Jeff Tief

Bought my first fly rod at a Sheriff's auction on the court house steps in 1966.It was a old Eagle Claw fiberglass rod with a Pfleuger reel that wasn't that good of an outfit but it served the purpose.Caught my first fly rod limit of trout at Montauk the fall of 1969 when a high school friend Roger Hood and I went on a camping trip and his spinning reel messed up and I loaned him my spinning outfit and flyfished.Stayed with it off and on but always took a spin outfit for backup.Now rarely use anything other than a fly rod and have fished quite a few places in the States and love it.

Best to all on the new arrival-lots of fun coming for you!

Wow! saw probably 15-20 in the last week while on the train I work but they were pretty all shot.Do you find any morels in Alaska or is it too far North?

Wife,Susie and I found 31 Saturday afternoon around the old LeadBelt. She would as soon hunt morels and go fishing as go to the mall.

Congrats to all! We got our 3rd grandchild March 8th -appears to be a left tackle down the road.Nice article on old Grandpa too.

great pictures -really enjoy fishing for the browns in the Current River.

Al,enjoyed the trip with you as I read it.As usual you paint as good a picture with words as you do with a brush!Hope you got the rods back;I fell opening day at RRiver in one of the areas they had done some bank work on and stuck a Winston wt in the rocks.Hmmm waiting on the blank to return from Montana.

That list should generate a lot of conversation streamside when someone asks "what you catching them on?"

We've been waiting 2 years and at times I wasn't as patient as I should have been.Brett loved going to Montauk for the fishing ,the food at the lodge, and the interacting with the people we would meet there.Sometimes he had trouble focusing on the fishing part when he could smell bacon cooking on some campers griddle."Dad", I"m hungry and we would give him money for the buffet knowing that he'd enjoy the food,tip the waitress too much and eventually come back and flyfish with Susie and I . Don't know the exact location and the specific date when this will all happen,but were looking at sometime late April-early May.He was a wonderful young man,kind to everyone and we still struggle with losing him 2 1/2 years ago.

Wife Susie and I fished Friday and water was around 206 cfs.Caught several nice fish,the biggest being a brown pushing 17+ inches.Saw several fish in the park over 3# but didn"t catch any.Left out Friday pm after only fishing 5 hours and having plans for the Easter weekend.Weather beautiful and got a chance to talk to the folks in the park office about a memorial bench for our son,Brett. Got an e-mail from Doug today that the bench is a go.We are ecstatic!

red fox squirrel nymph;scud,tan emerger,green/gold scud and 1/100 oz. turkey jig.They work very well even though the 3rd, 4th and 5th ones are not sold anywhere that I know of.

Our prayers go out to all of his loved ones.

Didn't hear the rumor while at RR but talked to Laker67 on the way home from the opener and he'd said something about an 18#brown trout being caught. He hoped it was one of our group but I assured him we didn't have anything over 5#.Didn"t see the numbers of big fish as reported by the local media but the big fish could have gone deep and would have hard to see.The water was in great shape after hearing some of the reports from friends fishing the other parks.The big brown in question may have come about from a couple of regulars that I saw the last Saturday of the winter season.As we were talking then,I related the story from the summer of 2011 were I fished for 3 browns in the park over 9# late one evening and lost the middle sized female estimated at 13#.Had to leave the next day so got Laker67 on the phone for him to come down and get a shot;he had the smallest fish of the 3 on estimated in the 9#.Some of the other folks fishing RR may know more about these fish but didn't see anything of them in 2012.

Thanks for the great pictures! Enjoyed the narrative as well ;;pretty nice accomodations too.

Ducky and Rick ; We headed up to the ist outlet and had 4 lads fishing in the outlet and 1 was standing directly in the outlet shuffling his little feet off.He stopped when he saw us and had snagged a 12" bow on the side.Between that and the Mrs. having to grade papers at school,we came on back.Stopped in Springfield to check out the Plateau Fly shop but they were closed on Sundays.Good news the Mrs. and I both retire last of June so won't have to always head back to Desloge when the weekend is over.

Cool?

Excellent!

Hey Laker,about 4 more months and ST and I plan to really give it heck.We used to ride our bikes to Bone Hole on Big River and catch a few goggle-eyes small and large mouth bass; whatever we could catch on the limited tackle we had in the 60's. Was good to hear from you both as the last time I saw you two fishing together was a fall day at Taney and you were using a UV scud that I'd never seen before.

We met Stan in 1962 when my father was a member of the old Houston Colt 45's.Was very cordial,down to Earth for a man of his abiities. Dad spoke of him occasionally when he would see him on TV or at the ballpark and always said the same thing,the same as the papers are saying "always thinking of others,always kind and gracious to all and always a gentleman". EG you are right RIP Stan.

Looks like a pretty good bend in that fly rod! I've taken my oldest granddaughter to RR the last 2 summers for some beginning fly fishing and it's one of my most memorable trips ever.She's 7 and enjoyed it as long as we were catching fish; so as it slowed we quit and did the water slide.I don't do a very good job with my photography so I really enoyed your picture.

FW; I can attest to the hospitality,great company and excellent dining provided by Laker 67 and Mrs.Laker ! My Susie and I spent Saturday evening and Sunday a.m. with Laker's family and had a great time.Our mission was to check on Laker's improving health and to meet Mrs.laker, we didn't get to fish LOZ but wouldn't have left their good company to fish anyway.We did put the hurt on some C&R at BSSP Sunday afternoon.

I rarely tie the round egg pattern and tie a fur bug in the colors Tim mentioned.Wife, Susie tears them up on the "egg' color and the apricot supreme;so much that I sometimes go to these patterns to save face.She has a better hook ratio wth the fur bug as more of the hook point is exposed than on some of the glo-bug eggs I tied.Then again I'm not that great of fly tier

Used to use the Tectan mono as tippet material then started having trouble finding it and started using P-line.Tried it for several years and caught some monster fish on the 2# size.Haven't used it now for several seasons just doesn't seem as strong as the earlier versions.Have used the Rio Powerflex in 5 and 6x sizes and it seems to be doing a good job. Buy it the bigger tippet spools and get a full year out of it.Tried some G3 sightfree in the same sizes and it also seems to work well.

Great to see you back on the forum Rick,one step at a time and you'll be back in action again.Figure the fish at Taney were breathing a sigh of relief knowing you had given them the fall season off.

Fished Maramac the first Friday of the winter season and didn't find a lot of fish;Several lunkers were in the upper section from the cable down thru the riffles eggs and scuds work well in the broken water.Have fished Maramac since the first winter season years ago and didn't see good numbers of fish.If you get enough time,the old C-R at Montauk is normally a good place to start a fly fishing career providing there is enough water. Wife normally catches several good fish from the first hole below the hatchery water down to the first wooden bridge.