determine their points of entry" and "come up with a plan to remove them."

Mine aren't as fancy as yours, maybe more leech than streamer and I used to fish them a lot more than I have in the past few years. I think I've had better luck with marabou in quiet water, with strip and pause. I do use some woolly buggers with marabou for smallmouth/rock bass jigs.

Apparently they can be crossed and have been https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/FactSheet.aspx?SpeciesID=778

Fisher made rods for a lot of companies, but they weren't all the same rods. he had his mandrels and some of the companies he supplied had their own mandrels that had unique tapers. I'm not up to date on the newer stuff and it's been 30? years since I wrapped a rod. I've thought Batson was a pretty usable blank. I just would like to try Gary Loomis' latest innovation/iteration. The black Friday prices ain't too steep, but I've read the shipping is slow. Four piece rods suck for sure. I own one and its an antique pack rod by Fenwick. I don't want another, last week I watched as a fellow was fitting together a five piece 9' and I know I don't have that kind of patience. There are any number of people that would and have argued that four or five piece rods are more expensive to make, but I know that machining short mandrels is cheaper than machining 9' mandrels and the cutting and lay up of the prepreg is easier, faster and requires less skill in short pieces. With short pieces you will have a lower percentage of defective blanks and if there are defects it's just a section that gets scrapped not a whole rod, so yeah it's bound to be a lot cheaper to produce them. Then comes repair time all you have to do is sub in one short section and you're done; all perfect interchange, some companies don't even require the broken rod back for fitting. With tip over butt design the female just slides farther down or less far until it "fits" the male. On the other hand I own about 15 two piece rods, and that too is a reason for interest in NFC blanks he has some that are two piece and some heavy one piece. Do you know of any 5/6wt one piece blanks? or finished rods, my son wants one. On the Piscifun rods, aren't they Chinese? I'd rather imagine they copied the St Croix taper, but who knows. I have read that all the fishing stuff out China comes from one town/province, all pretty much a single company, but again, I don't know.

https://northforkcomposites.com/fly-rod-blanks/ If I was building one I'd want to try one or more of these on sale.

I haven't looked at the latest offerings, but generally speaking I think the costs are about the same as in 1970 for the premium stuff; after you do the inflation math. Of course any so called warranty is an added insurance premium that may equal the value of the product. Compare what the hourly wage of a mechanic was then and now.

I fly fish so have no real knowledge of the bobber stops, but in my mind they are slidable to adjust for depth, and that should make it possible for the stop to slide right on down to the line's end. I'd stick to the swivel. When I did bait fish, I used to put the weight on a dropper with the intention that it could be pulled off if it caught up in a rock crevice or such.

surely all that gravel didn't come from a hatchery outlet?

What is chute three and why is the a bath tub there?

That's what I meant about the luck of being in the right place. You cast straight to some place in front of the fish and it might find the fly. Not like casting across multiple currents with aerial mends precisely placing the fly so that the thread of current will carry the fly to the rising trout. I've watched spinning rod anglers wading the salt 1/4 mile from land and casting a long long ways farther than a fly line catch fish when the fish came to that area and just spend the afternoon casting when the fish went someplace else. Luck. Or skill at predicting the travel routes. They say that in western places that are "technical trout waters" you must cast more 60' with leaders over 16' and land the fly in a 10-12" circle with enough tippet slack to get a prolonged drift, and enough mends that the line doesn't create drag or go fishless. I've never fished Silver Creek or Henry's Fork or the other so called technical streams and I can't cast like that, but I can appreciate the casting skill of those who do. On the upper Delaware the guys all claim 60'-70' casts and leaders no less than 18' .

I'm not sure how how salt water requires any more skill than any other fishing, long aerial casts are helpful but other than that the salt I fished when I lived by the Atlantic was mostly luck of being at the right place when the fish were there. Follow the tide chart and wade a long long ways and start blind casting. The stuff about I've read about Gulf/Keys fishing sounded similar but more often using a guide and a boat to sight cast, but it's still a matter of being in the right place at the right time. The skill might be in predicting where in the zillion square miles of ocean that gamefish and the baitfish are going to be on a given tide, but that's most often on the guide, isn't it?

I'll bet Papaw taught you a lot more than you realized. The key to teaching kids that kind of stuff is to let them 'invent' it. The Lefty thing was just a fluke really, I saw a sign for a "fishing expo" or "outdoor expo" and turned in. Wasn't seeking fly rod instruction, but the guy was there and I knew who he was, so I watched his show and afterwards chatted a few minutes. The casting fault hadn't really bothered me often because I didn't use that cast when fishing. My aerial casting is generally leader only in places too small for roll casting. I never did learn that bow cast either and I have never really been any place that I thought it would help

At the time I was just starting to use overhead casting, I never fished any place where aerial casting was effective until I started going to RRSP. The blue lines and mill ponds that I fished back east never had a lawn crew. I still don't use it very often, hardly ever shoot line. And I still think that casting is overrated. Now let me get you straight, you were born full growed and and already knowing how to shoot line? never had a single input from anyone else? no other fly fishers in your family or community?

Basically taking my line hand too far down before release that let the line cross and wrap the rod butt/reel. 'keep your hands closer to each other.'' I asked about the line wrap and he handed me the rod so he could watch me, the only time I knowing cast before an audience. He was a nice guy and an excellent showman, but he didn't draw a very large crowd in NWA back in the '90s.

On other forums, I've had some discussions with western fly fishing guides and the one thing that stands out with every guide is that they are teachers, more than guides; they said their jobs are not just to show the clients where the fish are but mostly to teach the clients how to fish and that most clients can't cast well enough to fish those fabled streams without first having a casting lesson. That really surprised me, because I've never really thought fly casting enough to catch fish was that difficult. Based on those conversations I think it likely that a session with an instructor won't hurt your casting. I know that a five minute conversation with Lefty Kreh at a demo he was giving really changed my overhead casting for the better, he immediately pointed out a slight mistake that I had been making for twenty years. I do agree with the notion that we each have different body shapes and that means we each have different natural styles of motion to get the same output. It's true that some rods will fit each of us better than other rods do. A rod that fits will certainly make using it more pleasant and some rods will fit so well that they are intuitive to the point of seeming to cast by themselves. Many of the Park fly fishers that I've watched could have used a rod better fitted to them, or more importantly a line better suited to the rod and to their stroke. My first advice on fly gear is put a piece of tape over the line designation on the rod, forget that it has such a rating and try the rod out with a few different line weights to see what works best on that rod for you. As an example, I had an Orvis 9' 5wt that I much preferred with a DT7F and I have a different Orvis 8'3" that is rated #7 and I almost always use it with a TT6 or a WF5F. When Wrench cut back the taper on that line he effectively made the line one or two weights heavier at the 30' mark. I would just have put a heavier line on the rod. There is no real way to rate a fly rod for line weight and the AFTMA has no standards for such ratings. The manufacturers have a professional caster use the rod with different lines and make an arbitrary choice of what the rating is. Actually because the line mass varies with how much line is being carried in a cast any rod will do better with a heavier line for close casting and a lighter line for distance casting. Thus keeping the line mass felt by the rod within the optimal range. My second advice is that unless one is an expert caster with special needs, stick to standard taper WF or DT lines, don't buy the specialty lines because they have a cool name unless you specialize in that kind of fishing. And don't think a fly line needs replacing every year, I have Cortland and Wulff lines in use that are at least 20 years old. A couple of those will be replaced soon, but only because they are getting stiff. Then I would encourage anyone having trouble casting to use a heavier line, line mass is what we are casting and just like we can throw a baseball farther than we can throw a BB, we can cast a 7wt farther easier than we can a 3wt. If I was picking gear for a beginner not knowing anything about their style; I'd choose a 9'6wt medium fast rod and Peach DT7F line, or a Wulff TT7. If I were giving lessons on grass the same rod would be fitted with a full sink line because the reduced line diameter makes it easier to cast. I want to try both the 406 DT and the Sylk DT because of their reduced diameter, but haven't yet. One of the best casting instructions for the DIY folks that I've seen on the web is Paul Arden's.

Did you goad him into this contest just to get a free lesson from him?

Don't need no math, the 50:1 oil all comes pre-measured to fit a gallon can or five gallon can or what ever you have. The tough mix that needs math is 16:1 because all the oil is bottled for 50:1.

Actually our much cleaner water is due to Jimmy Carter selling our industries to China more than anything at the consumer level.