Flysmallie

You could make fishing illegal on Lake O and the economy would never miss it. Guys like to think that they are bringing a whole lot to the local economy but those pleasure boaters are outspending you by a large margin. Oh and if you guys are so worried about the local economies then stop this BS of buying all your stuff from Tackle Warehouse. There are local tackle stores that DO rely on your business but you totally overlook them. So either start leading by example or shut up.

Epoxy doesn't age like whiskey. Those syringes of it that you find at the store is usually pretty aged before it ever hits the shelf. Buy some good stuff and keep it room temperature in the dark and it will last. But when it starts acting different toss it out and get some new.

Heroin adds to local economies as well. Who wants some?

Thanks Bill. I did not check the water temp. I wish I would have but I’m bad at keeping journals. Maybe it’s time to change.

Me and @Harps had plans to hit the Lil Sac on Saturday determined to catch some fish. We didn’t check the gauge at Morrisville until we were well on our way. 469cfs. Weird. It had jumped to almost 1,000 over night and it was a lovely shade of brown when we arrived. Our plan was to paddle upstream. But we decided this was not the place. So we took off in search of some better water. First to Hulston Mill access on Turnback. It was like the ocean. We weren’t going to paddle that safely. Next was 160 access. But it didn’t look much better. Headed over to the Sac. Saw some surface activity and it looked promising but not enough to put in. Map check. Here’s a spot on Turnback we never been to. So back to Turnback we went. Looked good. Water was clear. Gear up. So it’s around 3 by now and we have the discussion about paddling up like we had planned or go down. @Harps called down and away we went. We got maybe a mile or a little more downstream and Jeff found the spot. We took turns in his spot. He’d catch a fish and while he was stringing it up I’d make a cast or sometimes two and hook up. We just kept repeating this until around 6:30 when we decided we needed to get back to the truck. Current was strong. Fighting a headwind. Cold. It was awesome. We carried out 18. But we could have easily limited our and probably caught somewhere close to 30 fish. All caught on clousers. Tan/chartreuse chartreuse/white orange/chartreuse red/pink. I don’t think they cared. This post has been promoted to an article

You need to contact Brian Wise or Jeff Trigg. Those are the guys that know how to streamer fish on that river.

LOL. I totally understand. Thank you.

I don't think that the durability is any different than what I used to buy a Wally World but it does seem to hold up a bit better and not yellow or get brittle like the other stuff.

They will drop it right at the house. https://www.amazon.com/EPOXY-RESIN-CRYSTAL-COATING-TABLETOPS/dp/B01LWT156B/ref=sr_1_1?srs=8888694011&ie=UTF8&qid=1523560841&sr=8-1&dpID=51q8g4Oc4LL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

I think this is a war created by Orvis to build hype and nothing else.

I still haven't gone the UV route. Started to a while back and found out that Clear Cure Goo was gone. And then I just drifted off after that. I guess I'll never get away from epoxy at this point but I don't tie cool flies like you.

Did you pass under any power lines?

My life story in one sentence. I like those greenbass. Never upset to catch one. You like those heads you are using on the fly?

Just wait until you have to go pick up my flies!!

No worries. I would have at least typed something crazy in there and accused me of saying it though.

Probably less than the jet ski/wake board/skiing crowd typically spends in a day but nobody cares if they leave. Heck I went down a couple of weeks ago and dropped a couple hundred on the area in one day and didn't even see the lake.

Maybe a night trip is in order? You can walk into that spot on the Frisco trail but it's creepy as ____ walking out of there at night by yourself.

Totally understand that. It can be overused for sure. And you can overdo the effect too. I do a lot of HS sports and mine get ran through some filters because of the look I'm trying to achieve. I'm not trying to do typical sports photography. there are plenty of people sitting on the baseline taking the same shots over and over again. I try to capture something different. But the whole animosity some have to photo editing really upsets me at times. I have a pic I took a month or two ago of a basketball player that some people just can't believe is an actual photo. They think it's a compilation like what Al has done. I have zero problems with compilations. I do them all the time and like the challenge of making them look like something cool. But I don't like every exceptionally good photo to automatically be assumed that I created it in PS. That is my pet peeve. If these people understood the amount of time I spent with this kid trying to get this shot that I dreamed up in my mind they would fall over. The nights that were spent waiting on the right conditions. He was probably tired of it. His mom was definitely tired of waiting on me to produce something. But then everything lined up one night and we were able to make it happen. But it still wasn't easy. Blocking traffic, raining, cold, dark, poor kid had to change clothes on a sidewalk. And then have people tell me that it's a nice compilation. BS. And just because it was an awesome picture. But that's the American way, we have to burn down greatness.

That's something you don't typically hear about the Lil Sac.

Cool stuff. Photoshop is a great tool. It gets a bad rap a lot of times because everyone wants to say that things are photoshopped when it looks too good. And maybe some things are but I don't think people making those claims understand the talent and skill required to pull off something like what Al has done. I use it everyday for graphics at work and at home for some of my photography stuff.

No it’s just a poplar board I picked up at Lowe’s and then sealed. They can definitely hang lower. Chief has done that in his boats but I like sitting up higher. More comfortable to me but you do lose stability.

Maybe. But money and gear doesn't automatically make you better at fishing. Some guys could spend all the money in the world and still not be able to put together a winning pattern.

And that's where I stepped out. I fished a lot of tournaments for probably a decade. Didn't ever win anything big but I did okay for a while. I set goals and when I achieved those goals I moved up a bit and set some more difficult ones. I think I was doing a pretty good job at becoming someone that you didn't especially like to see show up on tournament day. But then I realized two things all in one afternoon at weigh-in. 1. The bitterness that Wrench talks about. That is real and it sucks. I was a young naive kid when all this was going on and I thought if I was good and maybe a little feared I would be respected and get to be part of the group. But I noticed that just makes you a target. I came in a little hot to the weigh in one day. Knew I was cutting it close but I had been trying to find one more good fish. A couple of guys that had seen the fish I was carrying tried to get me DQ'd. The vision of them running on the dock screaming I was late was really disheartening. One of them was a very close friend of my dad. It really shook me to see the length they would go. They knew we outfished them so they were looking for anyway. 2. So there we are after taking the check for first along with big bass. I'm sitting in the boat with my girlfriend and she told me that as we came in to weigh out fish it didn't seem like anyone was happy. So as I was sitting there thinking about that I was looking around and noticed that everyone was talking about their day but nobody was anywhere near us. I was 23 years old. I was driving the fastest boat on the lake, had a brand new truck to pull it with, had all the newest and nicest gear, and I hadn't paid for any of it. Add in the fact that I was sitting there with my smoking hot girlfriend and had just beat everyone pretty badly and had a little arrogance to go with it. I had turned into somebody I would hate. So I took break and never looked back. I fished a few over the years but never like it was back then. Even additional offers of new boats and gear from my dad couldn't get me to do it. It all made me remember the reasons I liked to fish. And it wasn't to be stressed out about winning all the time. I'm not against tournament fishing. But I think there are some things that could be done to improve the sport and the fisheries involved.

Talk about an asskiss overachiever. I still need to get busy.