Brian Wise

I may or may not be down there around Sunday, sometime. Will for sure be fishing it this weekend but it will be an in and out kind of thing. Hope to run into you guys and at least say Hi. Brian

Hey Terry, We have a Nikon D50 DSLR with 50mm prime, 70-300mm, and a 400 mm prime lens, along with my Olympus Stylus 850 SW (waterproof baby!) My wife mostly uses the SLR as she won't let me take it on the water very much...and I don't blame her. Like Flysmallie the lower end "D" series from Nikon are a fairly inexpensive (for SLR's) and they are stellar. I think you would be suprised what the newer point and shoot cameras can do. You can mess with shutter speed, white ballance, etc. Some photos from the SLR(these are my photos, by wife's are SO MUCH BETTER): Slow Shutter Super fast shutter (this shot was with a lens that was on it's last leg and still no blur) That is a TFO TICRX and that cast went about 110'. Depth of Field (the net in the background was about 1 1/2' behind the fish....DOF is what I REALLY like about SLR's) My wife now has a 50mm prime lens that literally will shoot a DOF that will have the tip of your nose in focus and you eyes out of focus...too cool. Panning (FLW Tour at LOZ) Photos from the Olympus Point and Shoot: My wife shooting her SLR A 'tiny' bit of DOF...going to opposite way, and not intentional The main thing I am seriously loving about the P&S is the insane Macro shots....my wife is even jealous of the macro you can get from a P&S. Another thing. To me editing a solid photo is half the fun. How many different looks can you get from a B&W photo--A TON! There are a lot of different editing programs available, some are HUGE (Photoshop CS2 that my wife edits with is crazy, crazy) and then something like Picassa that is free from Google is what I edit with. Sure you are a little bit limited on what you can do with it but it works well. Brian Edit: I kind of went crazy with photos, sorry.

Exactly! Brian

Ok, so multiple fly rigs in fly only zones in the trout parks I could see not being kosher but I was thinking more along the lines of regular trout streams which can be fished basically with as many flies tied onto a leader as you can fit--if you would want to do that. Also could it be that when the warden said that he just didn't add the point of tying flies onto the tag end of a knot, or may not have even known about doing that (I say that because our wardens around here couldn't tell you the difference in line, leader, or tippet unless it has to do with turkey hunting, deer hunting, or bass fishin on the lakes ) Brian

Any chance you used too much on the flies fishinwrench? I use Loon Aquel but hardly use dries unfortunately. Brian

FFM, When you say "need to be attached to the hook" does the law say "need" or "must"? I never knew that and have never heard that. That would make all Wet Fly and Czech Nymphing rigs illegal as they are tied from the leader on a tag end from a knot. I saw those dropper beads and had to laugh a little. I am a guy that uses dropper exclusively where they are legal...if I am nymphing I will be using at least 2 flies and don't really think the beads would speed things up or help much at all for me. I see setting up several dropper rigs prior to getting on-stream as being a better idea. Maybe even one of the dropper boxes designed to hold those rigs. I'd be interested to see why we can't use wet fly rigs and czech nymping rigs though, do you have a link to that anywhere? If I am breaking the law by fishing a czech nymping rig in Missouri....I'll keep fishing it. Brian

Zander, I have been at the tying bench a lot lately getting ready for a big trip....a "not-guiding" trip. I'll sit down and send you a few if you still have room. Brian

I would probably go to the islands or Blair...hard to turn down the islands with all of that water though. Might want to try some egg patterns. Brian

The same trend is still kind of happening on the river...fairly tough fishing but the average size has increased quite a bit. Floated from ROLF to Blair on Saturday. Fishing was pretty poor until the sun hit the river so we struggled for a little while. Kind of ironic, we stopped to fish to a pod of nice rainbows that have been hanging in a "certain" spot, rolled a couple of them while wading but no real hook ups. Walk back up to the boat and drift the same spot and got a nice take..... Gotta love drift boats. As you can see the rainbows are absolutely gorgeous, amazing color to them. All fish on Saturday were caught on the Psycho Prince. Sunday had another cool guy from St. Louis. Again, fishing was pretty slow...these bluebird skies and fronts are making it fun to figure out patterns Pretty much the same thing as the day before minus the 18+" rainbow. Good weekend, ok fishing, beautiful time to be on the river. Brian

NIIIIIIICE!!! Brian

I will completely back you when you say that if you don't lose some flies you aren't fishing deep enough. I would have some caddis pupae, psycho princes, and some san juans as well. The colors are probably going to be the best we have had in a number of years and this weekend will be super nice. Brian

Not at all, it is actuallly working on getting on the low side. If you look at the cfs generally you can wade when it is under 700 cfs, a little higher if you are taking a float and wading the islands. Brian

Yeah, this was the first time we had struggled since this spring. One thing we have ran into is when it is bluebird skies for 30 minutes then filtered sun, back to bluebird skies, then to cloud cover,etc, we tend to struggle. I say bring on the wind during this time of year--getting close to those browns in the pools this time of year without any chop on the water is a PAIN Sunday was actually a night and day difference compared to Saturday. Brian

Friday, 10-10-08 Got to fish after a cancellation. Had a camera in the boat that was filming a promotional video for Wapiti. Fishing was a little on the slow side compared to what it had been. Caught fish mostly on Psycho Princes and the Rubber-legs. ROLF to Blair. Saturday 10-11-08 Fishing pretty much sucked....had the camera in the boat again too. I think there were 4 fish landed....no pattern to the fish at all. ROLF to Blair. Good company and a good dinner at a local Mexican resteraunt saved the day. Best fish of the day was the first fish of the day. Sunday 10-12-08 Kelley to Blair. Fishing picked up again. Still no pure pattern to the fish but the usual suspects brought fish to hand. Lost a stellar rainbow in the lower part of Cave Riffle. Fished to holding fish, big fish, literally everyday just no real hook-ups. Brian

Zach, By definition it is a spring creek, but flows and looks more like a freestone. Brian

I didn't tape him Steve, but he was just short of my first ferrel on a 9' 4 piece. Brian

Dude! I didn't know that was you on the bus! My boat was CAKED with dust after that little ride. Nice fish man. Brian

Terry, if you are talking about the Striper run then they usually "run" in late winter/early spring in good numbers. This 'is' a weird year and stripers have pretty much been caught below Dawt for a long time now. Targeting them in any numbers this time of year though would be pretty hard. If you are talking about the browns starting to stage, yes, they are starting. Brian

There is a lot of real good water Zach. There are slow long pools...but right now they have browns that are acting crazy in them so it works. There are some stripers in the river. They would be really hard to completely target unless you just camped on a pod that you came across. Some of them are pretty big though man. Haven't seen any on the stretch from ROLF to Blair in a while but they are below and above that stretch. Good luck man! Brian

Thanks "willber"....sorry man, when reading your handle I have to think of a certain little pig that was saved by a certain little spider. But that could be because I can't spell. Had a great time man, and I will keep the photo of the rock between us. Nice Avatar! Brian

Actually, it's 30lb Maxima. In all seriousness we are still getting away with 4x to the lead fly and dropping down to 5x for the dropper. Zach, the river is fishing great you should do well. Brian

10-4 Took a great couple from Cape Girardeau fishing. The gal had never been fly fishing and caught on very quickly catching her first fish within just a few minutes after a little casting help....she caught the first fish, most fish, and biggest fish, but her husband was nice enough to give her the front of the boat(or that was the excuse anyway.) Floated from ROLF to Blair like usual (why mess with a good thing) and fishing was steady all day. 10-5 Took a really cool guy from the KC area. Again, floated the same float. As a whole the day probably wasn't quite as productive numbers-wise as the day before but the average size and the fact that we fished to a bunch of really nice fish in a tail out for 2 hours. With the river being up just a 'touch' it actually has some color to it which for this time of year is pretty much unheard of but setting up for an epic fall. Psycho Princes, San Juans, RFSN's, and Rubber Legs completely tore them up like usual. Brian

Jeremy, where I caught that fish was about 45 minutes from Mtn Home. Both fishing from the boat and wading lately. You would actually have fun on this river in your boat.....you have to row obstacles. Brian

Niiiiice! Brian

I was at the dam today on low water and completely distracted by trout to notice a HUGE gar just downstream of me. You know for a split second you automatically think, big brown, Big Brown--and then.....gar. Brian