tjm

Seriously, I don't think there is any relatively large fly that won't catch SMB in my creeks, I just like the Gurgler because it's an easy tie and easy to cast. I used to use Seducer and Tap's Bug a lot, for the same reasons. For example, I don't think that I ever caught any fish on a real popper, (I quit fishing them a long time ago) yet others say they are good. So one "fly" that I would not even tie on is the go to for someone else, and there are likely some who would not think of a #2 Seaducer or Blonde. When I used spinning rigs as kid, the same thing was more or less true, any Rooster Tail or any white marabou jig took fish. I've seen young men go down this creek with what appeared to be six different kinds of "rubber bait" and each was catching fish. One guy told me that a "wacky worm" was his most productive lure.

What's my line for small mouth is most often a Gurgler, but, sometimes a Zonker. In the outfall of a culvert I may tie on a marabou jig.

Does summer usually bring out new members? Are some/most of the new members posting? maybe they joined just to see if members have a private den that they can harvest info from, I saw a post on another forum recently questioning if we could detect and identify AI posts on fly fishing, makes one think I guess.

Phil, several forums that I've been on have a semi-private (sub?) forum such as "the lodge" or "the underground" or "back room" that is only visible to logged in members and a few require that posts on certain subjects only be posted in those "private" areas. This seems to keep certain items out of "public" view. Other forums have gone even farther by requiring a pass word and log in, similar to your political experiment. I really don't believe there is any expectation of privacy anywhere on the internet or if you carry a cell phone. One forum several years ago did try the "members only" to see everything and it died from it. In a short time the only people that logged in were the same 6-7. When a forum is set to only allow logged in members to view, it means the members that might log in to post but might not log in to skim others posts to see if anything is of interest, simply stopped browsing the forum. Doesn't ad revenue work on total traffic/number of clicks rather than number of posts? I think it's pretty obvious that an "invisible" forum that one must join to see what he has joined won't attract much traffic. There are a great many FB "groups" that might be of interest to me that I never tried to join just because until you join you have no idea who or what it's all about. I thought getting new members was a good thing?

I think the deer population is just on an upswing, I've seen more deer through the past several months than in the same periods of the past few years.

I'm sure it will take on your biggest catfish or bass. Or even carp. But I'd not hesitate to take trouting either.

That reel seat looks very Harnell to me, as does the grip shape and the red/yellow wraps. If I'm right the rod was made by John Harrington either in Venice Ca. or Braymer Mo. On rods with his fish trademark he often used solid block cork and the yellow thread went trim to trim under the guide. My Harnell is 9' and weighs 5.3 oz. I think the bend is what they call parabolic, and thinking that, you should give the thing a whirl with a #5. Going from what I recall of stuff I read a few years ago... Harington may have been one of the first three men to make a fiberglass fly rod, his story and that of Dr. Havens- NARMCO/Conolon and Dr. Howald-Shakespeare are a bit mixed up and at some points vague Harington is said to have worked for Douglas during the war and the other two for Convair. So all three had aviation fiberglass as backgrounds as did Jenkins that left NAQRNCO to start Pacific Laminates/Silaflex. All three all given credit as being the first in one or more accounts, but not much paper trail. Early on John Harrington was partners with a man named Renell, hence Harnell as a contraction of the names, they split later and the Harnell name was sold. If memory serves he produced rods under the Harrington label starting ~1965 and moved to Mo around that time. Again, if my memory is working tonight, his reel seats became Varmac.

You may have misidentified those fish, according to the USGS Snail Darters don't live in Mo.; only in eastern Tennessee, northern Georgia, and northern Alabama. But, my guess is big fish often eat small fish, that fact explains why fish hide and why small fish make good bait.

The old wild mink collars were great tying material with 3-4 complete pelts chasing each other, mask to tail, you could tie most any trout fly for a life time. The only drawback being the limited colors. Regular mink like coats, stows ect, not so good because they are sewn together small patches of color and quality match, sometimes no bigger than a thumb.

Great score, heck of a price. Promotion yes. Trade rod, yes. The rod paint color would have likely been unique to that job, on one of a companies standard blanks. But I think it could have been True Temper/Montague, who made mostly all trade rods, many for Herters, as well as the big catalog stores. Or even St Croix, or a Florida outfit that I think was called US Fiberglass that is said to have made some of the Cortlands. Just about every rod company made some trade rods, Phillipson, Wright & McGill, Harnell, Fisher, Orchard Industries, Conolon, Pacific Laminates/Sila Flex, some others that I can't think of at the moment, one in Ar. I don't associate sanded blanks with Shakespeare, although I'm sure they did some. And outfits like Herter's and Sears sourced rods from multiple makers. Just looking at the short piece of blank, it has a similar taper to my W&M Denco. The reel seats, winding checks and ferrules sometimes give the maker away. Harnell can almost be identified by his guide wraps. <8'6" I'd start with a #6 or #7 line and go from there, over 8'6" I'd think 8-9 wt. The auto reels are too heavy for me and the ones I've used had limited capacity like <50' of L6F. I love the Medalist reels and the vintage is right, but for that rod would maybe fit it with the (back then) more common/blue collar Sal Trout 1554, a very light spring/pawl/"large arbor" reel also made by Pflueger from the "30s through the "70s. Just to take it fishing or try lines on it, you can use any reel you have, II just happen to have several of the Pfluegers.

12# would probably work?

There are a few websites for consignment and a few that buy and sell used fly tackle, do a few web searches. I would not want to suggest one because I've never used them, just seen in my web browsing.

MDC still hasn't admitted to stocking the lions either. But it makes sense that if we have lions then we need the large prey species to feed them. Moose and musk ox both seem a little out of place though, if they had more sense they'd have stocked beef cows like the lions eat out west.

112mph sounds wrong, or a new record? that time would be pretty good for 200km

They are invasive/non-native in about half the places that they can be caught including several drainage's within Mo.

isn't that what also caused the dreaded rock snot explosion across the country and bans on felt soles?

That's Phillipson blank then, very nice rods in my opinion. I have a 7'6", 6'6" & 8'6" of the Phillipson that vintage and like all of them better than the equivalent Fenwick.

Is that a yellow rod or brown/amber? I believe that Orvis "Fullflex", "Fullflex II" and earlier "Powerflex" were Phillipson rods up to (I think '74) when they started in house 'glass and graphite rod production. The Orvis made 'glass then was "Fullflex A" (amber/brown color rather than the painted yellow of the previous Phillipson sourced Fullflex) said to be "faster" than the "Fullflex". But I've not owned a Fullflex and all my Orvis rods have been graphite.

I've fished fiberglass since the '70s (interspersed with a few graphite now and then) and think you might find a 7'6" #6-7wt more useful. In fiberglass the good stuff was made in the '60s-'70s at the end of the 'glass heyday, ideal 'glass rod weights for fresh water were 5-8wts in lengths of 6'6"- 8'6". Rods shorter than 6'6" make line handling after the cast difficult and 'glass rods longer than 8'6" tend to be heavy. Of the ~20 fly rods I own most are 6-7 wts. 'glass that I often fish with DT5F lines and my favorite lengths are 7'6" & 8', although I have 6'6" #6 that is a lot of fun on the small streams. Those vintage 'glass rods aren't line picky and most will fish pretty well with two weights under or a weight over the guessed at rod line rating. (there never has been an accepted way to rate rods for line weights) I have favorites made by Phillipson, Fenwick, Heddon and Wright&McGill. I've also had a CGR, Asian Eagle Claw and a couple other offshore 'glass rods that I don't recall being very memorable. There are some very good modern 'glass that I want to try (Chris Barclay, Shane Gray, Mike McFarland, Epic etc) but they are all small production and therefor higher priced than I want to pay, and the Asian production 'glass just isn't as nice as the US production rods of the 1950s.

I've not noticed any at all yet. but then I don't think it's been as wet as normal right here either. In my mind it seems early in the season for crane flies, but, I've never really kept track of their hatch dates.

Well, they say right out that this tech applies to applications "between 150HP-450HP" - so if follows that if your boat is not in that class that the new design won't help. Reinventing the wheel every few days is why modern vehicles no longer use wooden wheels with loose iron tires, and why we no longer are limited to travel speeds of a few miles per hour causing wheel damage. I find it interesting that in the '50s-'90s the consensus was to use ever larger and more flexible tires on smaller wheels rather than the large wheel with small firm tires on the early 1900s; then in the new millennium all the auto industry changed right back to the primitive large wheel with small firm tires. If we believe what the stated advantages of each were said to be, we are now sacrificing the safety of wide flexible side walls for the fuel economy of narrow hard sidewalls, yet the cars still get from "a" to "b" so, is the wheel still round? do props still have some cavitation?

Too far out of your way to go through Springfield? Two places there, I think.

That's pretty much why I was surprised at the outcome of this incident, the cheating is really just what should be expected, the guys got felony counts for getting caught, not for participation.

Yes, that is spelled out in the link above-

I imagine that taking the gambling out of the contests would go a long way toward taking the cheats out of the contests. Not much point in risking all if there is no money involved. The Ohio law seems to written to protect the gamblers from each other. Let the winners take home prizes with no resale and little monetary value and the cheats will go elsewhere. If you wanted more cheats and better cheats, the key would be to increase the money involved.